Debtors are always the poorer people

Increasing prices of foreign goods —foreign import tax a good idea.

Money & foreign trade?

The wealth of a nation?

The wealth of a nation consists of its land, its houses, its men and its money,

Taxes … when does it really disarmed the wealth of a private individual ?

Vices and bad faith

Burdens … burden of the state?

“Less needful”

Rewards and punishments — unjustly distributed ?

Injust distribution ?

definition of tyranny, which is:
that state of government, whether it msrht be of many | people or of a few, or of a single person, in which |
Policies arising out of necessi-
not wish to pay, he has thousands of ways of not pay­ ing besides augmenting the money. If he cannot pay,
it is, foolish for his subjects to expect to be paid by himregardlessofhowhedoesso. Ifhehasnothing that is personally his own, except for the supreme au­ thority over goods and provisions, he makes a useless, vicious circle by paying,’because he gives back to his subjects their own goods, but with this sole difference: he takes from all, but gives to a few who are more de­ serving than others. However, if the creditors of the prince should be the wealthiest of his subjects, it would be most unjust for him to take from the poor in order to give to the less needy. In situations of dis­
aster, precisely those who do not serve the prince are
those who are impoverished, including peasants and the
i
ties do not blemish faith.
It is not necessary to discuss augmentation when it is done without reason.
necessary, does not diminish faith, it increases com­ passion. We saw this occur in the republic of Genoa not too- many years ago. Misfortunes that proceed from natural causes do not make mean fearful, but vices and bad faith do, when they cannot be checked by anxious fearorsuperiorauthority. Theprincewillbejust andpeoplewillhavefaithinhim. Hewillaugmentthe currencywhennecessaryandnoneshallcomplain. He
will not pay when he cannot, and his not being able to dosoisnothisfault. Hewillnotbepitiedanymore; he will be helped with great fervor.
Fear arises in my mind that many might believe others have intended to discuss augmentation of the currency differently than I have, albeit, unnecessarily. If this is how they have thought (and I do not believe they have) they would, for this reason, be more to
blame than I. For no doctor who writes of the virtues of medications would discuss them in order that they
may be given to the healthy; just as jurisconsults never deal in penalties which are to be unjustly in­ flictedontheinnocent. Itisnotworthyofanyone who delights in writing about something accurately to suppose that it is always administered at the wrong time and for the wrong reasons. And no one can write
a book on this matter,.on this assumption, in such cases. What would be involved could be said in only two lines, without exception: Everything which is done for the purpose of being destructive and unreasonable isinappropriate. Thebotanistwhowoulddiscussthe
virtues of the unsophisticated in this fashion would have concluded this book on the first page.
FALSE HARMS TO THE PEOPLE.
lower artisans. Consequently, the prince is to be com- j
mended if he pays less than agreed and if he reduces
wages when, as a result of his not having any more mo- ney, he realizes that it is not expedient to bleed dry |
the unhappy peasants, who are already so desolated by j
the barbarity of wars, in order to completely satisfy
the richest financiers. Hence, it is obvious that those writers who display the most rigid rules in cry-
ing out against high wages, and who argue that such
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expenditures are like so much blood, taken from denuded |
and famished farmers — are contradictory. For all i
this, they blame the policy of augmenting the money, and, what is even more marvelous, they know that this
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the rewards and punishments are unjustly distributed,
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