annually, would long before 1790, notwithstanding the reductions of interest, have paid off above L.100,000,000 of the public debts.  The nation might therefore some years ago have been eased of a great part of the taxes with which it is loaded.  The most important relief might have been given to its trade and manufactures; and it might now have been in better circumstances than at the beginning of last war:  its credit firm; respected by foreign nations, and dreaded by its enemies.’

That such a tone should be assumed by an enthusiastic speculator is not wonderful.  The payment of the national debt has been one of the staple dreams of enthusiasts.  It would be difficult to believe the wild nonsense that has been written on it; and Hogarth, in his dreadful picture of a madhouse, appropriately represents one of his principal figures hard at work on it.  But the remarkable thing—­and what shews the perilous nature of such speculations—­is, that these theories were worked out by chancellors of the exchequer, and adopted by parliament.  There was a faint sinking-fund so early as 1716; but Walpole one day swept it up and spent it, having probably just discovered that it was a fallacy.  It was in the days of the younger Pitt, however, that it came out in full bloom.  After it had been for several years in operation, a retired and absent-minded mathematical student, Robert Hamilton, shewed its falsity in a book printed in 1813.  The exposure was conclusive, and no one since that time has ventured to support a sinking-fund.

As already stated, it is a very good thing to save something out of the revenue and pay off part of the debt.  But no good is done by keeping it to accumulate at interest, because the debt it would pay off is just accumulating against it.  Apply this to private transactions.  You are in debt L.110.  You have L.10, and the question is:  Are you to pay it at once, and reduce your debt to L.100, or are you to keep it accumulating at interest?  It is much the same which you do, only the latter is the more troublesome mode.  If you pay it at once, you will just have so much less interest to hand over to your creditor.  If you put it out at interest, you will have to pay over to him what you receive for it, in addition to the interest of the L.100.  There is an incidental purpose for which it has been deemed right that the government should, however, have a fund at its disposal—­that is for buying into the funds when they fall very low, and thus accomplishing two services—­the one the paying a portion of the debt at a cheap rate, the other stopping the depreciation of the funds.  This is in itself we doubt not a very just practical object, but we believe the sums that can be applied to it are very small in comparison with the reserves which formed the old sinking-fund.