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CHAPTER XIII.: RECAPITULATION AND CONCLUSION. - Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 3 [1843]

Edition used:

The Works of Jeremy Bentham, published under the Superintendence of his Executor, John Bowring (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1838-1843). 11 vols. Vol. 3.

Part of: The Works of Jeremy Bentham, 11 vols.

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CHAPTER XIII.

RECAPITULATION AND CONCLUSION.

Upon the whole, the proposed measure, it is believed, will be found to promise, with some degree of assurance, the following connected, but perfectly distinct advantages:—

1. Advantage of financial profit, by contributing in so many various, and to such considerable amounts, to the redemption of the principal of the national debt, as well as to the reduction of the rate of interest—and by affording an instrument more advantageous than any other for the application to that end of such means as are or may be provided from other sources.

2. Moral advantages, by the encouragement of frugality, and thence of temperance, among the inferior and most numerous ranks of the community.

3. Constitutional advantages, by constituting an additional bond of connexion with the government, and thence affording an additional safeguard to internal tranquillity.

4. Politico-economical advantage, by addition made to the mass of national productive capital, and thence to the mass of growing wealth.

Each of the above four masses of advantage appears sufficient to warrant an experiment, even should it be attended with some risk. Shall they not all of them together be deemed sufficient to give birth to an experiment altogether free from risk?

Few measures have ever been brought to view pregnant with such high advantages—none in which, in case of success, the degree of success has been beforehand so precisely ascertainable—none in which the deviation from the path of safety, as marked out by experience, is so slight and imperceptible.

Were the proposal expressed in these words—“Make your exchequer bills for small sums,”* —this, though not completely nor correctly expressive of the measure, would express all the innovation of it.

The only feature in the proposed plan, which, separately taken, can be called new, is, the bringing into the market portions of government currency less than heretofore—portions less than have been issued by government in this country, but not less than than what have been issued by governments in other countries, and in this country by individuals.

The other leading features are collected altogether from established institutions. The annuity engaged for is perpetual, but redeemable—the paper containing the evidence of its sale by government, light and transferable—the produce of the sale appropriated to the extinction of the national debt.

If the experiment be tried, the earlier the success the greater;—but sooner or later, and to a certain extent, success is infallible, and even failure would be unattended with loss.

[* ]Supposing the general plan of the proposed annuity-note currency to be discarded, an advantage upon a smaller scale might still be derivable from it, by applying some of the features of it to the improvement of the existing species of government currency called an exchequer bill, in such manner as to cause it to be accepted of at a lower rate of interest than it would otherwise be.

1. It might be made out for much smaller sums, say £10 or £5; that is to say, a part of the whole mass might be broken down with a view to general circulation—a competent portion being reserved in the present large sums for operations on a large scale.

2. It might be furnished with the proposed aids to computation, by proper tables printed on the front or back of it.

3. It might be made to receive those facilities for general circulation, which depend upon the physical qualities of the paper—viz. upon the size, form, texture, and thinness, &c., which are possessed by the notes which compose the currency of the Bank of England.

4. It might be invested with all the new securities against forgery which are here proposed.

5. Markets for the purchase of it might be opened all over the country, by the simple expedient of remitting it, in such quantities and proportions as should be deemed advisable, to the several local offices already in the pay of government:—for example, post-offices—stamp-offices—excise-offices—custom-house offices.

This suggestion is made solely for the purpose of illustration. Compared with the proposed general plan, the sacrifice made by thus confining the application of it, would be a sacrifice without an object. Limited as it is in respect of its total amount—limited as it is in respect of the duration of the annuity conveyed by it, the exchequer-bill currency is radically incapable of meeting the demand of the two classes of petty hoarders; and thus a proportionable part of the accommodation afforded to individuals would be lost. The utmost it could do, would be the going a small part of the way towards meeting the demand for temporary interest on the part of the other great class—possessors of temporary sums—customers for flying annuities:—and even to this portion of the demand, it would become less and less suitable, as the time when the annuity would cease, and the trouble of carrying in the bill for payment, and receiving the redemption money for it, approached.

The supposed modification and improvement of the exchequer-bill currency would be productive of but a part, and that a very small part, of the advantages held out by the institution of the proposed annuity-note currency. But by the institution of the proposed annuity-note currency, the advantages thus derivable from the supposed improvement of the exchequer-bill currency would be obtained in their full extent—obtained in the way of collateral result, and without any distinct measures directed to that end.

At an early period of the exchequer currency, bills were issued for sums as low as £10, or even £5. How it should have happened that the practice of issuing such small notes should have ceased, and the minimum note be raised to and invariably fixed at its present pitch of £100, is not difficult to conceive. The form of the security would naturally be adapted to the convenience of the lenders, more especially as the lenders were individuals acting on their own account, and the borrowers statesmen acting without any personal interest for the public at large. The lenders on this security have been, on the one part, and that the principal part, the immensely opulent company the Bank of England;—on the other part, the small but prodigiously opulent circle of monied men, known to each other, and meeting one another continually at or in the neighbourhood of the Exchange. £100 was a magnitude quite small enough for persons of this class. The faculty of employing in the same way a smaller sum, suppose £50, would have been of no use to them;—even £100 is not so much as they would each be under the necessity of keeping by them, or at their bankers, for the purpose of current expenses, and payments on a small scale. Bills of less magnitude would thus be attended with no advantage, and they would be attended with the disadvantage of making a proportionable addition to the trouble of computation. Another relative disadvantage, and a much more considerable one, is, that the effect of small bills—£10 and £5 bills for example—would be to open the market to a greater number of customers; thence to increase the competition for the article, and to raise the price;—in other words, to lower the rate of interest upon this paper, and thence diminish the profit to be made by purchasing it.

Whether government were aware of this at the time, is a point which at this time of day it might perhaps be difficult to ascertain. They might see it, but not be able to profit by it. If in times such as those of King William and Queen Anne, the connected circle of London monied men concurred in insisting upon large sums in preference to small sums, it would have been difficult for the government to resist:—pressed by the exigencies of the moment, it might have been hazardous, and perhaps impracticable, to wait for the success of an experiment upon the more extended scale. As to the monied men, some would be aware of this, others not:—witness the Bank, who, guided (it should seem) rather by habit than reflection, forbore for such a length of time to give that extension to the circle of customers for their paper, which, when given at last, relieved them from their embarrassments, and seems to have proved that the scarcity which had produced their embarrassments might as properly be called a scarcity of small notes, as a scarcity of cash.