No very powerful logic was needed, to persuade minis ters of the advantages arising from dissipation ; stock-job bers, of the national profit attached to their commerce ; state creditors, of the importance of their rank in society; capitalists, eager to lend, of the service they did to the public, by taking from it an interest superior to that of trade. Thus all appeared amply satisfied with regard to the unintelligible doctrine, by which it was pretended to demonstrate the advantage of public funds.
In place of following this subtle reasoning, we shall en deavour to show that stocks are nothing else but the ima ginary capital, which represents that portion of the annual revenue set apart for paying the debt. An equivalent capital has been dissipated ; it is this which gives name to the loan ; but it is not this which stocks represent, for this does not any where exist. New wealth, however, must spring from labour and industry. A yearly portion of this wealth is assigned beforehand to those who have lent the wealth already destroyed ; the loan will abstract this por tion from its producer, to bestow it on the state creditor, according to the proportion between capital and interest usual in the country : and an imaginary capital is conceived to exist, equivalent to what would yield the annual revenue which the creditors are to receive.
As, in lending to a merchant or a landed proprietor, we acquire a right to part of the revenue which arises from the merchant's trade, or from the proprietor's land, but diminish their revenue by the precise sum which increases our own ; so in lending to government we acquire a right to that part of the merchant's or proprietor's revenue, which government will seize by taxation to pay us. We are enriched only as contributors are impoverished. Pri vate and public credit are a part of individual, but not of national wealth ; for nothing is wealth but what gives a revenue, and credit gives none to the nation. If all public and private debts were abolished in a day, there would be a frightful overturning of property ; one family would be ruined for the profit of another, but the nation would neither be richer nor poorer, and the one party would have gained what the other had lost. This has not, however,
in any case, been the result of public bankruptcies ; because governments, whilst suppressing their debts, have main tained the taxation which belonged to their creditors ; or rather they have broken their faith to the latter, and have continued notwithstanding to encroach on the property of contributors.
A government which borrows, after having dissipated its capital, makes posterity perpetually debtor in the clearest tart of the profit arising from its work. An over ration after another. Public calamities may occur, trade may take a new direction, rivals may supplant us. The reproduction which is sold beforehand may never reappear; yet notwithstanding we are loaded with a debt above our strength, with a debt of hypothecating our future labour, which we shall not perhaps be able to accomplish.
The necessity of paying this debt begets oppressive im posts of one kind or another ; all become equally fatal when too much multiplied. They overwhelm industry, and de stroy that reproduction which is already sold beforehand. The more that it has paid already, the less capable does the nation become of paying farther. Ohe part of the revenue was to spring from agriculture—but taxation has ruined agriculture ; another proceeded from ma nufactures, but taxation has closed up those establish ments; another yet from trade, but taxation has ban ished trade. The suffering continues to increase, all the resources to diminish. The moment arrives at last, when a frightful bankruptcy becomes inevitable. And doubts arc entertained whether it should not even be hastened, that the salvation of the state may yet be attempt ed There remains no chance to shield the whole sub jects of the state from ruin ; but if the creditors are allowed to perish first, perhaps the debtors will escape; if the debt ors perish tram penury, with them will be extinguished the last hope of the creditors, must soon perish in their turn.