11. Let us understand then, in the outset, the moral difference between a national debt and a national store.1

A national debt, like any other, may be honestly incurred in case of need, and honestly paid in due time. But if a man should be ashamed to borrow, much more should a people and if a father holds it his honour to provide for his children, and would be ashamed to borrow from them, and leave, with his blessing, his note of hand, for his grandchildren to pay, much more should a nation be ashamed to borrow, in any case, or in any manner; and if it borrow at all, it is at least in honour bound to borrow from living men, and not indebt itself to its own unborn brats. If it can't provide for them, at least let it not send their cradles to the pawnbroker, and pick the pockets of their first breeches.

A national debt, then, is a foul disgrace, at the best. But it is, as now constituted, also a foul crime. National debts paying interest are simply the purchase, by the rich, of power to tax the poor. Read carefully the analysis given of them above, Letter 8, § 5.2

12. The financial operations of the St. George's Company will be the direct reverse of these hitherto approved arrangements. They will consist in the accumulation of national wealth and store, and therefore in distribution to the poor, instead of taxation of them; and the fathers will provide for, and nobly endow, not steal from, their children, and children's children.

My readers, however, will even yet, I am well aware, however often I have reiterated the statement to them, be unable to grasp the idea of a National Store, as an existing possession. They can conceive nothing but a debt;-nay, there are many of them who have a confused notion that a debt is a store!

The store of the St. George's Company, then, is to be primarily of food; next of materials for clothing and covert;

1 [Compare Munera Pulveris, ch. ii. ("Store-keeping"), Vol. XVII. p. 164.] 2 [Vol. XXVII. pp. 136-137.]

next of books and works of art,-food, clothes, books, and works of art being all good, and every poisonous condition of any of them destroyed. The food will not be purveyed by the Borgia, nor the clothing dyed by Deianira, nor the scriptures written under dictation of the Devil instead of God.1

13. The most simply measurable part of the store of food and clothing will be the basis of the currency, which will be thus constituted.

The standard of value will be a given weight or measure of grain, wine, wool, silk, flax, wood, and marble; all answered for by the government as of fine and pure quality. variable only within narrow limits.

The grain will be either wheat, oats, barley, rice, or maize; the wine of pure vintage, and not less than ten years old; the wool, silk, and flax of such standard as can be secured in constancy; the wood, seasoned oak and pine; and for fuel in log and faggot, with finest wood and marble for sculpture. The penny's worth, florin's worth, ducat's worth, and hundred ducats' worth of each of these articles will be a given weight or measure of them (the penny roll of our present breakfast table furnishing some notion of what, practically, the grain standard will become). Into the question of equivalent value I do not enter here; it will be at once determined practically as soon as the system is in work. Of these articles the government will always have in its possession as much as may meet the entire demand of its currency in circulation. That is to say, when it has a million in circulation, the million's worth of solid property must be in its storehouses: as much more as it can gather, of course; but never less. So that, not only, for his penny, florin, ducat, or hundred-ducat note, a man may always be certain of having his pound, or ton, or * Thus excluding all inferior kinds: wine which will keep ten years will keep fifty.2

1 [For "the crimes of a Borgia," see Vol. XVI. p. 404; for Deianira and the blood-stained shirt of Nessus, Vol. XXVII. p. 428; for "scriptures written under the dictation of the Devil," Letter 78 and Appendix 14 (Vol. XXIX. pp. 133, 562).] 2 [On St. George's laws about wine, see Appendix 13, Vol. XXIX. p. 561.]

pint, or cask, of the thing he chooses to ask for, from the government storehouses, but if the holders of the million of currency came in one day to ask for their money's worth, it would be found ready for them in one or other form of those substantial articles. Consequently, the sum of the circulating currency being known, the minimum quantity of store will be known. The sum of the entire currency, in and out of circulation, will be given annually on every note issued (no issues of currency being made but on the first day of the year), and in each district, every morning, the quantities of the currency in and out of circulation in that district will be placarded at the doors of the government district bank.

14. The metallic currency will be of absolutely pure gold and silver, and of those metals only; the ducat and half-ducat in gold, the florin, penny, halfpenny, and onefifth of penny in silver; the smaller coins being beat thin and pierced, the halfpenny with two, the one-fifth of penny with five, apertures.* I believe this double-centime will be as fine a divisor as I shall need. The florin will be worth tenpence; the ducat, twenty florins.

The weight of the ducat will be a little greater than that of the standard English sovereign, and, being in absolutely pure gold, it will be worth at least five-and-twenty shillings of our present coinage. On one of its sides it will bear the figure of the archangel Michael; on the reverse, a branch of Alpine rose: above the rose-branch, the words "Sit splendor"; † above the Michael, "Fiat voluntas"; under

* I shall use this delicate coinage as a means of education in fineness of touch, and care of small things, and for practical lessons in arithmetic, to the younger children, in whose hands it will principally be. It will never be wanted for alms; and for small purchases, as no wares will be offered at elevenpence three-farthings for a shilling, or ninepence fourfifths for a florin, there will be no unreasonable trouble. The children shall buy their own toys, and have none till they are able to do so.

†The beginning of the last verse of the prayer of Moses, Psalm xc.2

p. 342).]

2

[For a later reference to this proposed coinage, see Letter 86, § 8 (Vol. XXIX. [See, later, a Letter (63) with this title.]

the rose-branch, "sicut in cœlo"; under the Michael, "et in terrâ," with the year of the coinage: and round the edge of the coin, "Domini."

The half-ducat will bear the same stamp, except that while on the ducat the St. Michael will be represented standing on the dragon, on the half-ducat he will be simply armed, and bearing St. George's shield.

On the florin, the St. George's shield only; the Alpine rose on all three.

On the penny, St. George's shield on one side and the English daisy on the other, without inscription.1 The pierced fractional coins will only bear a chased wreathen fillet, with the required apertures in its interstices.

15. There will be a considerable loss by wear on a coinage of this pure metal; but nothing is so materially conducive to the honour of a state in all financial function as the purity of its coinage; and the loss will never, on the whole currency, equal annually the tenth part of the value of the gunpowder spent at present in salutes or fireworks; and, if a nation can afford to pay for loyal noise, and fancies in fire, it may also, and much more rationally, for loyal truth and beauty in its circulating signs of wealth. Nor do I doubt that a currency thus constituted will gradually enter into European commerce, and become everywhere recognized and exemplary.

Supposing any Continental extension of the Company itself took place, its coinage would remain the same for the ducat, but the shield of the State or Province would be substituted for St. George's on the minor coins.

16. There will be no ultimate difficulty in obtaining the bullion necessary for this coinage, for the State will have no use for the precious metals, except for its currency or its art. An Englishman, as he is at present educated, takes pride in eating out of a silver plate; and in helping, out of a silver tureen, the richest swindlers he can ask to dinner.

1

1 [Compare Proserpina, i, ch. vii. § 1 (Vol. XXV. p. 291).]

The Companions of St. George may drink out of pewter, and eat off delft, but they will have no knaves for guests, though often beggars; and they will be always perfectly well able to afford to buy five or ten pounds' worth of gold and silver for their pocket change; and even think it no overwhelming fiscal calamity if as much even as ten shillings should be actually lost in the year, by the wear of it; seeing that the wear of their dinner napkins will be considerably greater in the same time. I suppose that ten pounds' worth of bullion for the head of each family will amply supply the necessary quantity for circulation; but if it should be found convenient to have fifteentwenty-or fifty pounds in such form, the national store will assuredly in time accumulate to such desirable level. But it will always be a matter of absolute financial indifference, what part of the currency is in gold and what in paper; its power being simply that of a government receipt for goods received, giving claim to their return on demand.' The holder of the receipt may have it, if he likes, written on gold instead of paper, provided he bring the gold for it to be written on; but he may no more have a bar of gold made into money than a roll of foolscap, unless he brings the goods for which the currency is the receipt. And it will therefore, by St. George's law, be as much forgery to imitate the national coin in gold, as in paper.

17. Next to this store, which is the basis of its currency, the government will attend to the increase of store of animal food-not mummy food, in tins, but living, on land and sea; keeping under strictest overseership its breeders of cattle, and fishermen, and having always at its command such supply of animal food as may enable it to secure absolute consistency of price in the main markets. In cases when, by any disease or accident, the supply of any given animal food becomes difficult, its price will not be raised, but its sale stopped. There can be no evasion of such prohibition, because every tradesman in food will be merely the salaried

1 [Compare Letter 44, § 11 n. (p. 134).]