Chapter 3

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CHAP. I.

_Result of the foregoing Inquiry applied to Britain.--Its present State, in what its Wealth consists, illustrated by a Chart, shewing the Increase of Revenue and Commerce_.

Having now taken a view, and inquired into the causes that have ruined nations that have been great and wealthy, from the earliest to the present time; having also inquired into the causes that naturally will operate where those did not, and that would, at a later period, have produced the same effect; it is now the business to examine how far and in what way the result of the inquiry applies to the British empire.

The power and wealth of Britain, according to the definition given at the beginning of this work, are founded not on conquests, extent of territory, superior population, or a more favourable soil or climate, or even in bravery; for in those it is but on a par with other nations.

The only natural advantages of Britain are, its insular situation and the disposition of the people, and the excellent form of its government.

From the two first have arisen that good government, commerce, and industry; and on those have arisen again a great naval power, and an uncommon degree of wealth.

In arms, it does not appear that England is so powerful by land, in proportion as in former times: her power must then be considered as a naval power, and that founded principally on commerce. {153}

--- {153} Our last brilliant achievements by land were under the Duke of Marlborough; but even then, with allies to assist, we were but a balance to France. Before the conquest, England seems to have been far below the level of most other nations, as a power by land. Soon after [end of page #191] she appears to have risen above France, and other nations, or they probably rather sunk; but, ever since England became formidable at sea, she has lost her superiority in the army; although she has never sunk under the level, and never, in any instance, were her armies beat when the numbers were equal to those of the enemy. -=-

{Here appears at page 192 the second chart, entitled

"Chart Representing the Extent, Population & Revenue -of the- PRINCIPAL NATIONS in EUROPE --in 1804--by W. Playfair"}

As such then we have only to examine the foundation on which she stands, and find in what she is vulnerable.

We must first begin with the interior situation, to follow the same order that has been attended to in the rest of the work.

Changes of manners, habits of education, and the natural effects of luxury, are as likely to operate on the British empire, as on some others which they have destroyed.

From the unequal division of property, there is perhaps less danger, but from the employment of capital there is more than almost in any other nation.

From the abuses of law and public institutions and _l'esprit du corps_, we run a very great risk; more indeed than under an arbitrary government or even a republic. These last are the dangers that most seriously threaten a nation living under a mixed government.

As to the produce of the soil becoming unequal to the maintenance of a people addicted to luxurious habits, we have much also to fear from that: the operation is begun, and its effects will soon be most serious: they are already felt, and very visible.

From taxation, unproductive and idle people, we have more to fear than most nations; and from an alteration in the manner of thinking, and persons and property leaving the nation, we have as much as any other nation, according to the degree of wealth that we possess; so that, upon the whole, the interior causes of decline are such as it is extremely necessary to guard against in the most attentive manner.

In respect to the exterior causes, we are exempt entirely from some, from others we are not; and, in one case, we have exterior causes for hope that no nation ever yet had.

The advancement of other nations, their enmity and envy, are full as likely to operate against this nation as against any other that ever existed; but as we owe none of our superiority to geographical situa- [end of page #192] tion like the Greek islands, the Delta of Egypt, and borders of the Mediterranean Sea, we run no risk of any discovery in geography, or in navigation, operating much to our disadvantage.

We are not so far advanced before other nations in arts as to have any great reason to dread that their advancement will be our ruin; but still we must allow, that a number of external causes may combine to bring us to their level, when the effects of our present wealth may soon operate in reducing us under it.

Since, then, commerce is the foundation of our wealth, and since our power, which is naval, is built upon commerce, let us begin with taking a view of its present situation.

The increase of the trade of Britain to foreign parts, within these last fifteen years, though a very natural effect of the causes that have operated during that period, is not itself a natural increase, because the causes that produced it are uncommon, temporary, and unnatural.

The East and West India trades have been both lost to France and Holland. The French, before the revolution, had a greater share of the West India trade than ever we had, and they could undersell us in foreign markets.

The Dutch and French together had a very great share of the commerce of the East; this partly accounts for the rapid increase of English commerce since they lost theirs. Besides, the French nation itself, which formerly consumed scarcely any English manufactures, and supplied Germany, and many parts of Europe, with its own, has been employed for several years in consuming its manufactured stock, eating up its capital, and ruining its own manufactories; so that France itself, Germany, and a great portion of the continent, have been obliged to apply to Britain, both for manufactures and colonial produce, as well as for the goods that come from India.

Add to this, that capital on the continent of Europe has suffered an unexampled diminution, from a variety of causes. A great part has been consumed in France, and in all the countries into which her armies have penetrated, particularly in Holland; and that confidence, [end of page #193] which serves in place of capital, has been impaired in all countries, and ruined in many.

It has already been shewn that the want of capital prevents a poor nation from supplying itself, and furnishes a rich one with the means of supplying it, and, as it were, extorting usury from it by giving credit. The misfortunes of the continent had, by this means, all of them a direct tendency to advance the commercial prosperity of England; but still the matter does not rest even here, for the real capital that fled from the continent of Europe has, in part, taken refuge in England. We have risen, (for the moment,) by their depression; and though the advantage will be of some duration, yet we ought not to consider it as permanent. {154}

Those causes have operated, as indeed might be expected, in a most powerful manner, but that operation has already begun to cease. In such uncommon and unexampled circumstances as the present, it is impossible to forsee =sic= what may happen, yet it is scarcely possible to suppose things will remain as they are. Terror and alarm are too painful to continue their action long on the human mind; and even if the cause were not diminished, the effect would become less violent with time and custom. Again, we are not to suppose, that such times as those of 1793 and 1794 are ever to return, therefore the alarm will be diminished, new capital will rise up, and, as security of private property is now understood to be the basis of all wealth and prosperity, confidence will be restored by degrees.

The increase of trade is not then to be expected from the same causes that have of late operated with so rapid and powerful an effect: on the contrary, they may be expected so far to cease, as to occasion a diminution of our exports.

This will, however, be counteracted by some circumstances, while others will tend to augment the violence of its effects.

The trade with the American States and with Russia increase, from

--- {154} As one proof of capital taking refuge in England, the sudden rise of stock, during the first three years of the French revolution, may be adduced, without fear of being contradicted as to the fact, or the assigned cause controverted. [end of page #194] -=-

no temporary or fallacious cause. In the former country, population very rapidly increases, and, in the latter, wealth and civilization, which have a similar effect {155} upon the wants of a nation. These are in favour of a manufacturing country, like England.

These two are not only, then, permanent, but augmenting causes for our commerce; {156} they are causes that augment rapidly, and may, with proper care, be carried to a great extent.

The superiority in the West India trade is so far of a permanent nature, that France will never again be a formidable rival there. St. Domingo is not only lost, but probably lost for ever, while it is expected that Britain may retain her islands. This trade, then, may be set down as permanent; that is to say, that there does not seem to be any immediate cause for its decline; {157} and the government of this country is sufficiently aware of consequences not to neglect taking every precaution possible.

The East India trade does not, indeed, appear equally secure. There we are powerfully rivalled by the Americans, and the merchants of other countries; but, on the other hand, the demand for the produce of Asia is augmenting rapidly all over the continent of Europe; so that perhaps we may be able to maintain our ground, even though other nations regain part of the trade they have lost.

To remain, then, in the situation in which we are, with respect to

--- {155} The great augmentation of fine fertile territory, in America, will retard the progress of manufactures and commerce in that country, by employing the capital and attention of the inhabitants on agriculture. This may be the case for half a century, and, if England improves, the circumstances may continue to operate in favour of British manufactures for many centuries to come.

{156} The ports in the Black Sea add a new district to the commercial world, which, in course of time, must greatly increase the demand for such articles, as a civilized people consume. The fineness of the climate and of the country will enable the inhabitants to gratify the taste which civilization will bring along with it.

{157} It would be quite foreign to the end of this inquiry to examine into the interior state of the West India islands, or as to their continuing subject to Great Britain. This is entirely a political affair, unconnected with commerce, though its effects on it would be prodigious. [end of page #195] -=-

foreign trade, we must exert ourselves; those external causes that have forced trade upon us, for these last fifteen years, being but of a temporary nature.

In order to be more sensible of this necessity, let us consider a few other circumstances.

The wealth of England, which was the envy of Europe, even previous to the American war, in which we stood single-handed and alone (having the three most powerful maritime nations against us, and none to take our part) has now become more conspicuous, and much more likely to excite envy.

Not only the situation of Britain is much more exalted, but the other nations feel a comparison that is infinitely more humiliating; add to this, that old attachments, and a regard to the laws of nations, and to a balance of power in Europe, are much enfeebled, or rather nearly done away.

Britain has alone, for some time, stood forward to resist the innovations and power of France; and, after having at first subsidized every nation that would fight in the common cause, it has alone maintained the common right itself, thereby adding a double humiliation to those who wanted means of assisting, or whose courage had failed.

France, with all its acquisition of territory and alliance, with all that influence over neutral nations, which terror of its arms inspires, will never cease to combat the prosperity of England. Some other nations, through envy or shame, stimulated by a hope of partaking in the wealth that England loses, will either sit passive or assist. {158}

The East India trade is that which excites the greatest portion of envy, and it will be difficult to resist its effects. This superior degree of envy is occasioned by three principal causes:

The splendid establishments of the East India company, its fleets,

--- {158} Gratitude, some will say, may prevent this; but nations have no gratitude, they only know their interest, and nothing retrospective is any motive for action. We need not search into remote periods for proofs of this, see Holland, Spain, Russia, &c. during the latter part of the last war. [end of page #196] -=-

and the fact that it is the greatest commercial company that does now, or ever did, exist, constitute the first cause, not only for envy, but for a wish to participate in the trade.

The second cause arises from the extent of our possessions, the immensity of the territorial revenues, and the evident injustice of a company of merchants becoming sovereigns, and holding the ancient princes of the East, and the successors of the Great Mogul, as tributary vassals. {159}

It is in vain that we say the people are happier than they were before we did them the honour to become their masters. Whether this is true or not, there is no means of proving it, besides there can be no right established by London merchants to force the inhabitants of Hindostan to become happy, whether they will or not.

The same pretence has been used by the French, in subduing Flanders and Brabant, in governing Holland and Switzerland; but they have not been able to obtain credit. The regular governments, who partitioned Poland, have pretended the same thing; and our slave-merchants and planters give very positive assurances that the negroes toiling on the West India plantations are much happier than they were in their own country; yet, in defiance of all this cloud of witnesses, there is something in the human breast that resists and rejects such evidence; evidence doubtful, on account of the quarter from whence it comes, and the interests of the witnesses, as well as con-

--- {159} However we may look upon this, other nations certainly see the matter as iniquitous and unjust; and it is well known with what feelings such a belief is entertained.

Though the revolutions in Farther Asia have not made any part of the basis of our inquiry, yet it is impossible, having mentioned the Mogul empire, not to notice its rapid and terrible fall. In 1707, only ninety- eight years ago, the Great Mogul ruled over a country equal in extent, and little inferior in population, to France, Spain, Germany, and England. His revenues amounted to thirty-two millions sterling, which, at that time, was nearly equal to the whole revenues of all the monarchs of Europe. He is now circumscribed to a territory less than the smallest county in England, and is the vassal at will of a company of English merchants, who, with all their greatness, do not divide profits equal to one week of his former revenues! [end of page #197] -=-

trary to the natural feelings of beings endowed with the power of reason; at variance, also, with an opinion of a very ancient origin, "that coercion and force are enemies to enjoyment."

In defiance, then, of our assertions, the other nations of Europe will and do view this acquired territory with anger, as well as envy; and, though it is true, that, out of the immense revenues that arise to the company, they divide little profit, though their debts are annually augmenting, yet individual Englishmen, it must be admitted, bring home great fortunes.

This fact is not to be denied, and is so much the worse, that though a government even of merchants may be supposed to obtain revenues fairly, individuals, who rapidly acquire great wealth are always supposed to do it by extortion or unfair means. {160}

The third cause for envy is of great antiquity. The commerce of the East, from the earliest ages, has been that which has enriched all the nations that ever possessed it; and, consequently, has been a perpetual cause of envy and contention, as we have already seen, in its proper place. For all those reasons, not one of which we can remove entirely, the East India trade is a particular object of envy; and, unless great care is taken, will entail the same danger on this country, as it has on all those that ever possessed it. Tyre and Sidon, in Syria, Alexandria, in Egypt, Venice, Genoa, the Hans Towns, and Portugal, have all been raised and ruined by this trade, which seems to

--- {160} So far back as 1793, Mr. Dundas estimated the sums remitted by individuals at an annual million; add to this, plunder arising from war, (which is become as natural a state in India as peace,) and we shall see that now the revenues and establishments are nearly doubled. The following will not be an unfair estimate:

Private fortunes remitted in 1793 L. 1,000,000 Average ditto arising from years of war, the plunder of Seringapatam, &c 300,000 Increase remitted home since, in proportion to revenue 700,000 ____________

Remitted now by the same description of men L. 2,000,000

Besides what is remitted home, those servants of the company expend immense sums in the country, living there in the greatest luxury. [end of page #198] -=-

have been the cradle and the grave of most of those nations that have become rich and powerful by the means of commerce.

Our West India wealth, though derived from a source still more, or at least equally, impure, and though not inferior in amount, is, for several reasons, not the cause of so much envy. It is not confined to a company, and therefore the splendour and ostentation that, in the case of the Asiatic trade, occasion envy, do not exist in that to the American islands.

Our monopoly is by no means so complete, which has a double effect in our favour; for, besides preventing others from envying us so much, it prevents them from condemning us so severely.

The same nations that see, in its full force, the injustice of subjecting the inhabitants of the East, in their own country, in a way that, at the worst, is not very rigorous, join cordially in robbing Africa of its inhabitants, to make them slaves in America, in a way, that, at the best, is very rigorous.

Such are the baneful effects of sordid interest acting on the mind of man! But our business is not here to investigate opinions, but their result; and, in the present instance, we find that to admit participation in criminality is the only way to avoid envy and offence.

The third cause for envy is likewise wanting. The commerce with the West Indies is but of a recent date, and no nation has ever owed its greatness or decline to that single source. {161} It is not like the Asiatic trade, a sort of hereditary cause of quarrel; a species of heirloom, entailing upon the possessor the envy and enmity of all other nations.

The envy occasioned by the West India trade is farther diminished by the circumstance that the plantations have been raised with the money of the persons by whom they are possessed; and that if they had no original right to the soil in its barren state, the cultivation at least is owing to their capital and industry.

The most solid and secure portion of our trade is that which con-

--- {161} France was the nation that, before the revolution, gained the most by this trade; indeed, no nation has, to this date, gained so much as it did. -=-

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sists of our manufactures at home. In those, though we excite envy, we excite no other of the hateful passions. Emulation is natural, and admiration is unavoidable, on seeing the vast progress that arts and industry have made in this country; so that England is absolutely considered as the first country in the world for manufactures.

This cause of greatness and wealth operates in a more uniform and durable manner; though, like others, it has its bounds, yet the nature of them is not easily ascertained.

In this there are two things essential,--the procuring a market, and the means of supplying it. We have always yet found the means of supplying every market we have got; but we have not always been able to extend our market so much as it might have been wished.

America and Russia offer new markets, as has already been observed, but, to extend our old markets, we must either reduce the price, improve the quality, or extend the credit, and invention is the only means by which these things can be done; and there is no possibility of knowing where to set bounds to invention, aided by capital and the division of labour. We are, however, not to forget that priority in point of time being one of the causes of a nation's rise, and being of a nature to be destroyed in the course of years, the superiority we enjoy may leave us, as it did other nations in former times.

When a country produces the raw material, and labour is cheap, and the art established, we might suppose the superiority secure; but it is not. The cotton trade was first established in the East Indies, where the material grows, where the labour is not a tenth of the price that it is in England, and the quality of the manufactured article is good; yet machinery and capital have transplanted it to England. But the same machinery may give a superiority, or at least an equality, to some other country; it is, therefore, our business to persevere in encouraging invention, by the means that have hitherto been found so successful. {162}

--- {162} The law of patents, and the premiums offered by the Society of Arts, suggest improvements, and reward them when made. To those, to the security of property, and nature of the government, we chiefly owe the great improvements made in England. -=-

[end of page #200]

The most necessary thing for our commerce is the support of mercantile credit, without which it is in vain to expect that trade will be carried on to any great amount. In 1772, when a great failure occasioned want of confidence, the exports of the country fell off above three millions, but its imports fell off very little. {163} In 1793, when the internal credit of the mercantile people was staggered, precisely the same effect was produced. These are the only two instances of individual credit being staggered to such a degree, as to prevent mercantile men from putting confidence in each other; and they are the only two instances of any very great falling off in the exports in one year, except during the American war, when the chief branches of trade in the country were cut off or diminished.

The falling off, in exports, in 1803, which was very great indeed, (being no less than one-third of the whole,) was not occasioned by the same cause, but appears to have been owing to three others of a different nature.

First, the French had actually shut us out from a great extent of coast, and this occasioned a diminution of exports, which will, in part, be done away, when new channels of conveyance are found out. It will nevertheless operate in causing some diminution, as circuitous channels render goods more difficult to be introduced, and consequently dearer to the consumers.

The second cause appears to have been, the uncertainty of our merchants where to send the goods, and who to trust, as the fear of the extension of French power took away confidence, and produced a sort of irresolution, which is always hurtful to business.

The third cause of the diminution of trade, no doubt, arose from the cessation of that alarm about property, that has been described as having occasioned so much to be sent from the continent to England. In other words, it is the return of the pendulum which had vibrated,

--- {163} This is a sort of paradox: when money became scarce, the nation bought nearly as much as ever, but sold less. This is not the case with individuals, and, at first sight, does not appear natural. -=-

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through a temporary impulse, beyond the natural perpendicular. Had there been no revolution in France, and had it not been conducted on the principles it was, our trade could not have augmented so fast as it did; but a falling off of fifteen millions in one year is too much to be ascribed to that cause alone. An examination of the branches that did fall off will elucidate this.

The commerce with the United States of America is one of those that has fallen off, and is the only one that does not appear to be directly connected with these causes. There are some reasons, however, for thinking that it had an indirect connection with them.

Whatever interrupts our connection with the continent of Europe, or renders it unsafe, has, in some degree, the same effect with a stagnation of credit at home. This has taken place; and as it of course affected every branch of trade, that with America felt the blow amongst the rest, and, indeed, more than in proportion; for, as there is no course of exchange with any town in America, and as the credits there are long, the exportation to that country suffers in a particular manner when there is any heaviness in the money market here. Thus it was that, in 1772, the American exports suffered a diminution of two millions from the stagnation; and, in 1793, of rather more than half a million. In the former case, the American trade seems alone almost to have suffered, and, even in the latter case, it fell off more than in its just proportion.

It has been observed, that the improving our manufactures at home is the most secure support of our foreign trade, which chiefly depends on superior skill, industry, and invention, the wages of labour being greatly against us. We shall consider by what stability of tenure we hold that advantage.

The nation or individual that proceeds first in improvement is always uncertain how much farther it can be carried; those who follow, on the contrary, know what can be done, and therefore act with certainty and confidence. As to individuals, those who are the foremost in improvement have great difficulties to encounter; they seldom can procure the pecuniary aid necessary, and always do so with great difficulty; whereas, those who copy, without half their merit, or, [end of page #202] perhaps, without any merit at all, meet with support from every quarter. {164}

From this it is very evident, that the nation the farthest advanced in invention has only to remain stationary a few years, and it will soon be overtaken, and perhaps surpassed. Holland, Flanders, and France, were all originally superior, in the arts of manufacturing most goods, to England; and, indeed, it is no great length of time since we obtained the superiority over Holland in several articles of importance, and in particular where machinery was wanting. If it were necessary, it would not be difficult to give examples, to shew with what eagerness those who imported inventions were taken by the hand, on the bare probability of success, while the inventors of machines, and of methods of manufacturing entirely new, and of still more importance, were left to grope their way, and, until crowned with success, rather considered as objects of pity than of praise or admiration. {165}

It is not then altogether by a sure or lasting tenure that we hold this superiority of manufactures. We have examined several other sources of wealth, and the general conclusion is, that, without care and atten-

--- {164} Mr. Arkwright, who produced the cotton-spinning machine, underwent great difficulties for many years; as also did Mr. Watt, the ingenious and scientific improver of the steam-engine; and, had not good fortune thrown him in the way of Mr. Boulton, a man of fortune and resource, and himself a man of genius, he probably must have languished in obscurity, and the nation remained without his admirable invention. The profits derived from the spinning-machine may, at first sight, appear the greater national advantage of the two; but it is not so in reality, for the spinning-machine only manufactures a raw material, brought from another country, cheaper than before; whereas, the steam-engine enables us to obtain raw materials from our own soil cheaper; a thing more important, more permanent, and of which we were more in want: besides this, the steam-engine is extending the scope of its utility every day; whereas, the spinning machines can go little farther. But to leave this digression, which is not altogether foreign to the purpose, and return to the facility with which inventors are followed, it is a fact, that in almost every country in Europe, money can be got by any adventurer who will propose to establish either a cotton spinning machine, or a manufactory of steam- engines; and it is a fact, that immense sums have been, and are still given, for those purposes.

{165} Slitting-mills, saw-mills, the art of imitating porcelain, and of making good earthen-ware, and paper, together with a vast number of other inventions, were imported from Holland; in every one of which we have gone beyond the Dutch, just as they got the better of the Flemings in the art of curing herrings. Priority of invention is not then a permanent tenure. -=-

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tion, this nation cannot be expected long to maintain its superiority over others, in the degree it at present enjoys.

The American market, {166} and the Russian (in a smaller degree,) however, hold out a prospect of increased commerce to us, from external causes, that we cannot flatter ourselves with in the internal ones. It is to those we must look, and to those only, for the extension of the sale of our manufactures; but, even in this case, we must use efforts, for it is very seldom that a good end is effected by accident, or without a view towards its accomplishment.

Having now taken a view of the situation of this country, and seen that, though it is not likely to be deprived of its commerce by conquest, like Babylon, Tyre, or Alexandria, or by a new discovery in geography and the art of navigation, like Venice and Genoa; though, indeed, it has no great appearance of sharing the fate of Spain, Portugal, or Holland, yet there are other causes that may stop its career. If it is exempt from the dangers they laboured under, it is subject to others from which they were free.

We have already examined the effect of taxes and national debt on the industry of a country, even whilst augmenting in wealth; but we have not examined what that effect will be when a country comes to be on a level with other nations that do not labour under the same burthens.

There is no possibility of standing long still with a burthen on the shoulders, it must either be thrown off or it will become a cause of decline. Let us endeavour to point out methods by which that may be averted, or at least procrastinated. In doing this, we are either exposing our ignorance and presumption, or doing a signal service to our country.

--- {166} The American exports from this country consist almost entirely in manufactures; we neither supply that country with East or West India produce. The Russians are aspiring at possessions in the West Indies, and, no doubt, will succeed; they are advancing still more rapidly in power than the Americans are in population. It was only in 1769, (not forty years ago,) that the first Russian flag was seen in the Mediterranean Sea, and now Russia stands fair to be sovereign of a number of the Greek islands; and, at any rate, by the Dardanelles, to carry on a great commerce. What may thirty years more not effect with such a country, and such a race of sovereigns? -=-

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The load must be taken off, or it will crush the bearer; but how this is to be done is the difficulty. If our debt is paid off, the capital will go to other nations, for it will not find employment amongst ourselves; and this will reduce the nation, and raise others. If it continues, we sink under it; and, if we break faith with the creditors, it destroys confidence for ever; we can no longer give law, by means of our capital, to the markets in other nations, and we probably overturn the government of our own.

Amongst the _exterior_ causes of decline that are general, none applies so completely to Great Britain as that of the envy and enmity, occasioned by the possession of colonies we have settled, or countries we have conquered.

The wealth of Britain and its power arise from agriculture, manufactures, commerce, colonies, and conquests. The envy they excite is not, however, in proportion to the wealth that arises from them, but rather to the right we have to possess them, and the consequent right that others have to contest the possession.

Improved agriculture has never been a source of enmity amongst civilized nations, though it has been an object of conquest when an opportunity presented itself.

Manufactures, the great source of our wealth, are, in a certain degree, beyond the reach of our enemies. Our greatest consumption for them is amongst ourselves, and if we did not export to any part of the world, except enough to procure materials, we should enjoy nearly all that we now do. Our wealth would not be very materially diminished, though our naval strength would. The means of destroying our manufactures is not then very easily to be found.

The commerce with other nations, our enemies, or rivals, have a more effectual means of diminishing, by the laying on duties on our manufactures, and augmenting those duties when the goods happen to be carried in English vessels; but still the advantage we enjoy in this competition is great.

Not so with our colonies and conquests. The whole imports from the East Indies, from 1700 to the present day, have only amounted [end of page #205] to 165,000,000 L. and our exports, during the same period, to 83,000,000 L. while our total exports have amounted to 1,486,000 L. during the same period. {167}

There would be much affectation, and little accuracy, in attempting to make any thing like a strict comparison between the relative proportions of the wealth procured by general trade, and that procured by trade with India. The exports amount to about one-nineteenth part of the whole; and, perhaps, as they are manufactured goods, to about one-tenth part of the whole manufactures of the country exported: but the manufactures exported are not equal to one-third part of those consumed at home, so that not above one-thirtieth part of our manufacturers are maintained by the trade to India.

In 1793, when the charter of the company was renewed, the India- budget stated the private fortunes acquired and brought home, at one million annually: that has probably increased since then; but it was at that time greater than it had been before: if, then, we take the annual arrival, since the year 1765, at one million, it will make forty millions, which, compared with the balance of trade during that period, amounts to about one-sixth part of the balance supposed to come into the country.

How much of our national debt might be set down to the account of India, is another question. By debt contracted, and interest of debt paid, during the same period, we have disbursed the sum of 1,100,000,000 L. which is equal to more than twelve times the whole of the property acquired by our India affairs, supposing the 45,000,000 L.

--- {167} Comparison between the total foreign trade of the country, to that with the East Indies only, for 104 years.

Total Exports. Total Balance Exports to India. in our favour. From

1700 to 1760, L540,000,000 L249,000,000 L18,000,000

1760 to 1785, L370,000,000 L101,000,000 L25,000,000

1785 to 1805, L576,000,000 L142,000,000 L40,000,000 ____________ ____________ ____________ L1,486,000,000 L492,000,000 L80,000,000 ____________ ____________ ____________

[Transcriber's note: L=GBP/Pounds Sterling.]

This is about a nineteenth part of our foreign trade, and the balance is greatly against us. -=-

[end of page #206]

remitted, to be all gain, together with one-half of the 83,000,000 L. which surely is allowing the gain at the highest rate for both. {168}

Supposing, then, that the wars that India has occasioned have cost (or the proportion of the debt they have occasioned) one-sixth part of the whole of our debt, and that the profits on goods to India, and private fortunes, came into the public treasury, there would still have been a great loss to the state; but this has not been the case, the interest of the debt has been levied on the people, and will continue to be so, till all is paid off; which, according to the plan of the sinking fund, will be in thirty-five years, so that we shall have about 750,000,000 L. more to pay, {169} supposing we have peace all that time, and continue to possess India.

There is something very gloomy in this view of national affairs, and yet there is no apparent method of making it more pleasing.

It is, on the contrary, very possible, that as Malta, on account of its being supposed the key to India, has cost us 20,000,000 L. within a few years, that, in less than thirty-five years, it may cost us _something_ more; and, it is not by any means impossible, that, before that period, we may either lose India, or give it away; on either of which suppositions, the arithmetical balance of profit and loss will be greatly altered, to our farther disadvantage.

On the possessions in India, and the complicated manner in which our imports (again exported) affect the nation, a volume might be written, but it would be to very little purpose, in a general inquiry of this sort. It is sufficient to shew here that the wealth obtained by that channel is not of great magnitude, in comparison either of the

--- {168} The nearness of the balance of trade, to the amount of debt contracted, will naturally excite attention, but it appears merely accidental, and to have not any real connection.

Debt borrowed L500,000,000 Interest paid L590,000,000 ______________ L1,090,000,000

[Transcriber's note: L=GBP/Pounds Sterling.]

{169} Let the future profits and expenses be set against each other, like the last. -=-

[end of page #207]

wealth acquired by foreign trade, or by our industry at home; and that, at the same time, we see that it excites more envy and jealousy than all the rest of the advantages we enjoy put together.

Badly as men act in matters of interest, and much as envy blinds them in cases of rivalship, yet still there is a certain degree of justice predominant in the mind, that admits the claim of merit and true desert. Every person, who has heard the conversation, or read the opinions of people in other nations, on the wealth and greatness of England, will allow, that, as commercial men, and as manufacturers, we are the wonder of the world, and excite admiration; but, concerning our dominion over India, and our plantations in the American islands, foreigners speak very differently.

In order to bring down a nation, that has risen above its level, there is followed a system of enmity in war, and rivalship in peace.

The Portuguese seized on a lucky opportunity to undermine and supplant the Venecians and the Genoese, who had long been the envy of all nations, for the wealth they obtained, by the monopoly of the trade to India. The Dutch soon rivalled the Portuguese in trade, and the Flemings in manufactures; and, indeed, there is no saying in how great a variety of ways the superiority of a nation may not be pulled down.

England, commencing later than any, has now obtained her full share of the commerce of the East, and of manufactures; but the nations that envy the wealth of others have always several great advantages. The nation that is highest treads in discovery, invention, &c. a new path, and is never certain how far she can go, nor how to proceed. Those who follow have, in general, but to copy, and, in doing that, it is generally pretty easy to improve. At all events, a day must arrive when the nation that is highest, ceasing to proceed, the others must overtake it.

As the nation that is farthest advanced is ignorant of the improvements that may be made, it does not feel what it wants; and, like a man in full health, will give no encouragement to the physician. The countries that follow behind act differently; and they generally, in order [end of page #208] to protect their rising manufactures, impose duties on similar ones imported; thus preventing a competition between old established manufactures, and those recently begun.

So far as priority of settlement, or of invention, give a superiority to a nation over others, the equalizing principle acts with a very natural and evident force; but, when the manners and modes of thinking of a people have once taken a settled turn, in addition to their proficiency in manufactures, it does not appear easily to be altered.

The Germans excelled at working in metals, and possessed most of the arts, in a superior degree to any other people in Europe, a few centuries ago. In some arts they have been surpassed by the French, in more by the Dutch, and in nearly all by the English. {170}

Conquests and colonies are wrested from nations suddenly and by force; arts and manufactures leave them in time of peace, silently and by degrees, without noise or convulsion; but the consequences are not the less fatal on that account; nor, indeed, is the effect slower, though more silent. Though colonies or conquests pass away at once, such changes only take place after a long chain of causes have prepared the way for them; whereas, manufactures are perpetually emigrating from one country to another: the operation, though slow and silent, is incessant, and the ultimate effect great beyond calculation.

A good government, and wise laws, that protect industry and property, and preserve, in purity, the manners of the people, are the most difficult obstacles for a rival nation to overcome. Prosperity, which is founded upon that basis, is of all others the most secure. There are sometimes customs and habits that favour industry, the operation of which is not perceptible to those who wish to imitate and rival successful and wealthy nations.

In general, it is not to be expected that the southern nations can come in competition with those living in more northerly climates in

--- {170} The individual German workmen have not been excelled by the workmen of any other nation, but the German nation itself has been outdone. -=-

[end of page #209]

those manufactures, where continued or hard labour is necessary. Nature has compensated the inhabitants of such countries for this incapacity, by giving them a fine climate, and, in general, a fertile soil; and, when they do justice to it, they may live affluent and happy. But, since industry and civilization have got into northern countries, it is impossible for the southern ones to rival them in manufactures.

It would be impossible for any people living on the banks of the Nile, where the finest linen was once manufactured, to rival the cloths of Silesia, or of Ireland: as well might we think to bring back the commerce with India to Alexandria by the Red Sea.

The fine manufactures of India, notwithstanding the materials are all found in the country, the lowness of labour, and the antiquity of their establishment, are, in many cases, unable to keep their ground against the invention and industry of Europeans. The art of making porcelain- ware, from a want of some of the materials, has not, in every respect, equalled that manufactured in China; but in everything else, except material, it excels so much, that the trade to that country in that article is entirely over.

Many of the finest stuffs are nearly sharing the same fate, and they all probably will do so in time. Those whom we hope to surpass are determined to remain as they are, while Europeans aim at going as far in improvement as the nature of things will allow.

But the nations that follow others in arts are not always confined to imitation, though we have seen that even there they have a great advantage. It frequently happens that they get hold of some invention which renders them superior, in a particular line, to those whom they only intended to imitate.

When the superiority of a nation arises from the natural produce of the earth, such as valuable minerals, then it is very difficult for others to rival it with advantage; and it is very unwise of any nation to employ its efforts in rivalling another in an article where nature has given to the other a decided advantage; and it is equally ill-judged of a nation to neglect cultivating the advantages which she enjoys from nature, as they are the most permanent and their possession the most certain of any she can enjoy.

[end of page #210]

If nations were to consider in what branches of manufacture they are best fitted to excel, it would save much rivalship, misunderstanding, and jealousy; at the same time that it would tend greatly to increase the general aggregate wealth of mankind. It is not to industry and effort alone that mankind owe wealth, but to industry and effort well directed.

This is well explained in the excellent Inquiry into the Causes of the Wealth of Nations, and it is to be regretted that this truth is not more generally understood; for it would contribute still more to the peace and happiness of mankind, than to their commercial wealth.

There is not, however, any subject on which nations are so apt to err, and, indeed, the error is natural enough, if the ambition of a rival is not checked by judgement and attention to circumstances.

When a nation is particularly successful in one branch of manufacture more than in any other, it is generally because some peculiar circumstances give it an advantage. This ought to operate as a reason for doubting whether it might be prudent to attempt to rival a nation in an object in which it had particular advantages; but quite the contrary is the case; a rival nation aims directly at the thing in which another excels the most, and frequently fails when, in any other object, she might have proved successful. {171}

The changes of the taste and manners of mankind, as well as discoveries in arts and science, lay a foundation for political changes; but it is an irregular foundation for change; its operation is sometimes in favour of, and sometimes against the same nation, and it never can be calculated beforehand.

As the nations that have improved in manufactures the latest have always carried them to the greatest perfection, it is natural to inquire how this happens.

The exertion of the mind and body are both of them greatly aug-

--- {171} How many ridiculous attempts have been made, in the north, to rival the Italians in raising silk, and by enlightened men too; but it is not sufficient to be enlightened, it is necessary to follow a proper train of reasoning.--Good natural sense sometimes supplies the place of regular reasoning, and, as if it were intuitively, arrives at a true conclusion. -=-

[end of page #211]

mented by success, and diminished by any thing of a contrary description. The rising nation has always an increased energy, and that which is about being rivalled a sort of discouragement and dismay. This is one cause, but there are others.

So far as methods of working and machinery are connected, the imitating nation has the advantage; it copies the best sort of machine, and the best manner of working at once. The workmen have neither an attachment to the old inferior methods, nor do they use old inferior machines, to avoid the expense of new ones. {172} In short, they adopt all improvements without much additional expense; and, as men's minds are always more occupied in thinking about a new object than an old one, they are even more likely to make improvements.

As to difficulties in rivalling a nation in skill, in any mechanical art, there are none. The only difficulties in manufactures are in the inventions and improvements, and those have been overcome by the leading nation, and are no difficulties to that which follows. There are, indeed, some arts which require particular talents, and a real exertion of genius; but those are so few in number, and have so little connection with the common affairs of mankind, or the wealth of nations, that they do not deserve to be noticed.

There is nothing in the art of weaving, or working in metals, or in any other material for common use, that is of such difficulty but that any man, with a common capacity, may do it nearly as well as any other man. The habits and manners of mankind, their disposition to labour, and the nature of the government under which they live, may encourage or discourage manufacturing; but both the strength and capacity of any of the natives of Europe, taking them on an average, are fully sufficient to enable them to excel in any work.

--- {172} Where machines are very expensive, new improvements, that require other machinery, are sometimes crushed and rejected on that account. To adopt them, a man must sometimes begin by sacrificing half his fortune, by destroying his old machinery.

There have been several instances of this seen, particularly in the making of iron, when it was proposed to convert the rough gueze into good malleable iron bar, by rolling it at a welding heat, instead of hammering it by a forge-mill. -=-

[end of page #212]

{Here appears at page 212 the third chart, entitled "Chart Shewing the Amount of the Exports and Imports -of- ENGLAND to and from all parts from 1800 to 1805"}

The British nation has begun to seek for wealth from agriculture. It had long been the mode to pay attention and give the preference to manufactures; but the current is, for the present, set in, in another direction. Calculation has, till of late, been confined to mercantile men; but, after all, they have not carried it to a very great length: and, as to their speculative wisdom, it consists chiefly in taking a ready advantage of some immediate object.

EXPLANATION OF PLATE NO. III.

The space from right to left is divided into years, each line representing the year marked under and above. From the beginning of the last century, till the year 1770, every tenth year only is expressed, and the average amount of exports and imports only is shewn; but, from 1770 to the present time, every year is separately represented by a line going from the top to the bottom.

The divisions from top to bottom are millions of pounds sterling, each representing a million, measuring from the bottom, the number of millions indicated is marked on the right margin.

As the exports, which are expressed by a red line, increased or diminished, the red line rises or falls, crossing the division representing the year at the line which indicates the number of millions to which the exports amounted that year.

The yellow line is drawn on the same principle, and represents the imports for the same years; the difference between the two, which is stained green, being the balance for or against England.

Thus, for example, we see that, till the year 1775, the exports rose very fast, and were far above the imports, but that then their proportion begun =sic= to vary; insomuch that, in 1781, the yellow line rose above the red, when the balance in favour of England turned against it, to the amount of a million for one year. In 1782, the balance again became favourable; but, though the trade was increasing, the balance was once more, in 1785, against England; ever since which it has been more or less in our favour.

The difference between the two lines is stained pale green, when the balance was favourable, but of a pale red when against England.

[end of page #213]

The advantages proposed by this mode of representing matters are the same that maps and plans have over descriptions, and dimensions written in figures; and the same accuracy is in one case as the other; for, whatever quantities can be expressed in numbers may be represented by lines; and, where proportional progression is the business, what the eye does in an instant, would otherwise require much time.

The impression is not only simple, but it is as lasting in retaining as it is easy in receiving. Such are the advantages claimed for the invention twenty years ago, when it first appeared; the claim has been allowed by many, and not objected to, so far as the inventor knows, either in this or in any other country.

EXPLANATION OF PLATE NO. IV.

Chart of revenue, from the time of Queen Elizabeth to the present day.

Till the accession of William III. in 1688, the materials for this are not altogether accurate; but they are not far wrong, and indeed, the low state of the revenue, previous to that period, is such that it is a matter of little importance whether or not they are very exact. It is represented here rather as a contrast to the present high revenue, and a matter of curiosity, than as being of much importance.

The pale red part expresses the free revenue, or what is over, after paying the interest of our debt.

This free revenue has not increased so fast as the value of money has decreased, previous to the year 1793; and certainly, at that time, the annual sum of 7,000,000 L. was no equal to 4,000,000 L. in the reign of Queen Anne.

The green part shews the annual interest of the national debt, and proves, beyond contradiction, that, under such a system, expenses of war (for the whole debt has been contracted for wars) augment in much more than a simple proportion.

The yellow part, bounded by a curved line, shews the manner in which the sinking fund will increase in its operation of paying off the debt, on the supposition that the nation continues to borrow as it has [end of page #214] done for the last twelve years; setting apart one per cent. on every new loan, for its liquidation.

As comparative views are the great object of these charts, a yellow dotted line is made, representing the amount of the revenue of France during the same period, till 1789, when the revolution stopped its progress; since which its amount has not been regularly known. {173}

--- {173} The author published an Atlas, containing twenty-seven charts of the different branches of commerce, revenue, and finance, of England, which was translated into French. The fifth edition, much improved, and brought to the present time, is now printing, and will be published in November. -=-

[end of page #215]

CHAP. III. [=sic=--error in printer's copy, should read II.]

_Of Education, as conducted in England.--Amelioration proposed.-- Necessity of Government interfering, without touching the Liberty of the Subject_.

The importance of education has been already mentioned, as it in general regards all nations, and certainly when we have examples to shew what are the lasting and terrible consequences of degradation of national character and manners, it is impossible to pay too strict an attention to that subject.

The natural tendency in a nation, while growing richer, to alter its character, owing to the different manner in which the children are educated and brought up, applies particularly to England, and to every nation getting rich by trade or manufactures. In another part, it has been observed, that where the wealth of a country circulates amongst the labouring classes first, it alters the manner of living more than when it originates with the higher; it produces, also, a greater change on the education of children.

No part of the general inquiry is so particularly applicable to England, in an excessive degree, as that relative to education. In proportion as ignorant people arrive at that sort of affluence, which manufactures and trade produce, in that same proportion do they ruin their children. The manners, the nature of the government, and the way of thinking of the people, all lead to this in England; and so far as it is possible to observe the effect, it may be said to appear as if it operated with rapidity at the present period.

Many volumes have been written on education, by the ablest men; but it has already been observed, that they have all treated the subject in a manner much too intricate and complex. Fully aware of the importance, they seem to have thought that it could not be treated too much at length, or investigated too minutely; and, by this means, what they have said is little applicable to general purposes; for, if to educate a man for common life were a difficult complicated operation, it would very seldom be performed. [end of page #216]

{Here appears at page 216 the fourth and final chart, entitled "Chart Representing the Increase of the Annual Revenues -of- ENGLAND AND FRANCE, from the beginning of the 17th Century to the present time"}

The word education itself appears to be misapplied or misunderstood, owing, probably, to its original construction and use, and no other word having been substituted in its place.

By education was meant, in former times, the teaching to read and write; and these accomplishments, which, at that time, distinguished a gentleman from the lower classes, and, by that means, education is still considered as only applying to the learning of what is taught at schools or universities. It is principally in this light that those who have written on it have viewed it, though in fact _well brought up (bien eleve)_ comes nearer to the meaning than being _well learnt_, which is equivalent to well educated.

In this, as in every other thing, the end in view should never be forgotten; but, as it happens with respect to the middling and lower orders, it is forgotten so soon as affluence has made a little progress in a country.

The education of the higher classes is generally pretty well conducted; and, indeed, human beings, when beyond the reach of want, who do not inherit the necessity derived from Adam, of gaining their bread by the sweat of their brows, require much more teaching than others, whose conduct is regulated by necessity, and who have not the means of giving way to the passions that beset human nature.

With respect, however, to the higher classes, it is scarcely possible for a government to interfere to much purpose. Those who are possessed of fortune will act according to inclination; and, in respect to this class of society, in England, it is already in less need of reform or interference than any others, while the lower and middling classes require it more.

There is no possibility for an ignorant man to become of any importance in this country, even with the aid of wealth and fortune. An immoral character, or a mean selfish one, has not a much better chance, while, by talents and good conduct, every thing desirable may be obtained: perhaps, nothing further can be done to excite men of rank and fortune to emulation and virtue.

With respect to the learned professions, the modes by which students are brought up to them are by no means unexceptionable; but that is not a point of very great national importance; at any rate, [end of page #217] it is not the part in which England stands the most in need of attention {174} and interference from the government of the country.

The two classes to whom bringing up, as it is generally understood, would apply better than the word education, are the middle rank of society, and the lower order of people in trade.

The middle rank of society is, in all countries, the most important in point of principles and manners. To keep it pure is always of the highest importance, and it is the most difficult, for there a baneful change is the most apt to take place.

Gentlemen of rank, in all countries, resemble each other very nearly; not, perhaps, in exterior, because that depends on fashion, which is arbitrary, but in mind and manners there is less difference than between men in a second rank of society.

The lower orders, so far as they are forced, by necessity, to labour, resemble each other also; they are pressed by necessities and passions on one side, and the desire of rest on the other; and a fair allowance being made for variety of climate, of circumstances, and of natural dispositions, there is nothing very different amongst them. {175}

What applies with respect to the higher and lower orders does not

--- {174} Our lawyers (barristers) are probably superior to those of any other nation, and the clergy are, at least, equal. This is not, indeed, saying a great deal; but it is so difficult, in matters of religion, to temper zeal, and draw a line between emulation and fanaticism, that, perhaps, it is better that they should be a little remiss than righteous overmuch. It is not in the education of churchmen, but in the manner of paying and providing for them, that the error lies; and that subject is treated elsewhere.

{175} Cervantes, in his admirable romance of Don Quixote, paints the mind of a gentleman, which all countries will acknowledge to be like the truth. The madness apart, the manner of thinking and acting was that of the gentleman of Spain, France, Germany, or England. Neither was he the gentleman of the fifteenth or eighteenth century, but of any other century. His dress was Spanish; his madness and manners belonged to the ages of chivalry and romance, but the mind and principles of the gentleman suited all ages and all countries.

Sancho, again, barring likewise his oddities, is the peasant of all countries; studying to live as well as he can, and labour as little as he may. In short, a mind continually occupied about personal wants, and alive to personal interest. In the middle ranks of society there is no such similarity. -=-

[end of page #218]

apply at all to the middling classes, nor even to the most wealthy class of labourers in a manufacturing country: in those we can find no fixed character; it is as variable as the circumstances in which the individuals are placed, and it is there that a government should interfere. It should interfere in guiding the richer classes of working people, and the middling ranks, in the education of their children, and in assisting those of the lower orders, who are too much pressed upon by indigence.

The end in view in all education is to make the persons, whether men or women, fill their place well and properly in life; and this is only to be done by setting a good example, instilling good principles, accustoming them, when young, to good habits; and, above all, by teaching them how to gain more than they are habituated to spend.

It follows from this, that industry, and a trade, are the chief parts of education, that reading and writing are not, being but of a very doubtful utility to the labouring class of society.

On this subject, it is absolutely necessary to advert to what Dr. Smith says relative to apprenticeships; the opinion of so great a writer is of too much importance not to be examined, and refuted, if found wrong.

Apprenticeships, or teaching a trade, is the basis of the future happiness and prosperity of the individual in the lower and middle classes. On this subject, however, Mr. Smith says quite the contrary. That the idleness of apprentices is well known, that their inducement to industry is small, and that, as to what they have to learn, a few weeks, or sometimes a few days, would, in most cases, be sufficient. In short, he maintains, that they would learn better, be more industrious and useful, if employed on wages, than if bound for a term of years; and, finally, that there were no apprentices amongst the ancients. As to there being no apprentices in the ancient world, if that was the case, is no argument with respect to the present state of things; for, while most part of working men were slaves, there could not possibly be much occasion for apprentices; but are we quite certain, that the freed men, so often mentioned, were not people who had served apprenticeships? Freed men are so often mentioned, that there must have been probably something else to which they owed their freedom, besides the goodwill or [end of page #219] caprice of their masters, particularly as that goodwill must have been exercised to deserving objects, and consequently the sacrifice made in giving liberty was the greater. {176}

As men cultivated difficult arts; that is, as luxury increased, it must have become difficult to get labour done by slaves, merely by compulsive means; there must have been bargain and mutual interest settled between the master and the slave, so as to accomplish the end intended. {177} Amongst rewards to a slave, liberty, at a certain period, is not only the greatest, but is the only one that effectually serves the slave; for, while he remains the property of a master, his rewards can consist of little else than good treatment, as all property given is liable to be taken back again.

Supposing, however, the point yielded, and that there were no apprentices in the early ages; but that the practice originated in the days of ignorance; in the dark ages, under the feudal system, together with the invention of corporations and privileged bodies, against whose existence the whole set of economists have leagued together, as the Greeks did against Troy; still the obscurity of the origin is no objection. A constitution like that of Britain, for example, is not an invention of antiquity; it took its rise in the dark ages and in times of ignorance, but it is not for that the less an object of admiration. Many other examples may be furnished of the admirable things that took rise in the dark ages; and amongst them, not the least, is the abolition of slavery itself. {178}

Let us, however, examine the effect of apprenticeships in those places where they can be compared with persons brought up entirely free.

--- {176} We may form some idea of the difficulty of getting work done by people in no way interested in the success, by the workhouses in this country. The smallest quantity, and of the most simple nature, is all we get done, because the overseers are ignorant, and the nation inattentive, and the labour compulsive.

{177} In Egypt, and most other ancient countries, the son followed, by law, the trade of his father: this was equivalent to an apprenticeship.

{178} Whether it arose from the mixture of a northern with the southern people, or from what other cause, it is certain, that, during the ages of ignorance, the foundation was laid for almost all that is great, at the present time. -=-

[end of page #220]

If there are trades, where it is true, (as Mr. Smith affirms,) that the art of working may be learnt in a few weeks, what are the consequences? At the age of sixteen or seventeen, a boy can get as much money as he will be able to earn at any future time in his life; he will be able to get as much as a man, who has a wife and five or six children to maintain. There will be required a very great share of moderation and wisdom, indeed, under such circumstances, to prevent such a boy from wasting his money in ways that will incapacitate him from living easy when he shall become a father of a family himself, or from idling away the spare time that his gains afford him. He will, naturally, do part of both: but the way that is generally done is this. Without controul from a master, and totally independent of parents, who are quite left behind in poverty, (not having more to maintain their whole family than the youth himself earns,) he despises them, saves a little money at first, and purchases finery. The novelty of dress soon wears off, and the more immediate pleasures of eating, drinking, and keeping company, as it is termed, take the lead. The consequence of the same is idleness and rags. Ashamed to shew himself amongst persons of better conduct, the youth changes his place of residence and work; habit has got hold of him, and labour becomes hateful; a soldier's life appears the best for a youth of such a description; and, it is an undoubted fact, that, at those places where trades are carried on, that can be learnt in a short time, {179} there are more recruits obtained for the army than in any other districts of equal population. It is also an undoubted fact, that, in these same districts, the most respectable people bind their sons apprentices; and, in doing so, they are guided by experience, and affection for their children, not by interested motives.

--- {179} This is not the case with many trades, and Mr. Smith is under a mistake as to the fact; but, granting it to be true, the places in question, Birmingham, Sheffield, Manchester, and other towns where the division of labour reduces every operation to great simplicity, are the best for recruiting the army. In those places, all respectable people, who can afford it, bind their sons apprentices, to prevent the danger. -=-

[end of page #221]

In the other case, again, where a trade is not easily learnt, how is skill to be obtained but by an apprenticeship. The bringing the son up to his father's trade, a practice that prevails in the eastern parts of Asia, is one way; parental authority needs not the aid of a written indenture; but, where this is not the case, who is to teach a youth, if he is not to be bound for a certain number of years, but to go away as soon as he has learnt a trade? The father, in some cases, may be able to pay for his son learning the trade, and this experiment has sometimes been tried, but generally with very imperfect success. The youth, for the most part, in those cases, considers himself as independent of the master, and gives himself very little trouble to learn his business.

Where the reward of the master, or rather the remuneration for his pains and trouble, is to arise from the labour of the boy, the master is interested in his learning; and the other feels an obligation, as well as an interest in learning. Though the apprentice is not absolutely paid for what he does, he finds his ease, his importance, and comfort, all depend on his proficiency; and, with young minds, such motives are much more powerful, and act through a better channel than avarice.

The power that the legislature gives to a master over his apprentice appears not only to be wise but necessary; and, if rewards for earning a trade could be given, in addition to that without infringing on liberty, or burthening the state, it would be a great advantage.

But learning a trade is not the only advantage of an apprenticeship; a good moral conduct, fidelity, and attention to his duties, are all acquired at the same time, or ought to be so; whereas, the youth who, at an early age, is left without control, is apt to learn just the contrary.

Where people have fortune, circumstances give them a control over their children by expectancies; but, where there is no fortune, and children must provide for themselves, an apprenticeship is a substitute for expectancies, which appears highly necessary; and it is wonderful how so discriminating and profound a man as Dr. Smith could overlook so material a circumstance. It shews how far prejudice, and an [end of page #222] opinion once adopted, will lead men of the first judgement and genius astray; {180} for it is not to be supposed that any person will stand forward of himself to maintain an opinion against which experience speaks so decidedly.

To learn a trade, and be taught a good moral conduct, and attention to one's duty, is certainly the essential part of education, both in the lower and middling classes; and that portion of education, which appears to have got an exclusive title to the name, reading and writing, are, with the working classes, a very inferior object.

One of the duties of government, then, is to watch over the education of the children of the middling and lower orders, which has a tendency to grow worse, as the nation advances in wealth.

In England, the pride of the middling classes is to have their children educated at boarding-schools, where the business of eating, sleeping, dressing, and exercise, is pretty well understood; where the branches of education, pretended to be taught, are little attended to, (writing, and some exterior accomplishments, of which the father and mother can judge, excepted,) where moral conduct, the duties in life, and the conduct necessary to be followed, are scarcely once thought of.

It is true, that, till a certain age, it is generally not known for what particular line of life a young man is intended; but, there are certain things necessary to every line of life, and those should never be neglected. The habits contracted at schools are very often of a sort never to be got the better of; and how can good habits be contracted when no attention is bestowed on the subject?

The consequence of this is, that, when the good sense of the father or mother, or of the boy himself, does not correct the evil, he is bred up to consider himself as born to be waited on, and provided for, without any effort of his own; he is led to suppose that he is to indulge

--- {180} In the notes upon the Wealth of Nations, this case is argued, but the matter is too important not to be examined on every occasion and opportunity. The opinion here alluded to is that general way of thinking, respecting corporations, privileges, and regulations, or restraints of every sort imposed on trade, which the writers on political economy, in general, think ought all to be entirely done away. -=-

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in a life similar to that his father leads at home, where a few indulgencies =sic= are the natural consequences of age, and the fair returns for a life employed in care and industry.

In England, it would be absolutely necessary to make school-masters undergo an examination; not only at first, and before the school should be licensed, but the boys should be examined twice a year, and the result enregistered, so that the business would really be to learn something, and not merely to spend the time.

The small proficiency made in the schools, in England, and around London in particular, is incredible. It is even difficult to conceive how the boys avoid learning a little more than they generally do, during eight or ten years. {181} The masters pretend, for the most part, to teach boys Latin, by way of teaching them English, but without almost ever accomplishing it. In arithmetic, the common rules are taught, but scarcely ever decimal fractions, and almost never book-keeping, so useful and so easy an art.

Writing and spelling are better taught, perhaps, than in any other country, and, certainly, those are great advantages; but, according to the time and money spent, it is the least that can be expected. Here we may remark, that those are the only acquirements with the proficiency in which the father and mother are necessarily acquainted; it therefore gives reason for thinking, that, if the same check were held in other branches of their education, they would be excited to make equal progress.

When the time comes that it is fixed on what line of life a young man is to adopt, then there should be schools for different branches, where

--- {181} Without contesting the point, whether dead languages are of any use, it will be allowed that the study costs pretty dear. Three- quarters of the time, for seven years employed on that is equal to five years employed constantly, and twenty pounds a year, at least, is the expense. Not above one in one hundred learns to read even Latin decently well, that is one good reader for every 10,000 L. expended. As to speaking Latin, perhaps, one out of one thousand may learn that, so that there is a speaker for each sum of 100,000 L. spent on the language. It will, perhaps, be said, that Latin is necessary to the understanding English, but the Greeks, (particularly at Athens,) who learnt no language but their own, understood and spoke it better than the people of any other country. -=-

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there should be knowledge taught, analogous to the profession. For the mercantile line, for agriculture, for every line of life, boys should be prepared; and, above all, it should never be neglected to instil into them the advantages of attention to industry, to doing their duty, and in every case making themselves worthy of trust.

Public examinations, such honours and rewards as would be gratifying, but not expensive, for those that excelled, would produce emulation. Though, perhaps, it is not of very great importance to excel in some of the studies to which a young man applies at school, yet it is of great importance to be taught that habit of application that produces excellence.

With regard to the education of the lower classes, it would be no great additional burthen to the nation if there were proper schools established in every parish in the kingdom, at the expense of the public, in order that there might be a proper control over those who teach, and over what is taught. {182} Without going so far as to compel people of the lower classes to send their children to school, they might be induced to do it for a short time, and, at all events, care should be taken that the teachers were fit for the office they undertake.

In no country do the lower classes neglect the care of their children more, or set them a worse example, than in England; they are mostly brought up as if the business of eating and drinking were the chief purpose of human existence; they are taught to be difficult to please, and to consider as necessary what, in every other nation in Europe, is considered, by the same rank of people, as superfluous.

Although the lower orders have as good a right as the most affluent to indulge in every enjoyment they can afford, yet to teach this to children, without knowing what may be their lot, is doing both them and society an injury. A great number of crimes arise from early indul-

--- {182} As there are between nine and ten thousand parishes, twenty pounds given in each, to which the schoolmaster would be allowed to add what those who were able could pay, might perhaps answer the purpose, and would not amount to a great sum. -=-

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gence of children, and from neglecting to instil into them those principles which are necessary to make them go through life with credit and contentment. {183}

The Spartans used to shew their youth slaves or Helots in a state of intoxication, in order to make them detest the vice of drunkenness; but this was the exhibition of a contemptible and mean person in a disgraceful situation. The effect is very different when children see those they love and respect in this state; it must have the effect of either rendering the parent contemptible, or the vice less odious, it perhaps has some effect both ways; but, at all events, it must operate as a bad example, and, amongst the lower classes, it is a very common one.

When a nation becomes the slave of its revenue, and sacrifices very =sic= thing to that object, abuses that favour revenue are difficult to reform; but surely it would be well to take some mode to prevent the facility with which people get drunk, and the temptation that is laid to do so. The immense number of public houses, and the way in which they give credit, are undoubtedly, in part, causes of this evil. It would be easy to lessen the number, without hurting liberty, and it would be no injustice if publicans were prevented from legal recovery for beer or spirits consumed in their houses, in the same manner that payment cannot be enforced of any person under twenty-one years of age, unless for necessaries. There could be no hardship in this, and it would produce a great reform in the manners of the lower orders.

There are only three modes of teaching youth the way to well-doing,-- by precept, by example, and by habit at an early age. Precept, without example and habit, has but little weight, yet how can a child have either of these, if the parents are encouraged and assisted in living a vicious life? Nations and individuals should guard

--- {183} The French, before the revolution, were not be =sic= considered as a more virtuous people than the English, yet there were fewer crimes, and less dissipation amongst the lower orders than in England, and more amongst the higher. The French, particularly the mothers, have less affection for their children, yet they brought them up better, both in habits and in principles. -=-

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against those vices to which they find they have a natural disposition; and drinking and gluttony are the vices to which the common people in this country are the most addicted.

Whatever other things may be taught, let this truth be instilled into all children brought up to earn their bread, that in proportion to their diligence will be their ease and enjoyment, and that this world is a world of sorrow and grief to the idle and the ignorant; that knowledge does not consist in being able to read books, but in understanding one's business and duty in life, and that industry consists in doing it.

Female education, in England, requires as much reform as that of the other sex; but, though the subject is not much less important, it is perhaps still more difficult. It has been remarked, by those who have travelled abroad, that, in other countries, women are in general not better, but rather worse dressed than men of the same rank: in England it is different; for, at an early age, the women are dressed, both as to style and quality of clothes, far above their rank. This might, perhaps, not be difficult to account for, but it undoubtedly is a misfortune, and one that is greatly increased by the mode of education and manner of thinking; for the main and indispensable virtue of that amiable sex excepted, (for which Englishwomen are highly distinguished,) perhaps no women in the world are brought up in a more frivolous unmeaning manner. The French women, with all their vivacity and giddy airs, have more accomplishment; {184} and, as they speak their mind pretty plainly, they have, on many occasions, testified surprise to find English ladies, who had studied music for years, who could scarcely play a tune, and who, after devoting years to the needle, were incapable of embroidering a pin-cushion.

Novels, a species of light, insipid, and dangerous reading, are the bane of English female education. They teach a sort of false romantic sentiment, and withdraw the mind from attention to the duties of

--- {184} The emigrants have taught to ladies of rank, fashions; and to those of an inferior class, arts and industry. The English women did not know half what they could do, till the French came amongst them, about twelve years ago. -=-

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life, at a time when it should be taught to learn their high importance. In female education the government should interfere; for the education of the mother will always have an influence on the education of the son, as her conduct in life must have on that of her husband.

As one general observation, relative to the education given at most public schools, it may be observed, that, whilst much time is taken up in teaching things that can never probably be of great utility, that species of knowledge that does not belong to any particular class, but which is of the utmost importance, is left to chance and to accident. While a boy is tormented with learning a dead language he is left to glean, as in a barren field, for all those rules of conduct on which the prosperity and happiness of his future life depends. {185}

A public education is, in many respects, better than a private one for boys, but, in some things, it is inferior: consequently those who can afford it, and wish to give their sons the most complete education, try to unite the advantages of both, by sending them to a public school, under the care of a private tutor. It is not in the power of the middling classes to do this; but modes should be adopted to give the boys, either by books or public lectures, those instructions, relative to moral conduct, to prudence, behaviour, &c. which a private tutor gives to those under his particular charge.

As to female education, it is a difficult subject: one great improvement would, nevertheless, be not to allow above a certain number in any one seminary; to have people of irreproachable conduct over them, and, wherever the parents can, to bring them home at the age of thirteen or fourteen. The public education ought certainly to finish at an early age, and, in all cases, with respect to females, a private is much preferable to a public education. {186}

--- {185} The most virtuous of the Roman emperors attributed to his preceptors every one of those excellent qualities he possessed. The ancient education of Greece and Rome was very different from that of the moderns.

{186} Since this was written, we understand a book for this very purpose is about to be printed, with the professed design of uniting the advantages of a public and private education. -=-

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CHAP. III.

_Of the Effects of Taxation in England_.

What has been said of the increase of taxes, their tendency to ruin a nation, and bring on its decline, together with the counteraction occasioned by the continuance of necessity, as being applicable to all nations in general, applies, in every sense, to England, and even more to England than to any other nation. Taxes are carried to greater excess than in any other country; and, as England flourishes by trade and manufactures, (the price of which taxes enhance,) they gradually tend to shut foreign markets against us. This has already been explained; we, however, still have to inquire into the particular manner in which it operates upon this country.

That the system of taxation, though irregular in England, is less so than in any other country, in proportion to the extent to which it has been carried, is true; but still, however, if a number of the most troublesome and ill-contrived taxes were done away, and others established in their place, it would be a great advantage.

Greater danger arises from the augmentation of taxes in a wealthy country than in a poor one, when they stretch beyond the proper line, because the general prosperity hinders the effect from being visible, till it has advanced beyond the power of remedy; whereas, in a poor country, the injury is soon felt.

The invention and industry of this country have been most wonderfully increased by the necessity of exertion, under the protection of good laws, which rendered property secure. But we trust too much to our resources, and, like men in health and vigour, are the most likely to injure our constitution.

The most part of the arts, in point of manufacturing, seem to have come to nearly the last degree of perfection, so far as abbreviation of labour can carry them. [end of page #229]

The division of labour, and the modes of working in the iron and metal branches, have not of late been in any material degree improved in our towns, the most famous for them; and as to any particular gift of bringing things to perfection, or reducing prices, it does not appear to be confined to England. Watches and fire-arms are two of the most ingenious and nice branches of metal manufactures; yet, at Liege, the latter is carried to greater perfection than at Birmingham, and London and Lancashire are outdone by Switzerland, in the former. Those, indeed, are not manufactures of which the taste or form is constantly altering; but they are a proof of the ability to work with equal advantage, both as to quality and price, with the manufacturers of this country.

The next great branches are the weaving. For silks, France has always had the advantage of us; and our fine woollen cloths have never equalled those of Louvier and Sedan for quality, although, in point of price, they have the advantage.

In linens, we enjoy no particular pre-eminence; and, in the American market, we are beginning to be undersold by those of Silesia. For a second quality of woollen cloth, and for the manufacture of cotton, in all its branches, we still have the superiority; but our great advantage, the cause of the general preference to our manufactures is the long credit we give, which, if it should ever cease to be practicable, would ruin not one, but all our manufactures, nearly at a stroke.

It is very natural and very well for Englishmen, who have never been out of their own country, to ascribe to superiority of quality, (and inferiority of price is the same thing,) the great success they have in selling their goods in foreign countries; but such as have had an opportunity to see how it really is, know the contrary; and those who have not, may know it by observing who are the individuals in any branch of business at home that do the most, and they will find it always to be those who have the power of giving the longest credit. It is true that, in the course of time, and by struggling hard, those who have little means of extending their business at first, do it by degrees; but, until they do, they never can, in point of quantity, rival those who give long credit.

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In the inability of other nations to give equal length of credit, consists our principal advantage; but we have seen, by the vicissitudes of ancient nations, that the wants of others, or their being behindhand, are but a very insecure tenure for the prosperity of any nation.

The exportation of Britain was but inconsiderable at the beginning of last =sic= century, or about one-ninth of what it was two years ago.{187} Previous to the American war, it gradually increased to about three times what it was in the year 1700; that is, in seventy-five years. The progression was pretty regular till the year 1750, when it had risen to nearly double; but, in twenty-five years after, it increased as much as it had in fifty years before. The American war threw it back forty years, but it soon got up again to where it probably would have been, had the American war not intervened; it, however, rose beyond any thing that had ever been seen. It doubled in less than ten years; and, from this, we are led to conclude, that the taxes had not then begun to hurt national industry. But we shall see the reason, for the great increase was not owing so much to any cause inherent in this nation, as to the absolute impossibility of other nations continuing their commerce. We had got all the East and West India trade of the French and Dutch, and America had again become our greatest customer for British manufactures.

Capital that could be removed was, in a manner, banished from the continent of Europe, and had taken refuge in England, and a great extent of the continent had been desolated with war. We are not, however, to expect this amazing export trade to continue; indeed, it has already fallen, in one year, as much as it ever rose in any three years; it fell fifteen millions in one year. The taxes may have operated much against our prosperity, without our knowing it, in a crisis of this sort, though they did not absolutely counteract the favourable effect produced by other causes.

The commerce of the American states, which were, (like England,) out of the vortex of danger, and secure, increased in fully as rapid

--- {187} In 1802, the exports amounted to 45,500,000 L. In 1702 to 5,500,000 L. -=-

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a manner as ours, and fell off in the same way. We must not then, consider as durable, or owing to ourselves, circumstances that arose out of the general and temporary situation of other nations.

It has been said in the general chapter on taxation, and again repeated in that on national debt, that both the one and the other operate, for a certain time, in augmenting the industry and wealth of a country, but that there is some point at which they begin to have a contrary effect; that point, however, being dependent on a variety of circumstances, is not a fixed one, it cannot be discovered by investigation before the time, but it may by symptoms and signs that become visible soon after.

It is a sign that a nation has passed the point at which taxes cease to be a spur to industry, when the duties on consumption, or optional duties, which one may avoid paying, by not using the article taxed, become less productive than formerly, and when it is found necessary to lay taxes on land, houses, and such sort of property as can be made to pay, independent of the will of the proprietor.

When taxes are laid upon property, not on consumption, it is to be supposed the latter can bear no more. Taxes on property are forced taxes; on consnmption =sic=, they are generally, to a certain degree, voluntary, though not always so.

The augmentation of wealth has, in this country, been great, but it has never been regular or uninterrupted; that of taxation has, on the contrary, been uninterrupted, and this is better seen from the chart than from any thing that can be said. There can be no doubt that, though hitherto our increasing prosperity has been so great as to counteract the effect of heavy taxation, yet that the same thing cannot be expected to continue long. How long it may continue, or whether it has not already ceased, or is on the point of ceasing, is uncertain; but there is nothing more positive, than that, if taxes increase, they must, in process of time, crush industry, and, therefore, at all events, they should be kept as low as possible.

The whole income of the country is estimated only at 150,000,000 L. The taxes to the state amount to 40,000,000 L. and those for the maintenance of the poor to 5,500,000 L. But this is the mere money ac-[end of page #232] count, without estimating loss of time, trouble, and inconvenience; so that it may fairly and reasonably be put down at one-third of the whole revenue or income of the individuals, yet the complaints are not so loud, and the clamour is not so great, as when they did not amount to one-twentieth of that revenue. This may, however, be accounted for.

One-third part of revenue is derived from the state itself, so that there are but two-thirds remain independent of it. The habit of bearing burthens, and experience of the inutility of complaint, are likewise reasons for acquiescence; besides these, we cannot but all be sensible, that complaints were very violent when there was little occasion for them. We cannot deny, that the nation has been prospering for a hundred years, while the cry of ruin has been resounding perpetually in every corner; it is therefore natural to mistrust our fears, and sit in silence, waiting the event.

The portion of our expense that consists in interest of money, on which no economy can operate, is so great, that it prevents any hope of much diminution from economy; and, indeed, in the time of peace, no economy that could be practised, more than what has commonly been done, would diminish our burthens one-fiftieth part. Even that would be very difficult, perhaps impracticable; for our free revenue, in time of peace, has not augmented in proportion to the diminution of the value of money; so that, in 1792, the expenses of the state were comparatively less than in the reign of Queen Anne.

Economy, then, is not the mode in which we must seek relief in time of peace. To carry on war in a less expensive manner in future, and take a solid and effectual method of reducing our debts, are the means, both of which are treated of in their proper place.

The modes of relief then, are three:

1. Economy in war.

2. A solid and fair method of reducing the present interest.

3. Attention, to render the system of taxation as little troublesome, and as fair and equal as possible.

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CHAP. IV.

_Of the National Debt and Sinking Fund.--Advantages and Disadvantages of both.--Errors committed in calculating their Effects.--Causes of Error.--Mode proposed for preventing future Increase_.

In no circumstance does the British empire differ so widely from all nations recorded in history, or from any now in existence, as with regard to the national debt.

Not only the invention of contracting debt to carry on war is but of recent origin, but no nation has ever carried it to near the extent that it has arrived at in England. The Italian states, in which this mode was first practised, never had the means of carrying it very far. In Spain, France, and Holland, national debt met with obstacles that arrested its progress long before it arrived at the pitch to which it has now come in this country.

The interest of the debt is above thrice the free revenue of the country, in time of peace, as that revenue was, previous to hostilities in 1793.

Whenever any operation is begun, the result of which is not known, owing to its being new, but which is in itself of great importance; the anxiety it occasions must be great, and, generally, the alarm is more than proportioned to the danger. If ever this truth was exemplified in any thing, it has been with regard to the national debt of England, which has been a continual object of terror since its first creation; not a public terror, merely amongst the ignorant, but the most profound and enlightened statesmen. Calculators, and writers on political economy, have served to augment the uneasiness by their predictions of a fatal termination.

While the debt has been augmenting with great rapidity, the wealth and resources of the nation have, at least, augmented equally fast, and the matter of fact has given the lie to all the forebodings of those who [end of page #234] occasioned the alarm. This very extraordinary circumstance merits an investigation.

It unfortunately happens, that, where people are deeply interested in a subject, they form their opinion before they begin to examine and investigate, and consequently the mind commences with a bias, and acts under its influence, the consequence of which is, that the conclusion is not so accurate as it otherwise would be. Not that, in calculating with figures, the disposition of the mind can make an unit of difference, the question being once fairly stated; but the previous impression on the mind tends to prevent the fair statement of the question.

That an uninterrupted practice of borrowing must end in an inability to pay is a self-evident axiom. It is not a matter that admits of dispute; but to fix the point where the inability will commence is a problem to resolve of a very difficult nature; it is indeed a problem, the re- solution =sic= of which depends upon some circumstances that cannot be ascertained. There are, it is true, certain fixed principles; but there are some points also that depend on events entirely unconnected with the debt, and, in themselves, uncertain. Two great considerations, that operate powerfully, have been omitted by most writers on this subject. The first, is the increased energy of human exertion, under an increased operation of necessity; the second, is the effect that the depreciation of money has, on lessening the apparent burthen occasioned by the interest of the debt. That these two causes, which have not been taken into account, have rendered the calculations erroneous, there is not a doubt; and how far they may still continue to operate is, at this time, as uncertain as ever; but they ought not to be considered as of operation beyond a certain unknown point, else the practice of contracting debt would be capable of infinite extension, which is impossible.

But the augmentation of the debt itself is not the only circumstance that excites attention, as intimately connected with the fate of this nation.

The increasing wealth and prosperity of the nation, under the heavy load of taxes, of which the debt is the principal occasion, is as much a matter of surprize as the ultimate result is an object of anxiety.

So long, however, as the nation is not actually born =sic= down by the [end of page #235] weight of taxes, its wealth must increase; and, what is considered as a very strange phenomenon, is only the natural and necessary consequence of increased taxation.

When men inhabit and cultivate land of their own, they are under no necessity of creating any greater value than they consume; but, when they pay RENT and TAXES, they are laid under a necessity of producing enough to supply their own wants, and to pay the rent and taxes to which they are subject. The same is the case with regard to manufacturers in every line of business, for though they do not, perhaps, consume any part of what they produce, (what comes to the same thing is that,) they are obliged to produce as much as will exchange, or sell, for all they want to consume, over and above paying their rent and taxes.

Without rent and taxes there are only three things that excite the exertion of man:--Necessity, arising from natural wants; a love of pleasure; or, a love of accumulation.

When a man labours no more than for his mere natural necessities, he is a poor man, in the usual acceptation =sic= of the word, that is, he has no wealth; {188} and a nation, peopled with such men, would justly be called a poor nation. When a man labours for nothing more than what he expends on pleasure, or to gratify his taste and passions, it is still the same, he consumes what he creates, and there is an end of the matter; and, whether he creates much or little, as his consumption is regulated by it, no difference is made to society; but, when rent and taxes constitute a part of the price of every commodity, the consumption of every man, whether he pays any taxes directly or not, himself, is attended with an increase to the revenues of those who receive the rent and taxes, and obliges him to create more than he consumes.

--- {188} Some philosophers call a man rich, who wants little, and has that little; they are quite right, in their way, but that does not apply here. Perhaps, according to their definition, the Lazzaroni of Naples are richer than the merchants of London; and, a man who is contented in a parish work-house, is, beyond dispute, rich; to say that such a man is wealthy would be absurd, because wealth, with writers on political economy, implies being possessed of real tangible property. -=-

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It arises from this, that the aggregate wealth of a people increases with rent and taxes; for, where there are neither, the desire of accumulation is the only thing that increases wealth. {189}

It is for this reason, that, by obliging a man to create more than he himself consumes, taxation increases the wealth of a nation; so that the flourishing state of England is a very natural effect of heavy taxation. The misery and poverty of those people who have little or nothing to pay, is equally natural, though it does not astonish one quite so much.

As there is nothing in the world without a bound, and a limit, it is clear, that, in laying it down as a principle, that rent and taxes occasion wealth instead of poverty, it is only to be understood, to a certain extent; that is to say, to the length to which the nature of things will admit of the exertion of man augmenting his industry, but not a step farther.

To ascertain this point would be to solve a most curious problem; observing, that the solution would, in every case, depend on a great variety of particular circumstances.

Something like a general investigation, however, is possible. It will not be accurate, nor is that wanted, but it may lay the foundation for understanding the matter better at a future period.

In London, rent and taxes are heavier than in any other part of the kingdom, and in Scotland they are less than in any other; yet, the working people, from all parts of the kingdom, come to London, and from the poorest places, in the greatest numbers. Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, are the poor countries, _lightly taxed_, and from them

--- {189} Accumulation is sometimes not a passion, but arises from necessity; by accumulation, is meant the increasing the value of the stock you possess, whether it consists of land, cattle, money, or merchandize.

Thus, for example, the Americans are increasing in wealth, from necessity, because their country is becoming better, by being cultivated, in order to produce what is necessary. They cannot have what they want, in the way they wish, without increasing or bettering the property of which they have taken possession.

If they had no more rent and taxes than they have, and if this were not the case, they would remain a poor people. Thus, the inhabitants of Syria, of Egypt, of Arabia Felix, formerly the finest countries in the world, having a property that does not better in their possession, and having scarcely either rent or taxes to pay, remain, from generation to generation, creating little, and consuming what they create. -=-

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people come, perpetually, to pay _heavy taxes_ in London. Yes, but it will be said, in answer, these are poor countries. They are, however, richer than England was in the days of Queen Elizabeth; and, if the nature of things could have admitted of people _changing centuries_, as they _change countries_, the people of the seventeenth century, with light taxes, would have emigrated to the nineteenth century, with all its heavy taxes, just as those Irish and Scotch come to London.

This proves that, even in London, the excess of taxes is not yet such as to create a retrograde effect, and it proves it in a very striking manner. Though there may, at first sight, appear something ludicrous in the idea of emigrating from the seventeenth to the nineteenth, from the reign of Queen Elizabeth to that of his present majesty, it is a perfectly fair comparison, and will hold good, examine it as much as one will. The common expression, (and a very significant one it is,) that one part of the country is a century behind another, or twenty years, or fifty years, is exactly the same idea, expressed in other words, for it is a comparison between the changes which a lapse of time makes in one case, and a removal of place in the other. The present times are then better to live in than those of Elizabeth, as London is better than any distant part of the country.

That the ability of the nation to sustain a given burthen, for a certain number of years, is no proof of a permanent ability to support it, must be admitted, even if the same annual resources were to continue; but, that permanent ability becomes much less certain, when we consider that the annual resources are perpetually varying, that, therefore, they have so many uncertain quantities, that it is impossible to resolve the problem.

As to the effect, with respect to the increasing the burthens of the people, that has been treated under the general head of taxation. Whether the money goes to pay for a ship of war, a regiment of soldiers, or the interest of loans, makes no difference to him who pays the tax; and, indeed, makes little to the general system of national economy, as, in every case, what is paid to the state is employed on unproductive labourers or idle people. That is to say, it is consumed, and never appears again.

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National debt, then, so far as it increases the taxes of a country, is like any other national expenditure; and, in maintaining unproductive and idle people, it is also the same; but it has, in another point of view, a different effect, and that effect is an advantageous one.

In every nation, the greatest part of the capital is employed, or, as it is called, sunk. Land, houses, machines, merchandize, &c. are the principal employments of capital. As those are transferred from one to another, or as the use or produce of them is paid for, by one to another, money is wanted occasionally; and, if there were no other employments, money must either be lying idle in some persons =sic= hands, till an employment could be found for it, or the possessor of it must begin some enterprise, and sink it himself.

But, when money is thus employed, it is no longer in the power of the proprietor; and, though money may be borrowed on such sort of security, it is slowly, and with difficulty. The expense, the inconveniency =sic=, and time necessary, prevent the lenders of money from lending any for occasional purposes on such sort of security; but when a nation borrows, and the stock is divisible and transferable at will, money can always be realized when it is wanted for any purpose that affords a greater advantage than the stock affords. {190}

Without this had been one of the effects of national debt, how could the facility of borrowing have increased, {191} as it has done? or how could merchants and individuals raise the sums they now do? {192}

--- {190} In 1793, 5,000,000 L. was lent to merchants on exchequer-bills. The property, on which the money was secured, was really merchandize, but the lenders would have nothing to do with the goods; government stepped in, and took the goods as a security, creating a stock transferrable, that represented the same goods, and, as if by magic, the money was found in a moment. I know of no operation so fit for elucidating the advantage of national debt as this.

{191} Borrowing on life rents is bad, for this reason; where there is no employment of this sort, all money is constantly employed in some sort of trade or enterprise that will produce profit, but cannot be realised. Example, Paris, &c.

{192} When money was wanted, in Queen Anne's time, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, (Mr. Montague,) attended by the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs, went about, from shop to shop, to borrow it, much in the way that is occasionally practised by the beadles for a public charity!! Yet England's credit was good, it owed little, the war was popular, and the country rich. -=-

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It must be allowed that one hundred millions, or at least a much smaller sum than our debts amount to now, would have produced this effect, and might answer every purpose of this sort, but there is still a consideration arising from the fluctuations in a stock, when it is small, and also from the number of persons possessed of it. People buy in and sell out with total indifference when the quantity is great, and the fluctuations small; but, the moment the funds are agitated, whether in rising or falling, money becomes scarce for those who want it for other purposes.

That the number of persons ready to buy and sell must be proportioned, in some degree, to the quantity of stock, is of itself so evident, that it would be useless to enlarge upon it; but it must be granted that the national debt has long ago passed the sum that was necessary to produce this advantage.

We find, then, that the evils attending the increase of debt are greatly counteracted by the debt itself, and that, to a certain amount, it is productive of a very considerable advantage to a trading nation. As those who calculated its ill effects, and foretold the ruin it would bring upon the state, did not take into account those circumstances, the result of their enquiries was necessarily wrong, in point of time, though the effect of which they spoke is perfectly certain to take place, if the debt continues to increase. Their reasoning may be compared to that of an astronomer, who observed the position of a planet, but, in his calculations, made no allowance for the refraction of the atmosphere, who would therefore err as to the place of the star, but not as to its existence.

Let us now consider the natural consequence, supposing that future increase is prevented by means of the sinking fund established for that purpose. As to the probability of this, it depends on so many circumstances that are concealed in the womb of time, that it would be madness to give any other than a hypothetical solution of the question.

If the war continues, and expenses increase nearly as they have hitherto done, great as is the operation of a sinking fund, it will not have time to counteract the evil. If the war stops soon, it will dim- [end of page #240] inish the debt with a most prodigious rapidity, {193} if it continues; the question, whether taxes can be found to pay the interest or not? can only be answered as a matter of opinion, which is, in a case of this sort, equivalent to no answer at all.

With respect to the supposed case of the debt augmenting, the observations that apply to that have been made already; they now only remain to be made with respect to the debt being paid off.

It has been observed already, in the chapter on Taxation, that the case of taxes being taken off to a great amount would be a new one of sudden and hurtful operation. Wages of labour would be diminished, as well as the burthens on those who live on settled income; it would therefore render people of fixed income more affluent, without giving ease to those who want it; in short, as the augmentation of taxes falls most on people with fixed incomes, so the advantages of this would principally be felt by them; and, as the baneful operation carries a sort of counteracting antidote with it, so, likewise, this beneficial operation would be attended with some drawback and inconveniency =sic=.

The diminution of taxes, though the ultimate is not, however, the immediate consequence of the operation of the sinking fund, the efficacy of which depends on the taxes being kept up to their full extent for a considerable time. =sic= The first effect of the fund is, that a large sum, annually expended, as revenue drawn from the subject, is reimbursed to the stockholders, and becomes capital.

This would immediately raise the funds, and thereby would counteract the sinking fund itself in a very material degree. Money would become abundant for all the purposes of trade, and it would be difficult

--- {193} A sort of ridicule has been thrown on the operation of compound interest, because its effects are so amazing as not to be capable of being realized; but, on this subject, two things are to be said,--first of all, it has never been to the operation during the first hundred years that either incredulity or ridicule have applied, and the sinking fund was never meant to continue to operate so long. Secondly, though there are many drawbacks on the employment of large sums laid out at interest, that diminish, and would at last destroy, the result of the calculation in accumulating; it is not so in paying off debt, where the effect calculated is produced with the greatest certainty. -=-

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to find employment for it; and, if the progress continued, part of it would most undoubtedly be sent to other countries, and so be the means of impoverishing this.

If, then, we could suppose fifty years of peace, and that the national debt could be paid off, (as it might be in that time,) the situation of productive labourers would be worse; of unproductive, better; and, finally, capital would leave the country, which would be deprived of that transferable stock, the beneficial effects of which have been mentioned.

The necessity that creates industry would be diminished, so that nothing could tend more effectually to bring on the decline of the nation than if all the debt were to be paid off; an operation which, though possible in calculation, never certainly would take place; the evils attending it would be so manifest, so clear, and so palpably felt before that was accomplished.

To let the national debt continue to increase is, then, certain ruin, at some period unknown, but perhaps not very distant; to pay it off would be equally dangerous: what then are we to do?

We must try to raise the resources necessary for war within the year, by which means we may avoid augmenting the debt. That is not, however, to be done while the present heavy interest remains, and that cannot be got rid of, according to any method yet publicly known, without bankruptcy, breaking faith with creditors, or paying off the debt; a resource in itself dangerous, and one that, after all, would bring relief at a very distant day.

Since the debt has been contracted, let it be kept up; but let a mode be taken of reducing the interest, without breaking faith with the creditors of the state, so that we may never be obliged to borrow any more.

At present, the sum that goes annually for interest, and for the sinking fund, (that is for paying off capital,) amounts to twenty-four millions, and the expenses of a year of war do not exceed that sum. Twelve millions of this may be found by war-taxes, and twelve millions diminution of the interest would just leave a residue sufficient to pay for a constant state of war; and, if peace came, the war-taxes would be taken off. The enemies of England would then not be able to make notches [end of page #242] in a stick, and say, "When we come to such a notch England will be ruined."

If this could be done it would be a solid and permanent system of revenue, arising out of an unsolid and transitory one.

Any thing like want of faith with the creditors would, however, not only be disgraceful and dishonourable, but would reduce such numbers to beggary, and ruin credit so completely, that the nation would be lost for ever; and, certainly, if we are to be ruined, there is no balancing between ruin with honour and ruin with disgrace.

There is a mode that would be fair and practicable, and the present is the most favourable moment for executing it; indeed, it is perhaps the only one when it has been practicable or would be just. By practicability and justice, two words very well understood, we mean, in this instance, that it is a moment when those who would have to pay the difference would be willing to do it, would see their interest in doing it, and would feel that they ought to do it.

We mean not to propose any of those imaginary means, by which debts will be paid off without burthens laid on. We have no talent for schemes, where all is produced from nothing, and no faith in their practicability.

The late and present wars, which have occasioned one-half of the debt, and for which our exertions are to be continued, were undertaken for the preservation of property; for, though the French system is so completely bad that even the beggars in England would be losers by adopting it, yet, it will be allowed, that the evil to people of property would be much greater than to those who have no property. Let us look to Flanders, Holland, and other countries, and say no if we can.

It was on this idea that an income-tax, afterwards termed a property- tax, was laid on, by which the rich are made to pay, and the poor are exempted. The justice and expediency of this was universally admitted: there might be some difference of opinion as to modes and rates, but there was none as to the general principle.

We would, then, propose to RAISE LOANS, at a low rate of interest to reimburse the present creditors, ON THE SAME PRINCIPLE ON WHICH THE PROPERTY-TAX EXISTS, in the following manner:

There are, by Mr. Pitt's calculation, (and his may be taken [end of page #243] in order to prevent caviling) 2,400,000,000 L. of capital in the kingdom. Let us then create a two and a half per cent. stock, into which every person possessed of property should be _compelled_ to purchase at par, in proportion to their capital, so as to redeem fifty millions every year, thereby creating fifty millions of new debt at two and a half per cent. and reimbursing an equal sum bearing an interest of five per cent.

A loan of two per cent. per annum, on each man's capital would do this, and would never be an object for the safety of the whole, particularly as it would only last for ten years. As he would have interest at two and a half per cent. he would, in reality, only lose half, that is, one per cent. a year during twelve years; so that a man, with 10,000 L. would only have given 100 L. a year for twelve years.

At the end of ten years, the interest of the national debt would be reduced to one-half its present amount, which, together with the war- taxes, would be sufficient to prevent the necessity of creating more debt. This, however, is not all, a more prompt effect and advantage may be expected. It is more than probable, that the moment our enemy found that the nation, could, without any great exertion, put its finances on a permanent footing, the present contest would finish. It is now only continued, in hopes of ruining our finances, and it is on the accumulation of the debt that the expectation of that is alone founded.

We observed, in the beginning of this Chapter, that most people are biased by hope or fear, in examining a question of great importance; and that, therefore, they do not state it quite fairly, without being sensible of their error. In the case of the gloomy calculators of this country, fear and anxiety operated in causing a misstatement; but, with regard to our enemies, hope is the cause of their magnifying the effect of our national debt, and, it must be allowed, that hope had seldom ever a more easy business to perform. The general conclusion is certain, and all the question that remains, is with respect to time.

The only mode of putting an end to this hope of our enemy, and to the war, at once, will be by shewing that enemy _that it is quite out of his power to augment our debt_, but untill =sic= a method shall be adopted by [end of page #244] us, that is PRACTICABLE AND EASILY UNDERSTOOD, that will not be believed by our enemy.

The rapidity of the operation of a sinking fund is easily calculated, but not so easily credited, particularly by people not inclined to do so, and who would not themselves have the constancy and self-denial to leave it time to operate. Besides, by this operation, we shall not get free of debt till the taxes are raised far above their present amount. Our enemies may be pardoned for believing it impracticable, particularly as many of our friends are of the same opinion.

France, which has always been the rival of this country, and hates it now more than ever, (envy being now an ingredient of its hatred,) knows well that it is fallen and degraded, that it has less wealth and happiness than England; but then it considers, that, however bad its finances may be, they are getting no worse; that to continue the war for twenty years will bring no more ruin on the nation, while half the term would probably ruin us. Till we show the fallacy of this calculation, we cannot expect a durable peace. Our ruin is become an object, not only of ambition, but of necessity, as it were, to France; and nothing but despair of being able to accomplish their object will make them abandon the attempt.

We must be permitted here to ask a few questions:

Is not the time favourable for the plan here proposed?

Would it not be fair in its operation?

Would it not bring relief effectually and speedily?

Would it not reduce our burthens, without breaking faith with the creditors of the state?

Would it not reduce the interest, without setting too much capital afloat, that might leave the country?

Could our enemies then calculate on the national debt destroying England?

The affairs of nations, it has been observed, become so complicated, and the details so multiplied, that those who have the management of them are scarcely equal to the business of the day; and they have no leisure to inquire into the best modes of keeping off evil when it is yet distant; of this we have had ample experience.

[end of page #245]

Allowing all the credit possible to the sinking fund, (and a great deal is due,) still during war its operation is a sort of paradox; it does not obtain relief: it is liable to be questioned; but we are come to a point, where the stability of our finances ought to be put out of doubt, and beyond all question. The mode of settling our affairs ought not only to be such as in the end may succeed, but its efficacy and practicability ought to be such as our enemies can understand and give credit to. Without this, we shall have no end to the contest.

With respect to what our enemies will give credit to, a good deal depends on their own natural disposition. A fickle and arbitrary people, who are continually breaking their faith, can have little belief in the constancy of a sinking fund, but they will be perfectly well inclined to believe, that men of property may be compelled, and will even be glad to pay one per cent. a year, for ten years, to ensure the safety of that property. Supposing then that the sinking fund were the better plan of the two in reality, it would not be so in the present circumstances, because it would not obtain credit, and the other will.

As to the rest, deprive the French of their hopes of ruining our finances, and they will make peace on reasonable terms, whenever we please; their object for continuing the war will then be at an end; and, if they do continue it, we can go on as long as they can, without any addition to our burthens.

Whatever the cause of a war may be, the hope of success is the only possible motive for persisting in it. The French have been led into two errors; first, by the comparison of this country to Carthage, and of their own to Rome, (an absurd comparison that does not hold,) and, in the second place, by looking on our ruin, from the increase of our debt, as certain. We ought to undeceive them, and then they will have less inclination to persist in war. No pains has hitherto been taken to set them right; nor, indeed, with respect to the national debt, can it ever be done by the present method, till they see the effect; for though the progress of a sinking fund in peace is easily understood, in time of war there is much appearance of deception; it looks like slight =sic= of hand more than a real and solid transaction.

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CHAP. V.

_Of Taxes for the Maintenance of the Poor.--Their enormous Increase.--The Cause.--Comparison between those of England and Scotland.--Simple, easy, and humane Mode of reducing them_.

Amongst the interior causes that threaten England with decline, none is more alarming than the increasing expenses of the poor; expenses evidently rising in a proportion beyond our prosperity, and totally without example, either in the history of past times, or in that of any modern nation.

The poor of England cost more to maintain than the free revenue of the country amounted to thirty years ago, and to nearly three times the amount of the whole revenues of the nation, at the time of the revolution.

The proportion between the healthy and the sick cannot have changed so much as to account for this augmentation; we must, therefore, seek for the cause elsewhere.

It probably arises from several causes; the increasing luxury, which leaves more persons in indigence when they come to an advanced age, owing to their being unwilling or unable to undergo the hardships to which nature subjects those who have been born to labour, and outlive their vigour; being thereby deprived of those indulgences which, in better days, they have experienced. In England, menial servants are accustomed to consume more than people of moderate fortune do in other countries, and they are the race of people most likely to be left to penury in their old age. In countries where there are, indeed, greater trains of menial attendants than in England, they, in general, belong to the great, who make some provision for them, or who, keeping them from ostentation, can retain them to a more advanced age; and, at all events, as they live a less luxurious life, they can make a better stand against that penury which it is their hard destiny to encounter. [end of page #247]

In a commercial country there is less attachment between master and servant, than in any other; and the instances of provision for them are very rare.

In proportion as a nation gets wealthy, the human race shares the same fate with other animals employed in labour; they are worked hard, and well fed while they are able to work, but their services are not regarded when they can do but little. {194}

Want of economy in the management of the funds destined for the purpose of their maintenance is another cause of increase in the expense of the poor. In a nation where every individual is fully occupied with his affairs, and has little time to attend to any thing else, those who manage the affairs of the poor find that few are inclined to look close into matters, and fewer still have the means of doing it if they would; so that abuses increase, as is always the case when there is no counteracting check to keep them within bounds.

Another cause, no doubt, is that, as the number of unproductive labourers increase, greater numbers of children are left in want.

To all those causes we must add the increase of towns, and the decrease of hamlets and villages. Towns are the places where indigence has the greatest consolation, and where the relief which is held out is attended with the least degree of humiliation and reproach.

When we compare the cases of England and Scotland, the causes cannot be doubted; for, there, servants live harder, the working class do not labour so hard, and are not so soon worn out, neither have the towns increased so much, at the expense of the hamlets and villages.

The greatest of all the causes of the increase of poor, however, arises from taxation and rent. It has been observed, in the chapter on Taxation, that, for a certain length, taxes and rent are productive of industry, and that, at last, they finish by crushing it entirely.

--- {194} If it were the custom to keep horses that were worn out till they died a natural death, the maintenance of them would cost more in England than in any other country; for their vigour is exhausted before the term of old age arrives. The calculation is in this country, to pay well, and be well served. -=-

[end of page #248]

The manner that this happens, is, that long before a country is as highly taxed as the majority of its inhabitants will bear, those who are the least able to pay are crushed, and reduced to absolute poverty.

There are two causes which may render a person unable to support the burthen of taxation: the one is, having a great family; the other is, being able to gain but little from weakness, or some other cause; and, where there are two causes that tend to produce the same effect, though they operate separately, they must, of course, sometimes act in conjunction.

The weakest part of society gives way first, in every country; and, on account of the arbitrary and ignorant, though lavish method of relieving that portion of society, in England, the evil is increased to more than double.

There is no relief at home in their own houses, no help, no aid, for the indigent, which might produce so admirable an effect, by counteracting the ruin brought on by heavy taxes and high prices; no, the family must support itself, or go wholesale to the workhouse. This is one of those clumsy rude modes of proceeding that a wealthy people, not overburthened with knowledge, naturally takes to overcome a difficulty, but without care or tenderness for the feelings of those relieved, or that regard for public interest, which ought to go hand in hand. For this it would be well to search a remedy.

A father and mother, and six children, will cost, at least, fifty pounds a year in a workhouse; but, perhaps, the aid of twelve or fifteen pounds would keep them from going there, and by that means save the greatest part of the money, while the country, which loses their industry, would be doubly a gainer.

There is a sort of rough, vulgar, and unfeeling character, prevalent amongst the parish-officers, that is a disgrace to the country and to the character of Englishmen. It is highly prejudicial to the nation; and, if there were no moral evil attending it, if the feelings of the poor were no object, =sic= the rich ought to attend to it for self-interest. If they will not, the government of the country is interested, both in honour and in interest, to do so.

Exemption from taxes will do little or nothing, the lower orders [end of page #249] are nearly all exempt, but that general dearness, that is the consequence of a general weight of taxes, is severely felt by them, and from that they cannot be exempted. They must get relief by assistance, and that assistance ought to be given in a manner that will not throw them altogether a burthen on the public. {195}

It is impossible to tax the people of a nation so highly, as they can all bear, because, before some will feel, others will be crushed; before the bachelor feels the tax, the father of a large family is obliged to starve his innocent offspring. Before he who has only two children feels the hard pressure, the family of twelve will be reduced to want; and so in proportion. The mode, then, to raise the most money possible, would be to tax the whole nearly as high as the bachelor can bear, and then to give a drawback in favour of the man with the children, they would then be on a perfect equality as to taxation, and the highest sum possible might be raised without hurting any one portion of the people more than another.

If the links of a chain are not all equally strong, before any strain is felt by the strong links the weak ones give way, and the chain is broken. The case is the same with the members of a community. Now, when you lay on taxes, the general tendency is to raise the price of food and labour; most labourers receive the advantage of the price of labour, but many pay unequally for the rise of food.

A tax on the wealthy, it will be said, is the thing proposed, but no, that would do nothing, it must be a premium or drawback to men with families who are poor, not merely to counteract the effect of any one tax, but the total effect of taxation with respect to maintaining their children. Wide, indeed, is the difference between a tax on those who are well able to pay, and a premium or drawback in favour of those who are not.

The manner of providing for the poor in England leads to a degree

--- {195} Probably, the reason that so small a sum serves the purpose in Scotland is, that relief is administered to the families, at their own houses, by the minister and elders of the parish. It is a rare instance of an administration, without emoluments and without controul. The funds are distributed with clean hands, in all cases, and impartially in most. -=-

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of wastefulness and improvidence unknown in any other country. Improvidence ought as much as possible to be discouraged; for, with those who labour hard and are indigent, the desire to gratify some pressing want, or present appetite, is continually uppermost. This may be termed the war between the belly and the back, in which the former is generally the conqueror. It would be a small evil if this victory were decided seldom, as in other countries, but in the great towns of England there is as it were a continual state of hostility. In London, the battle is fought, on an average, at least, once a week; and idleness, and the profits of those sort of petty usurers, called pawnbrokers, are greatly promoted by it.

Some part of this evil cannot, perhaps, be remedied, but there are certain articles that ought not to be taken in pledge, such as the clothes of young children and working tools. {196}

There is no doubt but, that, in a populous inhospitable trading town, where there is no means of obtaining aid, from friendship, where the want is sometimes extreme, the resource of pledging is a necessary one. This is to be admitted in the degree, but by no means without limitation; for the facility creates the want, (even when it is a real want) for it brings on improvidence and carelessness. The lower classes come to consider their apparel as money, only that it requires changing before it is quite current. {197}

If this matter were well looked into, together with the other causes from which mendicity proceeds, which increases so rapidly, we should

--- {196} In Scripture it is forbidden to pledge the upper or the nether mill-stone. This is a proof, of very great antiquity, and indisputable authority, of the care taken to prevent that sort of improvidence that hurts the general interest of a people. It should be imitated in this country with regard, to all portable implements of labour, such as mill-stones were in those early times.

{197} In Scotland, twenty years ago, there were not so many pawnbrokers as there are in Brentford, or any little village round London. In Paris, as debauched a town as London, and where charity was as little to be expected, there was only one lending company, the profits of which, after dividing six per cent., went to the Foundling Hospital. It was, as in London, a resource in cases of necessity, but there was too much trouble to run it on every trifling occasion, as is done in London, and, indeed, in most towns in England. -=-

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soon perceive a diminution of the poors' rates, and the wealthiest country of Europe would not exhibit the greatest and most multiplied scenes of misery and distress.

The numbers of children left in indigence, by their parents, would be comparatively lower, and there would not be that waste in the administration of the funds on which they are supported.

There is, probably, no means of greatly diminishing the number of helpless poor, but by an encouragement to lay up in the hour of health an abundance to supply the wants of feebleness and age, but this might go a great way to diminishing the evil. All persons who have places under government, of whatever nature, ought to be compelled to subscribe to such institutions; this would be doing the individuals, as well as the community, a real service, and would go a great way to the counteracting of the evil. {198} Preventatives are first to be applied, and after those have operated as far as may be, remedies.

The poor, &c. to whose maintenance 5,500,000 L. a year goes, (a sum greater than the revenues of any second rate monarchy in Europe,) may be divided into three classes:

First, Those who by proper means might be prevented from wanting aid.

Second, Those who, for various reasons, cannot get a living in the regular way, but might, with a little aid, either maintain themselves, or nearly so; and,

Third, Those who, from inability, extreme age, tender youth, or bodily disease, are unable to do any thing, and must be supported at the public expense. Nobody will dispute that there are of all those descriptions maintained at pressnt =sic=; and, therefore, all that can create a difference of opinion is about the proportions between the three.

It is probable that one-half, at least, could maintain, or nearly

--- {198} The widows scheme, as it is called in Scotland, for the aid of the widows and children of clergymen, is a most excellent institution; it has been attended with the best effects, both on individual happiness and national prosperity so far as it goes. The plan is such as might, with very little variation, be applied to all the officers of the revenue, clerks in office, &c. &c. -=-

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maintain, themselves; one-quarter might be prevented from ever requiring any aid at all; and the other quarter would be assisted as at present.

This would reduce the expenses to less than one-third, and, probably, to one-quarter of what they are now; that is, of 5,500,000 L. there would be a saving of 3,500,000 L. but that is not all, for the national industry would be augmented by 2,000,000 L. and more; that is to say, by the industry of the half that maintained themselves, so that the nation would gain partly in money saved, and partly in money got, 5,500,000 L.

According to the true spirit of the English nation, in which there is a great fund of generosity and goodness at the bottom, it may perhaps be said, that the poor are not able to labour at all, and, that the plan would not answer. This is but a rough manner of answering a proposal, which neither is in reality, nor is meant to be, void of humanity. There were, by last years =sic= accounts, nearly 900,000 persons of one sort and another maintained or relieved, which does not make above six pounds a year for each person, now, where is there a person that can work at all, that cannot earn above four-pence a day in England? {199}

The plan for remedying this abuse ought to be very simple, for it will be administered by such ignorant and rough directors, that, if it is not simple, it must fail entirely.

--- {199} It would be foreign to the plan of this Inquiry to enter into the details of the poor persons, and shew the absurdity of the management; but, it is very evident, from those that are printed, that they get no work to do, the quantity of materials delivered to them to work upon will not admit of earning money to maintain themselves.

The following is a specimen of the attention given to this subject, and the means taken to enable the poor to pay for their maintenance, by their labour. In Middlesex, where the expense amounted, in 1803, to 123,700 L. or about 340 L. a day, the sum expended to buy materials amounted to no more than 4L.1s.11d. !!! It is impossible to comprehend how this capital stock could be distributed amongst above ten thousand labourers. It is not very easy to conceive the impertinence of those who presented this item, as a statement to the House of Commons, which would have done well to have committed to the custody of the sergeant-at-mace, the persons who so grossly insulted it. One thing, however, is very easily understood and collected from all this. The business altogether is conducted with ignorance, and executed carelessly and negligently, and that to an extreme and shameful degree. -=-

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To have a good surgeon or physician is essential; and those who would not work, and who were able, should have the same allowance that a prisoner has in a jail; but those who would work should be paid a fair price, and allowed to lay out the money, to hoard it, or do as they please, except drinking to excess. [{200}]

Though many for want of vigour are refused employment in a workshop, some for want of character, and others for various reasons, become burthensome, yet there are not a few, who, from mere laziness, throw themselves upon the parish, where they live a careless life, free from hunger, cold, and labour. When the mind is once reconciled to this situation, the temptation is considerable, and there are many of those poor people, who will boast that the have themselves been overseers, and paid their share to the expenses.

Whatever evil is found to have a tendency to increase with the wealth of a nation ought, most carefully, to be kept under; and this is one not of the least formidable, and, of all others, most evidently arising from bad management and want of attention.

It would be necessary to have all sorts of employment, that the persons in such places can, with advantage, be occupied in doing, and a small allowance should be made to defray general expenses; amongst which, ought to be that of surveyors of districts, who should, like those employed by the excise-office, inspect into the state of the different poor-houses, and the whole should be reported, in a proper and regular manner, to the government of the country, from time to time.

Those little paltry parish democracies that tax one part of the people, and maltreat the other, ought to be under some proper con-

--- {200} [Transcriber's note: assumed location--footnote not assigned a place in the text.] The system, in England, of only employing people in the vigour of life is a source of much mischief, and is an increasing evil, which government, the East India company, and all the public bodies, are encouraging. Men are treated in this instance exactly like horses. They are worked hard and well rewarded in their vigour; but, in so wealthy a county =sic= as this, those occupied in commerce, and men in power, will not be troubled with any but such as can do their business with little trouble to the master. They do not consider what mischief they are preparing for their country. Shenstone, the poet, seems to have thought of this when he says, in a case of woe:

"But power and wealth's unvarying cheek was dry." -=-

[end of page #254]

troul; and the happiness and prosperity of England should not be left at their mercy.

In a country where every thing is done with such admirable accuracy in the revenue-department, as England, it would be useless to attempt pointing out the manner of executing the plan; it is sufficient to shew its practicability and the necessity of attending to it.

If, in the first instance, the advantage would be such as is here mentioned, it would, in a few years, be much greater, particularly in so far as fewer families would be left in a state of indigence; for, it is clear, that such families are a continual encumbrance on the rising generation, and tend to the diminution of the general mass of useful citizens.

If it should so happen, that taxes augment, or that trade falls off, (both of which may very likely happen,) then the interference of government may become a matter of absolute necessity; but then, perhaps, it may be too late. It would be much better if government would interfere, before the evil is actually come to the highest pitch. The parishes might, perhaps, look with jealousy on an interference of this sort, as being an infringement on their rights; for Englishmen are sometimes very tenacious of privileges that are highly pernicious to themselves. This difficulty, (for it probably would be one,) might be got over, by previously establishing inspectors in the different bishop's sees, who should be obliged to render an account to the bishop, to be communicated to government, by which means, the evil would either be removed, or its existence ascertained, so as to answer the complaints that might be made, and thereby prevent all discontent on the subject.

Without being able to say what might absolutely be the best remedy, it is, at least, fair to ask the question, whether it is fit that the administration of 5,500,000 L. a year should be intrusted to the hands of ignorant men? It may likewise be asked, if the feelings of the necessitous ranks of society (as keen in many instances as those of their betters,) should be wounded by men, who have not sufficient knowledge of any sort to act with the humanity necessary. The candidates for popular favour, amongst the lower housekeepers, are generally flattering, fauning =sic=, cringing men, and such are almost without exception, cunning, ignorant, and overbearing, wherever they have the least [end of page #255] authority over others. Such, in general, are the parish-officers, to whose care this important affair is committed.

Though this is an institution almost on the purely democratic principle of equal representation, it is a very bad specimen of that mode of government. The shameful lawsuits between parishes, about paupers, the disgraceful and barbarous treatment of women, who have been betrayed and abandoned, admit of no excuse. They are not productive even of gain or economy. Amongst some tribes of savage Indians, the aged and helpless are put to death, that they may not remain a burthen on those who are able and in health; and it is equally true, that, in England, the young innocents, who have not parents to protect them, are considered as a burthen; and, if they are not absolutely sent out of the world, the means necessary to preserve them in it are very inadequate to the purpose. If criminality could be engraved on a graduated scale, their deaths ought in general to be written down at some intermediate point between accidental homicide and wilful murder. The persecution of this unfortunate race may be said to commence before they are born; and, though the strength of a nation depends much on its population, less care is taken to encourage it, than to produce mushrooms, or to preserve hares and partridges.

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CHAP. VI.

_Causes of Decline, peculiar to England_.

In addition to the causes of decline which Britain, as a wealthy country, has, in common with most other nations, it has some peculiar to itself, (or of which the degree at least is peculiar to it).

The national debt, the high rate of taxation, the prodigious expense of the poor, and the nature of the government, are peculiar to this country. There are other circumstances in its favour, of which we shall speak in the next chapter; but, in this, we shall review those that are against it, and of an unfavourable nature and operation.

The high rate of taxation, for the very reason that it is the highest ever known, inspires our enemies with hopes of our downfall, and makes them persevere in continuing to put us to expense.

The unprecedented commerce we enjoy, of which every other nation would wish to have a share, (and of which each, most mistakenly, thinks it would have a share, if Britain was undone,) is a cause of attracting envy and enmity, and repelling friendship. Our colonies in the West, and our possessions in the East, act like the conductors that draw the electric fluid to a building, but they do not, like those conductors, serve to protect it from violence. We have seen, that the advantage arising from them is more than doubtful, that they enrich individuals and impoverish the state; but all this would be nothing new, were it not for the vast scale on which those evils exist.

The poor's rate, which is in itself completely unexampled, though a common thing to all nations, is so exorbitant in England, that it may very properly be ranked amongst the dangers peculiar to this country. Who would believe, that Frederick the Great of Prussia carried on his brilliant and successful wars against the most formidable enemies, expended more than one-eighth of his revenues annually on the encouragement of industry, and left his treasury well stored, yet all this with an income, less by one-fourth than the sums that go to support [end of page #257] the poor in England, notwithstanding all the miserable manoeuvres that are practiced =sic= to avoid giving them assistance?

The form of government in England, though best for the liberty of the subject, and for the security of persons and property, is deficient in the means of repressing those infringements which particular bodies of people make upon the community at large. The representative system, when well understood, divides itself into parties, having different interests. There are the commercial, the landed, the East India, the West India, and the law, all of which have great parliamentary influence, and can be formidable to any minister; they therefore have a means of defending their interests, and they are concerned so deeply as to take a very active part whenever any questions are agitated relative to them.

The landed interest and the law are, indeed, the only ones that have any great party in the House of Peers; but then the House of Peers seldom interferes in matters that concern the interests of the others. The Lords seem not to think it their province; and, in general, more through diffidence than negligence, they avoid meddling, though, to do that honourable house justice, to it we owe much. Many bills, of a dangerous tendency, have been thrown out by it, after they had passed the other house; and it has been generally done with a wisdom, magnanimity, and moderation, which is only to be accounted for by a true love of the country and an upright intention. {201}

--- {201} It is wonderful to what a length good intention, (zeal apart,) will go in leading men right, even when they have not paid very particular attention to a subject. There is a feeling of what is wise, as well as of what is right, that partakes a little of instinct, perhaps, but is more unerring than far fetched theory on many occasions. This was seen in a most exemplary manner, at the time that the principles of the French revolution were most approved of here. Those principles were plausible, though flimsy, and founded on sophisms, and a species of reasoning, that plain unlettered men could not answer, and men who did give themselves the pains to reason might have answered; yet, three times in four, it was the man who could not answer it, who, guided by upright intentions, rejected it as bad, without being able to tell why. The most acute were, in this case, the most deceived; for it must now be allowed, that all approbation of the theories, relative to the rights of man, and the manner of asserting them were wrong. Many of those who fell into the error had, no doubt, unblameable intentions, but they did not consult common sense. -=-

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In every assembly, a small number, who completely understand their own interest, can do a great deal, if they will act together; but, this is not all, they can use arguments with a minister that pave the way for obtaining the ends they have in view, while the general interests of the country alarm no one but upon great occasions.

Under arbitrary monarchs, all bodies with separate interests, are kept in due order, they have no means of defending themselves but by remonstrance, which, against power, is but a very inadequate protection.

There is nothing forced or chimerical in this statement of the case, and the consequence is, that no country ever saw any bodies rise to such a height, except the clergy in Roman Catholic countries, and the barons during the feudal system, when they had arms in their hands; who, if they could not absolutely resist their sovereign, were at least able to refuse him aid, and could annoy him greatly. But those examples will bear no comparison with the separate interests in England at this time. The barons have long lost their power, and the Roman Catholic clergy have lost the greatest part of their power and revenue also. If they had not, wealthy and powerful kingdoms would not have existed.

Under a free government, where people think that an opposition to a minister in parliament is a most excellent thing, the energies of the nation, as to war, are greatly lessened. This must, in its connections with other nations, produce very hurtful effects; but, where the evil is without a remedy, there is no advantage in dwelling upon it; and it does not appear that there is any possibility of separating from a free government, some sort of an opposing power, that must hamper the executive, and lessen the energies of the nation.

Under pure monarchies, kings can reward merit; they can encourage talents, and act according to circumstances. In England, the king, or his ministers, have no fund from which they can do this. An application to parliament is expensive and troublesome; and, in many cases, where the object would be fair, it would be unattainable. But this is not all, for when, by act of parliament, any thing of the sort is [end of page #259] once done, it is left without proper controul, and the expense is generally double what it ought to be.

On the whole, there is too little of discretional =sic= power in a representative government; good cannot be done but by rules, which, in many cases, it is impossible to comply with. This is a disadvantage which we labour under, and is a sort of drawback on our excellent form of government; but this is not like the opposition in the senate, it may be got over, and merits attention.

Such appear to be the disadvantages to which Britain is peculiarly liable, either in toto, or in the degree; but, on the other hand, she has many circumstances in her favour, if they are properly taken hold of; and, indeed, some, of which the effect will be favourable, whether any particular attention is paid to them or not. To those we shall advert with peculiar pleasure, and hope that they will not be neglected, but that they may afford a means of continuing our career of prosperity on the increasing scale, or that, at least, they may prevent us from sharing the fate of those nations that have gone before.

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CHAP. VII.

_Circumstances peculiar to England, and favourable to it_.

It has been observed, that, in northern nations, where luxury is not attended with such a degree of sloth and effeminacy as in warm climates, the habits of industry can never so completely leave a country. The feelings of cold and a keen appetite are enemies to sloth and laziness; indeed they are totally incompatible with those habits and that degradation of character, that are to be found in southern climates. This advantage Britain shares with other nations of the north; but she has some peculiar to herself.

Situated in an island, the people have a character peculiar to themselves, that prevents foreigners and foreign influence from producing those baneful effects that are so evident in many nations, where they come and depart with more facility, and where a greater similarity in manners and in character enable them to act a conspicuous and a very dangerous part, in the cases of misunderstanding and party dispute.

In all the wars, bloody and long-contested as they were, between the houses of York and Lancaster, foreign influence never produced any effect such as that of Spain did in France, previous to the accession of Henry IV. or as the influence of France and Spain have produced in Italy, or that of France on Spain itself, or those of Russia and Prussia in Poland, with numerous other examples on the continent.

We know of no ideal boundaries in this country. In this country we are all one people, and can distinguish ourselves from any other; indeed, the national character is rather too averse to mixing with people from the continent; but this, that seems now a fault, may some day be considered as a very useful virtue.

Even in the times when an unfortunate jealousy and mistaken interest kept England and Scotland at variance, and when the latter kingdom was in the habit of adopting the politics of France, and [end of page #261] embracing its interests, there seems to have been some repelling principle that kept the little nation out of the gripe of the great one.

The French never had any preponderating power there, and, indeed, in latter times so little, as not to be able to defend Queen Mary or the Romish religion against the reformers; to do both of which there was no want of inclination. It appears, then, very clearly, that though, on the best terms of friendship, the Scotch had at the bottom that British mistrust of foreigners, that, ever since it was civilized, has freed the island from foreign influence.

The form of government, the security of property, and the free scope that is given to exertion in every line of business, will continue to enable this country to hold itself high, even if some of its present sources of wealth should be dried up; and, whatever may be the feelings of the representatives of the people upon ordinary occasions, the moment that any real danger occurs, they will, we are certain, act like men, determined to stand by their country.

How feeble was the former French government when assailed with difficulty? It was at once as if struck motionless, or, the little animation that was left was just sufficient to enable it to go from one blunder to another. How different has England been on every emergency? In place of the arm of government seeming to slacken in the day of danger, it has risen superior to it. We have never seen the same scenes happen here, that have taken place in Poland, Sweden, and so many other places. In the three attempts to invasion, {202} (Monmouth's and the two other rebellions,) where foreign influence was used, the event was the most fatal possible to those who made them; they were contemptible in the extreme; and, if it is considered in whose favour they were, it is probable the support from a foreign power rather did injury to the cause.

--- {202} Here we must not confound the case of the Stuarts with that of the King of France. In England, it was the government that was divided, the legislative being against the executive; _one_ part of the government was feeble, but the other was not, and therefore we cannot say that the government was feeble. In France, the king and ministers governed alone, they were the whole government, and therefore as they were feeble, the government may be taxed with weakness. -=-

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The form of government has this great advantage in it, that, as abilities are the way to preferment, the higher classes (at least) have a better education than the same rank of persons in any other nation, so far as regards the interest of the public, and the nature of the connection between the different orders of society; ignorance of which, is the surest way to be destroyed.

In all new and rising states the higher orders, even under despotic governments, and where all the distinctions of ranks are completely established, have a proper regard for the importance and welfare of the lower orders of people. As they increase in wealth and have lost sight of its origin, which is industry, they change their mode of thinking; and, by degrees, the lower classes are considered as only made for the convenience of the rich. The degradation into which the lower orders themselves fall, by vice and indolence, widens the difference and increases the contempt in which they are held. This is one of the invariable marks of the decline of nations; but the nature of the English government prevents that, by keeping up a connection and mutual dependence amongst the poor and the rich, which is not found either under absolute monarchies or in republics. In republics, the people become factious and idle, when they become any way wealthy. In this country, besides the insular situation, circumstances in general are such as to prevent the lower classes from falling into that sort of idleness, apathy, and contempt, that they do in other countries, even supposing these burthens were done away, that at present necessitate exertion.

To those causes let another still be added, the religious worship of the country, which, without any dispute or question, is greatly in its favour.

To speak nothing of the religious opinions or modes of worship in ancient times, there are three at present that merit attention and admit of comparison.

The Christian religion is distinguished for raising men in character, and the Mahomedan for sinking them low. Whenever the Mahomedan faith has extended, the people are degraded in their manners, and the governments despotic. The disposition of a Mahomedan king [end of page #263] or emperor is more different in its nature, from that of a Christian sovereign, than the form of a hat is from that of a turban.

Under the most despotic Christian sovereigns, matters are governed by law, there are no regular murders committed by the hand of power, without the intervention of justice; and if plenitude of power admits of the greatest excesses in the sovereign, in some Christian countries, the opinion of his fellow men, the fear of his God, or some sentiment or principle in his own breast, restrains him in the exercise of it.

It is not so with Mahomedan princes: with them, nothing is sacred that they hate, nothing shameful that they do. Whatever their conscience may be, whatever may be the nature of their moral rules, rapine and murder are certainly not forbidden by them, or the law is not obeyed. In proportion to the despotism and ferocity of the sovereign, is the slavishness of the people, their brutality, and vice, in all Mahomedan countries; their character and its great inferiority is so well known, that it is impossible for any person to be ignorant of it.

When the Mahomedan governments possess power, they are proud and overbearing; the people luxurious, and given to every refinement in vice. When they sink, that pride becomes ferocity, and the luxury degenerates into brutality and sloth; but neither in the one nor in the other case have they the proper value for science, for literature, for liberty, or for any of the acquirements that either make a man estimable or useful. They neither excel in arts, nor in science; phisically =sic=, they are inferior in utility, and their minds are less instructed. They are not equal to Christians either in war or in peace, nor to be compared to them for any one good quality.

The greatest and the best portion of the old world is, however, in their hands; but, in point of wealth or power, they are of little importance, and every day they are sinking lower still.

Amongst those who profess Christianity it has been remarked, by all who have travelled, and who have had an opportunity of observing it, that agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, flourish most in Protestant countries. Even where there are different sects of the Christian religion in the same country, arts, manufactures, and commerce, appear to have flourished most amongst the Protestants. The [end of page #264] cruelties of the Duke of Alva, and the absurd bigotry of Louis XIV. drove the most industrious inhabitants from the Netherlands, and from France, merely because they happened to be Protestants, which is a proof that there is a connection between that branch of the Christian religion and industry. The Protestants were the most industrious.

The Protestants appear also to be the most attentive to preserving a good form of government, and to set a greater value upon liberty than people of any other religion. In this, England has an advantage that is inappretiable. {203}

The reformation in religion, and the establishment of manufactures in England, date from nearly the same period; it was about the same time, also, that the spirit of liberty began to break out first in Scotland, and then in England, which terminated in the revolution. There are, therefore, many reasons, from experience, for believing that the Protestant religion is particularly favourable to industry and freedom. There are other reasons, likewise, that arise from a consideration of the subject, that would lead one to the same conclusion, even if there were no experience of the fact.

Whatever frees the human mind from useless prejudice, and leads it to pure morality, gives dignity to man, and increases his power of becoming a good and useful member of society.

The Christian religion not only contains the most pure moral code, but the best, most useful, and simple rules for conduct in life are

--- {203} The great influence, founded on attachment to her person, and the feeling of the long happiness they had enjoyed, under Queen Elizabeth: her great authority, supported by esteem, and confirmed by long habit, restrained the spirit of freedom which so soon after tormented her successors. James had had full experience of that spirit before he left Scotland; and, when he mounted the English throne, was known, frequently, to exclaim against presbytry, as the enemy of monarchy. He, as was very natural, thought that the difference of religion caused the superior love of freedom in Scotland, for he was not sensible of the different effects produced by the calm, steady, and dignified deportment of Elizabeth, and the unsteady conduct of his unhappy mother, Mary. He also confounded hatred for arbitrary prerogative in kings, with hatred for kings themselves; and considered monarchy, and his own sort of monarchy, as essentially the same. Had he lived in our days, he would have experienced the difference, and not have considered the church of Scotland as being a greater enemy to kingly power than that of England, or as being more favourable to liberty. -=-

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there promulgated. The Roman Catholic faith was clogged, in the early days of the church, with a great number, both of dogmatical and practical errors, that tend not only to fetter the mind, but actually embarrass the business of human life.

In a former chapter, we had occasion to speak of the encroachments made by public bodies on the general mass of the people, but none ever was so pernicious in its effects, so grasping, and so well calculated to retain, as the Roman Catholic church.

Their celibacy took away from the clergy every disposition to alienate even personal property, while the practice of auricular confession, and the doctrine of the remission of sins, gave them an opportunity of besieging the human mind in its weakest moment, and the weakest place, in order to rob posterity, and enrich the church. In the moment of weakness, when a man's mind is occupied in reflecting on the errors, and perhaps the crimes, of a long and variegated life; when his ties to this world are loosened, and his interest in eternity becomes more lively, and near; a religion that enables a zealous or interested priest (aided by the casuistry and argument of centuries) to barter a promise of everlasting bliss, for lands and tenements bequeathed to the church, provides amply for the acquisition of earthly treasure, for its ministers, and those devoted to a life of religious pursuits. It is, indeed, wonderful, that, with such means, the church, in Roman Catholic countries, did not become more wealthy than it was. {204} With a continual means of acquiring, and none of alienating, it appears well qualified for absorbing the whole landed property of a nation. Such an encroachment on the public wealth, and industry of a people, is a sufficient reason for the Protestant countries (where the clergy have not the same means) becoming more wealthy and industrious.

It would not be difficult to prove that there is an effect produced on the minds of individuals in Protestant countries, that is favourable to industry; but a discussion of this nature might seem displaced in a book of this sort. It is sufficient that we see, from experience and

--- {204} In France, before the revolution, the revenues of the clergy, in lands, tythes, &c. were reckoned to amount to 25,000,000 L. sterling per annum. The number of feasts and fasts was also a great drawback on industry. -=-

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reason, that, of all religions, the Christian is the most favourable to the prosperity of a people, and that of its different branches, the Protestant, or what is termed the Reformed Religion, is again the best. It is the religion established in Britain.

Another source of hope arises from a circumstance of very great importance, and very peculiarly favourable to Great Britain.

It has been observed, that the colonies in the West, and conquests in the East, cost a great deal and produce little; that, in short, their possession is of very doubtful advantage.

The possession of the North American provinces, now the United States, were a great burthen to England, from their first settlement till about the year 1755, when their trade began to be of advantage to this nation; but, in twenty years after, the revolt took place, and cost England a prodigious sum.

To enter into a long detail on this subject it is not necessary; but no sooner were the hostilities at an end, than the American states bought more of our manufactures than ever. Their laws and manners are similar to our own, the same language, and a government evidently approaching as near to ours as a republican well can to a monarchical form. There is not, at this time, any branch of trade, either so great in its amount, or beneficial in its nature, as that with the United States; with this farther advantage, that it is every day augmenting, {205} and as no country ever increased so fast in population and wealth, so none ever promised to afford so extensive a market for our mannfactures =sic= as the United States. This market is the more secure, that it will not be the interest of the people who have got possession of that immense tract of country to neglect agriculture and become manufacturers, for a long period of time.

The greatest project, by which any nation ever endeavoured to enrich itself, was certainly that of peopling America with a civilized race of inhabitants. It was a fair and legitimate mode of extending her means of acquiring riches; but Britain failed in the manner of obtaining her object, though not in the object itself, and

--- {205} By this is not literally meant, that the trade every year is greater than the preceding, but that it continues to increase. -=-

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the United States promise to support the industry of England, now that it has humbled its ambition, far more than both the Indies, which gratify it so much.

It is highly probable, that America will increase more rapidly in wealth and population than in manufactures, such as she at present takes from great Britain; but if the ratio merely continues the same that it is now, the purpose will be completely answered, and a market for British manufactures insured for ages to come. In 1802, by the last census, the inhabitants of the United States amounted to about eight millions; and, for several years together, the exports of British goods have amounted to seven millions, so that it is fair to reckon a consumption equal to sixteen shillings a year to each person. It was about the same in 1774, previous to the revolt; and, as the population doubles in about fifteen years, in the course of thirty years more, the exports to that country alone would amount to 24,000,000 L. provided we continue to be able to sell at such rates as not to be undersold by others =sic= nations in the American market.

There is nothing great, nothing brilliant, in this commerce, all is solid and good; it is a connection founded on mutual wants and mutual conveniencey, not on monopoly, restriction, or coercion; for that reason it will be the more durable, and ought to be the more valued; but it is not. Governments, like individuals, are most attached to what is dear to purchase and difficult to keep. It is to be hoped, however, that this matter will be seen in its true light.

One circumstance, that makes the matter still more favourable for Britain is, that the western country of America, by far the most fertile, as well as the most extensive, is now peopling very rapidly. The labour and capital of the inhabitants are entirely turned to agriculture and not to manufactures, and will be so for a great number of years; for, when there are fifty millions of inhabitants in the United States, their population will not amount to one-half of what may naturally be expected, or sufficient to occupy the lands. The fertility of the soil will enable the Americans, with great ease to themselves, to make returns in produce wanted in Europe, so that we may expect a durable, a great, and an advantageous trade with them. In British [end of page #268] manufactures our trade was not near so great before the revolt, for we then supplied America with every article.

This, however, will depend partly on our circumstances; for, if wages and the prices of our manufactures rise, as they lately have done, our merchants will buy upon the continent of Europe, what they otherwise would purchase in England, to supply the American market.

America is the only country in the world where, with respect to the wages of labour, and the produce of industry, money is of less value than in England. The Americans will then be able to afford to purchase English goods, when other nations will not; but then, they will only purchase such articles as cannot be had elsewhere; for though they may and will continue able to purchase, they will not do it if they can get goods that suit them elsewhere. {206}

No country, that we read of in history, ever enjoyed equal advantages with the American states; they have good laws, a free government, and are possessed of all the inventions and knowledge of the old world. Arts are now conveyed across the Atlantic with more ease than they formerly were from one village to another. It is possible, that a new market of so great an extent being opened may do away those jealousies of commerce, which have, for these two or three last centuries, occasioned many quarrels, and which are peculiarly dangerous to a nation that has risen high above its level.

All those things, with care and attention, will prove advantageous to Britain in a superior degree. They afford us much reason for hope and comfort, and do away one of the causes for fearing a decline that has been stated, namely, the being supplanted by poorer nations, or by not having a market for our increasing manufactures.

There remains yet another consideration in favour of Britain, as a manufacturing and a commercial country; for, as such, we must view it, reckoning more on industry than on the ideal wealth of our colonies in the West, and our conquests in the East. It is this, we are the

--- {206} England begins already to lose the market for linen-cloth, window-glass, fire-arms, and a number of other articles. It would have entirely lost that of books, if any nation on the continent of Europe could print English correctly. As, it is, they are printing in America, in place of our keeping the trade, which we might have done with great profit and advantage. -=-

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latest of European nations that has risen to wealth by commerce and manufactures. In looking over the map, there does not seem to be any one to supplant us; all those, who have great advantages, have already gone before, and, till we see the example of a country renewing itself, we have a right to disbelieve that it is possible.

Russia is the only country in Europe that is newer than England, and many circumstances will prevent it from becoming a rival in commerce. It does not, nor it ever can increase in population, and carry civilization and manufactures to the same point. Though, very new, as a powerful European nation, the people are as ancient as most others in Europe; the territory is so extensive, the climate so cold, and the Baltic Sea so much to the north, and frozen so many months in the year, that it never will either be a carrying or a manufacturing country. To cultivate its soil, and export the produce of its mines, the skins, tallow, hides, timber, &c. &c. will be more profitable, and suit better the inhabitants than any competition in manufactures.

It is not in great extensive empires that manufactures thrive the most, they are great objects for small countries, like England or Holland; but, for such as Russia, Turkey, or France, they are a less object than attention to soil and natural productions; and, thus we see, that China, the greatest of all countries in extent, encourages interior trade and manufactures, but despises foreign commerce. {207}

One peculiar advantage England enjoys favourable to manufactures, deserves notice. The law of patents, if it does not make people invent or seek after new inventions, it at least encourages and enables them to improve their inventions. Invention is the least part of the business in respect to public wealth and utility. There has long been a collection of models, at Paris, made by one of the most in-

--- {207} The smaller a district, or an island is, the exports and imports will be the greater, when compared with the number of inhabitants. Take the exports and imports of all Europe, with the other quarters of the world;--considering Europe as one country, and it will not be found to amount to one shilling a person per annum. Take the amount in Britain, it will be found about forty shillings a person. Consider what is bought and sold by a single village, and it will be still greater than that; and, last of all, a single labouring family buys all that it uses, and sells all that it produces. And the meanest family, taken in this way, does proportionably =sic= more buying and selling than the richest state, taken in a body. Consider the whole earth as one state, and it neither exports nor imports. -=-

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genious mechanics of the last century, (Mr. Vaucusson,) at the expense of that government, in which were nearly all the curious inventions brought forth in England, together with many not known in it. Some Englishmen, in going through it, brought over new inventions here, for which they obtained patents, and, by which, they, as well as the public, were gainers, while the inventions lay useless and dormant in France.

Invention is not a thing in a man's power, and great inventions are generally more the effect of accident than of superior abilities; at any rate, no encouragement is certain to produce invention, but it always will produce improvement on invention. When a man has a patent for fourteen years, he does every thing in his power to make the object of that patent become as generally useful as possible, and this is only to be done by carrying the improvements as far as he is able. {208} Others, again, who have no patent, but are of the same trade, endeavour to preserve their business by improvement, and to this contest in excellence may be attributed the great progress, made in England, in bringing manufactures to a higher degree of perfection than in any other country.

The great inventions, from which others branch out and spring, are not due, it has often been asserted, to natives of this country. Probably this may be owing to the circumstance, that they were known before the advancement of this country in any of the arts; but let that be as it may, there are a vast number of inventions carried to greater

--- {208} This is sufficiently important to deserve to be illustrated by some examples. The improvement of the steam-engine, by Mr. Watt, was a matter of accident; an accident, indeed, that could not have happened, had he been an ignorant man; but the improvement of it was not accidental. It was, in consequence of great encouragement given, and to the prolongation of the patent, by an express act of parliament. This patent has been the occasion of almost totally changing the machine, and of extending its use to a vast variety of objects, to which it probably might never have been extended, had it not been the sole business of a very able man, aided by a number of other ingenious persons, whom he was enabled to employ. It was the cause of improving the mechanism of mills for grinding corn, and others of different descriptions, far beyond what they had been, although the most able engineer in that line (Mr. Smeaton) died before the last and greatest improvements were made.

The same thing may be observed of the cotton-spinning-machines, and with a little difference of all the inventions that have been brought to perfection, under the influence of exclusive privileges. -=-

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perfection, and turned to more advantage in this country than in any other.

This advantage, which England enjoys over other countries, is a more solid one than it appears to be, for it is intimately connected with the government and laws of the country, and with that spirit which sees the law well administered, which, in the case of patents, is a matter of no small difficulty, and prevents others from becoming our rivals, or attaining the same degree of perfection; {209} for, unless the law is well administered, there can never be the great exertion that is necessary to create excellence.

The fine arts and the mechanic arts are quite different in regard to the manner in which they are brought to perfection. Individual capacity and genius will make a man, even without much teaching, excel in one of the fine arts; whereas, in the mechanic arts, to know how an operation is performed is every thing, and all men can do it nearly equally well. The consequence of this is, that, as experience improves the manner of working, the mechanic arts improve, from age to age, as long as they are encouraged and practised. It is not so with the fine arts, or only so in a very small degree, and from this it arises, that, in sculpture, poetry, painting, and music, the ancients, perhaps, excelled the moderns. In the mechanic arts they were quite inferior. The best examples of this, (and better need not be,) are an antique medal, boldly and finely executed, but ragged on the edges, not on a flat ground, or of equal thickness, compared with a new guinea, or a Birmingham button tamely engraved but trimly executed. In the former, there is every mark of the artist, none of the machine. In the latter, there are some faint and flat traces of an artist, but great proof of mechanical excellence. The skill of the artist, necessary to produce the first, cannot be commanded, though it may, by encouragement, be called forth; but the reunion of talents, such as are necessary for the latter, is so certainly obtainable, that it, at all times, may be procured at will, after it has once been possessed.

--- {209} In 1790 the French laid down the law of patents, on the English plan, and rather, in some respects, improved; but the people never understood it. The lawyers never understood it; and, even before the anarchy came on, it was evident it would never produce any very great effect, for want of proper administration. -=-

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Security, to reap the fruits of improvements, is all that is wanted, and this the law of patents, as applied and enforced in England, affords in a very superior degree. Although, by the communication everywhere, the ground-work of every art whatever is now no longer confinable to any one nation, though the contrary is the case, and that the knowledge necessary circulates freely, and is extended by a regular sort of system, in periodical publications of various descriptions, yet the manner of turning that knowledge to advantage does not, by any means, seem equally easy to communicate.

The legislature of the United States of America has, indeed, in this case, done full justice to the encouragement of arts and to inventions; but circumstances, as has been already said, make other objects more advantageous for the employment of labour and skill in that country. For these reasons, therefore, we may look forward with some confidence, to the flourishing of arts and manufactures, for a long term of years, if the same attention that has been paid to their encouragement still continues; but neither this advantage alone, nor all the advantages united, that have been enumerated, will be sufficient to preserve our superiority, if those, who regulate the affairs of the country, do not favour them.

It is in consequence of great pains and care, that manufactures have flourished in this country, and they cannot be preserved without a continuation of the same care, although it is individual effort that appears to be the principal cause. Thus, the travellers, on a well-made highway, proceed with rapidity and ease, at their individual expense, and by their individual energy; but, if the road is not kept in repair, their progress must be impeded, and their efforts will cease to produce the same effect, for they cannot individually repair the road.

Such appear to be the peculiar circumstances that favour Great Britain; and that under disadvantages that are also peculiarly great, give hopes of prolonging the prosperity of the country.

There is still, however, something wanting to increase our advantage. Any person acquainted with the manufactures of England will naturally have observed, that they are all such as meet with a market in this country. We have no mannfactories =sic= for goods, for the sole [end of page #273] purpose of our foreign markets; so that, though we consider ourselves as so much interested in foreign trade, yet we have adapted all our manufacturies, expressly, as if it were to supply the home market.

This observation will be found to apply very generally, though there are a few exceptions, and though the quality of the goods manufactured, and intended for exportation, is adapted to the market for which they are destined. This last, indeed, is very natural, nor could it well be otherwise, but that is not going half the length necessary.

Instead of carrying our goods into a strange country, and trying whether the inhabitants will purchase, we should bring home patterns of such articles as they use themselves, and try if we can supply them with advantage. Nations vary, exceedingly, in taste, and so they always will. The colour of the stuffs, the figures on printed cottons, and even the forms of cutlery, and articles of utility, are, in some sort, matters of taste. If we are to manufacture for other nations, let us try to suit their taste as we do to suit that of our own people at home. The reasons why we do not do this are pretty evident. In the first place, it would not answer the purpose of an individual to procure the information necessary, and make a collection where the advantage, in case of success, would be divided with all that chose to imitate them; besides this, in many cases, the means are wanting to procure what is necessary.

The study of botany has been greatly advanced, and kitchen gardens greatly enriched, by the importation of exotic plants; and, probably, our manufactures might be greatly extended, if the same care were taken to collect foreign articles, the produce of industry. {210} We do not find every foreign plant succeed in this country, but if it seems pro-

--- {210} A collection of all sorts of stuffs, with the prices in the country, where worn, and the same of all sorts of hardware, toys, trinkets, &c., should be made, at the public expense, and be open, on application, to the inspection of every person who might apply in a proper manner; and even specimens, or patterns, should be delivered out, on the value being deposited. In Persia, and many places, if we would copy their colours and patterns, we might sell great quantities of cotton stuffs. Our hatchets, and some other of our tools, are not made of a form liked by the Americans. -=-

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bable, and worth trying, we never fail to do that; we trust it would be so with foreign manufactures, if we had proper patterns. A fair trial would be made, where success seemed probable, and the event would determine the future exertion.

Accidental circumstances, a few centuries ago, brought new plants into this country, they now come into it in consequence of regular exertions for that purpose. What was then true, with regard to plants imported, is still true with respect to manufactures exported. We manufacture for ourselves, and if any thing of the same sort suits other nations, we send it, if not, there is no trade to that part; now, this must be allowed to be an accidental cause, for the promotion of foreign trade.

Wherever it is possible to prevent the debasing the quality of an article, so as to hinder it answering the purpose, or gratifying the expectations of the purchaser, that ought to be done, for it has long been such a practice for English manufacturers to undersell each other, that they stick at no means of being able to do so.

A variety of qualities, according to price, is necessary. All persons cannot afford to buy the best sort of goods; but, when a reduction of price is carried so far as to be obtained by making an article that is useless, this is a means of losing the trade; and it would be very easy to prove that such examples are very numerous, and that various branches of trade have been lost by that means.

With regard to the extent of sea coast, the advantage that may be derived from the fisheries, and the benefit arising from that circumstance to commerce, they are natural advantages, and already perfectly understood. [end of page #275]

CHAP. VIII.

_Conclusion_.

After having gone through the subject of the Inquiry, according to the mode that appeared to be the best, in which there has been one invariable rule, never to oppose theory and reasoning to facts, but to take experience as the surest guide, a recapitulation can scarcely be very necessary; but a conclusion, applicable to the situation of this country, certainly may.

This, however, ought to be short, as the reader has all the materials for it in his own power, but it may save him trouble.

The great end of all human effort is, to improve upon the means which nature has furnished men with, for obtaining the objects of their wants and wishes, and to obviate, to counteract, or do away those inconveniencies =sic= and disadvantages which nature has thrown in the way of their enjoyment. {211}

With the mind, the same course should be used as with material bodies. It is impossible, in either case, to create; but we may turn the good to as profitable an advantage as we are able, and counteract the bad.

To attempt to hinder men from following their propensities, when in power, is always arduous, generally ineffectual, and frequently impracticable; besides, when it can be done coercively, it infringes too much on the liberty and the enjoyment of mankind. A controuling power should be employed as seldom as possible.

--- {211} Thus, in building a house, you form the stones, the clay, and other materials, which nature has furnished, in order to counteract the effect of heat or cold, moist or dry, as is most agreeable. Thus, men have learned to melt and vitrify the sand on the sea-shore, to make glass, grind it into a form, and make a microscope to view the most minute objects of nature, or to bring the most distant nearer, by the telescope: thus, rectifying the imperfection of human sight. Perhaps the burning of _coals_ to convert _water_ into _steam_, and, with that _steam_, raising _coals_ and _water_ from the mine is the most complete triumph of human skill over physical difficulties. How invention and discovery have improved the state of man since the time that the uses of corn and fire were unknown in Greece!!! -=-

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To attempt to smother the passions is vain, to controul them difficult; besides, it is from energy, arising from passions or propensities, that all good, as well as all evil, arise. The business, then, will neither be to curb nor to crush, but to give a proper direction. This is to be done by good habits, when young, and a proper education, which cannot be obtained by individual exertion, without the assistance of government; an assistance that it is therefore bound to give.

The general tendency of wealth and power are to enervate people, to make them proud and indolent, and, after a certain time, they leave a country. Individuals have no means to counteract this tendency, unless the governing power of the country gives a general impulse to them, in cases where they can act, and acts itself, with care and attention, where individuals can do nothing.

In the case of education and manners, in the case of providing for children, individuals may do much, but government must not only give the means, but the impulse. In the case of the soil becoming insufficient for the inhabitants, and of taxes and national debt increasing, government may stop the progress; and in the cases of individual bodies trenching on the general weal, as well as in the tendency of inventions, capital, &c. to emigrate to other countries, the government may counteract, and, perhaps, totally prevent them all.

In all cases, individuals will and must follow their lawful propensities, both in the means of employing capital and expending revenue; that is, they must be left free, in a general way, and only interrupted and regulated in particular cases; but, sometimes, the means must be furnished them of going right, and in other cases the inducements to do so augmented. We shall take the subjects in the same order that they followed in the Second Book.

Though the manners of people, arrived at maturity, can only be regulated by their education, when young, if that is properly attended to, it will be sufficient; for though it will not prevent the generation that has attained wealth, from enjoying it according to the prevailing taste, it will prevent contamination being communicated with increased force, as it now is, to the children. The evils then will go on in a simple proportion; they now go on with a compound one, and the evils arising from the [end of page #277] luxury of each generation are doubled on that which follows after. If that is prevented, it will be all that probably is necessary; at all events it is probably all that is possible.

In taxation, the government should study to do away what is obnoxious in its mode of collection, for that does more injury to the subject, in many cases, than an equal sum would do levied in another manner; and when payments are to be made, the mode should be rendered as easy as possible. Every unnecessary trouble should be avoided in collecting a tax. In the tax on receipts and bills, why should the sums to which they extend not be printed on them, so as to prevent error, which is sometimes attended with great loss, and always with inconvenience? If this had been done, how many law-suits, how many nefarious tricks, would have been prevented? But not to speak of those inconveniences only, how much useless trouble, uneasiness, and uncertainty, would have been saved in the common way of transacting business? In most cases, the subject is treated as if neither his time, nor his conveniency, nor his feelings, were worth attending to. This is equally impolitic and unjust: there is, perhaps, no country where people are more careful to keep within the pale of the law, than in England; but when they are within it, and have power, no people use it with a more insulting rigour; and for this there is no redress.

In many cases, this would be entirely prevented by proper attention in first laying on the tax. There should be a board of taxation, to receive, digest, and examine, the suggestions of others. In short, pains should be taken to bring to perfection the system. At present, it is left to chance; that is to say, it is left for those to do who have not time to do it, and, of consequence, the blunders committed are seen by all the world. {212}

--- {212} An act of parliament for a new tax is seldom ever right till it has been evaded a number of times, and even then in perfectioning =sic= it, an increase of revenue is the only object attended to; the conveniency of the subject is scarcely ever thought of. Taxes are laid on, that experience proves to be unproductive and oppressive, and sometimes are, and oftener ought, to be repealed; thousands of persons are sometimes ruined for a mere experiment. As the public pays for it, they, at least, might be indulged with a little attention; nothing costs less than civility. If half the attention were paid to preventing unnecessary trouble to the subject, [end of page #278] in cases of taxation, that is paid to the preservation of partridges, we should have the thing very differently managed. There should also be a public office, to hear just complaints against those who give unnecessary trouble, as there is for hackney coachmen. Men in all situations require to be under some controul, where they have power. Most of those who _drive_ others, go wrong sometimes, unless held in check by some authority. -=-

The encroachments of separate bodies on the public, it is entirely in the power of the state to prevent. It is owing to weakness or carelessness, or ignorance, that governments admit of such encroachments, and they are easily to be prevented, partly, as has been shewn, by positive regulation, and partly by counteracting them, whenever they appear to be proceeding in a direction any way doubtful. When they do so, the conclusion may be, that they are working for themselves; and, in that case, they ought to be very minutely examined into; and, as all public bodies, and men belonging to a class that has a particular interest generally derive their means of trenching on the public from government, it may very easily controul their action, or counteract the effect.

As lawyers have the administration of justice amongst themselves; as the executive part is in their hand, the law-makers should be particularly careful to make them amenable by law for bad conduct; it ought not to be left in the bosom of a court, to strike off, or keep on, an improper man. It is not right, on the one hand, that attorneys, or any set of men, should be subject to an arbitrary exertion of power; and it is equally unfair for them to be protected, by having those who are to judge between them and the public, always belonging to their own body. In defence of this, it is said, that attornies are servants of the court, and that the business of the court being to do justice, their correction cannot be in better hands. This is a tolerably ingenious assertion, if it were strictly true; but the court consists both of judge and jury; whereas, in this case, the judge assumes all the power; that is to say, when a case is to be determined relative to the conduct of a lawyer, a lawyer is to be the sole judge, and the jury, who represent the public, are to have their power set aside; thus, when their opinion is most wanted, it is not allowed to be given. Under such regulation, what real redress can be expected? As for the taxing costs by a master, it is [end of page #279] rarely that a client, from prudential motives, dares appeal; and, when he does, the remedy is frequently worse than the disease; and, even in this case a lawyer judges a lawyer. Without saying any thing against the judgments, it will be allowed, that in neither case is the principle of Magna Carta adhered to, of a man being judged by his peers; besides, in every other fraud there is punishment proportioned to the crime. In this case there is no punishment, unless the extortion is exorbitant, and then the punishment is too great. It ought to be proportioned to the offence, as in cases of usury, and then it would be effectual; but to let small misdemeanors go free and to punish great ones beyond measure is the way to elude punishment in all cases. A man ought to pay his bill; let the attorney take the money at his peril, and let there be a court to judge fairly, at little expense, and with promptitude, and punish the extortion by a treble fine. This would answer; but all regulations, relative to law, are left to the lawyers themselves; and the fable of the Man, the Lion, and the Picture, was never so well exemplified, Never, in any case, was redress more wanted; perhaps, never was it less likely to be had.

The unequal division of property, as has been shewn, arises partly from bad laws, and partly from neglect of regulation; it is, indeed, one of the most delicate points to interfere in; nevertheless, as it has been proved, that laws do already interfere between a man and the use of his property, (and that it is, in some cases, necessary that they should do so) the question is reduced to one of circumstances and expediency, it is not one to be determined, in the abstract, on principle. It is also of too nice a nature to be touched roughly by general regulation; but, if large estates in land, and large farms, were taxed higher in proportion than small ones, it would counteract, to a certain degree, the tendency of landed property to accumulate in any one person's hand; and, except in land, property seldom remains long enough in one family to accumulate to a dangerous degree. {213}

--- {213} Besides the above truth, of other property being liable to be dissipated from its nature the law of primogeniture does not attach on it, and the evil, if it did, would not be any way considerable. -=-

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The increased consumption of a nation, which we have found one of the causes of decline that increases with its wealth, may be more effectually prevented than any other; not by interfering with the mode in which individuals expend their wealth, but by managing it so that vegetable food shall always be in abundance; and if so, the high prices of animal food, and the low price of vegetables will answer the purpose of counteracting the taste for the former, which is the cause of the dearth, and brings on depopulation; and therefore its hurtful effect will be prevented. {214}

To this, gentlemen of landed property may object, and no doubt will object, but let them consider how rapidly ruin is coming on. At the rate matters now go, it would not be a surprising, but a natural effect, if most of the fields in Britain were converted into pasture, and our chief supply of corn obtained from abroad. The rent of land would, indeed, be doubled, the wages of labour would rise more than in an equal proportion, and a very few years would complete the ruin of this country. The landed proprietors surely would not, for any momentary gain, risk the ruin of themselves and of their country, for both may be the consequence of persisting in this system. {215} Or, if they will persist in it, will the government, which has other interests to consult and to protect, allow that single one to swallow up all the rest?

It is true, the freedom of trade will be invoked; but the freedom of

--- {214} Suppose that, of the waste lands, eleven millions of acres were cultivated, and that as much as possible (suppose five millions) were always in grain, those five millions would be able to supply the nation nearly in an ordinary year. A law might also be made, compelling all landlords and farmers to have only three-fourths in grass; this could be no hardship. There would then be always corn in plenty; monopoly would be prevented, because anxiety would be avoided; for a real deficiency to a small amount gives cause to great anxiety and grievous monopoly. The waste lands, when disposed of, might have whatever condition attached to them was thought fit.

{215} We say persisting in this system, for when bread fell to be at a moderate price, last summer, (1804,) the outcry amongst the farmers was great and violent, and the legislature altered the law about exports; the consequence of this was, that the price of wheat rose regularly every week till it was doubled. All this was the effect of opinion, for the price of corn rose too quickly to allow any to be sent out of the kingdom, by the new law. -=-

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trade is a principle not to be adopted without limitation, but with due regard to times and circumstances; let it then never be invoked upon a general question, without examination. Though this is the true way of arguing the question, let freedom of trade be taken in another way; let it be considered as a general principle, it will then be immutable, and cannot be changed. {216} The present corn-laws must on that principle be done away, and no bounty allowed for exportation or for importation, which indeed would be the best way; but, at all events, let us have one weight and one measure for both parties, and not invoke freedom of trade to protect the corn-dealers when prices are high, and enact laws to counteract the effects of plenty, which produces low prices.

On this subject, government must set itself above every consideration, but that of the welfare of the country: it is too important to be trifled with, or to be bartered for any inferior consideration.

The prices of our manufactures will soon become too high for other nations. Our inventions, to abbreviate labour, cannot be perpetual, and, in some cases, they can go no farther than they have already gone; besides, the same inventions, copied by nations where labour is cheaper, give them still a superiority over us.

If increased consumption was the leading cause of the destruction of Rome, to which money was sent from tributary nations, and employed to purchase corn, (so that its supply was independent of its industry,) how much more forcible and rapid must be its effects in this country, living by manufactures, and having no other means to procure a supply from strangers, when that is necessary? {217}

The burthens of our national taxes continuing the same, those for

--- {216} When corn was dear, and the public cry was for regulation, it was announced, in the highest quarters, that trade was free. Ministers acted as if they had been the colleagues of of =sic= the economist Turgot; but, when prices fell, the language was changed, and new regulations were made. Compare the Duke of Portland's letter, in 1799, with the act for the exportation of grain, in 1804.

{217} The money sent out of the country for corn is a direct diminution of the balance due to us from other nations, and it now amounts to near three millions a year on an average. The balance in our favour is not much more than twice that sum at the most, and was not equal to that till lately: the imports of grain may soon turn the balance against us. -=-

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the poor increasing, our means diminishing; what could possibly produce a more rapid decline?

The danger is too great and too evident to require any thing farther to be said; particularly as the last ten years have taught us so much, by experience.

It is unnecessary to repeat what was said about the mode of reducing the interest of the national debt without setting too much capital afloat; without breaking faith with the creditors of the state, or burthening the industry of the country.

On the increase of the poor and the means of diminishing their numbers enough has been said. That must originate with government in every case and in some cases exclusively belongs to it. They must act of themselves entirely, with respect to the very poor and to their children. With those who are not quite reduced to poverty, they should grant aid, to enable them to struggle against adversity, and prevent their offspring from becoming burthensome to the public.

The other affairs well attended to, capital and industry will lose their tendency to leave the country; and, if they should continue to leave it, the case will be desperate; for, after the lands are improved, and the best encouragement given to the employment of capital, and to the greatest extent nothing more can be done. It will find employment elsewhere.

The efficacy of a remedy, like every thing else in this world, has a boundary, but the extent and compass of that depends, in a great degree, on exertion and skill, and particularly so in the present instance. It remains with the government to make that exertion, either directly itself, or by putting individuals in the way to make it.

The government of a country must then interfere, in an active manner, in the prevention of the interior causes of decline. As to the exterior ones, they do not depend on a country itself; but, so far as they do, it is exclusively on the government, and in no degree on the individual inhabitants.

The envy and enmity which superior wealth create, can only be diminished by the moderation and justice with which a nation conducts itself towards others; and if they are sufficiently envious and [end of page #283] unfair to persist, a nation like Britain has nothing to fear. But we must separate from envy and enmity occasioned by the possession of wealth, that envy and enmity that are excited by the unjust manner in which wealth is acquired.

In respect to Britain, it has been shewn, that the envy and enmity excited, are chiefly by her possessions in the East Indies; we have seen, also, that the wealth obtained by those possessions is but very inconsiderable, and that they have, at least, brought on one-third of our national debt; it would then be well, magnanimously to state the question, and examine whether we ought not to abandon the possession of such unprofitable, such expensive, and such a dangerous acquisition; till we do so, it is to be feared that we shall never have a true friend, nor be without a bitter enemy.

We have had experience from America, which is become precious to us now, that we have lost it, and which was a mill-stone about our neck, while we were in possession of it. Let us take a lesson from experience, and apply its result to what is at this moment going on, and we cannot mistake the conclusion to be formed. Let the nation be above the little vanity of retaining a thing, merely because it has possessed it. {218} Let the great general outline of happiness, and of permanent happiness, be considered, and not that ephemerical splendour and opulence, that gilded pomp that remains but for a day, and leaves a nation in eternal poverty and want. Britain can only be firm and just in its conduct towards other nations, give up useless possessions, defend its true rights to the last point, encourage industry at home, and take every step to prevent the operation of those causes of decline that we have been examining; let merit be encouraged, and

--- {218} In this country, public opinion would be against a minister, who proposed to give up any possession abroad, however useless. This is owing to the pride occasioned by wealth. The people are not rapacious for conquests, but once in possession they are very unwilling to let them go.

It is not necessary to quit the trade to India, or abandon all our possessions, but to diminish our establishments, circumscribe our conquests, and not aim at possessing more than we had thirty years ago. That moderation would conciliate all nations, and envy would find its occupation gone. -=-

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let it never be forgotten or lost sight of, that wealth and greatness can only be supported, for a length of time, by industry and abilities well directed, guided by justice and fair intention. This is the truth of which we are never to lose sight. We may keep sounding for the bottom, and reconnoitring the shore, the better to direct our steps, but we must never lose sight of the beacon, with the help of which alone we can safely enter the wished-for harbour.

There is a great disposition in the human mind to give the law, when there is the power of doing it. The abuse of power appears to be natural and dangerous; yet, we have seen, that most nations, both ancient and modern, have fallen into that error. The hour of British insolence has also been mentioned, and, certainly, with regard to America, we did not more materially mistake our power than we did the rights of those with whom we had to treat.

It is much to be questioned, whether the undaunted and brave spirit of our naval commanders does not, in some cases, lead them too far in their rencontres with vessels of other nations on the high seas, and we ought not to forget that, in this case, the match played is that of England against all the world. As no other nation is under the same circumstances with this, no one will be inclined to take our part, or to wink at, or pardon, any error we may commit.

The Hans Towns, at one time, were paramount at sea; they could bid defiance to all the world; and, at first, they did great actions, and employed their power to a good purpose. They destroyed the pirates, and humbled the Danes, after they had robbed both the English and French, and burnt both London and Paris; but they also had their hour of insolence. They began to be unjust, and to be insolent, and the cities that had begged to be united to them, in the times when their conduct was honourable and wise, withdrew from the participation of their injustice, pride, and arrogance. While they attended to protecting themselves, and to following their own affairs, they did numberless good offices to the ships of foreign nations; they had universal good will and commanded admiration. But, when they became supercilious, and a terror to others, their pride was soon humbled, never again to rise. [end of page #285]

In considering the whole, there is a considerable degree of consolation arises to British subjects, to see the very mistaken comparisons that have, in the first place, been made between Rome and Carthage; and, in the second place, the still more unfair comparison made between those two rival powers, and France and England.

As opinion and belief have a great power over the minds of men, whether they act in conformity to their views and wishes, or in opposition to them, it is of great importance to remove an error, which was of very long standing, very general, and had the direct tendency to make the people of both countries think the parallel well drawn, and therefore conclude that this mercantile country must, sooner or later, sink under the power of France. But, when it appears that most authors have been inadvertently led into the same mistake, with respect to those two ancient republics, and that, even if there had not been the mistake, the parallel drawn would not have been true, then France will probably cease to found her hopes on that comparison, and we may, at least, cease to feel any apprehension from so ill-grounded a cause.

That a nation once gone on in the career of opulence can never go back with impunity is as certain as its tendency to going back is. The possession of riches is of a transitory nature, and their loss attended with innumerable evils. Though nations in affluence, like men in health, refuse to follow any regimen, and use great freedom with themselves, yet they should consider there is a vast difference. A man, well and in health, is in his natural state; yet even that will not resist too much liberty taken with his constitution; but a nation that has risen to more wealth than others is always in an artificial state, insomuch as it owes its superiority, not to nature, but either to peculiar circumstances, our =sic--sc.: or = superior exertion and care; it is therefore not to be supposed capable of being preserved, without some of that attention and care, which are necessary to all nations under similar circumstances, and which, in the history of the world, we have not yet seen one nation able to resist.

There are sufficient circumstances, new and favourable in the [end of page #286] case of Britain, to inspire us with the courage necessary for making the effort.

There is one part of the application of this Inquiry, to the British dominions, left intentionally incomplete. It has been left so with a design to keep clear of those discussions that awaken a spirit of party, which prevents candid attention. It is of little use to enquire, unless those who read can do it without prevention or prejudice. It is therefore, very necessary not to awaken those feelings, by adding any thing that may rouse a spirit of party; and it is difficult to touch matters that concern men, deeply interested in an object, without that danger. What seems impartial to an unconcerned man, seems partial to those who are concerned; and sometimes the observer is blamed by both the parties, between whom he thinks he is keeping in the middle way.

The advantages of the form of government adopted in Britain have been fairly stated in account; but constitutions and forms of government, however good, are only so in the degree; they are never perfect, and have all a tendency to wear out, to get worse, and to get encumbered. The French were the first, perhaps, that ever tried the mad scheme of remedying this by making a constitution that could be renewed at pleasure. But it was a violent remedy, to implant, in the constitution itself, the power of its own destruction, under the idea of renovation. The English constitution has taken, perhaps, the best way that is possible for this purpose; it has given to king, lords, and commons, the power of counteracting each other, and so preserving its first principles. Without going into that inquiry, it is sufficient to say, that the advantages which may be derived from the British constitution can only be expected by the three different powers having that will, and exercising it; for, if they should act together on a system of confidence, without an attention to preserving the balance, they must overset, instead of navigating the vessel.

The individuals of whom a nation is composed, we have seen, never can, by their efforts, prevent its decline, as their natural propensities tend to bring it on. It is to the rulers of nations we must look for the [end of page #287] prolongation of prosperity, which they cannot accomplish, unless they look before them, and, in place of seeking for remedies, seek for preventatives.

It is very natural and very common for those who wield the power of a great nation, to trust to the exertion of that power, when the moment of necessity arrives; but that will seldom, if ever, be found to answer. The time for the efficacy of remedy will be past before the evil presents itself in the form of pressing necessity; and that very power, which can so effectually be applied in other cases, in this will be diminished, and found unequal to what it has to perform.

[end of page #288]

_Application of the present Inquiry to Nations in general_

IF there is a lesson taught by political economy that is of greater importance than any other, it is, that industry, well directed, is the way to obtain wealth; and that the modes by which nations sought after it in the early and middle ages, by war and conquest, are, in comparison, very ineffectual.

Notwithstanding that princes themselves are now convinced of the truth of this, by a strange fatality, the possession of commercial wealth has itself become the cause of wars, not less ruinous than those that formerly were the chief occupation of mankind.

It was discovered a few centuries ago, that small principalities, and even single cities, acquired more wealth by industry, than all the mighty monarchs of the middle ages did by war; but we are not yet advanced to the ultimate end of the lessons that experience and reason give in regard to the interests of nations, with regard to wealth and power.

To suppose that mankind will ever live entirely at peace is absurd, and is to suppose them to change their nature. Such a reverie would only suit one of the revolutionists of France; but let us hope that there is still a possibility to lessen the causes of quarrels amongst nations. The true principles of political economy lead to that, and the object is sufficiently important.

By _agriculture_ and _manufactures_; that is, by producing such things as are conducive to the happiness of man, the _aggregate wealth of mankind_ can alone be increased.

By _commerce_, which consists in conveying or selling the produce of industry, the aggregate wealth of mankind is not increased, but its _distribution is altered_. {219}

--- {219} Though the produce of soil is not obtained without industry, yet, to make a distinction that is simple and easily understood and retained, we suppose manufactured produce to go by the name of the produce of industry. -=-

[end of page #289]

As individuals, and sometimes nations, have obtained great wealth, not by producing, but by altering the distribution of wealth produced; that is, by commerce, that seems, to those who aim at wealth, to be the greatest object of ambition.

If every nation in the world were industrious, and contented with consuming the articles it produced, they would all be wealthy and happy without commerce; or, if each nation enjoyed a share of commerce, in proportion to what it produced, there would be no superiority to create envy.

Variety of soil and climate, difference of taste, of manners, and an infinity of other causes, have rendered commerce necessary, though it does not increase the aggregate wealth of mankind: but nations are in an error when they set a greater value on commerce than on productive industry.

Some nations are situated by nature so as to be commercial, just as others are to raise grapes and fine fruits; therefore, though one nation has more than what appears to be an equal share of commerce, it ought not to be a reason for envy, much less for enmity.

Some nations also find it their interest to attend chiefly to agriculture, others may find it necessary to attend more to manufactures; but that ought to be no cause of enmity or rivalship.

With a view, if possible, to diminish a little the envy and rivalship that still subsists, let us take a view of this business in its present state.

Britain, the wealthiest of nations, at this time, sells little of the produce of her soil, and a great deal of the produce of her industry; but she purchases a great deal of the produce of the soil of other countries, though not much of their industry: in this there is great mutual conveniency and no rivalship. In fact, her wealth arises nearly altogether from internal industry, and, by no means from that commerce that is the envy of other nations; for it is clear, that whoever produces a great deal may consume a great deal, without any exchange of commodities, and without commerce.

The English, number for number, produce more, by one-half, than [end of page #290] any other people; they can, therefore, consume more; they are, therefore, richer.

If France would cultivate her soil with the same care that we attend to manufactures, (at the same time manufacturing for herself as much as she did before the revolution,) she would be a much richer country than England, without having a single manufacture for exportation. Her wines, brandies, fruits, &c. &c. would procure her amply whatever she might want from other nations. Let France make good laws to favour industry; and, above all, render property secure, and she will have no occasion to envy England.

Russia, part of Germany, Spain, Italy, and Portugal, are all in a similar situation with France in this respect; they will each be as rich as England the moment they are as industrious, and have as many inventions for the abbreviation of labour.

Holland, Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, and some parts of Germany, are, more or less, in the same situation with England; they require to pay attention to manufactures, for they have not the means of raising produce enough to exchange for all they want.

If there is any occasion for rivalship, or ground for envy, it is then but very small, and it happens that the rivalship which exists is between those nations that, in reality, ought to be the least envious of each other, the nations who have the fewest quarrels are those who really might be rivals.

Rivalship is natural between those who are in similar situations. France, Spain, and Portugal, might be rivals. England, Holland, Prussia, and Denmark, might also be rivals; but there can be no reason for France envying England her manufactures and commerce, any more than for England envying France for her climate, soil, extent, =sic= of territory and population.

The way to produce the most, being to give industry its best direction. Nations, differently situated, ought never to be rivals or enemies, on account of trade.

If those, who regulate the affairs of nations, were to consider this in its true light, there would be less jealousy and more industry. [end of page #291]

There appears to be only one real cause for war, so far as it is occasioned by a wish to obtain wealth; and that arises from possessions in the East and West Indies, and in America.

If there were no such possessions, or if they were more equally divided, there would be very little cause for war amongst nations.

It may, very possibly, at some distant time, be an object for a general congress of nations, to settle this point; so that it shall be no longer an object of jealousy. This can be done only by abandoning entirely, or dividing more equally; but, at present, the animosity and enmity occasioned is considerable, though not well founded.

The Spaniards are not envied for the possession of Peru, nor the Portuguese for the Brazils, though they draw more wealth from them than ever England or Holland did from their foreign possessions; yet, England is, and Holland was, an object of envy, on account of possessions abroad. This is the more unreasonable, that the Spaniards and Portuguese keep the trade strictly to themselves, while England allows nations, at peace with her, the most liberal conditions for trading with her Indian possessions: conditions, indeed, that give them a superiority over ourselves. {220} This conduct ought not to bring down upon England, envy or enmity, (though it does); for the fact is, that if all nations were at peace with England, they might, if they had capital and skill, (and that they have not is no fault of England,) trade with India to great advantage, while we should have the trouble of defending our establishments, and of keeping the country.

Before the revolution, France obtained more produce from Saint Domingo alone, in one year, than Britain did from all her West India Islands together, in three years, and much more than England did from all her foreign possessions together; yet, France was never obnoxious to other nations on that account.

--- {220} This may seem strange, but it is literally true; the quarrels between the India Company, and the free trade, as it is called, are an ample proof of the truth of it. The free-trade-merchants chiefly act under the name of agents for Swedish and Danish houses, so liberally has England acted with regard to neutral nations. -=-

[end of page #292]

It appears, then, very evident, that the envy and jealousy do not arise from the _magnitude or value of foreign possessions_, but from some other cause, though it is laid to that account. This cause is worth inquiring into.

It appears that Holland and England have, alone, been causes of jealousy to other nations, on account of foreign possessions; but, that Spain, Portugal, and France, never have, though there was more real reason for envy and jealousy.

The reason of this appears to be, that those nations, who excited no envy, escaped it, because their indolence, or internal economy, prevented them from becoming rich; but, that Holland and England, which, in reality, owed their wealth chiefly to internal industry, and very little of it to foreign possessions, have excited great envy, and that England does so to the present hour. {221}

It is, then, wealth arising from industry, that is the object to be aimed at, and that cannot be obtained by war or conquest. The purpose is not advanced, but retarded, by such contests; and if those, who rule nations, would condescend to enter into the merits of the case, they would find, not only that the happiness of the people, and every purpose at which they aim, would be better answered than by contesting about the means of wealth, which, consisting in internal industry, does not admit of a transfer. One nation may be ruined, and another may rise, (as, indeed, they are continually doing,) but one nation does not rise merely by ruining another; the wealth of a nation, like the happiness of an individual, draws the source from its own

--- {221} From both the East and West Indies, England never has, till within these last ten years, drawn three millions a year, that could be termed profit or gain, and, even in the last and most prosperous times, not eight millions, which is not equal to more than one-twentieth part of the produce of national industry at home. Even the foreign commerce of England, except so far as it procures us things we want, in exchange for things we have to spare, is not productive of much wealth. Supposing the balance in our favour to be six millions a year, which it has never uniformly been, it would only amount to one- twenty-fourth of our internal productive industry. In short, we gain five times as much by a wise division of labour, the use of machinery, ready and expeditious methods of working, as by the possession of both the Indies!!! -=-

[end of page #293]

bosom. The possession of all the Indies would never make an indolent people rich; and while a people are industrious, and the industry is well directed, they never can be poor.

It is to be hoped, that the time is fast approaching, when nations will cease to fight about an object that is not to be obtained by fighting, and that they will seek for what they want, by such means as are safe and practicable. [end of page #294]

====== INDEX. ======

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[=sic=--no section heading in original]

ABSOLUTE monarchy, in some particular instances, has an advantage over limited monarchy; particularly in preventing the infringement made by corporate bodies or professions on the public, 117, 118, 119.

AGES, middle, commerce made slow progress during them, 3.--What places flourished in them, 44 to 50.

AGE, golden, the tradition, if that founded in any thing, must have been a very ignorant one, though very happy, 214.

ALEXANDER, the Great, history confused before his time, 20.--His conquests had no permanent consequences, 24.--The only permanent consequence was Alexandria supplanting Tyre, 52.--His expedition to India was on purpose to get possession of the fine countries that produced aromatics and precious stones, 53.

ALEXANDRIA, rendered Egypt first a commercial country, and brought on the decline of Carthage, 24.--Loses its commerce in the 7th century by the conquests of the Mahomedans, 54, 55.

ALFRED the Great, made many efforts to render the people happy, 118.

AMBASSADOR. See Diplomacy.

AMBITION, sometimes renders labour an enjoyment, 82.

AMERICA, its discovery forms a new epoch in the history of commerce, 3.--Little similarity between it and other nations, 103.-- United States, of, their revenues, ib.--May take all the goods Britain can manufacture, 195.--British exports to, consist nearly all of manufactured goods, 204.--Probability of its great increase and consumption of English manufactures, 268, 269.--Encourages arts and inventions, but agriculture a better object to it, 273.

ANCIENT nations. See Nations.

ANIMAL food, much used in northern nations and by manufacturing people, 138.--Its effects on population, 139 to 146.--Price compared with bread, 147.--In case of the demand becoming too great, a remedy proposed, 155.

ANTWERP, at one time acted as a sovereign, 47.--Became, in the north, what Venice was in the south of Europe, 57.

APPRENTICES. See Education.

ARABIAN Gulf. See Red Sea.

ARKWRIGHT, Sir Richard, as an inventor met with great difficulties, 203.

ARTS. See Manufactures.

ARTS, fine. See Fine Arts.

ARTISTS, not unfit for soldiers, 32.--Banished by luxury from a country, 113.

ASIA, passage to it by the Cape of Good Hope a new aera in commerce, 3.--Its mode of fighting with elephants only disconcerted the Romans once, 31.

ASSIGNATS. See France.

ATHENS. See Greece.

AUGUSTUS, his resolution to kill himself when supplies of corn were likely to fail, 35.

[=sic=--no section heading in original]

BABYLON. See Syria.

BALANCE of trade, of England, has never much exceeded five millions.--To be seen on the chart 3, p.213, during 105 years.--Is not equal to more than one twenty-fourth of the produce of industry, 293.

BALANCE of power could not preserve a nation from interior causes producing decline, 185.

BALTIC Sea, manufacturers early established on its southern shores, 45 to 48.

BARTER, not an innate principle, as Dr. Smith thinks, 5, 6.

BLACK Sea, a new market opened to commerce,195.

BIRMINGHAM division of labour renders business easy, 217.-- Apprenticeships not necessary to learn the art, but for other reasons.-- Recruiting service succeeds there, ib.

BOARDING Schools. See Education.

BODIES Corporate and Public, their tendency to trench on the public, 117 to 124.

BOULTON, M. Esq. his spirited conduct in bringing forward the improvements, invented by Mr. Watt, on the steam-engine, 203.

BORROWING. See Money.

BRAZILS. See Portugal.

BREAD, proportion between the price of, and butchers meat, 140.-- Prices in Paris and London,164.

BRITAIN, in what its power and wealth consist, 191.--Its interior situation and exterior, 192, 193, 194, 195.--Its conquests and colonies, 196 to 200.--Its great increase, 201.--

[end of page #295] Farthest advanced in manufacture, the consequence of that investigated, 203, 204, 205.--Comparison between its general trade and that to India, 206 to 211.--Begins to encourage agriculture, 213.--Its exports and imports represented in chart 3 described, 213, 214.

BRUGES acted once as a sovereign, 47.--Became a depot for India goods in the north, as Venice was in the south, 157.

BURKE, Right Honourable Edmund, his opinion relative to exterior causes of decline, 176.

BUTCHERS meat. See Animal Food.

C.

CAPE of Good Hope. Its passage a new epoch in commercial history, 3.

CAPITAL, the result of past industry, 161.--Commands trade, but supplies poor countries at the expense of richer ones, 181.--Tends to leave a country when it becomes too abundant, 161, 162, 163.-- Would leave England if the sinking fund were to operate long in time of peace, 242.

CARTHAGE, of wealthy places alone escaped the conquests of Alexander, 24.--Mistake relative to its state, 32, 33.--Its fall ruined the Roman manners, ib.--Comparison between it and Rome unfair, 36, 37, 38.--Was never so degraded as Rome, ib.

CASPIAN Sea, goods brought by that route from India, 56.

CHANGES, interior, take place by degrees, 89.--Most rapid and observable amongst the Romans, 91.

CHARLEMAGNE, from the fall of the Roman empire till his time, nothing like wealth or power, 44.--Paved the way for civilizing and enriching the north of Europe, 45.

CHARTS, description and explanation of, illustrating the rise and fall of nations, 78, 79, 80.--Statistical explanation of, 190.--Of commerce, exports and imports, 213.--Of revenue and debts, 214.

CHILDREN. See Education.

CHRISTIAN religion most favourable to industry, 263, 264, 265, 267.

COMMERCE, progress slow in feudal times, 3.--Changed its abode when the magnet rendered navigating the ocean practicable, 4.-- Commercial wealth degrades a nation less than wealth obtained by conquests, 33.--Commercial spirit, its operation on national character, 37.--Commerce with India, the only one in the ancient world, 51.-- How carried on, 52.--Its vicissitudes, the envy it created, quarrels and revolutions it occasioned, 53 to 59.--Of Britain during the last fifteen years; the increase great, but not arising from any permanent cause, 193.--Its dependence on credit, 201.

CONSTANTINOPLE shares in the trade of India, 56.--Revolution occasioned partly by the contests about that commerce, 57.--Sunk before the discovery of America, by the conquest of the eastern Empire by the Turks, 68.

CONSUMPTION of food regulates the population of a country, 140.-- Its nature and tendency in northern nations, 141, 142, 143.--Requires attention from government, 146.

CONQUEST first altered the natural state of the world, 2.--Its first effect to lessen taxes, 35.--Ultimately degrades a nation, ib.

CONDUCT in life. See Education.

CORN, donations of at Rome, 35.--State of crops in England, 145.-- Impossibility, if it fell much short, to find ships to bring over the quantity wanted, ib.--calculations concerning, 146 to 154.

CREDIT necessary to carry on trade extensively, 202, 203.

CRUSADES tended to extend civilization and commerce, 45.

CUSTOMS, the first great branch of public revenue, 106.

CURING herrings, an improvement in the mode of, raised Holland above Flanders, 47.

D.

DEAD languages. See Education.

DECAY. See Decline.

DECLINE of nations. Though it cannot be finally prevented, may be considered as if it never were to come on in this Inquiry, 7.--Are of two sorts, 10.--Of the Carthaginians attended with less degradation than that of the Romans, 36.--Mistaken or misrepresented by historians in the instances of Rome and Carthage, 37.--Cause of it amongst the Romans, 39, 40, 41, &c.--Cause of in Flanders, 47.-- General in all nations that had been wealthy at the time of the discovery of the passage to India and of America, 49.--Of the Turkish government, 69.--Occasioned by taxation, 167.--How to be prevented or retarded, 169.--Interior causes may be counteracted, ib.-- In general hastened by the conduct of governments, 171.--Might be otherwise, ib.--Certain causes of, common to all nations, 173.-- External causes of operating on a nation, envy, enmity, &c. 176, 177, 178.--Causes of peculiar to Great Britain, 257, 258, 259, 260.

DENMARK. Example of comparative power.--Occasions the Hanseatic League by its piracies, and is afterwards pillaged and nearly ruined by that confederacy, 48.

DEPRECIATION of money counteracts the effect of taxation, 114, 115.--Takes place where ever wealth is, 164.--Its effects in dealing with poor nations, 165.

DIPLOMACY. The circuitous conduct ascribed to ambassadors, partly necessary and not to be blamed, 186.

[end of page #296]

DIVISION of land. See Property.

DIVISION of property. See Property.

DUTCH. See Holland.

E.

EAST INDIES. See India.

EASTERN Empire. See Constantinople.

EDUCATION of children in all countries grows worse as a nation grows more wealthy, 90.--Brings on a change of manners, 91.-- Would be better managed if parents were aided by govetnment, =sic= 94.--Cannot be properly taken care of without the aid of government, 95.--In what it consists generally, 96, 97, 98.--Has been in general wrong understood =sic= by writers on it, 98, 99.--Female, its importance, ib.--Has been ill understood and conducted, 100, 101.-- Its importance, 216.--Of the higher classes of society is well enough, 217.--Not so of the lower, ib.--Apprenticeships, their advantages, 218.--To become a good member of society, the end of all education, whatever the rank or situation, 219.--Dr. Smith's opinion about apprenticeships examined, ib. and 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226.-- Of females in England badly conducted, 227, 228.

EGYPT, one of the first countries settled, 20.--Its fertility, &c. 21.-- Its surplus industry appears to have belonged to the sovereign, 22.-- Shared in the commerce to India at an early period, 51, 52.--Became the chief channel for the trade to India after the founding of Alexandria, 54.

ELIZABETH, queen, Spanish armada in her reign not equal to the privateers of our merchants now, 8.--Endeavoured to enrich the country, 118.

EMIGRANT ladies, astonishment shewn by them at the little progress made in female education at public schools in this country, 228.

ENERGY of those who attack greater than that of they =sic= who defend, 17.--Occasioned by poverty, and necessity the cause of changes and revolution, 19.

ENGLAND began to see the advantages of manufactures and commerce very late, 48, 74.--Its form of government a great advantage, 191.--Manners likely to change, 193.--Increase of its trade since 1791, owing to temporary causes, 195.--The American and Russian markets great and increasing, 204.--Envy and enmity excited by its conquests in India, 206.--Effects of taxation on it, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233.--Its national debt, 234 to 246.--Causes of decline peculiar to it, 257 to 260.--Circumstances peculiarly favourable to it, 261 to 270.--Ought not to be envied for its possessions in India 291.-- Owes its wealth chiefly to internal industry, 293.

ENVY leads to rivalship in peace and brings on war, 14.--One of the external causes of the fall of nations, 175.--Occasioned the fall of Jerusalem after the death of Solomon, 177.--Excited by the wealth of England, and particularly by its possessions in the east, 206.

ESPRIT DE CORPS. See Bodies public and corporate.

EUPHRATES. See Syria.

EUROPE, wealth and power unequally divided in it, 13.--Division of states, with the population and revenues, illustrated by a statistical chart,190.

EXCISE, established long after the customs, 107.

EXPENDITURE of England consists chiefly in interest of debt, 233.-- Cannot by any economy be much reduced in time of peace. ib.

EXPORTS, chart shewing, 213.

EXTERNAL causes of decline, cannot be prevented altogether by internal arrangements, but their effect greatly diminished, 173.--More simple than the internal causes, 175.--Envy and enmity, ib.--Opinion of Mr. Burke, 176, 177, 178.--Causes arising from poor nations having the advantage over rich in all dealings, 179.--High value of money in poorer nations, 182.--Conclusion of exterior causes, 184 to 187.

F.

FALL. See Decline.

FINANCES. See Revenue.

FINE arts do not flourish in a very wealthy country, 113.--Very different as to their improvement, from the mechanic arts.

FLANDERS enriched by manufactures, 3, 46.--The discovery of a bettar =sic= method of curing herrings by the Dutch is hurtful to it, 47.

FLORENCE served as a refuge for the nobles of Rome, when the city was taken by the Goths, 44.

FOOD. See Animal Food and Corn.

FORCE, human, the superiority it gave nearly done away by the invention of gun-powder, 4.

FORESTALLING. See MONOPOLY.

FRANCE has, since the revolution, invented new modes of fighting, 31.--Does not resemble Rome, 38.--Its assignats the principal cause of the nature of the revolution, 48.--Its monied capital was sent away when the revolution broke out,163.--Its burthens before the revolution, 169.--It expended great sums in the last war, 189.--It, before the revolution, gained more by the west-India trade than any other nation, 193.--Have now nearly lost it, ib.--Its capital greatly diminished, ib.--Will probably never possess great West-India trade again, 195.--Will never cease to be an enemy to England, 196.

FREED men.

FREE revenue. See Revenue.

FUND, public. See National Debt.

FUND, sinking. See National Debt.

G.

GAMING, though attended with painful sensations, is oftener followed from propensity, as a mode of occupying the mind and interesting it, than from a love of gain, 83. [end of page #297]

GENTLEMEN resemble each other pretty nearly in all countries, 218.

GEOGRAPHICAL discovery so far as connected with the rise and fall of nations nearly at an end, 12.

GENOA, why put with Venice in the chart of commercial history, 56.-- Its greatness, ib.--Loses its superiority, 57.--Its power in the Black- Sea, ib.

GOLD. See Money.

GOLDEN Age. See Age.

GOVERNMENTS ought to aid in the education of the lower and middling classes, 94, 95.--Neglect education in the useful arts, 98.-- Should counteract the internal causes of decline, 172, 173, 187.-- Government of Great Britain should take care of education, 225.

GRAIN. See Corn.

GREEKS, their education peculiar to themselves, 25.--Studied Egyptian learning, 98, 99.

GUN-POWDER changed the art of war, 4.

H.

HANS Towns rose first to wealth in the north of Europe, 3.--Became formidable towards the end twelfth century, 45.--Arose from the circumstances of the times and necessity.--Became conquerors, 48.-- Began to decline through pride and luxury, 49.

HERRINGS, a new mode of curing them, discovered by the Dutch, raised that country, and began to make Flanders decline, 47.

HISTORY, an appeal to the best mode of inquiry, 1.--Dr. Robertson's complaint about the scarcity of materials, ib.--Is confused previous to the conquests of Alexander the Great, 20.--Commercial chart of, for 3005 years, 78.

HOLLAND compared to the Phoenicians, 46.--New method of curing herrings raised it above Flanders. Great industry and economy, 48.-- Triumph over Spain at home, and Portugal in India, 62, 63, 64, 65.-- Increase in wealth till the end of the seventeenth century, 66.--The best example of overcoming difficulties, ib.--How it began to fall, 67.--How it at last sunk before France, 68.

HORSES, there =sic= great consumption of food, 147, 157.

HOUSE rent. See Rent.

HUME, David, Esq. his errors respecting national debt, though a man of great abilities, 114.

I.

JAMES I. did not understand the true reason, why the Scotch were greater lovers of liberty in his time than the English, 280.

IDLENESS, incompatible with riches in a nation, in every case, but not so with an individual, 82.

IMPORTS of, England, chart of, 213.

INDIA. Its productions seem to have been the first objects of commerce, 51.--Digression concerning this trade, 51 to 69.--Its trade and possessions excite envy, 193, 194, 195.--Our possessions too great, 197.--Budget, its statement and calculation of sums remitted home, 198.--Has lost the cotton trade notwithstanding the low rate of labour, 200.--Its trade compared with that of the country at large, 206, 207.--A peculiar cause of other nations envying England, 257.-- Ought not to be so, as they produce very little wealth compared with what springs from national industry, 291.--The division of labour, ready methods of working, and inventions produce more wealth than both the Indies, 293.

INDIES, West, the trade of, lost to France, 193.--Trade of England to, of a permanent nature, 195.--A cause of envy, 196, 197, 198, 199.-- Ought not to be a cause of envy.

INDIVIDUALS, some may live without labour, but all those of a country never can, 82.--Can pay for certain things, for which they cannot provide, 95.

INDUSTRY caused by poverty and necessity, 19.--A more permanent source of wealth than any other, 42.--Industry in youth, the great advantage of through life, 84.--Diminishes as wealth increases, 90.--Tends to leave a wealthy nation after a certain time, 161.-- Industry of England, the great support of its wealth, and if other nations were as industrious, each in the way most advantageous, they would be as rich as England, 292.

INTERIOR causes of decline enumerated and examined as habits of life and manners, 81 to 93.--Arising from education, 94 to 101. The effects on the people and the government, from 102 to 115.--Arising from public bodies, from 116 to 124.--Arising from unequal division of property and employment of capital, from 125 to 136.--Arising from the produce of the soil, becoming unequal to the consumption, from page 137 to 160.--From the tendency of industry and capital to leave a wealthy country, from 161 to 166.--Conclusion of interior causes, from 166 to 174.

INTEREST, compound, its progress, more certain in paying off debts than in accumulating capital, 241.

INVENTIONS, three great ones almost totally changed the state of mankind, 4.--Inventions render more capital necessary to commerce, 126.--Is one of the things that renders our superiority in manufactures secure, 202.--A nation that remains stationary will soon be surpassed, 203.

JOHNSON, Dr. would have been a greater man if he had lived in a poorer nation, 113.

ITALY was unable to supply its inhabitants with food in the splendour of the Roman empire, 43.

L.

LABOUR, some individuals may, but a nation never [end of page #28] can exist without it, 82.--Division of, produces great wealth.

LAND, price of, two centuries ago, and comparison of the profit of purchasing, or lending on interest in a nation increasing in wealth, 130.--Its unequal division discourages industry, 132, 133, 134.--Total amount of rent in England, 153, 154, 155.

LANGUAGES, dead. See Education.

LAWS better administered in England in criminal than civil cases, 119.--Tend to become more complicated, 123.

LAWYERS, their ESPRIT DE CORPS, 120, 121, 122.--Individuals have no means to resist their incroachments, 123.--Government ought to do it, 124.

LIVERPOOL fitted out privateers last war, equal in tonnage and men to the Spanish Armada, 8.

LOANS. See National Debt.

LOCAL situation, one of the causes of wealth, 2.--The discoveries in geography and navigation have changed that with regard to particular nations,

LONDON burnt by the Danes, 9.--Rent and taxes heavier than in any other place, 237.--People prefer living in London, where all is dear, to the cheaper parts of England, 238, 239.

M.

MISERS, never a race of them for three or four generations, 83.

MOGUL, the prodigious and rapid decline of his empire, 197.

MONEY corrupted every thing at Rome when its decline begun, 46.-- Money to borrow, only to be found in Italy and Flanders, 48.--Let =sic= out at interest, loses; laid out to buy land, gains in a country growing rich, 163.--Its value less in England than any country except America, 165.--Though the best measure of value is not accurate, being different in different countries, 182.--Its great value in poor countries serves to enrich them in dealing with wealthy nations, 183.

MONARCHY. See Absolute Monarchy.

MONOPOLY not an imaginary evil, 49.--Dr. Smith's opinion contradicted by experience, 150.--Proof of its existence, 151, 152, 153, 154.--Augments rent, and labour, and prices, 153.

MONTESQUEU, his mistake relative to Rome and Carthage, 32.-- His opinion of the affairs of Rome, 40.

MONTAGUE, chancellor of the exchequer, attended by the lord mayor and sheriffs, went from shop to shop in London to borrow money, 239.

MORALS. See Education.

MOTHERS. See Education.

MACHINERY. See Manufactures.

MAHOMEDAN RELIGION, its rapid establishment, 54.--Its effects on the commerce with India, ib.

MANNERS greatly corrupted at Rome, 43.--A change in them constantly going on, and tending to bring decline,

MANUFACTURES settled early on the shores of the Baltic, 3.-- Those who possess them first, lose them by imitation of others, 14.-- India surpassed in them by England, 63.--In ancient times, only, extended to luxuries for the great and simple necessaries for the poor, 73.--Manufacturers less splendid than merchants, 143.--The working men consume more animal food than the same rank of people in any other nation, 144.--England considered as excelling all other nations for manufacturers =sic=, 200.--The effects of the inventions of the steam engine and spinning machines, 203.--Scarcely any thing sold to the American states, except our own manufactures, 204.--Southern nations cannot rival northerly ones, 210.--Manufactures, and agriculture, more conducive to wealth than commerce, are not the same thing, 209.

MEDITERRANEAN, its shores the first abodes of commerce, 3 and 4, 20.--Lost its importance by the discovery of America, the magnet, and the passage to India by the Cape,

MERCHANTS less splendid than conquerors and planters, 143.--Can have no rule of conduct in transactions but their own advantage, 181.

N.

NATIONS, none that ever submitted to pay tribute, ever flourished long, 40.--Enriched by commerce, not so certain to decline as by conquests, 41.--There =sic= situation with respect to wealth and power previous to the discovery of America, 49.--Feeble nations have some advantage in knowing their weakness, 171.--Exterior causes of their decline of less importance than interior ones, 184.--Should consider which is the best object on which to employ their industry, 210, 211.--Their comparative extent, revenues, and population, illustrated by an engraved chart, 213, 214.--Nations of Europe, application of the present inquiry to them, 284.

NECESSITY consisting of a desire to supply wants, the cause of industry and wealth, 14.--Necessity ceases its operation on the nation that is risen highest, 15, 16.--Operated very powerfully on the Dutch, 47.--Habit prolongs the action of it, 81.--With young men that can, alone, produce industry, 84.--Less and less on each generation as wealth increases, 85. The consequences of this, 87.--Its operation prolonged to a certain degree by taxation, 239.--

NORTHERN countries most favourable to industry, 44.

NILE. See Egypt.

P.

PALMYRA founded by Solomon, King of Israol =sic=, for the purpose of trading with India,

PARIS burnt by the Danes soon after the death of Charlemagne. Prices of bread at, compared with those of London, 150.

PARISH-OFFICERS defend themselves against the public at the expense of the public, 122.--Bad administrators, 123, 124.--Rough, vulgar, and a disgrace to the country, 249.

PATENTS, laws of, its utility, 200, 201.

PETER the Great endeavoured to improve his country, and make his people happy, 118.

PITT, Right Hon. W. his estimate of national property, 243, 244.

POLAND, causes of its decline, and subjugation, different from that of most other nations, 75.

POOR, their wretched state at Rome, 43.--Of England cost six times as much, in proportion, as in Scotland, and fifty times as much in reality, 88.--Increase, as capital becomes necessary for industry, 156.-- Causes of their increase, &c. &c. 157, 158, 159, 160.--Of England, cost more to maintain, than the revenues of many kingdoms, 247.-- Causes, inquired into, and remedy, 248 to 256.

POPULATION, 142.--Connected with wealth, and the manner of living, so that a nation may not require to import ordinary food in great quantities 159.--May be considered as diminished in a double ratio as the poor increase, 249.

PORTUGAL, 65.

POWER in nations, sometimes united with wealth, sometimes not, 7.-- Definition of, 8, 9.--Sought after by the Romans, and most nations, too eagerly, 39.--Quitted Rome when wealth was too great, 36.

PRICES of animal and vegetable food; highness of price diminishes consumption, 161.--Those of the late dearth at Paris compared with London, ib.--When known to the corn-dealers, they can combine without any express stipulation, 152, 153.--Rises to that of monopoly as soon as an article of necessity becomes scarce, 154, 155.--Of rent and wages have advanced more within these last twelve years, than in half a century before, 155.

PRINCIPLES. See Education.

PRIORITY of possession of settlement, or of invention, one of the causes of wealth and power,

PRODUCE, indulging in eating animal food renders it unequal to maintaining the population of a country, 138, 139.--Of Italy, inadequate to its population in the time of Augustus, 3.--Easier purchased than raised when a nation is rich,

PROPERTY at Rome very unequally divided before its fall, 43.--Has a natural tendency to accumulate in particular hands as a nation gets rich, 125, 126, 127.--Its accumulation and unequal division, one of the causes of decline, 128.--In land, the accumulation is the most dangerous, 129 to 136.

PROSPERITY. See Wealth and Power.

R.

REFORMATION favourable to manufactures and industry,

RELIGION, Christian, more favourable than any other to industry and good moral conduct, 264.--Protestant still more favourable than the Roman Catholic, 265, 266, 267.

RENT. See Prices.

REVENUE of Rome wasted on soldiers and public shews, 43.--Want of, tended to ruin Poland, 75.--Digression concerning, 187, 188, 189, 190.--When it becomes the chief object of, to government, encourages vice, 226.

REVOLUTIONS in ancient nations traced, 17, 18, 53, 54, 55.--Of Poland, the account of, 75, 76, 77.

ROBINSON, Dr. his complaint about ancient history, 1.

ROME, her rise not accidental, but from the most unremitting perseverance, 27.--An account of her conduct in war, and internal policy, 28 to 33.--Lost her purity of manners, neglected agriculture and the arts, when she became rich by her conquests in Asia, and the fall of Carthage, 34, 35.--Became more degraded than ever Carthage was, 36, 37.--Her courts of justice became venal, property divided in a very unequal way, taxes became oppressive, her armies enervated, and she fell, 38, 39, 40.

S.

SARACENS got possession of Egypt, &c. 44.

SCHOOLS. See Education.

SINKING Fund, its progress shewn in a stained chart, 215.--Will not immediately diminish the taxes, 241.--When the capital was reimbursed to individuals, part of it would leave the country, 242.--If it completely paid off the debt in time of peace, would be productive of much mischief, ib.--Plan proposed to be substituted for it, 243.--If ever so effectual, its operation in time of war will never obtain credit amongst ourselves, and much less with the enemy, 244, 245, 246.

SMITH, Dr. Adam, did not make proper allowance about national debt, 114.--His opinions concerning monopoly, examined, 149, 150.-- His opinion about apprentices, 219.

SOLOMON, king of Israel, on terms of friendship with the king of Tyre, 21.--Founded Palmyra for the purpose of trade to India, 25.-- After his death, rivalship in trade, and the envy of the Tyrians, caused them to excite the king of Babylon to besiege Jerusalem, 53.

SPAIN, its grand armada not equal to the privateers fitted out at Liverpool during the last war, 8.--Persecutes the Flemings, 47.--The effects of wealth on it, 63.--Its insolence and pride, 64.--And sudden decline, ib.--Wealth made it neglect industry, 65.--Gains great sums by South America, yet is not an object of envy, 292.

T.

TAXES at Rome, in its decline, became terrible, 40,--41, 42.--Taxes in France taken off while the assignats were creating, 42.--So great at Rome, that the citizens envied the barbarians, 43.--The power of laying on depends on circumstances, 92.--Always increasing, 102.-- Of the American States an exception, 103.--Why collected rigorously, 104.--Those which fall on persons or personal property, the most obnoxious, 105.--Of England, laid on better than in any other nation, 106.--Prolong the action of necessity, and augment industry to a certain point, which, when they pass, they crush it, 107, 108.--Their produce expended on unproductive people, 109, 110, 111.--Are like a rent paid for living in a country, 112 to 115.--In England, their effects, 229 to 233.--Taxes and rent augment industry, 236, 237.--In London, heavier than elsewhere, yet people crowd to London, 238, 239.--If taken off suddenly, would be hurtful, 240 to 244.--For the maintenance of poor, 247 to 256.

TRADE--See Commerce.

TREATIES, the best observed, have been those founded on equity add =sic= mutual interest, 186.

TYRE, early commerce, 21, 23.--Its destruction one of the most permanent effects of Alexander's wars, 24.--Excited the king of Babylon to take Jerusalem, 45.

V.

VENICE, its greatness, 56, 57.

UNITED STATES. See States of America.

W.

WAGES. See Prices.

WAR generally occasioned by envy or rivalship, 14, 175, 219.-- Ought not to be followed to procure wealth, as it is much more easily done by industry, 293.

WATT, James Esq. his invention of the steam engine, 203.

WEALTH, its definition in contra-distinction to power, 8, 9, 10.-- Diminishes the necessity of industry, 29, 30.--Leaves richer to go into poorer countries, 93.--In England arises from industry, not from foreign possessions, 293, 294.

WEST Indies. See Indies, West.

Y.

YOUTH. See Education.

---> _The reader will observe, on one =sic= of the pages, reference to an Appendix, but the design was altered, from the consideration that readers of history do not require solitary facts, by way of illustration, though such are very easy to be produced._

THE END.

W. Marchant, Printer, Greville-street.

************************************************************** [Transcriber's note: In the original work: --the footnotes are designated by [*] but are here serially numbered for ease of reference; --in some cases the same word is spelt differently in various parts of the text, e.g. controul/control; Hans/Hanse Towns, shew/show (one instance only of the latter) etc. These and other vagaries are reproduced largely without special note. Likewise treated are the numerous examples of the number of the subject not agreeing with that of the verb.] **************************************************************