Part 26

The first is, that it is impossible in the nature of things, to keep up foreign consumption, upon which depends the continuation of our exports, without giving foreigners leave to increase the price of theirs, by so much as the commodities carried to them must be increased by our taxes;—in the same manner as it is impossible in the nature of things, to keep up interior consumption, national consumption, upon which depends the payment of taxes, without a general interior increase in the price of labour, as well as in the price of its products, when the wants of the State require new contributions.

The second observation which I deem equally essential, is, that such a work, (a work of an utility which may be called universal) has been brought about, consummated, without the Ministers of any State whatsoever being entitled to any glory from the event, except that of having facilitated the operation, if they have favoured the general liberty of communication in all articles of trade; and without their having deserved any other blame but that of retarding it, if their zeal, their greediness for the favourable balance, has suggested to them any device to attract and overthrow it in the only country entrusted to their management. We must universally ruin Credit, Trade, Commerce, and the Banking business, if we pretend to prevent Wealth from extending itself universally, a little sooner or later. The owner of any kind of riches whatever, has it not in his power to do any thing else, but to choose the place, the object, and the time, of giving the first motion; all the rest is merely the effect of a stone cast into the water: observe how the undulations succeed one another, how they are renewed and extended;—can you fix the point where they shall stop?—We pretend to direct them!—Scilicet is superûm labor est? ... Istæne animia cœlestibus curæ?—Indeed, indeed, too many cares occupy the minds of our Gods!

I return to the grand points.

Methinks upon viewing the picture I have drawn, it is easy now to conceive, why, as I have observed in page 62, a person, however strongly convinced of the cruel effect which ought naturally to arise from a debt of 64 millions sterling, contracted from 1754 to 1762, could not nevertheless cite in ~England~, from 1763 to 1775, a single indication of a decay in agriculture or commerce, nor any falling-off in the enjoyment of luxury, public or private, nor less insolence in the bulk of the people. The reason is this: the two capitalists, who failed not to increase the price of every thing they were concerned in, according to the exigency of the taxes, determined also (after a few little formalities, always necessary with regard to the people, when nothing but luxury has been taxed) to augment the price of labour in proportion to that of its products; foreigners, on the other hand, raised the price of their goods in proportion as taxes had increased the goods of England exported to them; and the old equilibrium was restored every where, as soon as the general increase of prices had made the general power of consumption, equal to the need the State was in of an exterior as well as an interior, i. e. of a foreign as well as a national consumption, in order that all the taxes might be productive.

But if the debt of 64 millions, contracted from 1754 to 1762, had increased, by 10 per cent. the nominal value of all merchandise exported from England since that period, how shall we prevent the 60 millions of the last debt, from increasing, from 8 to 10 per cent. the nominal value of all commodities to be exported after this later period?

And if the general augmentation of prices, which has clearly followed the debt contracted in England from 1754 to 1762, has proved advantageous to all Europe, without hurting England, why should not the general increase of prices, which results, and will inevitably result from the last English debt, prove unprejudicial to England, although it will prove advantageous to all Europe?

But if this increase of 10 per cent. generally acknowledged, in the price of all merchandise in Europe, had extended only to the products of industry; if the price of the total of the produce of agriculture had not increased in the same proportion;—had not Nature always silently and successfully opposed all the dreams of speculation on this head, to what a degree of misery and wretchedness would not agriculture have been reduced in all parts of our so much enlightened ~Europe~!—It was not so.

The quantity of wheat sold at Berne at 69 batz, on a medium of five years taken from 1751 to 1755, was sold for 92⅗ batz from 1766 to 1770.

The quantity of wheat sold at Dijon at the lowest, 2l. 11s. 5d. on a medium of 5 years from 1753 to 1757, was sold at the lowest, 4l. 5s. 9d. on a medium of 5 years from 1766 to 1770.

The quantity of wheat sold at Bâle for 9l. 9s. on a medium of 5 years from 1754 to 1758, was sold for 13l. 14s. 2d. on a medium of 5 years from 1766 to 1770.

The quantity of wheat sold at Geneva for 27 florins, on a medium of 5 years from 1751 to 1755, was sold for 37 florins, on a medium of 5 years from 1766 to 1770, (see Arthur Young’s Political Arithmetic.)

We find upon the total, from 1755 to 1770, as I observed in my Reflexions on a singular revolution in France, about 40 per cent. increase in the price of wheat.—Ten per cent. was enough to discharge, without expence to any body, and without any attention being paid to it, the interest of the debt contracted in England, from 1755 to 1762; but 30 per cent. more was necessary, in order to come (without injuring England) nearly to an equality with the English price, a price advantageous to the agriculture of all Europe; an advantageous price, which the barriers and barricadoes set up in France, had till then prevented from extending to Switzerland.

The barriers having been removed, Switzerland and France must necessarily have been enriched, or England ruined:—France and Switzerland were better pleased to be enriched; and so it will necessarily happen after the removal of the barriers subsisting between England and Ireland, that the agriculture of the latter must be enriched;—unless she should choose to do herself a real prejudice by keeping to all her former low prices, in order to procure an imaginary advantage to Irish industry, in hopes of prejudicing the British manufacturer;—which would indeed be very strange.

But if this proportionate augmentation in the price of every thing,—as evident as it is necessary,—as general as it is useful,—as natural as it is little suspected,—in consequence of a national debt contracted by a country trading with all Europe,—getting rich by trading with all Europe,—and who cannot get rich without sharing her wealth with all Europe,—be also a complete demonstration of the burden being NULL, so soon as the little private interests have rendered it general, and no longer permit the supposition of its being productive of any other bad effects, but such as necessarily result from a bad system of taxation; does the point lie in rectifying the system, or in effecting a reimbursement?—At least, is a tax to be levied for the purpose of reimbursing, before we have searched deep into THE QUESTION THE MOST INTERESTING TO SOCIETY THAT EVER WAS PROPOUNDED?

And in the supposition, that it should result from the examination, as it does from my ideas, that there neither is, nor can be any real and lasting harm in the taxes, but that which is the consequence of a bad system of taxation; as there is however so much more harm done, at least of a transient nature, as there are more taxes imposed, even in the best manner,—would it not be necessary to conclude, that loans bearing annuities, esteemed the most advantageous to the State, (although they always require an heavier, and sometimes a double taxation), might have proved the most pernicious and worst devised, in any other circumstance but that of a total discredit, if they did not now furnish the Sovereign with the means of redressing what is most oppressive in the old taxes, without imposing new ones?

On Luxury.

I can sum up all that I have said hitherto, by transcribing a couple of pages out of a pamphlet written in ~America~ in the year 1774, laid before the Academy of Sciences in 1778, and printed at Paris in 1781. I should certainly be excusable had I no other motive in this respect, than to prove that my opinions are neither suggested by, nor depending on circumstances. The reflexion contained in the following quotation from that pamphlet, on the war that broke out in 1779, is but a survey of the new order of things, which would not have presented itself to my mind, had it not been in my power, even then, to have published in several large volumes, that which I now comprise within three hundred and some pages, in order to render its perusal less laborious to the reader.

“All the mystery of society, consists in establishing, without the knowledge, and to the greatest advantage of the parties concerned, the most equal, the most exact, and the most equitable division that possibly can be made, between the land proprietors, who are in possession of all, and the pilferers who are in possession of nothing.

“This division operates of itself, by shackling, as little as possible, the natural passions of the one, and the factitious passions of the others, that is to say, by obstructing, as little as possible, communications of all kinds.

“This division is inseparable from the greatest possible quantity of productions and consumptions, which cannot be effected but by the greatest number of productors and consumers, who will always be found and attracted where the laws shall be as little prohibitory as possible.

“A prohibitory law in one country, may be, should be, and no doubt will be, instantly followed by ten others, in ten different countries, which will soon enforce the re-establishment of the equilibrium dictated by Nature, the only one that deserves to be attended to, and the only one that must prevail at last.

“To the present war, a war of revolution if ever there was one, will probably succeed the only useful and necessary war that can be waged between nations enlightened by the longest and most melancholy experience; a war essential to the happiness of mankind, since the only contest left for decision will be, who shall prove the most able to devise, or the most ready to adopt, those laws that are calculated to procure the greatest possible consumption, on which depends the highest degree of public revenue:—

“Discussions these, important at all times, dangerous for every one a few years ago, unbecoming perhaps in a private individual at a time when the true politicians of Europe will find themselves compelled to make them the object of their most serious meditations;—discussions, in fine, entirely out of the way of a cultivator, who could not, without a palpable folly, suffer himself to be led into them by the examination of his blade of grass, and of a principle too evident to be contested.” (Essai sur la culture de la canne à sucre.)

When a man has shewn himself capable of looking upon a war as the readiest means that could conduce to a general union of interests, no one will be surprised if that very man should allow to luxury the principal honour in the accomplishment of such a prophecy. Nor would any one be surprised if he were to add, that the rage for luxury, in a discerning despot, would soon lead him to establish within his dominions the greatest freedom, from which alone he can expect the greatest display of all kinds of luxury, the choice and first fruits of which would be always at his command. Nor again would any one be surprised were the prophet to add, that wherever luxury should be at its summit, none but the idle would be at a loss for a livelihood, and that not a mean one; that even the idiot, as well as the worn-out labourer, would find there, under the designation of a ~hospital~, an asylum equal to the habitation of a King:—The habitation of the Kings of Great Britain is not comparable to some of her hospitals.

Would not the question about luxury, reduced to its elements, like those other questions which I have touched upon hitherto, present consequences diametrically opposite to those ideas which perhaps are yet too common, only because they have not been thoroughly examined? Methinks I have advanced one step towards the solution of the problem, by proving (if I have proved it) that the tax laid on that pretended monster, Luxury, is in fact the most oppressive for the people, on account of the following effects, from which the impost cannot be freed.

First, If that tax lessens the consumption of the article taxed, provision must be made, by a fresh tax, for the deficit in the first, which nevertheless has already deprived of sustenance, those who derived it only from that article of consumption annihilated by the tax.

Secondly, If the rage for the article taxed, gets the better of the rigour of the tax, or in other words, of the absurd disproportion thereby established between the real and nominal value of that article, the land proprietor has no other resource left, whereby to provide for the tax, and for the rest of his standing expences, than to raise the prices of his commodities accordingly; and the poor, whose consumption has not been taxed, pays dearer, nevertheless, for his bread, and for all that he consumes besides, whilst the tax laid on luxury alone, is pleaded by all the capitalists as a pretence for not increasing the price of labour amongst the people they employ.

Thirdly, If the little private calculations, of which I have spoken, did not rectify (as I contend they do by degrees, and as they ought to do sooner) the mistakes of the grand calculations in the administration of finances; that is to say, if the land proprietor did not increase the price of his commodities, in proportion as the tax bears heavy on that article of luxury which he still persists to consume: it would appear still more heinous in the eyes of the moralist; for those artificers who, without remorse, without a blush, should employ themselves in the work of Satan, of which the consumption should continue the same, would subsist undisturbed in peace and plenty on that very work, whilst a considerable number of scrupulous artisans, employed hitherto on articles free from censure, but of which the consumption should have decreased by the counter-blow of the taxes on luxury, would most scandalously be left starving and unemployed.