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then, between present and future generations. The sinking-fund may be the best means of this equalization, but is nothing more, and there is no gain that I can see; it is a harness well-fitted to the back and shoulders of the beast; and by means of which its strength is applied to most advantage; the burthen is better placed thereby, but is not specifically lighter. A loan is, in political economy, what the lever is in mechanics, compensating power by space. The sinking-fund shortens the long arm of the lever.

Dr Price surprises his readers with the assertion (undeniable in an arithmetical point of view) that, by means of the sinking-fund, it matters not at what rate the nation borrows; the higher, indeed, the better. If the lender asks four per cent. give him eight, and the nation will be the gainer! It is invulnerable, like Milton's battalions of angels, cut down and made whole again at pleasure; and whose heads refitted themselves to their shoulders, after they had been struck off. Take, for instance, a loan of 100,000,000 at eight per cent. do but raise on the people, besides the 8,000,000 of interest, 100,000l. a year, by way of sinkingfund; accumulating the yearly interest thereon, and in 56 years the state will be liberated; but this liberation will require 94 years, if the loan was made at four per cent. Again, raise one per cent. more than the interest of a loan, as a sinking-fund, the loan will be all redeemed in 37 years, if at five per cent.; in 41 years, if at four; in 47 years, if at three.

Most of what has been said and written for a century past, on the natural limitation of taxation, and the national debt, has proved manifestly erroneous; and, after so many false predictions, it really

170 LONDON-DEPRECIATION OF CURRENCY.

The go

would not be safe to predict any more. vernment gropes on through the unknown regions of finance, advancing every year a few steps through their obscure immensity; feeling all the time the pulse of the people, as the criminal on the rack has a physician by him, to watch the instant when a turn of the wheel more might kill him. "Il faut pousser contre une porte," says Charron, " pour savoir qu'elle est fermée;"-till now the door has always yielded to the pressure, whenever government has tried it.

I have ascertained, by inquiries made with some care, respecting the nominal increase of prices of all things, that the rent of land has trebled in the last fifty years.* It is not uniform, and depends materially on adventitious circumstances, such as canals, roads, and capital. In Lincolnshire, for instance, pasturage, which, by its nature, has received no other increase of nominal value, than that occasioned by the depreciation of specie, rents now at 40 or 45 shillings an acre, which 40 or 50 years ago produced only 15 and 20 shillings In other places, the increase is much greater. The pay of labourers was, 50 years ago, something less than a shilling a-day, now 2s. 6d. or Ss. a-day. Country wages, by the year, L. 8, or L. 10, and the labourer fed; now L. 20 or L. 22 for men; and for women they have risen from L.3 or L.4, to L. 8 or L.9. In the same interval of time, the price of wheat has quadrupled, having risen from 3s. 9d. to about 15s. † Farmers pay their high rents now with

* The late Mr Kent, Craig's Court, Charing Cross, who, by his profession, was likely to be well-informed, confirmed this.

I have annexed the table of depreciation of Sir George Shuckburgh Evelyn, taken from the Philosophical Transactions

LONDON-DEPRECIATION OF CURRENCY. 171

greater ease than they did their low ones formerly, partly from the greater consumption, readier sale, and rise of prices of their produce; and partly because they cultivate with more industry: and that those only who have a capital, venture on large farms and great rents. It does not appear that any very great discoveries have been made in agriculture; the most useful novelty was the introduction of turnips for animals, and potatoes for men. With turnips, large flocks of sheep are kept, which not only furnish meat and wool, but fertilize the land, and fit it for cultivation.

During the fifty years which preceded the last, the rise was not near so considerable; wheat indeed seems to have fallen from 4s. 5d. a bushel to 3s. 9d.; meat doubled. The rent of land rose half, or fifty per cent.; and it is worth observing, that landlords found it difficult to get tenants, while now, a lease is no sooner expired, than ten farmers offer to take it. Upon the whole, the nominal increase of prices has been about fourfold, in the last hundred years. It is undeniable, that, under such circumstances, a debt of an hundred millions, for instance, represents now only twenty-five millions, and in another century may represent only six. This is an effectual sinking-fund. The one hastens the payment of the debt, the other destroys the debt; it extinguishes without paying it. The people pay 4,000,000 for the interest on this debt, with the same facility they would have paid 1,000,000 one hundred years ago; because their wheat, their sheep, and their daily labour, bring them four times the sum of money they brought formerly.

Vol. LXXXVIII. p. 176; which it may prove interesting to compare with the depreciation of other countries.