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• Errata—vol. III.
• Defence of Usury; Showing the Impolicy of the Present Legal Restraints On the Terms of Pecuniary Bargains; In Letters to a Friend.
• Letter I.: Introduction.
• Letter II.: Reasons For Restraint—prevention of Usury.
• Letter III.: Reasons For Restraint—prevention of Prodigality.
• Letter IV.: Reasons For Restraint—protection of Indigence.
• Letter V.: Reasons For Restraint—protection of Simplicity.
• Letter VI.: Mischiefs of the Anti-usurious Laws.
• Letter VII.: Efficacy of Anti-usurious Laws.
• Letter VIII.: Virtual Usury Allowed.
• Letter IX.: Blackstone Considered.
• Letter X.: Grounds of the Prejudices Against Usury.
• Letter XI.: Compound Interest.
• Letter XII.: Maintenance and Champerty.
• Letter XIII.: To Dr. Smith, On Projects In Arts, &c.
• A Manual of Political Economy: Now First Edited From the Mss. of Jeremy Bentham.
• Chapter I.: Introduction. *
• Chapter II.: Analytical Survey of the Field of Political Economy.
• Chapter III.: Of Wealth.
• Chapter IV.: Of Population.
• Chapter V.: Of Finance.
• Chapter VI.: Operation of a Sinking Fund On the Production of Wealth.
• Chapter VII.: Noscenda.
• Observations On the Restrictive and Prohibitory Commercial System; Especially With a Reference to the Decree of the Spanish Cortes of July 1820.
• Preface.: Observations, &c.
• Section I.: Nature of the Prohibitory System.
• Section II.: Mischiefs of the Prohibitory System.
• Section III.: Causes of the Prohibitory System.
• A Plan For Saving All Trouble and Expense In the Transfer of Stock, and For Enabling the Proprietors to Receive Their Dividends Without Powers of Attorney, Or Attendance At the Bank of England, By the Conversion of Stock Into Note Annuities.
• Introduction.
• Chapter I.: Plan For the Creation, Emission, Payment, and Eventual Extension, of a Proposed New Species of Government Paper, Under the Name of Annuity Notes.
• Chapter II.: Form of an Annuity Note. (see Table II.)
• Chapter III.: Comparison of the Proposed, With the Existing Government Securities, &c.
• Chapter IV.: Grounds of Expectation, In Regard to the Proposed Measure.
• Chapter V.: Financial Advantages.
• Chapter VI.: Advantage By Addition to National Capital.
• Chapter VII.: Advantage By Addition to Commercial Security.
• Chapter VIII.: Particular Interests Concerned.
• Chapter IX.: Rise of Prices—how to Obviate.
• Chapter X.: Reduction of Interest—proposed Mode Compared With Mr. Pelham’s.
• Chapter XI.: Moral Advantages.
• Chapter XII.: Constitutional Advantages.
• Chapter XIII.: Recapitulation and Conclusion.
• Appendix A.: Government Ought to Have the Monopoly of Paper Money, As Well As of Metallic Money.
• Appendix B.: Paper Money—causes Why Not Circulated By Government Without Interest, As Well As By Individuals.
• General View of a Complete Code of Laws.
• Chapter I.: General Division.
• Chapter II.: Relations Between the Laws Concerning Offences, Rights, Obligations, and Services.
• Chapter III.: Relation Between the Penal and Civil Code.
• Chapter IV.: Of Method.
• Chapter V.: Plan of the Penal Code.
• Chapter VI.: Of the Division of Offences.
• Chapter VIII. Titles of the Penal Code.
• Chapter IX.: First General Title of the Civil Code, * of Things.
• Chapter X.: Second General Title of the Civil Code. of Places.
• Chapter XI.: Third General Title of the Civil Code. of Times.
• Chapter XII.: Fourth General Title of the Civil Code. of Services.
• Chapter XIII.: Fifth General Title of the Civil Code. of Obligations.
• Chapter XIV.: Sixth General Title of the Civil Code. of Rights.
• Chapter XV.: Seventh General Title of the Civil Code. of Collative and Ablative Events.
• Chapter XVI.: Eighth General Title of the Civil Code. of Contracts.
• Chapter XVII.: Ninth General Title of the Civil Code. of the Domestic and Civil States.
• Chapter XVIII.: Tenth General Title of the Civil Code. of Persons Capable of Acquiring and of Contracting.
• Chapter XIX.: Of the Particular Titles of the Civil Code.
• Chapter XX.: Of Elementary Political Powers.
• Chapter XXI.: Of Elementary Political Powers— Subject Continued.
• Chapter XXII.: Plan of the Political Code.
• Chapter XXIII.: Plan of the International Code.
• Chapter XXIV.: Plan of the Maritime Code.
• Chapter XXV.: Plan of the Military Code.
• Chapter XXVI.: Plan of the Ecclesiastical Code.
• Chapter XXVII.: Plan of Remuneratory Laws.
• Chapter XXVIII.: Of Political Economy.
• Chapter XXIX.: Plan of the Financial Code.
• Chapter XXX.: Plan of Procedure Code.
• Chapter XXXI.: Of the Integrality of the Code of Laws.
• Chapter XXXII.: Of Purity In the Composition of a Code of Laws.
• Chapter XXXIII.: Of the Style of the Laws.
• Chapter XXXIV.: Of the Interpretation, Conservation, and Improvement of a Code.
• Pannomial Fragments.
• Chapter I.: General Observations.
• Chapter II.: Consideranda.
• Chapter III.: Expositions.
• Chapter IV.: Axioms.
• Nomography; Or the Art of Inditing Laws: Now First Published From the Mss. of Jeremy Bentham.
• Chapter I.: The Subject Stated.
• Chapter II.: Relations.
• Chapter III.: Proper End In View.
• Chapter IV.: Imperfections Primary.
• Chapter V.: Explanations Relative to the Imperfections of the Second Order.
• Chapter VI.: Of Remedies. *
• Chapter VII.: Of Language.
• Chapter VIII.: Of the Perfections of Which the Legislative Style Is Susceptible.
• Chapter IX.: Of Forms of Enactment.
• Appendix. Logical Arrangements, Or Instruments of Invention and Discovery
• Equity Dispatch Court Proposal; Containing a Plan For the Speedy and Unexpensive Termination of the Suits Now Depending In Equity Courts. With the Form of a Petition, and Some Account of a Proposed Bill For That Purpose
• Section I.: Purpose Explained. Jeremy Bentham to the Honest and Afflicted Among Equity Suitors.
• Section II.: Equity Suitors’ Petition For Dispatch Court. to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty, —
• Section III.: Dispatch Court Bill—some Account of It.
• Section IV.: Information Requisite From Petitioning Suitors.
• Equity Dispatch Court Bill: Being a Bill For the Institution of an Experimental Judicatory Under the Name of the Court of Dispatch, For Exemplifying In Practice the Manner In Which the Proposed Summary May Be Substituted to the So Called Regular Sy
• Editor’s Note.
• Preface.
• Preamble.
• Part I.—: Judiciary.
• Section I.: Judge Located, How.
• Section II.: Remuneration.
• Section III.: Registrar, &c.
• Section IV.: Eleemosynary Advocate.
• Section V.: Judges’, &c. Deputes.
• Section VI.: Judge’s Powers—exemptions—checks.
• Section VII.: Prehensors and Messengers.
• Section VIII.: Consignees; * Or Say, In-trust-holders.
• Section IX.: Grounds of Decision For the Dispatch Court Judge.
• Section X. ‡: Suits’ Comparative Suitableness; and Order of Cognizance.
• Section XI.: Auxiliary Judges and Accountants.
• Section XII.: Sittings, Times Of.
• Part II.—: Procedure.
• Section XIII.: Definitions. *
• Section XIV.: Examination of Solicitors.
• Section XV.: Initiatory Examination of Parties, &c.
• Section XVI.: Appropriate Intercourse, Constant and Universal, Secured.
• Section XVII.: Mutual Security For Forthcomingness of Persons and Things. ‡
• Section XVIII.: Evidence-procuring Money, How Provided.
• Section XIX.: Subsequential Evidence, How Elicited.
• Section XX.: Execution, How Performed.
• Section XXI.: Equity Court Costs, How Disposed Of.
• Section XXII.: Dispatch Court Costs, How Disposed Of.
• Section XXIII.: Eventual Retrotransference of a Suit to the Equity Court.
• Section XXIV.: Expense of the Court, How Provided For.
• Supplemental Sections:—
• Section I. Or XXV.: Bankruptcy and Insolvency.
• Section II. Or XXVI.: Henceforward Dispatch Court.
• Schedules to the Bill.
• Plan of Parliamentary Reform, In the Form of a Catechism, With Reasons For Each Article: With an Introduction, Showing the Necessity of Radical, and the Inadequacy of Moderate, Reform.
• Introduction.
• Section I.: History of the Ensuing Tract—alarming State of the Country and the Constitution.
• Section II.: Most Prominent Present Grievance, Gareisoning France.
• Section III.: Causes of the Above and All Other Mischiefs:—particular Interests Monarchical and Aristocratical, Adverse to the Universal—their Ascendency.
• Section IV.: Sole Remedy In Principle—democratic Ascendency.
• Section V.: Remedy In Detail: Radical Parliamentary Reform: Elementary Arrangements In This Edition of It—their Necessity.
• Section VI.: Differences Between This and the Original Editions of Radical Reform.
• Section VII.: Virtual Universality of Suffrage Further Considered.
• Section VIII.: Virtual Universality of Suffrage—its Undangerousness.
• Section IX.: Freedom of Suffrage Further Explained—seductive Influence—its Forms, Instruments, &c.
• Section X.: Bribery and Terrorism Compared.
• Section XI.: Purchase of Seats—in What Cases Mischievous—in What Beneficial.
• Section XII.: Secresy of Suffrage—its Importance Further Developed.
• Section XIII.: Exclusion of Placemen, &c. From the Right of Voting—mischievousness and Profligacy of the Opposite Arrangement.
• Section XIV.: Universal Constancy of Attendance—its Importance.
• Section XV.: Representatives—impermanence of Their Situation—its Importance:—objections—their Groundlessness.
• Section XVI.: Moderate Reform—its Arrangements—their Inadequacy.
• Section XVII.: Trienniality Inadequate;—annuality Necessary.
• Section XVIII.: Interests Adverse to Adequate Reform—support Given By Them to Moderate, to the Exclusion of Radical: Tories—whigs—people’s Men.
• Catechism of Parliamentary Reform; Or, Outline of a Plan of Parliamentary Reform; In the Form of Question and Answer; With Reasons to Each Article.
• Section I.: Ends to Be Aimed At On the Occasion of Parliamentary Reform.
• Section II.: Means, Conducive Towards These Ends.
• Section III.: Means—their Uses, With Reference to Their Respective Ends.
• Section IV.: Means Conducive to Aptitude In Members: I. Placemen Not to Vote, Nor to Be Seated By Election.
• Section V.: Means, &c. Continued.—ii. Placemen Seated By the King, With Speech and Motion, Without Vote.
• Section VI.: Means, &c. Continued.—iii. Elections Frequent—annual.
• Section VII.: Means, &c. Continued.—iv. Speeches Authentically and Promptly Published.
• Section VIII.: Means, &c. Continued.—v. Attendance, Punctual and General, Secured.
• Section IX.: Inconveniences Incident to Elections, and Election Judicature.
• Section X.: Election Inconveniences—means For Their Removal.
• Section XI.: Collateral Advantages, Referable to the Situations of Electors, Placemen, Lords, &c.
• A Sketch of the Various Proposals For a Constitutional Reform In the Representation of the People, Introduced Into the Parliament of Great Britain, From 1770 to 1812.
• Radical Reform Bill, With Extracts From the Reasons.
• Preliminary Explanations.
• Title of the Proposed Act.
• Preamble.
• Section 1.—: Seats and Districts.
• Section 2.—: Electors, Who.
• Section 3.—: Eligible, Who.
• Section 4.—: Election Offices.
• Section 5.: Election Apparatus.
• Section 6.—: Promulgation of Recommendations In Favour of Proposed Members.
• Section 7.—: Voters’ Titles Pre-established.
• Section 8.—: Election, How.
• Section 9.: Election Districts and Polling Districts, How Marked Out.
• Section 10.—: Vote-making Habitations, How Defined.
• Section 11.—: Members’ Continuance.
• Section 12.—: Vacancies Supplied.
• Section 13.—: Security For the House Against Disturbance By Members. †
• Section 14.—: Indisposition of Speakers Obviated.
• Appendix, Including General Explanations.
• Radicalism Not Dangerous. Extracted From the Mss. of Jeremy Bentham. *
• Part I.—: Introduction.
• Section I.: Radical Reform Bill Recapitulated.
• Section II.: Persuasion of the Dangerousness of Radicalism—cause of It, and of the Vituperative Expression Given to It.
• Section III.: Terms of the Accusation,—speeches From the Throne, 16 Th July and 21 St November 1819.
• Section IV.: The Accusation In General Terms—counter-averment.
• Section V.: Plan of This Defence.
• Part II.—: Deference From the General Nature of the Case.
• Section I.: Conditions Necessary to a Man’s Embarking In Such a Design.
• Section VII.: Concurrence In Any Other Extensive Plan of Spoliation Impossible.
• Section VIII.: Concurrence of Any Constituted Authorities Impossible.
• Section IX.: Accomplishment Impossible—design Impossible.
• Section X.: The Talked-of Spunge No Proof of the Design.
• Part III.—: Defence From Experience In the Case of the United States.
• Part IV.: Defence From Particular Experience In the Case of Ireland: Years 1777 Or 1778, to 1783.
• Section I.: Analogy Between This and the Previous Case.
• Section II.: Democratic Ascendency, How Produced.
• Section III.: Fruit of Democratic Ascendency a Golden Age.
• Section IV.: Coincidence of Its Characters With Those of Radicalism.
• Section VI.: Extinction of Democratic Ascendency and Reform—restoration of Monarchico-aristocratical Ascendency, and Its Consequences.
• Conclusion.

INTRODUCTION.

Themain principle of the proposed measure consists in the opening the market for government annuities, on terms of profit to government—viz. at a reduced rate of interest to a mass of money, which, by existing circumstances, is either excluded from the faculty of yielding interest to the owners altogether, or, in the hands of bankers or otherwise, they are obliged to accept, on inferior security, a rate of interest inferior, all things considered, to that which, with a very considerable degree of profit, might be allowed by government. The annuities, thus created, to be charged upon the existing fund; and the money thus raised to be employed, as it comes in, in the redemption of debt, and thence in exoneration of that fund. The result and benefit of the measure, taking it on the smallest scale, will, besides the above profit to government, consist in the affording to the least opulent and most numerous class of individuals (friendly societies included)—in a word, to the great bulk of the community—the means of placing out small hoards, however minute, with a degree of advantage unattainable by any other means,† and this, too, even at compound interest—a mode of accumulation which, familiar as it is in name, is not in effect capable of being realized by any other means in favour of individuals, though so happily brought to bear in favour of the public in the instance of the sinking funds;‡ —not to speak of the collateral advantage obtained, by creating on the part of the lower orders, in respect of the proposed new species of property, a fresh and more palpable interest in the support of that government, on the tranquillity of which the existence of such their property will depend.*

On the larger scale upon which it may be expected to expand itself, the measure, after accelerating the otherwise rapid ascent of government annuities to the par price,† and clearing away the 4 and 5 per cents.,‡ would afford the means of bringing the further reduction of the rate of interest on those annuities to its maximum in point of effect, rate of reduction, and rapidity, taken together;∥reduction of interest accelerating, too, in this way, redemption of principal, instead of taking place of it and retarding it, as on the plan pursued in Mr. Pelham’s days.§

Other paper currencies have been either (like the French assignats and mandats, &c.) engagements for money in unlimited quantity, and without funds for performance; or promises of minute portions of a species of property (for example lands and houses) incapable of being reduced into such portions; or, like some of the American currencies, promises of metallic money, payable at a period altogether indefinite, dating, for instance, from a fixed day posterior to the conclusion of a war.

By the proposed currency, nothing is engaged for but to pay such monies as there are already funds for paying, and at such times at which there are funds for paying them; and this in a quantity which, by the terms of the engagement, has its ne plus ultra, and can in no case add to the existing amount of the engagements it finds charged upon those funds: reimbursing immediately, and with profit, the fund on which it draws, it stands distinguished by this prominent feature, from all currencies as yet exemplified.¶

The losses, experienced or apprehended, from rash or penniless issuers of promissory notes, gave birth to the restrictions imposed on issues of sums below a certain magnitude. But this reason has no application to notes expressive of engagements, of the sort proposed, on the part of government. Issuing from such a source, the sums of the notes cannot be too minute: incapable of increasing, certain even of diminishing, the amount of the engagements they find existing, the influx of them cannot be too great. The smallness of the notes adds to the multitude of the customers; the multitude of the notes divides the mass of the engagements, and does not add to it. Confined within those bounds, the magnitude of the emission adds not only to the profit of the measure, but to the security of the fund.

A species of notes was not long ago proposed, whereby government annuities were to stand mortgaged, and yet (it was supposed) without diminution of their value:—and which were expected to pass, and be paid for as if they had engaged for the payment of so much money, though without binding any assignable individual to the payment of it. But the now proposed plan engages for no payment for which adequate funds are not already in existence; nor without imposing on a determinate individual the obligation of making the payment out of those funds; nor yet burthens those funds, without immediately disburthening them to a superior amount.

By taking from the load of government annuities which is found pressing on the market, the sale of the land tax for stock has bettered the terms of all succeeding loans. On the measure now proposed, hangs a profit the same in kind, superior in degree.*

Reducing the mass of the national debt, the operation on the land tax takes nothing from the mass of national capital;—the proposed measure adds to it. The former borrows from capital, but refunds immediately, with 10 per cent. to boot; the latter adds still more to capital, and that as speedily, without having borrowed anything.†

Every penny of the national debt redeemed, if redeemed with money not borrowed from capital, is so much added (it will be shown) to that part of the national capital which does not consist of money. The addition made by the sinking fund to the mass of national capital, is little inferior to the defalcation it makes from the mass of national debt. So many years as, by the aid of the proposed measure, may come to be struck off from the period which would otherwise have been occupied in the redemption of the debt, so many years’ interest, upon the sum equal to the greatest amount of that debt, will therefore have been added, and that at compound interest, to the amount of national capital, by the operation of the proposed measure.

A sort of discovery in political economy has been made of late (for such it seems to be,) that commercial security is not less liable to suffer by deficiency than by excess, in respect of the customary quantity of paper in circulation. Among the advantages attendant on the proposed paper, will be found that of affording a remedy, and that of the preventive kind, against the shocks which commercial security might otherwise have to sustain from such deficiency or excess.‡

Shocks of that kind are not, however, the only mischief to which the community stands exposed, not only by the abuse, but even by the use, of every species of circulating paper as yet known. Rise of prices is another mischief, less heeded, but not less real. By gold and silver money to the same amount, the same mischief would (it is true) be produced, and in the same degree; but the magnitude of the mischief is in proportion to the suddenness of the addition, not to the absolute quantum of it; and, in the shape of cash, the influx is not susceptible of any such suddenness as in the shape of paper. To be capable of opposing an effectual barrier to a torrent of this sort, will be found to be among the properties of the proposed paper. To point out measures adequate to that end, is among the tasks undertaken in the plan of the proposed measure.∥

The extent of the proposed emission being given, neither the efficiency nor the utility of the measure will be found open to dispute: the only room for uncertainty regards the extent. As to that point, cases are collected, presumptions offered: but nothing short of experience can determine.

[† ]See Chap. XI.

[‡ ]On the first institution of the sinking fund, either designedly or undesignedly, the facts seem to have been forgotten, that all the accumulations at compound interest would arise from taxes; as also that to borrow with one hand, and at the same time to redeem with the other, must be attended with loss. The loss occasioned by this latter practice has been ably exhibited in Dr. Hamilton’s Work on the national debt.—Ed.

[* ]See Chap. XII.

[† ]See Chap. V. § 1.

[‡ ]See Chap. V. § 2.

[∥ ]See Chap. V. §§ 3, 4, & 5.

[§ ]See Chap. X.

[¶ ]See Chaps. I. III. & IV.

[* ]See Chap. V. § 6.

[† ]See Chap. VI.

[‡ ]See Chap. VII.

[∥ ]See Chapters VIII. & IX.