“Ah! that interest is the great grievance. If the debt be allowed to accumulate, your nation may be subjected, within half a century from this time, to a permanent charge of interest which would of itself have sufficed to pay for all the wars from the time the debt began. Yes, this annual raising of interest is the grievance;—the transferring such enormous sums from the pockets of some classes of men into hands where it would never naturally find its way. Your ministers may say what they will about the debt being no actual loss to the country, since the whole transaction passes within the country;—this does not lessen the burden to those who have to pay over their earnings to the national creditor, whose capital has been blown away in gunpowder at sea, and buried with the dead bodies of their countrymen abroad.” “Besides,” suggested Marie, “if there is no mischief in carrying on the debt because the transaction passes within the country, there could be no harm in paying it off, since that transaction would also be only a transference.” “Very true. If all were assessed to pay off the public creditor, there would be no total loss. And as for the real evils,—the diversion of capital from its natural channels, and the oppression of industry,—the remedy of these would be so inestimable a relief, that in a little while the parties who paid the largest share would wonder at their own ease, and at the long delay of the nation in shaking off its burdens.” “Like the heir who has resolution to sell a part of his mortgaged estate in order to disencumber the remainder. But who are they that would pay the largest share?” “The richest, of course. All must contribute something. Even the labourer would willingly spare a portion of his earnings for the sake of having his earnings to himself for ever after. But by the aristocracy was this debt proposed; for their sakes was it incurred; by them is it accumulated; while it is certain that the burden is very far from being duly borne by them. From them, therefore, should the liquidation chiefly proceed.” “But did not you say that parliament claps its hands at every proposal to burden posterity?” “Yes: but what kind of a parliament? If Mr. Grey should ever obtain his great object,—if there should ever be a parliament through which the people may speak, and if the people should then declare themselves content to go on bearing the burden that the aristocracy of this day is imposing upon them, why, let the people have their way; and I, for one, shall wish them joy of their patience. But if, when the people can protest, and make their protests heard, they call for such an assessment as shall include all, but fall heaviest on those through whom the debt was incurred, they will do that which is not only just in the abstract, but (like all that is essentially just) that which is most easy, most prudent, and must prove most fortunate.”