Читать книгу John Law of Lauriston. Financier and Statesman, Founder of the Bank of France, Originator of the Mississippi Scheme, Etc онлайн

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Law found in the condition of his native country a congenial subject for treatment according to the economic theories he had developed during his stay on the Continent. In the beginning of 1701 he published his “Proposals and Reasons for Constituting a Council of Trade in Scotland.” In it he advocated changes of a very drastic and radical character, and while they were without question too advanced and impracticable for his day, at least for adoption in their entirety, they show that he was by no means a Utopian theorist, but possessed the insight and foresight of a statesman. He advocated the establishment, under statutory authority, of a Council of Trade entrusted with the sole administration of the national revenue, bringing under that denomination the king’s revenues, the ecclesiastical lands, charitable endowments, and certain other new impositions, such as a tax of one-fortieth on all grain grown in the country, one-twentieth of all sums sued for by litigants, and a legacy duty of one-fortieth. The Council of Trade would control the national treasury and would direct the national expenditure. The uses to which he suggested the moneys thus collected should be directed were all devised in the interests of promotion of trade. After allowing a sufficient sum for the Civil List, the Council were to discover proper means of employing the poor and preventing idleness; establish national granaries; improve the mines and develop the mineral wealth of the country; restore the fisheries to their flourishing condition of the reign of James I.; reduce the interest of money; abolish monopolies; and encourage foreign trade, which was at a very low ebb. Notwithstanding the vigour with which Law advocated his proposals, and notwithstanding the brilliant hopes he held out by their adoption, they received little or no countenance from public opinion, and were regarded as wholly impracticable by Parliament.