—–­ {189} Accumulation is sometimes not a passion, but arises from necessity; by accumulation, is meant the increasing the value of the stock you possess, whether it consists of land, cattle, money, or merchandize.

Thus, for example, the Americans are increasing in wealth, from necessity, because their country is becoming better, by being cultivated, in order to produce what is necessary.  They cannot have what they want, in the way they wish, without increasing or bettering the property of which they have taken possession.

If they had no more rent and taxes than they have, and if this were not the case, they would remain a poor people.  Thus, the inhabitants of Syria, of Egypt, of Arabia Felix, formerly the finest countries in the world, having a property that does not better in their possession, and having scarcely either rent or taxes to pay, remain, from generation to generation, creating little, and consuming what they create. -=-

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people come, perpetually, to pay heavy taxes in London.  Yes, but it will be said, in answer, these are poor countries.  They are, however, richer than England was in the days of Queen Elizabeth; and, if the nature of things could have admitted of people changing centuries, as they change countries, the people of the seventeenth century, with light taxes, would have emigrated to the nineteenth century, with all its heavy taxes, just as those Irish and Scotch come to London.

This proves that, even in London, the excess of taxes is not yet such as to create a retrograde effect, and it proves it in a very striking manner.  Though there may, at first sight, appear something ludicrous in the idea of emigrating from the seventeenth to the nineteenth, from the reign of Queen Elizabeth to that of his present majesty, it is a perfectly fair comparison, and will hold good, examine it as much as one will.  The common expression, (and a very significant one it is,) that one part of the country is a century behind another, or twenty years, or fifty years, is exactly the same idea, expressed in other words, for it is a comparison between the changes which a lapse of time makes in one case, and a removal of place in the other.  The present times are then better to live in than those of Elizabeth, as London is better than any distant part of the country.

That the ability of the nation to sustain a given burthen, for a certain number of years, is no proof of a permanent ability to support it, must be admitted, even if the same annual resources were to continue; but, that permanent ability becomes much less certain, when we consider that the annual resources are perpetually varying, that, therefore, they have so many uncertain quantities, that it is impossible to resolve the problem.

As to the effect, with respect to the increasing the burthens of the people, that has been treated under the general head of taxation.  Whether the money goes to pay for a ship of war, a regiment of soldiers, or the interest of loans, makes no difference to him who pays the tax; and, indeed, makes little to the general system of national economy, as, in every case, what is paid to the state is employed on unproductive labourers or idle people.  That is to say, it is consumed, and never appears again.