The Member and the Radical by John Galt

Author:John Galt [John Galt]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781847675231
Publisher: Canongate Books
Published: 1996-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

‘This notion of the peasantry is plainly a thing ingrafted upon them, and not of their own induction.’

I thought so too; but I said to him,

‘It is, however, not the time now to inquire from what airt this wind comes, but to think of sheltering ourselves from the blast. Tomorrow is the Sabbath day; the country folks and farmers will be at the church: let us both cast ourselves familiarly among them, and reason with them.’

The which Mr. Blount most cordially approved of; and then, as we sat over our wine, we discoursed more anent the growth of the new doctrine concerning rent.

‘It rises,’ said Mr. Blount, ‘from that sound that has been echoing through the kingdom for a long time about the burden of our taxes.’

‘No doubt of it,’ replied I; ‘but the weight of taxes is comparative with the means of payment, and there must be something very strange in the condition of our nation which makes us now, when we are relieved from the expenses of the war, less able than when under them to bear the public burdens.’

‘That is the puzzle, Mr. Jobbry: what can it be? for no truth can be more self-evident than that there has been a withdrawing from us of some secret thing that must have counteracted the burdens of the war. Have you any notion what it can be?’

‘It can be no small matter, Mr. Blount, since it is equivalent in effect to millions on millions on pounds sterling. In my opinion, it can have been no less than a great sum subtracted from the money among hands, or what the political economists call a contraction of the circulating medium.’

‘By Jove!’ cried Mr. Blount, ‘you have hit the nail on the head. The Bank has contracted its issues to a vast amount, equal to much of the reduced taxation; the country bankers are like shelled peascods, not a tithe in their notes to what they were: no bills are circulating for the munitions of war. Upon my word, Mr. Jobbry, I do think that all our evils arise from our contracted circulation. But, although this be the root of the evil, what are we to do to get these crotchets out of the minds of the deluded commonalty?’

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