George Berkeley

“ Whether England, which hath a free trade, whatever she remits for foreign luxury with one hand, doth not with the other receive much more from abroad? Whether, nevertheless, this nation would not be a gainer, if our women would content themselves with the same moderation in point of expense as the English ladies? ”

“ But whether money without this would be a blessing to any people?
566 Whether keeping cash at home, or sending it abroad, just as it most serves to promote industry, be not the real interest of every nation?
567 Whether commodities of all kinds do not naturally flow where there is the greatest demand? Whether the greatest demand for a thing be not where it is of most use? Whether money, like other things, hath not its proper use? Whether this use be not to circulate? Whether therefore there must not of course be money where there is a circulation of industry? ”

“ Whether, in case the wisdom of the nation shall think fit to alter our coin, without erecting a national bank, the rule for lessening or avoiding present inconvenience should not be so to order matters, by raising the silver and depressing the gold, as that the total sum of coined cash within the kingdom shall, in denomination, remain the same, or amount to the same nominal value, after the change that it did before? ”

“ Whether a people are to be pitied that will not sacrifice their little particular vanities to the public good? And yet, whether each part would not except their own foible from this public sacrifice, the squire his bottle, the lady her lace? ”

“ Whether by a national bank, be not properly understood a bank, not only established by public authority as the Bank of England, but a bank in the hands of the public, wherein there are no shares: whereof the public alone is proprietor, and reaps all the benefit? ”

“ And whether we are not that people?
326 Whether it would not be better for this island, if all our fine folk of both sexes were shipped off, to remain in foreign countries, rather than that they should spend their estates at home in foreign luxury, and spread the contagion thereof through their native land?
327 Whether our gentry understand or have a notion of magnificence, and whether for want thereof they do not affect very wretched distinctions?
328 Whether there be not an art or skill in governing human pride, so as to render it subservient to the public aim? ”

“ And whether it be not with the world as with a particular State, and with a State or body politic as with the human body, which lives and moves under various indispositions, perfect health being seldom or never to be found?
344 Whether, nevertheless, men should not in all things aim at perfection? And, therefore, whether any wise and good man would be against applying remedies? But whether it is not natural to wish for a benevolent physician? 345 Whether the public happiness be not proposed by the legislature, and whether such happiness doth not contain that of the individuals? ”

“ Whether it be certain that the quantity of silver in the bank of Amsterdam be greater now than at first; but whether it be not certain that there is a greater circulation of industry and extent of trade, more people, ships, houses, and commodities of all sorts, more power by sea and land? ”

“ But whether we have not much more reason than the people of England to be displeased at this commerce?
527 Whether, notwithstanding the cash supposed to be brought into it, any nation is, in truth, a gainer by such traffic?
528 Whether the industry of our people employed in foreign lands, while our own are left uncultivated, be not a great loss to the country?
529 Whether it would not be much better for us, if, instead of sending our men abroad, we could draw men from the neighbouring countries to cultivate our own? ”

“ Whether it be known that any State from such small beginnings, in so short a time, ever grew to so great wealth and power as the province of Holland hath done; and whether the bank of Amsterdam hath not been the real cause of such extraordinary growth? ”

“ And whether altering the proportions between the kingdom several sorts can have any other effect but multiplying one kind and lessening another, without any increase of the sum total?
28 Whether arbitrary changing the denomination of coin be not a public cheat?
29 What makes a wealthy people? Whether mines of gold and silver are capable of doing this? And whether the negroes, amidst the gold sands of Afric, are not poor and destitute?
30 Whether there be any virtue in gold or silver, other than as they set people at work, or create industry? ”

“ Whether it be not an advantage that we are not embroiled in foreign affairs, that we hold not the balance of Europe, that we are protected by other fleets and armies, that it is the true interest of a powerful people, from whom we are descended, to guard us on all sides? ”

“ And whether that which increaseth the current credit of a nation may not be said to increase its stock?
233 Whether the credit of the public funds be not a mine of gold to England? And whether any step that should lessen this credit ought not to be dreaded?
234 Whether such credit be not the principal advantage that England hath over France? I may add, over every other country in Europe?
235 Whether by this the public is not become possessed of the wealth of foreigners as well as natives? And whether England be not in some sort the treasury of Christendom? ”

“ And whether a much less quantity of cash in silver would not, in reality, enrich the nation more than a much greater in gold?
465 Whether, ceteris paribus, it be not true that the prices of things increase as the quantity of money increaseth, and are diminished as that is diminished? And whether, by the quantity of money is not to be understood the amount of the denominations, all contracts being nominal for pounds, shillings, and pence, and not for weights of gold or silver?
466 Whether our exports do not consist of such necessaries as other countries cannot well be without? ”

“ Whether we may not easily prevent the ill effects of such a bank as Mr Law proposed for Scotland, which was faulty in not limiting the quantum of bills, and permitting all persons to take out what bills they pleased, upon the mortgage of lands, whence by a glut of paper, the prices of things must rise? Whence also the fortunes of men must increase in denomination, though not in value; whence pride, idleness, and beggary? ”

“ And whether half the learning and study of these kingdoms is not useless, for want of a proper delivery and punctuation being taught in our schools and colleges?
204 Whether in any order a good building can be made of bad materials? Or whether any form of government can make a happy State out of bad individuals?
205 What was it that Solomon compared to a jewel of gold in a swine's snout?
206 Whether the public is more concerned in anything than in the procreation of able citizens?
207 Whether to the multiplying of human kind, it would not much conduce if marriages were made with good-liking? ”

“ Whether we of this island are not from our peculiar circumstances determined to this very commerce above any other, from the number of necessaries and good things that we possess within ourselves, from the extent and variety of our soil, from the navigable rivers and good roads which we have or may have, at a less expense than any people in Europe, from our great plenty of materials for manufactures, and particularly from the restraints we lie under with regard to our foreign trade? ”

“ Whether the bank proposed to be established in Ireland, under the notion of a national bank, by the voluntary subscription of three hundred thousand pounds, to pay off the national debt, the interest of which sum to be paid the subscribers, subject to certain terms of redemption, be not in reality a private bank, as those of England and Scotland, which are national only in name, being in the hands of particular persons, and making dividends on the money paid in by subscribers? ”

“ And whether this should not be our first care; and whether, if this were once provided for, the conveniences of the rich would not soon follow?
107 Whether comfortable living doth not produce wants, and wants industry, and industry wealth?
108 Whether there is not a great difference between Holland and Ireland? And whether foreign commerce, without which the one could not subsist, be so necessary for the other?
109 Might we not put a hand to the plough, or the spade, although we had no foreign commerce?
110 Whether the exigencies of nature are not to be answered by industry on our own soil? ”

“ Whether, all things considered, a general raising the value of gold and silver be not so far from bringing greater quantities thereof into the kingdom that it would produce a direct contrary effect, inasmuch as less, in that case, would serve, and therefore less be wanted? And whether men do not import a commodity in proportion to the demand or want of it? ”

“ Whether, whatever inconveniences those people may have incurred from not observing either rules or bounds in their paper money, yet it be not certain that they are in a more flourishing condition, have larger and better built towns, more plenty, more industry, more arts and civility, and a more extensive commerce, than when they had gold and silver current among them? ”

“ And whether, in these views, it may not be right to breed up some of the better sort of children in the charity-schools, and qualify them for missionaries, catechists, and readers?
265 Whether a squire possessed of land to the value of a thousand pounds per annum, or a merchant worth twenty thousand pounds in cash, would have most power to do good or evil upon any emergency? And whether the suffering Roman Catholics to purchase forfeited lands would not be good policy, as tending to unite their interest with that of the government? ”

“ Whether, therefore, it doth not very much import that they should be wisely framed?
17 Whether the imitating those neighbours in our fashions, to whom we bear no likeness in our circumstances, be not one cause of distress to this nation?
18 Whether frugal fashions in the upper rank, and comfortable living in the lower, be not the means to multiply inhabitants?
19 Whether the bulk of our Irish natives are not kept from thriving, by that cynical content in dirt and beggary which they possess to a degree beyond any other people in Christendom? ”

“ Whether our land is not untilled? Whether its inhabitants are not upon the wing?
104 Whether our circumstances do not call aloud for some present remedy? And whether that remedy be not in our power?
106 Whether, of all the helps to industry that ever were invented, there be any more secure, more easy, and more effectual than a national bank? ”

“ Whether, although the prepossessions about gold and silver have taken deep root, yet the example of our Colonies in America doth not make it as plain as day-light that they are not so necessary to the wealth of a nation as the vulgar of all ranks imagine? ”

“ And whether our women, with little time and pains, may not make more beautiful carpets than those imported from Turkey? And whether this branch of the woollen manufacture be not open to us?
70 Whether human industry can produce, from such cheap materials, a manufacture of so great value by any other art as by those of sculpture and painting? ”

“ Whether therefore it be not evidently the interest of the people of England to encourage rather than to oppose a national bank in this kingdom, as well as every other means for advancing our wealth which shall not impair their own? ”

“ And whether there is an idler occupation under the sun than to attend flocks and herds of cattle?
514 Whether the wisdom of the State should not wrestle with this hereditary disposition of our Tartars, and with a high hand introduce agriculture?
515 Whether once upon a time France did not, by her linen alone, draw yearly from Spain about eight millions of livres?
516 Whether the French have not suffered in their linen trade with Spain, by not making their cloth of due breadth; and whether any other people have suffered, and are still likely to suffer, through the same prevarication? ”

“ Whether, as the aim of industry is power, and the aim of a bank is to circulate and secure this power to each individual, it doth not follow that absolute power in one hand is inconsistent with a lasting and a flourishing bank? ”

“ But whether the lazy spendthrift must not be doubly poor?
424 Whether money circulating be not the life of industry; and whether the want thereof doth not render a State gouty and inactive?
425 But whether, if we had a national bank, and our present cash (small as it is) were put into the most convenient shape, men should hear any public complaints for want of money?
426 Whether all circulation be not alike a circulation of credit, whatsoever medium (metal or paper) is employed, and whether gold be any more than credit for so much power? ”

“ But whether, as bills uttered from a national bank upon private mortgages would facilitate the purchases and projects of private men, even so the same bills uttered on the public security alone may not answer public ends in promoting new works and manufactures throughout the kingdom? ”

“ Whether it be not the greatest help and spur to commerce that property can be so readily conveyed and so well secured by a compte en banc, that is, by only writing one man's name for another's in the bank-book? ”

“ If it be not ridiculous to question whether the pubic can find cash to circulate bills of a limited value when private bankers are supposed to find enough to circulate them to an unlimited value?
51. Qu. Whether the united stock of a nation be not the best security? And whether anything but the ruin of the State can produce a national bankruptcy?
52. Qu. Whether the total sum of the public treasure, power, and wisdom, all co-operating, be not most likely to establish a bank of credit, sufficient to answer the ends, relieve the wants, and satisfy the scruples of all people? ”