A Survey of Political Economy

Front Cover
Edmonston and Douglas, 1871 - Economics - 432 pages

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 307 - The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities ; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.
Page 307 - Every tax ought to be so contrived as both to take out and to keep out of the pockets of the people as little as possible, over and above what it brings into the public treasury of the state.
Page 307 - Every tax ought to be levied at the time, or in the manner in which it is most likely to be convenient for the contributor to pay it.
Page 178 - That any character — from the best to the worst, from the most ignorant to the most enlightened — may be given to any community, even to the world at large, by applying certain means, which are to a great extent at the command and under the control, or easily made so, of those who possess the government of nations.
Page 222 - But in all things which admit of indefinite multiplication, demand and supply only determine the perturbations of value, during a period which cannot exceed the length of time necessary for altering the supply. While thus ruling the oscillations of value, they themselves obey a superior force, which makes value gravitate towards cost of production, and which wonlil settle it and keep it there, if fresh disturbing influences were not continually arising to make it again deviate.
Page 385 - Egypt for badness: and the lean and the ill favoured kine did eat up the first seven fat kine: and when they had eaten them up, it could not be known that they had eaten them; but they were still ill favoured, as at the beginning.
Page 355 - Some of the best English writers upon commerce set out with observing, that the wealth of a country consists, not in its gold and silver only, but in its lands, houses, and consumable goods of all different kinds. In the course of their reasonings, however, the lands, houses, and consumable goods, seem to slip out of their memory ; and the strain of their argument frequently supposes that all wealth consists in gold and silver, and that to multiply those metals is the great object of national industry...
Page 98 - ... it is the law of production from the land, that in any given state of agricultural skill and knowledge, by increasing the labour, the produce is not increased in an equal degree; doubling the...
Page 356 - The ordinary means therefore to increase our wealth and treasure is by Foreign Trade, wherein we must ever observe this rule; to sell more to strangers yearly than we consume of theirs in value.
Page 178 - The world's great age begins anew, The golden years return, The earth doth like a snake renew Her winter weeds outworn: Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.

Bibliographic information