should be public concerns? What share the Government should take in the construction and maintenance of roads, canals, public docks? What course it should adopt with regard to colonization and emigration, and in the support of forts and establishments in foreign countries? On all these questions, and many others, there may be differences of opinion; and on all these questions the sovereign and his ministers are called upon to decide.
Secondly, every actual government has to administer a body of laws relating to agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, which was formed at a period comparatively unenlightened, and many of which, therefore, it must be very desirable to repeal. To remain inactive in such a state of things, can only be justified by a conviction, founded on the best grounds, that in any specific change contemplated, taken in all its consequences, the balance of evil will preponderate; while to proceed straight forward in the rigid application of general principles without any reference to the difficulties created by the existing laws of the country, and its actual situation and circumstances, might plunge it into such complicated distress, as not only to excite the public indignation against the authors of such measures, but to bring permanent discredit upon the principles which had prompted them.[1]
Thirdly, there is one cause in every state which absolutely impels the government to action, and puts an end to the possibility of letting things alone. This is the necessity of taxation; and as taxes cannot, in the nature of things, be imposed without interfering with individual industry and wealth, it becomes a matter of the very highest importance to know how they may take place with the least possible prejudice to the prosperity of the state, and the happiness of individuals.
- ↑ Measures calculated to terminate in a rise in the value of money might be little felt in a country without a national debt; but with a large money amount to be paid annually to public creditors, they might occasion a distribution of property most unfavourable to production.
