168 Whether national wants ought not to be the rule of trade? And whether the most pressing wants of. the majority ought not to be first considered?
169 Whether it is possible the country should be well improved, while our beef is exported, and our labourers live upon potatoes?
170 If it be resolved that we cannot do without foreign trade, whether, at least, it may not be worth while to consider what branches thereof deserve to be entertained, and how far we may be able to carry it on under our present limitations?
171 What foreign imports may be necessary for clothing and feeding the families of persons not worth above one hundred pounds a year? And how many wealthier there are in the kingdom, and what proportion they bear to the other inhabitants?
172 Whether trade be not then on a right foot, when foreign commodities are imported in exchange only for domestic superfluities?
173 Whether the quantities of beef, butter, wool, and leather, exported from this island, can be reckoned the superfluities of a country, where there are so many natives naked and famished?
174 Whether it would not be wise so to order our trade as to export manufactures rather than provisions, and of those such as employ most hands?
175 Whether she would not be a very vile matron, and justly thought either mad or foolish, that should give away the necessaries of life from her naked and famished children, in exchange for pearls to stick in her hair, and sweetmeats to please her own palate?
176 Whether a nation might not be considered as a family?
177 Whether the remark made by a Venetian ambassador to Cardinal Richelieu -- 'That France needed nothing to be rich and easy, but to know how to spend what she dissipates' may not be of use also to other people?
178 Whether hungry cattle will not leap over bounds? And whether most men are not hungry in a country where expensive fashions obtain?
179 Whether there should not be published yearly, schedules of our trade, containing an account of the imports and exports of the foregoing year?
180 Whether other methods may not be found for supplying the funds, besides the custom on things imported?
181 Whether any art or manufacture be so difficult as the ****** of good laws?
182 Whether our peers and gentlemen are born legislators? Or, whether that faculty be acquired by study and reflection?
183 Whether to comprehend the real interest of a people, and the means to procure it, doth not imply some fund of knowledge, historical, moral, and political, with a faculty of reason improved by learning?
184 Whether every enemy to learning be not a Goth? And whether every such Goth among us be not an enemy to the country?
185 Whether, therefore, it would not be an omen of ill presage, a dreadful phenomenon in the land, if our great men should take it in their heads to deride learning and education?
186 Whether, on the contrary, it should not seem worth while to erect a mart of literature in this kingdom, under wiser regulations and better discipline than in any other part of Europe? And whether this would not be an infallible means of drawing men and money into the kingdom?
187 Whether the governed be not too numerous for the governing part of our college? And whether it might not be expedient to convert thirty natives-places into twenty fellowships?
188 Whether, if we had two colleges, there might not spring a useful emulation between them? And whether it might not be contrived so to divide the fellows, scholars, and revenues between both, as that no member should be a loser thereby?
189 Whether ten thousand pounds well laid out might not build a decent college, fit to contain two hundred persons; and whether the purchase money of the chambers would not go a good way towards defraying the expense?
190 Where this college should be situated?
191 Whether, in imitation of the Jesuits at Paris, who admit Protestants to study in their colleges, it may not be right for us also to admit Roman Catholics into our college, without obliging them to attend chapel duties, or catechisms, or divinity lectures? And whether this might not keep money in the kingdom, and prevent the prejudices of a foreign education?
192 Whether it is possible a State should not thrive, whereof the lower part were industrious, and the upper wise?
193 Whether the collected wisdom of ages and nations be not found in books?
194 Whether Themistocles his art of ****** a little city, or a little people, become a great one be learned anywhere so well as in the writings of the ancients?
195 Whether a wise State hath any interest nearer heart than the education of youth?
196 Whether the mind, like soil, doth not by disuse grow stiff and whether reasoning and study be not like stirring and dividing the glebe?
197 Whether an early habit of reflexion, although obtained by speculative sciences, may not have its use in practical affairs?
198 Whether even those parts of academical learning which are quite forgotten may not have improved and enriched the soil, like those vegetables which are raised, not for themselves, but ploughed in for a dressing of land?
199 Whether it was not an Irish professor who first opened the public schools at Oxford? Whether this island hath not been anciently famous for learning? And whether at this day it hath any better chance for being considerable?
200 Whether we may not with better grace sit down and complain, when we have done all that lies in our power to help ourselves?
201 Whether the gentleman of estate hath a right to be idle; and whether he ought not to be the great promoter and director of industry among his tenants and neighbours?
202 Whether in the cantons of Switzerland all under thirty years of age are not excluded from their great councils?
203 Whether Homer's compendium of education, would not be a good rule for modern educators of youth? And whether half the learning and study of these kingdoms is not useless, for want of a proper delivery and punctuation being taught in our schools and colleges?