Part 24

Q. How can men of probity and knowledge be blind to the iniquity of such a scheme?—Will not at least its execution be somewhat impeded by the greatest part of those who follow the same trade?

A. No—that is impossible: our corporations have already provided against the inconvenience you allude to: not one of their members would dare to sell his merchandise below the price fixed by his corporation: and we have made, as it were, the impossibility of any such measure, doubly so, by the difficulties we have devised to prevent a ready admittance into our corporations; all our bye-laws tend to reduce our associates to the smallest number possible. But one single expedient is now wanted to put the finishing hand to that grand work; it is the absolute prohibition of importing all those commodities which foreign nations might offer at a cheaper rate, than we are determined to sell them at.

Q. So then, if you succeed in your plan—if by means of the solicited prohibition, the legislature enable you to extort, with your 16 in merchandise, the goods and money, which, in the case of a foreign competition, you could not have procured with less than 20, what do you intend to do with the remaining part of what you shall have extorted?

A. We shall send it abroad.

Q. With what view?

A. Of increasing the balance in money.

Q. Have you hitherto acted confidently with that idea?

A. We have—and it is known to all the world that it is the dearest idea of an Englishman—an idea which the nation holds (if properly attended to) as the only bulwark against a national bankruptcy.

Q. What have you got by that idea, if it be probable that there is not above 25 or 30 millions in specie within the kingdom, and if it be proved evidently that it is impossible you should have more than 35?

A. The reason is, no doubt, that foreign importation has been too freely permitted; a criminal, a traiterous indulgence which we are incessantly at work to remove: and it is on that account, that besides the absolute prohibition we now pray for in regard to such and such articles, we also petition that the duties be laid double and treble on all other foreign articles which are not yet totally prohibited.

Q. Do you not fear that foreigners, whose merchandise you would cause to be prohibited, should play the same trick with yours? Do you not fear that those on whose goods you mean to increase the duties, should in their turn overload those which they will receive from you?—For this is all the conjuration requisite to counteract and balance the effect of those sublime regulations which you petition for.

A. We shall carry on a smuggling trade in their country, and they will pay dearer for our goods; they cannot do without them.

Q. They will, no doubt, follow your example: therefore new recruits will be wanted for that army of rogues and idlers, designed to lay hold of, and ruin whoever should dare to oppose your ransoming the owners of lands, and proprietors of some money; but be it so:—you will besides be equally successful in obliging the poor ransomed individuals, to pay for the additional and necessary reinforcement of your standing army of rogues and idlers, and for those light troops of informers so well fitted for the noble purpose you are carrying on;—be it so again.—But, after all, what are you to do with that immense balance in money?—Shall you bury it under ground?

A. Aye—and with all our hearts and souls, if, when thus buried, it could bring to us the same benefit as when it is rendered useful to some one else; but alas! that secret is not yet found out: it might be possible, however, to pray for an Act of Parliament, compelling the nation to pay the interest of all the sums thus interred by us; and the wisdom of such an Act would be the more conspicuous, as it would keep within the reach, under the very hand of the nation, all the money she might have occasion for, whenever she should think it expedient to declare war against France, our natural enemy. Till such an Act is framed, we shall follow the example of Holland; we shall keep on the carrying trade, by which the Dutch have gained so much money notwithstanding our Navigation Act, which we fondly hoped was calculated to effect their ruin: we shall carry from Russia to Sicily, from Constantinople to Poland, from Stockholm to Cadiz, from Lisbon to Venice, whatever may be carried from one place to the other, and this we shall do at the lowest prices, in order to get the preference of the Dutch. It is a great pity that this cannot be effected without benefiting the land-owners, and the proprietors of some money, in all the countries where we may stand in competition for that carrying trade, not only with the Dutch, but with all the national monopolists who shall not have as yet been dexterous enough to force from their legislature, laws as favourable to commerce as those we have obtained; but in fact, what matters it to us whom we serve, provided we get a good profit from the service?

Q. Will you add further: And provided also that the service done, falls not on the land-owner, or on the proprietor of some money within your nation?—Yet thus far would you finally be led by that system of prohibitions and restrictions, almost equally extravagant, to which you are so devoutly attached.—But such a plan can succeed only to a certain degree: be pleased to observe, that hitherto you can boast of no other advantage but that of the first attack.—Sole and absolute arbiters as you are of your own prices by the monopoly you have obtained, if agriculture had not advanced those of her products in the same proportion, would not your land-owners be compelled to seek abroad for a country where monopoly should not be so obligingly countenanced? For you do not, I presume, flatter yourselves that you shall be able to induce your Parliament, in the age we live in, doubly to tax the property of those who might look abroad for a remedy against your extortions:—the many laws of that kind consigned to your annals, (and which you would not fail to quote as a precedent,) must seek in the ignorance and barbarity of the age that gave them birth, an apology for their establishment; but at this present time!—Such shades in the picture of the Land of Liberty, instead of setting off the beauties of its other parts, would annihilate the very idea of that liberty. It is by justice and freedom that we are attracted and retained; it is by injustice and restraint that we are expelled, and kept at a distance. Be pleased then, in fine, to observe that nothing can result from those plans, the iniquity of which you have no more searched into than you have thoroughly examined their consequences,—from those prohibitions and restrictions, the effects of which must be counterbalanced by contradictory regulations,—except the pitiful advantage of having perverted the nature of the prices on every article. What is necessary to counteract the effect of an injury done to the generality, will always mechanically be brought about by that very generality. Would it not be more advantageous for men, to agree amongst themselves, like intelligent beings, on some plans accounted equitable by all,—on plans the analysis of which the projector might bear without a blush?—Were a few points agreed upon, it would not perhaps be difficult to settle all the others.

Let the dead bodies be wrapped up in woollen instead of linen cloth; linen coming from abroad, wool being a staple commodity, and the dead caring little whether their winding-sheet be made of woollen or linen: it is a point of economy which it would be rather too severe to condemn, although it is probable enough that in the North they would exchange with pleasure, for your buried woollen, linen cloth in sufficient quantity to wrap up your dead; a circumstance which might prove very beneficial to some of the living, both in England and Silesia. But will you attempt to persuade, that it is advantageous to the State, under any aspect, to compel a man who calls himself free, to wear manufactured buttons, when his inclination would lead him to have them made of remnants of stuff? Will you attempt to persuade, that it is advantageous to the State, to make him pay a penalty of 3 or 4 pounds, besides cost, if he is surprised flagrante delicto? Will you attempt to persuade, that it is advantageous to the State, to encourage the infamous trade of informing, by a reward in favour of an informer, against a man guilty of such a crime? Will you attempt to persuade, that it is advantageous to the State, to withdraw from their useful occupations a swarm of fellows, become capable of any dirty work, by having turned informers on account of the stipulated recompense, and who, waiting for an opportunity of doing worse, leave their work-shops as soon as such a law is passed, in search of a prey the seisure of which will enable them to live in riot and intoxication for a whole week together, without being obliged to return to their work? This is not all; for, in fine, if all the branches of industry have the same right to the protection of Government, does not a law, the immediate effect of which is to enhance the price of buttons by occasioning a greater demand for that article, destroy all idea of that protection equally due to the other branches of industry, by infallibly depriving some of them, both of the amount of the cash they might have received from those who will now be forced, against their inclination, to purchase manufactured buttons, and of the amount of cash which the advanced price of manufactured buttons, will unjustly wrest from those who, by the effect of the law, are obliged to pay dearer for what they might have procured at a cheaper rate? Would not the least facility granted for the importation of some foreign merchandise, have occasioned abroad a greater consumption, either of buttons, or of some other English goods, than such a law can procure at home in the manufactory unjustly favoured? But, above all, will you attempt to persuade, that it is advantageous for the State, to acquire a thousand more button-makers, when that acquisition is obtained by the loss of a thousand artificers employed in manufacturing some other articles, the consumption of which would have been free, that is, analogous to the situation of those who boast of their being so?

Let us seek for such points, as it may be possible to agree upon.

The State is composed of three orders of men, all equally precious, and whose rights are equally sacred; viz. the landed capitalist, the capitalist of industry, and the proprietor of money, whether he be considered as a capitalist in this last respect, or only as a dependent on either of the two former capitalists. Each of these three orders has its interest.

First, It is the highest interest of the landed capitalist, that there be the greatest plenty and variety of the best products of industry, and the greatest consumption of the productions of the earth.

Secondly, It is the highest interest of the capitalist of industry, that there be the greatest plenty and variety of the best productions of the earth, and the greatest consumption of the products of industry.

Thirdly, It is the highest interest of the money proprietor, that there be the largest quantity and variety of the best products both of industry and agriculture, in order that he may be able to support the value of his capital by the quantity of objects on which he will have it in his power to lay it out, and the value of his interest by the greatest possible consumption, not at the lowest price, which, supposed lasting, is as chimerical as the pretended balance, constantly favourable, but at the most equitable rate, that is to say, the highest the seller can hope for, and the lowest to which the purchaser can pretend.

But if it be true, that the combined interest of the three orders be centered within the three points I have stated, namely, the greatest possible quantity and variety of the best productions of the earth, the greatest quantity and variety of the best products of industry, and the greatest as well as most unconfined consumption of both at an equitable price; it is equally true, that it must be a matter of perfect indifference to agriculture, in what part of the world, and by whom her productions are consumed, provided they be paid to her in any products whatever, at her option equivalent to those she has parted with. It is no less true, that it is a matter of perfect indifference to industry, in what part of the world, and by whom, her products are consumed, provided she be paid for them in any products whatever, at her option, equivalent to those she gives. It is equally true, that the money-proprietor must view, with the same indifference, his property giving life to this or that branch of industry or agriculture, provided, that in the hour of need or fancy, he finds at hand, on the most equitable terms, the greatest quantity and variety of the best products of agriculture and industry, which the interest of his money, or the amount of the salaries he enjoys, gives him A RIGHT to expect.

There remains, it is true, a fourth interest, that of the Fisc, or public revenue; but if this revenue be nothing more than the produce of the taxes, this fourth interest consists of course, as the three former, in the largest quantity of products, and the greatest consumption. Now are there any other means to obtain those two objects, besides the freest and most extensive exchange, not of goods for money, but of goods for goods? Is it not perceivable, that all the four interests united, as well as each of them separately, require that no more be imported in bullion or money than the quantity necessary to facilitate those exchanges? Is not a surplus of money not only useless, but even detrimental, in diminishing our enjoyments, our possible profits, and that consumption which produces the public revenue?

The Navigation Act was, if you will have it so, the last effort of the human mind, at a time when every notion relative to commerce, was nearly confined to England alone; but I question much whether the Opposition the most warm in invoking that tutelary God, against the Minister who dares to offer the least encroachment upon its worship, would not be very much pleased to see it destroyed before they themselves should come into office: it is an old idol, to which incense is offered through mere policy, and for which a veneration is kept up in the minds of the people, for the sole purpose of making it subservient to the downfall of the man who might be courageous enough to attempt its destruction. I shall pass over in silence the obstacles which that famous Act daily opposes to regulations as well adapted to the present state of things, as those it contains were to the circumstances that gave it birth; but, to the intoxication produced by its success, I shall be bold enough to impute one of the most mistaken notions on the true aim of national commerce: it is a very fatal error, to imagine that money ought to be the object of those operations of which it is only the means. This chimera, it is true, has never been realised; the wisdom of private cupidities has always triumphed over the folly of general cupidity: nothing more clear than the exactness with which the treasures of America have been shared amongst all the nations of Europe, each in proportion to her agriculture and her industry, that is, according to her wants: at least it appears to me, that the two balances of England and France, which I have produced, are incontrovertible proofs of what I here advance, though they have been imagined and received as proofs of the very contrary; nevertheless, the prejudice concerning these two formidable balances still subsists, and it is this prejudice which daily gives life to new prohibitions, and new restrictions: there is not perhaps in all Europe, a single modern regulation of that kind which does not owe its establishment to this prejudice, and to the power it derives from the veneration paid to it in the place where it was first conceived. The nation who takes the lead in point of commercial knowledge, is every where carefully watched. On the least of her operations, other nations make use of the light she has held forth; her principles are studied, her maxims adopted, her examples followed; every where they are on their guard against her pretensions, pretensions openly avowed, prosecuted without mystery, and crowned, as it is supposed, with success; and when they see, that within the course of a twelvemonth, she has really received more gold and silver than she was wont to receive in three years; when they see the intoxication of her inhabitants on the arrival of those treasures which obey her call from all parts of Europe; when they hear the complaints of her news-paper writers against the untractableness of the Americans, in not suffering themselves to be entirely stripped of their specie; when they attend to her invectives on the combinations of the American merchants to prevent those of England from taking away that trifling sum in specie which the United States want, to give more consistency to their paper-money;—then, indeed, then it is possible to forget every thing else; it is possible not to remark, that, with the same excess of avowed cupidity, England, nevertheless, has not received, in the course of a whole century, (a period sufficient to determine an experiment) England, I say, during a whole century, has disdained to receive her dividend of the treasures imported into Europe; the paper-money circulating in England stands evidently in lieu of a great part of the sum it represents, and which it was at her own option to procure. It is also very pardonable not to reflect then, that it is impossible for England to keep long in her hands without hurting herself, more than any other nation, any money above what is necessary for her. No one takes the trouble of arguing long on causes, when the effect is instantaneously and powerfully felt: Not ~Europe~ alone, but the ~United States~ of ~America~, are stript of their money by ~England~; ~England~ therefore wants not any longer to import foreign goods, or when she advances the price of her own merchandise, she refuses paying dearer for that of other nations. The other nations do not hesitate—English goods are instantly prohibited.

The following principles are such as, I think, can never mislead.

There is not a single nation that cannot boast some palpable advantage over another; nay, there is not a nation, a single province, that has not received some peculiar favour from nature, which the same soil to all appearance, the same temperature, the same exposure, refuse to yield any where else but with double the labour, and double the expence, and which, even with such additional aids, they yield at last only in a state of degradation. Now, that portion of such peculiar favours, which the proprietor of the land does not chuse to consume, belongs only to the greatest quantity of other favours that it is possible to procure in exchange. The more the proprietor procures of such other favours in exchange, the more is he encouraged to increase the quantity of articles which have enabled him to procure those favours; on the contrary, the more he is restrained with regard to those exchanges which he might procure, the more he is circumscribed, even in his means of production. Every restriction therefore tending to diminish either the production or the price of any article whatever, is a theft committed upon the proprietor of the land, upon the province blessed with that favour which is peculiar to it, upon the nation whose general revenue is decreased by the whole amount of the productions stifled in the very bud, upon the exchequer of that nation which would receive a duty on those productions; and finally upon every one capable of presenting the nation with another exchangeable commodity, or waiting only to see those productions, in order to create an equivalent to pay for them.—Does it signify in what part of the world? Must it not, at last, reach the original proprietor, if he be not paid?

What is said of the productions of agriculture, may be applied to those of industry. It is a gross mistake to imagine, that all things can be equally well manufactured every where: how many fabrics, the perfection of which depends on the quality of the water, and other local causes for which it is impossible to account! How many more derive their perfection from the bent of national genius, from the general dispositions, the natural qualities of the inhabitants! Can we expect from the vivacity of the Frenchman, who desires only to consume, what we may expect from the patience of the Englishman, who labours only to enjoy? This latter will always, and in spite of himself, give to his work a solidity which will increase its price as well as its value; the other, in spite of himself, will be busy about the forms best calculated to procure a quick sale: objects of real comfort will always belong to the former, the latter will ever lead the fashions. To hope that the one will produce, without difficulty, what costs little or nothing to the other, would be attempting to give to the wines of hot countries the pleasing acidity proper to the wines of Germany; to these, the restorative and balsamic qualities of the Spanish and Italian wines in the places where they understand how to make them; to the wines of Italy and Germany, that native generosity proper to the wine of Bordeaux; to all of them, the flavour of Burgundy and the sprightliness of Champaign. It is possible, say they, to imitate every thing;—say rather, to adulterate, to corrupt, nay even to poison every thing, if Art can find no other way to counterfeit Nature: and these are the blessed effects of restrictions and prohibitions. It is a strange idea, to think of doing without others; as if that did not lead them to think of doing without us; as if the savage, of whom I have spoken, had not the same reason to prefer his state to that of civilisation.

Nor would it be less strange to persist in setting the interest of the people in opposition to that of the Exchequer, if it were possible to reconcile them together, instead of rendering, almost on every object at present, the infamous trade of informers more lucrative than labour.