The Querist Part 5

242. Qu. Whether land may not be apt to rise on the issuing too great plenty of notes?

243. Qu. Whether this may not be prevented by the gradual and slow issuing of notes, and by frequent sales of lands?

244. Qu. Whether interest doth not measure the true value of land; for instance, where money is at five per cent, whether land is not worth twenty years' purchase?

245. Qu. Whether too small a proportion of money would not hurt the landed man, and too great a proportion the monied man? And whether the quantum of notes ought not to bear proportion to the pubic demand? And whether trial must not shew what this demand will be?

246. Qu. Whether the exceeding this measure might not produce divers bad effects, one whereof would be the loss of our silver?

247. Qu. Whether interest paid into the bank ought not to go on augmenting its stock?

248. Qu. Whether it would or would not be right to appoint that the said interest be paid in notes only?

249. Qu. Whether the notes of this national bank should not be received in all payments into the exchequer?

250. Qu. Whether on supposition that the specie should fail, the credit would not, nevertheless, still pa.s.s, being admitted in all payments of the public revenue?

251. Qu. Whether the pubic can become bankrupt so long as the notes are issued on good security?

252. Qu. Whether mismanagement, prodigal living, hazards by trade, which often affect private banks, are equally to be apprehended in a pubic one?

253. Qu. Whether as credit became current, and this raised the value of land, the security must not of course rise?

254. Qu. Whether, as our current domestic credit grew, industry would not grow likewise; and if industry, our manufactures; and if these, our foreign credit?

255. Qu. Whether by degrees, as business and people multiplied, more bills may not be issued, without augmenting the capital stock, provided still, that they are issued on good security; which further issuing of new bills, not to be without consent of Parliament?

256. Qu. Whether such bank would not be secure? Whether the profits accruing to the pubic would not be very considerable? And whether industry in private persons would not be supplied, and a general circulation encouraged?

257. Qu. Whether such bank should, or should not, be allowed to issue notes for money deposited therein? And, if not, whether the bankers would have cause to complain?

258. Qu. Whether, if the public thrives, all particular persons must not feel the benefit thereof, even the bankers themselves?

259. Qu. Whether, beside the Bank-Company, there are not in England many private wealthy bankers, and whether they were more before the erecting of that company?

260. Qu. Whether as industry increased, our manufactures would not flourish; and as these flourished, whether better returns would not be made from estates to their landlords, both within and without the kingdom?

261. Qu. Whether we have not paper-money circulating among, whether, therefore, we might not as well have that us already which is secured by the public, and whereof the pubic reaps the benefit?

262. Qu. Whether there are not two general ways of circulating money, to wit, play and traffic? and whether stock-jobbing is not to be ranked under the former?

263. Qu. Whether there are more than two things that might draw silver out of the bank, when its credit was once well established, to wit, foreign demands and small payments at home?

264. Qu. Whether, if our trade with France were checked, the former of these causes could be supposed to operate at all? and whether the latter could operate to any great degree?

265. Qu. Whether the sure way to supply people with tools and materials, and to set them at work, be not a free circulation of money, whether silver or paper?

266. Qu. Whether in New England all trade and business is not as much at a stand, upon a scarcity of paper-money, as with us from the want of specie?

267. Qu. Whether paper-money or notes may not be issued from the national bank, on the security of hemp, of linen, or other manufactures whereby the poor might be supported in their industry?

268. Qu. Whether it be certain that the quant.i.ty of silver in the bank of Amsterdam be greater now than at first; but whether it be not certain that there is a greater circulation of industry and extent of trade, more people, s.h.i.+ps, houses, and commodities of all sorts, more power by sea and land?

269. Qu. Whether money, lying dead in the bank of Amsterdam, would not be as useless as in the mine?

270. Qu. Whether our visible security in land could be doubted? And whether there be anything like this in the bank of Amsterdam?

271. Qu. Whether it be just to apprehend danger from trusting a national bank with power to extend its credit, to circulate notes which it shall be felony to counterfeit, to receive goods on loans, to purchase lands, to sell also or alienate them, and to deal in bills of exchange; when these powers are no other than have been trusted for many years with the bank of England, although in truth but a private bank?

272. Qu. Whether the objection from monopolies and an overgrowth of power, which are made against private banks, can possibly hold against a national one?

273. Qu. Whether banks raised by private subscription would be as advantageous to the public as to the subscribers? and whether risks and frauds might not be more justly apprehended from them?

274. Qu. Whether the evil effects which of late years have attended paper-money and credit in Europe did not spring from subscriptions, shares, dividends, and stock-jobbing?

275. Qu. Whether the great evils attending paper-money in the British Plantations of America have not sprung from the overrating their lands, and issuing paper without discretion, and from the legislators breaking their own rules in favour of themselves, thus sacrificing the public to their private benefit? And whether a little sense and honesty might not easily prevent all such inconveniences?

276. Qu. Whether an argument from the abuse of things, against the use of them, be conclusive?

277. Qu. Whether he who is bred to a part be fitted to judge of the whole?

278. Qu. Whether interest be not apt to bias judgment? and whether traders only are to be consulted about trade, or bankers about money?

279. Qu. Whether the subject of Freethinking in religion be not exhausted? And whether it be not high time for our freethinkers to turn their thoughts to the improvement of their country?

280. Qu. Whether any man hath a right to judge, that will not be at the pains to distinguish?

281. Qu. Whether there be not a wide difference between the profits going to augment the national stock, and being divided among private sharers? And whether, in the former case, there can possibly be any gaming or stock-jobbing?

282. Qu. Whether it must not be ruinous for a nation to sit down to game, be it with silver or with paper?

283. Qu. Whether, therefore, the circulating paper, in the late ruinous schemes of France and England, was the true evil, and not rather the circulating thereof without industry? And whether the bank of Amsterdam, where industry had been for so many years subsisted and circulated by transfers on paper, doth not clearly decide this point?

284. Qu. Whether there are not to be seen in America fair towns, wherein the people are well lodged, fed, and clothed, without a beggar in their streets, although there be not one grain of gold or silver current among them?

285. Qu. Whether these people do not exercise all arts and trades, build s.h.i.+ps and navigate them to all parts of the world, purchase lands, till and reap the fruits of them, buy and sell, educate and provide for their children? Whether they do not even indulge themselves in foreign vanities?

286. Qu. Whether, whatever inconveniences those people may have incurred from not observing either rules or bounds in their paper money, yet it be not certain that they are in a more flouris.h.i.+ng condition, have larger and better built towns, more plenty, more industry, more arts and civility, and a more extensive commerce, than when they had gold and silver current among them?

287. Qu. Whether a view of the ruinous effects of absurd schemes and credit mismanaged, so as to produce gaming and madness instead of industry, can be any just objection against a national bank calculated purely to promote industry?

288. Qu. Whether a scheme for the welfare of this nation should not take in the whole inhabitants? And whether it be not a vain attempt, to project the flouris.h.i.+ng of our Protestant gentry, exclusive of the bulk of the natives?

289. Qu. Whether, therefore, it doth not greatly concern the State, that our Irish natives should be converted, and the whole nation united in the same religion, the same allegiance, and the same interest? and how this may most probably be effected?

290. Qu. Whether an oath, testifying allegiance to the king, and disclaiming the pope's authority in temporals, may not be justly required of the Roman Catholics? And whether, in common prudence or policy, any priest should be tolerated who refuseth to take it?

291. Qu. Whether there have not been Popish recusants? and, if so, whether it would be right to object against the foregoing oath, that all would take it, and none think themselves bound by it?