II. In the second place, both conditions (and all other possible ones) agree in the destructibility or improvability of the store by its holders. Whether in private hands, or under Government charge, the national store may be daily consumed, or daily enlarged, by its possessors; and while the currency remains apparently unaltered, the property it represents may diminish or increase. The first question, then, which we have to put under our simple conception of central Government, namely, "What store has it?" is one of equal importance, whatever may be the constitution of the State; while the second question--namely, "Who are the holders of the store?"--involves the discussion of the constitution of the State itself. The first inquiry resolves itself into three heads: 1. What is the nature of the store? 2. What is its quantity in relation to the population? 3. What is its quantity in relation to the currency? The second inquiry, into two: 1. Who are the Holders of the store, and in what proportions? 2. Who are the Claimants of the store (that is to say, the holders of the currency), and in what proportions? We will examine the range of the first three questions in the present paper; of the two following, in the sequel. Question First. What is the nature of the store? Has the nation hitherto worked for and gathered the right thing or the wrong? On that issue rest the possibilities of its life. For example, let us imagine a society, of no great extent, occupied in procuring and laying up store of corn, wine, wool, silk, and other such preservable materials of food and clothing; and that it has a currency representing them. Imagine farther, that on days of festivity, the society, discovering itself to derive satisfaction from pyrotechnics, gradually turns its attention more and more to the manufacture of gunpowder; so that an increasing number of labourers, giving what time they can spare to this branch of industry, bring increasing quantities of combustibles into the store, and use the general orders received in exchange to obtain such wine, wool, or corn as they may have need of. The currency remains the same, and represents precisely the same amount of material in the store, and of labour spent in producing it. But the corn and wine gradually vanish, and in their place, as gradually, appear sulphur and saltpetre; till at last, the labourers who have consumed corn and supplied nitre, presenting on a festal morning some of their currency to obtain materials for the feast, discover that no amount of currency will command anything Festive, except Fire. The supply of rockets is unlimited, but that of food limited in a quite final manner; and the whole currency in the hands of the society represents an infinite power of detonation, but none of existence.