william: axd maky.

143

who believed that long succession of confident predictions, sosignally falsified by a long succession of indisputable facts. Topoint out that fallacy is the office rather of the political econo-mist than of the historian. Here it is sufficient to say that theprophets of evil w y ere under a double delusion. 'They erroneouslyimagined that there was an exact analogy between the case ofan individual who is in debt to another individual and the caseof a society which is in debt to a part of itself; and this analogyled them into endless mistakes about the effect of the system offunding. They were under an error not less serious touchingthe resources of the country. They made no allowance for theeffect produced by the incessant progress of every experimentalscience, and by the incessant efforts of every man to get on inlife. They saw that the debt grew; and they forgot that otherthings grew as well as the debt.

A long experience justifies us in believing that Englandmay, in the twentieth century, be better able to bear a debt ofsixteen hundred millions than she is at the present time to bearher present load. But be this as it may, those who so con-fidently predicted that she must sink, first under a debt of fiftymillions, then under a debt of eighty millions, then under adebt of a hundred and forty millions, then under a debt of twohundred and forty millions, and lastly under a debt of eighthundred millions, were beyond all doubt under a twofold mis-take. They greatly overrated the pressure of the burden: theygreatly underrated the strength by. which the burden was to beborne.

It may be desirable to add a few words touching the way inwhich the system of funding has affected the interests of thegreat commonwealth of nations. If it be true that whatevergives to intelligence an advantage over brute force and tohonesty an advantage over dishonesty has a tendency to pro-mote the happiness and virtue of our race, it can scarcely be

CHAP.

XIX.

JC92.