and action, the maintenance of a great surplus is excessively
difficult. The Opposition will always say that it is unnecessary, is
uncalled for, is injudicious; the cry will be echoed in every
constituency; there will be a series of large meetings in the great
cities; even in the smaller constituencies there will mostly be
smaller meetings; every member of Parliament will be pressed upon by
those who elect him; upon this point there will be no distinction
between town and country, the country gentleman and the farmer
disliking high taxes as much as any in the towns. To maintain a
great surplus by heavy taxes to pay off debt has never yet in this
country been possible, and to maintain a surplus of the American
magnitude would be plainly impossible.

Some part of the difference between England and America arises
undoubtedly not from political causes but from economical. America
is not a country sensitive to taxes; no great country has perhaps
ever been so unsensitive in this respect; certainly she is far less
sensitive than England. In reality America is too rich; daily
industry there is too common, too skilful, and too productive, for
her to care much for fiscal burdens. She is applying all the
resources of science and skill and trained labour, which have been
in long ages painfully acquired in old countries, to develop with
great speed the richest soil and the richest mines of new countries;
and the result is untold wealth. Even under a Parliamentary
government such a community could and would bear taxation much more
easily than Englishmen ever would.

But difference of physical character in this respect is of little
moment in comparison with difference of political constitution. If
America was under a Parliamentary government, she would soon be