Public institutions repay investment across generations

The argument contrasts demands for immediate financial returns with investors who once expected projects to mature over years. It compares a country’s institutions to a mortgage: present generations pay for an asset whose value and utility can grow for their successors. Queen Mary received no personal return from Greenwich because she died before the complex was finished. Later monarchs, governments, naval personnel, scholars, and visitors inherited the benefit instead. The site therefore demonstrates how defence and public infrastructure can justify a hundred-year horizon even when the original sponsor never sees the result.