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Show 486 ON THE IMMEDIATE CAUSES [CH. VII. unfortunately, a country accustomed to a distribution of produce which has at once excited and given full play to great powers of production, cannot withdraw into a less, ambitious path without passing through a period of very great distress. It is, I know, generally thought that all would be well, if we could but be relieved from the heavy burden of our debt. And yet I feel perfectly convinced that, if a spunge could be applied to it to-n101Tow, and we could put out of our con- . sideration the poverty and misery of the public creditors, by supposing them to be supported comfortably in son1e ~ther country, the rest of the society, as a nation, instead of being enriched, would be in1poverished. It is the greatest 1nistake to suppose that the landlords and capitalists would either at once, or in a short tin1e, be prepared for so great an additional consumption as such a change 'vould require; and if they adopted the alternative suggested by lVIr. Ricardo in a former instance, of saving, and lending their increased incomes, the evil 'vould be aggravated tenfold. The new distribution of produce would diminish the detnand for the results of productive labour; and if, in addition to this, more revenue were converted into capital, profits \VOuld fall to nothing, and a n1uch greater quantity of capital would en1jgrate, or be destroyed at home, and a much greater number of persons vvould be starvino· for want of em- o ploymen t, than before the extinction of the debt. It would signify little to be able to e~port cheap goods. If the distribution of property at home were SEC. IX.] 01'" 'fHE PROGRESS 0}' WEALTH. 487 .. not such as to occasion an adequate power and · will to purchase and consume the returns for these goods, the quantity of capital which could be employed in the foreign trade of consumption would be din1inished instead of increased. Of this we may be convinced if we look to India) where low '\\rages appear to be of little use in commerce, while there are no middle classes of society to afford a market for any considerable quantity of foreign goods. The landlords, in the event supposed, not being inclined to an adequate consumption of the' results of productive labour, would probably en1ploy a greater number of menial servants; and perhaps, in the , actual circutnstances, this would be the best thing that could be done, and indeed the only \Vay of preventing great numbers of the labouring classes fron1 being starved for want of \vork. It is by no n1eans likely, however, that it should soon take place to a sufficient extent; but if it 'vere done cotnpletely, and the landlords paid as much in 'vages to n1enial servants as they had before paid to the national creditors, could we for a moment compare the state of society which 'vould ensue to that which had been destroyed? With regard to the capitalists, though they \Vould be relieved from a great portion of their taxes, yet there is every probability that their habits of saving, combined with the diminution in the number of effective demanders, would occasion such a fall in the prices of commodities as greatly to din1inish that part of the national income which depends I I 4 |