Treasury of Great Britain

“ The Bons of the Treasury paid, shall constitute the payments; those which shall not yet have been presented to the Treasury of France, shall enter into the account of the subsequent balance; those also which shall have fallen due, been presented, and not paid, shall constitute the arrear, and the sum of Inscriptions to be applied at the market price of the day, to cover the deficit. ”

“ But, does Great Britain practice towards us upon the principles which we are now required to observe in regard to her? The exports to the united kingdom, as appears from the same treasury statement just adverted to, during eleven years, from 1821 to 1831, and exclusive of the fourth quarter of the last year, fall short of the amount of imports by upwards of forty-six millions of dollars, and the total amount, when the returns of that quarter are received, will exceed fifty millions of dollars! It is surprising how we have been able to sustain, for so long a time, a trade so very unequal. ”

“ It might be remitted in bills drawn upon, and accepted by, particular merchants or companies in Great Britain, to whom a part of the surplus produce of America had been consigned, who would pay into the treasury the American revenue in money, after having themselves received the value of it in goods; and the whole business might frequently be transacted without exporting a single ounce of gold or silver from America. ”

“ Economy there should be always, but profits never. In Great Britain the surplus of receipts above the cost of administration was carried to the general treasury. In the United States the surplus received on certain lines has been employed down to this day in extending mail facilities to the sparse settlers in other parts of the country, besides defraying the expense of the franking system ”

“ The Treasury may issue out of the Consolidated Fund of the out of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and apply towards making good the supply granted to Her Majesty for the service of the year ending on the thirty-first day of March one thousand eight hundred and ninety-seven the sum of twenty-seven million four hundred and forty-two thousand two hundred and seven pounds. ”

“ The present holders of these bonds have never despaired of being able some day to collect the amounts from the United States Treasury, and it will only need a closer alliance between the United States and Great Britain, as proposed by the advocates of an Anglo-Saxon amalgamation, to bring these claims to the front. ”

“ It is impossible for me to believe that Germany is capable of paying a hundred and twenty-five million pounds sterling and more in a [Pg 162] rising scale for an indefinite number of years. England could not do so, and England is richer than Germany. The American debt, which is being paid off at the rate of £35,000,000 a year, is a burden which makes Great Britain breathe hard. ”

“ We see the most enormous sums lent by nations to nations; raising the exchange against the lenders; turning it in favour of the borrowers, but never preventing the loan from going forward. Does not Great Britain, as well as France, owe amazing sums to other nations, at the expence of paying the interest out of their revenue? ”

“ Enough has been said to show the power which Great Britain's possession of vast loanable capital has given her in the work of Empire-building. In the modern world, with its large affairs, its immense undertakings, finance often plays a decisive part. What is above all to be desired is that British finance should always go hand-in-hand with British industry, that the one should consciously support the other, and both should, as far as possible, be guided in the interests of a great Imperial trade policy. ”

“ Without reflecting upon the dissimilarity of our institutions and of the condition of our people and those of Europe, they conceived the vain idea of building up in the United States a system similar to that which they admired abroad. Great Britain had a national bank of large capital, in whose hands was concentrated the controlling monetary and financial power of the nation—an institution wielding almost kingly power, and exerting vast influence upon all the operations of trade and upon the policy of the Government itself. ”

“ Why, sir, it is a greater amount than is appropriated to similar objects by the British parliament, since its reform, in one year. The whole revenue of Great Britain is about forty-two millions sterling, of which sum twenty-eight millions is applied to the public debt, six to the payment of pensions, annuities, and so forth, and only about eight millions to the current annual expenses of the whole of their vast establishments, military and naval, and the civil government at home and abroad. Now, forty millions of dollars exceed eight millions sterling. ”

“ XXI. I shew, by many arguments, (afterwards employed in the 10th chapter, upon public credit, and which render this combination more simple than I should otherwise have been able to make it in this place) that the return of a favourable balance of trade will clear the bank of all the foreign debts contracted by it, for the relief of the country; as a like favourable balance on the trade of Great Britain has the effect of setting that nation free from a proportional part of the money due to strangers. ”

“ Next, the Government guaranteed the payment of all bills accepted by British houses, giving them a reasonable time to collect them. Great Britain had assets of some 4,000,000,000l. of good foreign securities, and some 13,000,000,000l. worth of collieries, mines, factories, etc., at home; to allow its credit to remain doubtful for some 350,000,000l., all or nearly all owing to British subjects, would have been criminal. By these three steps the unimpeachable character of the British bill of exchange had [Pg 242] been guaranteed, and a financial catastrophe, probably without parallel, avoided. ”

“ If it should be found impracticable for Great Britain to draw any considerable augmentation of revenue from any of the resources above mentioned, the only resource which can remain to her, is a diminution of her expense. In the mode of collecting and in that of expending the public revenue, though in both there may be still room for improvement, Great Britain seems to be at least as economical as any of her neighbours. ”

“ At the restoration of peace in 1815, the national debt of England amounted in Federal currency to $4,305,000,000. It is impossible as yet to say what will be the ultimate amount of our national debt. It amounts now to rather more than one half of the debt of Great Britain, and, at its present ratio of increase, it will take nearly four years more to make our debt equal to hers. ”

“ Why should the bare fact of our importing 411 millions of commodities in exchange for 286 millions be held, ipso facto, to involve a loss?
To get in more than one gives out seems, primâ facie, to ordinary minds, the only way of making a profit! It cannot be pretended that Great Britain stood indebted at the end of 1880 for the excess of imports. ”

“ This great revenue allows Great Britain to constitute an efficient sinking fund of five millions sterling, being an excess of actual income beyond expenditure, and amounting to more than the entire revenue of the United States.
If we look at the commerce of England, we shall perceive that its prosperous condition no less denotes the immensity of her riches. The average of three years’ exports, ending in 1789, was between thirteen and fourteen millions. ”

“ At the present moment Great Britain is paying the Transvaal bill. The marching to and fro of the soldiers, the salaries of the Governors and other officials, the debts of the late Government, the interests on loans already made, the sums necessary for the gradual redemption of loans, I fear even a pension for the late President, are provided or are to be provided out of British taxes. ”

“ At that time the currency of the country was placed on the metallic basis, but the great drain of the precious metals occasioned by the enormous subsidies which Great Britain furnished to her allies on the Continent, to engage their support against the revolutionary armies of France, reduced the nation to the very verge of bankruptcy, and necessitated in 1797 the suspension of cash payments. ”

“ Without the imposition 622 of such laws, the whole financial system of Great Britain must instantly have disappeared. The amount of taxes which were required—first, to pay the interest of the National Debt, and, secondly, to meet the expenses of Government, (greatly increased by the change in the monetary laws effected in 1797) —rendered Protection to labour and to native produce absolutely indispensable. How could it be otherwise? Had wheat been sold in the British market at 46s., or even 50s., from what sources could the revenue have been levied? ”

“ Upon such a fund, no more money would probably be advanced than what the tax to be levied in Great Britain might be supposed to answer for. The whole burden of the debt contracted on account of the war would in this manner fall, as it always has done hitherto, upon Great Britain; upon a part of the empire, and not upon the whole empire. Great Britain is, perhaps, since the world began, the only state which, as it has extended its empire, has only increased its expense, without once augmenting its resources. ”

“ They should be prepared to expect, that in the beginning of this commerce, more money will be taken by us, than after awhile. The reasons are, that our heavy debt to Great Britain must be paid, before we shall be masters of our own returns; and again, that habits of using particular things are produced only by time and practice. ”

“ I see no reason at all that we should be ashamed of asking to borrow money, after maintaining a war against Great Britain and her allies for about six years, without borrowing anything abroad, when England [361] has been all the time borrowing of all the nations of Europe, even of individuals among our allies, it cannot be unnatural, surprising, or culpable, or dishonorable for us to borrow money. When England borrows, annually, a sum equal to all her exports, we ought not to be laughed at for wishing to borrow a sum, annually, equal to a twelfth part of our annual exports. ”

“ Now, the expenses of the Commissions and Consulships for these five years, never exceeded, on the average, £70,000 per annum [3] ; they consequently amounted, for that period, to £350,000, leaving a benefit to Great Britain of upwards of £6,000,000 sterling;—whilst the expense has been seven pounds in six hundred,—a little more than one per cent., on the advantages which our country has derived from the employment of the manufacturing interest, which was then anxiously looking out for fresh sources of external trade. ”

“ And yet—and what an idea does the fact present of the multitudinous resources, the unrivalled industry, the latent power of this country!—all that heap of precious metals, all that is besides in circulation, with the addition of the bank-note currency, is comparatively nothing when weighed against the true and real exchangeable wealth of Great Britain ”

“ In 1768—The then Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations declared, (in consequence of the boundary line at that time negociating) —That the inhabitants of the middle colonies would have liberty of gradually extending themselves backwards.
In 1770—The Earl of Hillsborough actually recommended the purchase of a tract of land over the mountains, sufficient for a new colony, and then went down to the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, to know, whether their Lordships would treat with Mr. Walpole and his associates, for such purchase. ”

“ In Great Britain, the annual land and malt taxes are regularly anticipated every year, by virtue of a borrowing clause constantly inserted into the acts which impose them. The bank of England generally advances at an interest, which, since the Revolution, has varied from eight to three per cent., the sums of which those taxes are granted, and receives payment as their produce gradually comes in. ”

“ But Great Britain with her ten millions of free revenue can borrow two hundred millions. If strength is to be measured by the power of borrowing, she could have borrowed four times as much, had her whole revenue been free, and consequently would have been four times as strong. ”

“ The three million Americans, by the tax aforesaid, upon what they are obliged to export to Great Britain only, what they are obliged to import from Great Britain only, and the quantities of British manufactures which in these climates they are obliged to consume, more than the like number of people in any part of the three kingdoms, ultimately pay more of the taxes and duties that are apparently paid in Great Britain, than any three million subjects in the three kingdoms. ”

“ More than this, the 'Secret Service Fund' voted out of the pockets of the taxpayers of France into the strong box of the Minister of the Interior, considerably exceeds the cost of the British Treasury Office! In 1888 the British budget gave the First Lord of the Treasury, to cover the expenses of that great and important department of the British monarchical government, 60,222l., or nearly 4,000l. ”

“ The difference of language, laws, and customs, will be some obstacle for a time; but the interest of the merchants will surmount them. A more serious obstacle is our debt to Great Britain. Yet, since the treaty between this country and that, I should not despair of seeing that debt paid, in part, with the productions of France, if our produce can obtain here a free course of exchange for them. The distant prospect is still more promising. A century’s experience has shown, that we double our numbers every twenty or twenty-five years. ”