THE WEALTH OE NATIONS;

875

willing' and unable to increase their revenue in proportionto the increase of their expense. They are unwilling, forfear of offending the people, who, by so great and so suddenan increase of taxes, would soon be disgusted with the war;and they are unable, from not well knowing what taxeswould be sufficient to produce the revenue wanted. The fa-cility of borrowing delivers them from the embarrassmentwhich this fear and inability would otherwise occasion. Bymeans of borrowing they are enabled, with a very moderateincrease of taxes, to raise, from year to year, money suffi-cient for carrying on the war, and by the practice of perpe-tual funding they are enabled, with the smallest possibleincrease of taxes, to raise annually the largest possible sumof money. In great empires the people who live in the ca-pital, and in the 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 thenewspapers the exploits of their own fleets and armies. Tothem this amusement compensates the small difference be-tween the taxes which they pay on account of the war, andthose which they had been accustomed to pay in time ofpeace. They are commonly dissatisfied with the return ofpeace, which puts an end to their amusement, and to a thou-sand visionary hopes of conquest and national glory, froma longer continuance of the war.

The return of peace, indeed, seldom relieves them fromthe greater part of the taxes imposed during the war. Theseare mortgaged for the interest of the debt contracted in orderto carry it on. It, over and above paying the interest ofthis debt, and defraying the ordinary expense of govern-ment, the old revenue, together with the new taxes, producesome surplus revenue, it may perhaps be converted into asinking fund for paying off the debt. But, in the first place,this sinking fund, even supposing it should be applied to noother purpose, is generally altogether inadequate for paying,in the course of any period during which it can reasonablybe expected that peace should continue, the whole debt con-tracted 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 pay-ing the interest of the money borrowed upon them. If theyproduce more, it is generally something which was neitherintended nor expected, and is therefore seldom very consi-

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