Royalty (finance)

“ In a monarchy the providing of revenues for the king's household, and the expenditure of those revenues in the support of the household, may approximate very closely to the character of private economics, as when the chief source of revenue is the royal demesne, or to public economics when the chief source of revenue is taxation, and the king is regarded merely as a public official to be supported as other public officials are. ”

“ As it is not a kingdom without subjects and government, so he is not a king without revenues.... The revenue of the Crown is the very essential part of the Crown, and he who rendeth that from the king pulleth also his crown from his head, for it cannot be separated from the crown. ”

“ The one unworldly profession counts, among its prizes, a triple crown, scores of princedoms, ministries of state, of finance, and even of war, embassies, exceeding many palaces, honours [Pg 101] surpassing those of nobility, gorgeous uniforms, lofty titles, revenues of enormous amount, with powers and dignities bearing a double value—one measurable by the standards of the world, and one immeasurable in the eyes of the faithful. ”

“ If a prince or king wanted a loan they made it to him, charging a good round sum in commission and interest, gaining often a security for their advance, such as a mine or the right to collect some taxes, from which they could make good profit. ”

“ That credit and currency are, in society, properly, both publick and privafe, is demonstrable from other considerations. Talents and industry will divide and distribute credit and currency, as they do land. A species of wealth which talents and industry can distribute, is property. What is the distinction, allowing our governments to take away the whole, or any portion of this species of property, and to give it to corporations, which must not admit a power of chartering away the lands of individuals, and the national territory? ”

“ By what I have always heard and read, I take the whole strength of the nation, as understood in that treaty, to be the utmost that a prince can raise annually from his subjects. If he be forced to mortgage and borrow, whether at home or abroad, it is not properly speaking his own strength, or that of the nation, but the entire substance of particular persons, which, not being able to raise out of the annual income of his kingdom, he takes upon security, and can only pay the interest. ”

“ One would really suppose that nothing was perishable but the national credit—the nobleman, the merchant, the shopkeeper, all who have assignats, engage in these speculations, and the necessities of our dissipated heirs do not drive them to resources for obtaining money more whimsical than the commerce now practised here to get rid of it. ”

“ Money has now the rule that used to belong to rank. And the chief use of the lesser royalties seems to be to dignify wealth by associating with it. Hence the court that the rich pay to them—the eagerness to entertain them, to take them on private yachts, to amuse them with automobile trips, to promote their fortunes on the Stock Exchange, and even to give them money if they will take it. ”

“ Yes, madam, the mightiest financial scheme the world has ever witnessed, the grandest exemplification of the principle of credit that has ever been promulgated by man, was his invention. He farmed the whole revenues of France, and at one stroke annihilated the peculation of receivers-general, and secured the revenue of the nation. ”

“ I answer, The abatement of Interest to the People, is the abatement of Interest to the King, when he hath occasion to take up money: For what is borrowed of the City of London, or other Bodies Politique, nothing can be demanded but the legal Interest; and if the King have occasion to take up money of private persons, being his Majesty, according to good right, is above the common course of Law, the King must and always hath given more than the legal Rate. ”

“ The royal revenues and princely preserves, are they not supported out of the sweat of the poorer classes, upon whom all the burdens of society fall at last? And why should there be royal revenues and princely preserves? Do they add anything to the wealth of a nation or the happiness of a people? ”

“ Thus baffled, the Prince began to raise money right and left by giving bills and bonds payable on the death of his father and his own accession to the throne, and the money-lenders were willing to advance him money on these conditions at an extortionate rate of interest. ”

“ The revenue which, in any civilized monarchy, the crown derives from the crown lands, though it appears to cost nothing to individuals, in reality costs more to the society than perhaps any other equal revenue which the crown enjoys. ”

“ When the great men of a kingdom have exhausted their estates, in paying a regular court to the Prince, they employ the credit they have acquired with him during the time of their dissipation, to obtain marks of his favour, in order to support them in their decline. By these they are enabled to live in as much state as before. They find no difference in their situation; unless perhaps they should accidentally reflect, that the fund which produced their former opulence, was in their own possession; whereas that of their present wealth is in the hands of their master. ”

“ What he did, in effect, was to treat the gross production less royalties as the measure of the respondent's depletable interest in the property, and the royalties as the measure of the depletable interest of those entitled to receive them. ”

“ Still more wonderful is this discovery; better than costless; it is said to enrich a nation, by enriching a paper interest. Oh happiness unlocked for! No longer remains then a motive for that mass of patronage and taxation, by which nations are enslaved. This beautiful system of banking enriches stockholders by dividends and the people by bank notes. Patronage is received and returned with mutual civility and profit. And avarice is at length converted into a blessing for industry. ”

“ Plentiful experience has demonstrated that a paper money based upon the authority, faith and credit of the government and made by law a full legal tender for all debts will serve all the purposes of a staple circulating medium as effectually as gold itself. ”

“ So if a nation, whose lands are worth one hundred millions, borrows and funds that sum, it has only sold or mortgaged its lands to stockholders up to their value, who receive the rent in the name also of interest or dividends. It has not added to its wealth, or drawn any thing from futurity, but only turned its land into money. And between the nation and a private debtor is this difference; that an individual who sells his estate, receives and uses the purchase money ; but a nation which turns its estate or any portion of it into money by borrowing, loses both the money and estate. ”

“ In the European monarchies, which were founded upon the ruins of the Roman empire, both before and for some time after the establishment of what is properly called the feudal law, the great lords, with all their immediate dependents, used to serve the crown at their own expense. In the field, in the same manner as at home, they maintained themselves by their own revenue, and not by any stipend or pay which they received from the king upon that particular occasion. ”

“ To prevent this inordinate increase of wealth among a class of persons who, it was thought, might one day employ it against the throne and dignity of the sovereign, an institution was formed, called the Royal Chamber of Accounts, which, by a sort of star-chamber process, appraised the estates of the nobility, and disburdened them of so much of their wealth as the king deemed a matter of superfluity to them. ”

“ A republic with many competitors of a size or sizes suitable to the business, is the constitution of every trade if left to itself, and of banking as much as any other. A monarchy in any trade is a sign of some anomalous advantage, and of some intervention from without.
I shall be at once asked—Do you propose a revolution? Do you propose to abandon the one-reserve system, and create anew a many-reserve system? My plain answer is that I do not propose it. I know it would be childish. Credit in business is like loyalty in Government. ”

“ Treasure-trove was then considered as an important branch of the revenue of the sovereign. All the treasure-trove of the kingdom would scarce, perhaps, in the present times, make an important branch of the revenue of a private gentleman of a good estate. ”

“ If, on the other hand, it shall be found that we have added fifty or a hundred thousand pounds a-year to the expenditure of an empire which yields a revenue of twenty millions, but that we have at the same time secured to that empire, as far as in us lies, the blessings of good government, we shall have no reason to be ashamed of our profusion. ”

“ In the kingdom of Great Britain, where all the ostentatious apparatus of Monarchy is to be provided for, not above a fifteenth part of the annual income of the nation is appropriated to the class of expenses last mentioned: the other fourteen fifteenths are absorbed in the payment of the interest of debts, contracted for carrying on the wars in which that country has been engaged, and in the maintenance of fleets and armies. ”

“ He hath a vast revenue constantly arising from the hearth of the Householder, the sweat of the Labourer, the rent of the Farmer, the industry of the Merchant, and consequently out of the estate of the Gentleman: a large competence to defray the ordinary expense of the Crown, and maintain its lustre. ”

“ Contrast genuine and honest publick credit, with this thievish spectre, and assign the privilege of consecrating law, to general or exclusive interest, as the result shall indicate which of the two is the purest legislator.
Genuine publick credit is enthroned, not upon gold gathered by law into a bank, but upon property distributed by industry. It is greatest, where national debt is least. It flows from national wealth and prosperity, not from the wealth of corporations enriched by exclusive privileges. It creates gold by industry, not by magick ”

“ It is difficult to assign to our credit its exact station in this scale. They consider us as the most certain nation on earth for the principal; but they see that we borrow of themselves to pay the interest, so that this is only a conversion of their interest into principal. Our paper, for this reason, sells for from four to eight per cent. below par, on the exchange, and our loans are negotiated with the Patriots only. But the whole body of money dealers, Patriot and Stadtholderian, look forward to our new government with a great degree of partiality and interest. ”

“ A very large capital, or credit, or indeed both, is necessary, and consequently an association of men of wealth to direct, with men of enterprise to act, in one common interest, must be formed on such principles, as that in due time the latter may succeed the former, in continual and {355}progressive succession. ”

“ Credit was violently shaken; [Pg 716] money disappeared; prices fell to a ruinous degree; industry could obtain no remuneration; the influence and ascendancy of realized capital became irresistible; and the only efficient power left in the state was that of the emperor, who wrenched his taxes out of the impoverished hands of his subjects, or of the creditors and landlords, who, by legal process, exacted their debts from their debtors, and drove them to desperation. This was exactly the social state of the empire in its declining days. ”

“ There are Countries where the princely Proprietor claims to be Lord of all Property; where what is your own shall not only be wrested from you, but the Money you give to have it restor'd, shall be kept with it, and your offering so much, being a Sign of your being too Rich, you shall be plunder'd of every Thing that remain'd. ”

“ Let one of the subordinate firms branch out into an enterprise unauthorized by the great house, and straightway their acceptances become dishonored, and their credit assailed. In one word, he made it appear that from one end of Europe to the other the whole financial system was in the bands of a few crafty men of immense wealth, who unthroned dynasties, and controlled the fate of nations, with a word. ”

“ If the alienation of a fourth of the crown lands was a deduction from the whole, ten millions collected under laws by aristocracies of interest from a national ability to pay forty, must be an equivalent deduction. Can law justly convey publick property to enrich aristocracies of interest or individuals, (publick services being out of the question) though it is forbidden to prerogative, as too fraudulent and oppressive for monarchy? Revenue is more clearly publick property and a publick right, than those crown lands. ”

“ The royal treasury was exhausted, and in several provinces the revolted nobles had possessed themselves of the public monies; financial edicts were issued which created fresh murmurs among the citizens ”

“ They create an order, having above fifty millions capital, most of it consisting of nominal stock, called credit; a privilege of emitting national money; and the powers of banishing national coin, of governing commerce, and of deciding the fate of mercantile individuals; it draws five millions annually from national labour; and is able to influence elections, and to corrupt legislatures. ”