Opulence is valuable, not merely on its own account, but as a security — Opulence

"Opulence is valuable, not merely on its own account, but as a security for subsistence. The rich, were they to deserve proscription because of their riches, deserve to be saved from proscription in quality of bankers to the poor. Estates broken down to the scantling in question, or to any thing like that scantling, would afford no resource against scarcity, or any other calamity, such as fire, famine, or pestilence, that required a considerable treasure in store to be employed to alleviate the load of it. They would afford no fund for the expenses of a war, even of a defensive one. Along with the whole stock of opulence, would go that branch of security which depends upon the means of national defence. In war, the measure of raising within the year supplies for the service of the year — desirable as such a measure would in the opinion of every one be, if it were practicable, has always been given up as attended with too much difficulty and even danger, to be attempted; and this even in the present state of opulence, when the number of those capable of contributing, and contributing largely, is so great. How would it be when those who were best able to contribute had but £20 a-year to live on?"