Excerpt from On the Constitutional and Moral Right or Wrong of Our National DebtThose who traffic in the Public Debt of a country have, in one important respect, an interest directly the opposite to the fixed creditor, just as the speculators in Railway Stock have an opposite interest from the shareholders in general. The permanent holder will be benefited by knowing the whole truth of the concern. If it have weak points, - if his rights have a less pecuniary value than he thinks, - he cannot wish to be buoyed up by false notions, except when the contingency presents itself of wishing to sell his interest to a stranger. Now, inasmuch as the great mass of the English funded debt is held either by trustees or by persons who have selected it as a permanent investment, these have nothing to gain, but in prospect something to lose, by concealment and by inflated hopes: while, on the contrary, it is unfortunate that the useful class of men who from month to month buy and sell largely in the Funded Debt, have a direct and powerful temptation to deprecate all inquiry into its history, its theory, and its prospects. Any discussion, however tranquil, however truth-seeking, must be unpalatable to them.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.