the maximum rate we can impose on the big fish, the problem will be,
What is the highest income to which you will allow any remission from
the maximum rate? I think those having above L150 a year possess more
than the necessaries for healthful existence; looking therefore to
the equity and productiveness of the tax, I suggested remission to
those earning less than L3 a week.



9. WEALTH OF THE NATION.

The Wealth of Nations is a well-considered title. The economists
anterior to Adam Smith conceived England as surrounded by a barrier
impassable to property and money except by trade. In trade there was
an exchange apparently on equal terms; but the old economists saw a
difference in nature between imports and exports; when wool was sold
to Flanders gold was received, and remained somewhere in the nation;
it formed the national purchasing power, and could hire mercenaries
or otherwise command foreign labour and productions. Inversely, when
we imported wine or tea, we had to part with a portion of our
national purchasing power, while the wine and tea went down our
throats, leaving nothing in its place. It appeared clear that for any
increase in national wealth the value of the exports must exceed that
of the imports. Every well-prepared boy can now show in ten minutes'
scribbling in a Government examination the ridiculous folly of the
old economists; but several of them were experienced London
merchants, and perhaps were not the complete idiots they are now
triumphantly shown to be. If they had been asked whether wool was a
part of the national wealth they might have returned an answer that
their modern detractors are not quite prepared for.