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THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF

money, which, if applied to the payment of the public debts,would deliver from mortgage a much greater revenue thanany which those lands have ever afforded to the crown. Incountries where lands, improved and cultivated very highly,and yielding at the time of sale as great a rent as can easilybe got from them, commonly sell at thirty years’ purchase ;the unimproved, uncultivated, and low-rented crown landsmight well be expected to sell at forty, fifty, or sixty years’purchase. The crown might immediately enjoy the revenuewhich this great price would redeem from mortgage. In thecourse of a few years it would probably enjoy another re-venue. When the crown lands had become private property,they would, in the course of a few years, become well im-proved and well cultivated. The increase of their producewould increase the population of the country, by augmentingthe revenue and consumption of the people. But the revenuewhich the crown derives from the duties of customs and ex-cise would necessarily increase with the revenue and con-sumption of the people.

The revenue, which, iu any civilized monarchy, the crownderives from the crown lands, though it appears to cost no-thing to individuals, in reality costs more to the society thanperhaps any other equal revenue which the crown enjoys.It would, in all cases, be for the interest of the society to re-place this revenue to the crown by some other equal revenue,and to divide the lands among the people, which could notwell be done better, perhaps, than by exposing them to publicsale.

Lands, for the purposes of pleasure and magnificence, parks,gardens, public walks, &c. possessions which are everywhereconsidered as causes of expense, not as sources of revenue,seem to be the only lands which, in a great and civilized mo-narchy, ought to belong to the crown.

Public stock and public lands, therefore, the two sourcesof revenue which may peculiarly belong to the sovereign orcommonwealth, being both improper and insufficient fundsfor defraying the necessary expense of any great and civilizedstate; it remains that this expense must, the greater part ofit, be defrayed by taxes of one kind or another; the peoplecontributing a part of their own private revenue in order tomake up a public revenue to the sovereign or commonwealth.