Conceptualizing the Circulation of Wealth, 1756
“LONDON, Novem. 21 [1756]. It ought to alleviate the Sense of our present Disbursements, that the far greater Part of them, both at Home and Abroad, are spent amongst ourselves. The Demands of the Navy employ and enrich an infinite Number of industrious and worthy People. The Farmer, the Grazier, the Ship-builder, the Sail-maker, the Rope-maker, &c. A multitude of Trades are enlivened, a prodigious Quantity of our Commodities, and Manufacturers are consumed; and, in a Word, what the Public pays, the Public receive.
Abroad whatever we Dispense is among our own Countrymen, and after circulating a little, and thereby answering many excellent Purposes in our Colonies, at length finds its Way back to Great-Britain. Industry recovers what Necessity obliged us to lay out; and the Inhabitants of North-America, thus assisted by their Mother Country, will be enabled to resume their old, and very probably to strike out new Means of accumulating Wealth to themselves, and consequently enriching us.
Could there be once a Means found out of raising Money within the Year, or of reimbursing what was borrowed upon a settled Peace, we should scarce feel the Weight of such Disbursements, which, in Reality, are rather a Variation of Property, than any Consumption of it. A Variation that has its Advantages, and raises many active, intelligent, and publick spirited Persons into a Sphere, which may give them an Opportunity of being as useful to the Common-weal, as the present Circumstances of Society has been to them.”
New York Mercury, 16 February 1756.
TMT: This portrayal of the circulation of wealth and the impact of the national debt on Great Britain’s imperial economy comes early in the Seven Years’ War.
Posted in economy, Mercantilism, Seven Years' War |
