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PERMANENT ANNUITIES 423 
cruing to subsequent generations from the military triumphs 40 
of the past, can hardly be assessed in terms of money. It is ’ 
impossible to say what quota of the expense of Marlborough’s 
campaigns could be fairly imposed on Englishmen in the 
latter part of the nineteenth century. Political gains and 
military successes are often very transient advantages. If 
it is fair to postpone the reckoning, it is also necessary 
to take account of the rapid depreciation which affects this — 
species of national gain. It is not easy to adduce good sating 
reasons for deferring payment for military expense for more boners 
than a generation, and there is an undoubted danger that 
statesmen, who find they can obtain money easily, may be 
more tempted to engage in reckless undertakings, than if 
they were compelled at every step to look at ways and 
means. However this may be, it may still be said that the 
possession of such a powerful instrument of finance cannot 
but be beneficial to the country, even if we are forced to 
admit that it has not always been used with discretion. 
The chief point, at which the new system of finance lay 
open to criticism, was in the rapid increase in the charges and of ing 
which had to be defrayed by annual taxation, in consequence the charges 
of the necessity of paying interest on the growing national ** "*"“ 
debt. Charles Davenant, who discussed the new methods 
from a Tory standpoint, noted that when there is a heavy per- 
manent burden, there tends to be less room for new exactions 
on occasions of special emergency?; and after twenty years’ 
experience, this objection ceased to be closely associated with 
Tory jealousy. It became obvious to all dispassionate ob- 
servers that the system had been pursued to a dangerous 
extent. Archibald Hutcheson wrote most judiciously on the 
subject, and analysed the losses to the community from 
the pressure of debt, in the rise of prices, the depression of 
trade, and payment of interest to foreigners®. He urged that 
immediate steps should be taken to effect the repayment of 
the debt, as it stood in 1717. He would have appropriated 
a tenth part of all real and all personal estate to this object, 
as he believed that there would be such a revival of pro- 
sperity, when the pressure of taxation was lightened, that 
the landed interest, the trading interest, and the moneyed 
\ Essay on Ways and Means, in Works, 1. 28. 2 Qollection of Treatises, p. 20.