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.By advancing it theydo not mean to diminish, but, on the contrary, to increase theirmercantile capitals, and unless they expected to sell with someprofit their share in the subscription for a new loan, they neverwould subscribe.But if by advancing their money they were topurchase, instead of perpetual annuities, annuities for lives only,whether their own or those of other people, they would not alwaysbe so likely to sell them with a profit.Annuities upon their ownlives they would always sell with loss, because no man will give foran annuity upon the life of another, whose age and state of healthare nearly the same with his own, the same price which he wouldgive for one upon his own.An annuity upon the life of a thirdperson, indeed, is, no doubt, of equal value to the buyer and theseller; but its real value begins to diminish from the moment it isgranted, and continues to do so more and more as long as itsubsists.It can never, therefore, make so convenient a transferableAdam Smith ElecBook ClassicsThe Wealth of Nations: Book 5 1240stock as a perpetual annuity, of which the real value may besupposed always the same, or very nearly the same.In France, the seat of government not being in a greatmercantile city, merchants do not make so great a proportion ofthe people who advance money to government.The peopleconcerned in the finances, the farmers general, the receivers of thetaxes which are not in farm, the court bankers, etc., make thegreater part of those who advance their money in all publicexigencies.Such people are commonly men of mean birth, but ofgreat wealth, and frequently of great pride.They are too proud tomarry their equals, and women of quality disdain to marry them.They frequently resolve, therefore, to live bachelors, and havingneither any families of their own, nor much regard for those oftheir relations, whom they are not always very fond ofacknowledging, they desire only to live in splendour during theirown time, and are not unwilling that their fortune should end withthemselves.The number of rich people, besides, who are eitheraverse to marry, or whose condition of life renders it eitherimproper or inconvenient for them to do so, is much greater inFrance than in England.To such people, who have little or no carefor posterity, nothing can be more convenient than to exchangetheir capital for a revenue which is to last just as long, and nolonger, than they wish it to do.The ordinary expense of the greater part of moderngovernments in time of peace being equal or nearly equal to theirordinary revenue, when war comes they are both unwilling andunable to increase their revenue in proportion to the increase oftheir expense.They are unwilling for fear of offending the people,who, by so great and so sudden an increase of taxes, would soonAdam Smith ElecBook ClassicsThe Wealth of Nations: Book 5 1241be disgusted with the war; and they are unable from not wellknowing what taxes would be sufficient to produce the revenuewanted.The facility of borrowing delivers them from theembarrassment which this fear and inability would otherwiseoccasion.By means of borrowing they are enabled, with a verymoderate increase of taxes, to raise, from year to year, moneysufficient for carrying on the war, and by the practice ofperpetually funding they are enabled, with the smallest possibleincrease of taxes, to raise annually the largest possible sum ofmoney.In great empires the people who live in the capital, and inthe provinces remote from the scene of action, feel, many of them,scarce any inconveniency from the war; but enjoy, at their ease,the amusement of reading in the newspapers the exploits of theirown fleets and armies.To them this amusement compensates thesmall difference between the taxes which they pay on account ofthe war, and those which they had been accustomed to pay in timeof peace.They are commonly dissatisfied with the return of peace,which puts an end to their amusement, and to a thousandvisionary hopes of conquest and national glory from a longercontinuance of the war.The return of peace, indeed, seldom relieves them from thegreater part of the taxes imposed during the war.These aremortgaged for the interest of the debt contracted in order to carryit on.If, over and above paying the interest of this debt, anddefraying the ordinary expense of government, the old revenue,together with the new taxes, produce some surplus revenue, itmay perhaps be converted into a sinking fund for paying off thedebt.But, in the first place, this sinking fund, even supposing itshould be applied to no other purpose, is generally altogetherAdam Smith ElecBook ClassicsThe Wealth of Nations: Book 5 1242inadequate for paying, in the course of any period during which itcan reasonably be expected that peace should continue, the wholedebt contracted during the war; and, in the second place, this fundis almost always applied to other purposes.The new taxes were imposed for the sole purpose of paying theinterest of the money borrowed upon them.If they produce more,it is generally something which was neither intended norexpected, and is therefore seldom very considerable [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]