Chapter VII: Part 7

Alter again the proportion of the common price of labour, by supposing that the cultivator is allowed only one fourth of the revenue; this division may take place in a country extremely fertile; in this case, a tax of 10 millions on a revenue of 60, would only add 20 _per cent._ to the former prices; instead of raising the revenue of 60 millions to 75, as in the case of three equal shares, or to 78, as in the supposition of the revenue being divided in halves, the tax would then carry it only to 72. Now the 4th part of 72 is 18, as 15 is the 4th of 60; therefore if, after the tax is imposed, you give 18 wherever you paid only 15 before that period, the burden will clearly be _null_ again, since the increase in the price of labour, must have followed the advanced price of its products, an advance necessitated by the impost.

Here, methinks, I hear the enthusiasts exclaim, _How! the fertility of the land is then of no advantage, but to its greedy owners!_—I am in hopes that before I conclude this Pamphlet, I shall be able to find, to the great satisfaction of all good men, how many advantages remain in the hands of the most opulent land proprietor; nay I hope to prove that in a fertile land there is nothing lost to any of its inhabitants, unless _extraordinary efforts be used to concenter within that spot the general benefit which must result from it_. I shall content myself at present with requesting the reader to compare my thoughts on the taxes, with the two following problems, so often debated both in _England_ and in _France_. How is it that _France_ has constantly retrieved her errors and her misfortunes? How comes it that _England_ has not yet sunk under the burden of her taxes? The _French_ exciseman says: _It is because the more the people are loaded, the better they walk_; and very sensible men in _England_ used to say, “_Reason and experience_ seem to prove that taxes stimulate industry, and that the poor, _to live as well as before, perform more work without demanding more for their labour_.” (_D. Hume_’s Essay VIII. on Taxes). It seems to me that the above two problems are more humanely solved by the reasons I have produced, and that those reasons destroy all idea of a miracle, or of the necessity of loading the people in order to spur their industry, and encourage them to work: on the contrary, to forward those two great points, it is necessary to increase the price of their labour in the same proportion as that of its products is raised by the taxes; and this will suffice to render evidently _null_ the burden of all taxes whatever.

_Further Considerations on the Necessity of a Correspondence between the Prices of Agriculture and those of Industry._

I have said it more than once, and beg leave to repeat it here: Let any essential object be denoted by one number or another; it is a matter of perfect indifference, provided the numbers intended to denote the _mass_ of objects corresponding thereto, do not present any ideas contrary to the proportion of labour which exists between the _essential object_, and the mass which is to form its balance. Thus then, be the value of wheat, which serves as the general standard, because it is useful to all, at all times, and which ought to be so, from another consideration almost equally powerful, namely, that it constitutes about one third of the landed revenue in _Europe_—be its value, I say, denominated 30, 50, or 25, nothing more indifferent, provided the numbers denoting the value of the other products of land and industry, keep exactly, either by more or by less, within the same proportion; it is clear that, in such a case, neither the land proprietor nor the _capitalist_ of industry, can undergo from the alteration in the numbers, any real alteration in their circumstances. But to think of nothing but the manufactures, and imagine it possible to maintain, and endeavour seriously to maintain, wheat at the same price, whilst the taxes advance by 10 _per cent._ that of the products of industry,—is to aim at the ruin of agriculture, and to oblige all the proprietors of land and money, whose employments in the State would not indemnify them for such an injustice, to go in search of another country, where the manufacturer, better acquainted with his real interest, would know, or act as if he knew, that the solidity of his wealth is inseparable from that of the land proprietor, and from the ease of the proprietor of money, and of the labouring man.

_Then_ perhaps those national manufacturers, so proud and so jealous of their exportations, so greedy of premiums, prohibitions, restrictions, encouragements of all kinds, would sue more ardently to have those nuisances suppressed, than they ever did for their establishment.

Nothing more admirable than those regulations to which _England_ acknowledges to be indebted for the best part of her wealth and power; but they crept in at a time when ignorance generally prevailed, when all the other parts of _Europe_ had almost no idea either of the principle of commerce, or of its influence over all the other resources of society. In effect, from what known point could one then start, to imagine that a nation, who openly countenances monopoly at home, in order to encourage her foreign trade, lays the most solid basis for the monopoly she wishes to secure to herself every where? How was it possible to conceive that the _Dutch_, a nation so necessary to those that are deficient in means, and so forcibly compelled by the superabundance of their own, to make them serviceable to those who stand in need of them, could not be shut out from the _English_ ports, without depriving the rest of _Europe_ of the advantage, which their admittance every where was necessarily calculated to procure to their correspondents, by securing to them, _as well as to England_, a competition so essential to all, and fatal to monopoly alone? _Europe_, busy at that time in search of another sort of equilibrium, did not consider what weight commerce, carried on upon such principles, would throw into one of the scales; how could _Europe_ then suspect that it would overthrow the balance entirely? But what is the final result of all these projects against Nature?—The pretensions of the Ecclesiastical State stirred up all _Europe_; _and the Pontifical See was fixed in its proper place_. _France_ roused all _Europe_ against the ambition of the House of _Austria_, much more formidable by its real power; _the Imperial Throne was fixed in its proper place_, and _France_ was hailed as the founder and assertor of _European_ liberties. Soon after the Protectress became a despot; _England_ stirred up all _Europe_ against her, and _France was, aukwardly, thrown out of her proper place_; _England_, the principal instrument of the revolution, made an improper use of her importance, as had been successively done by the Ecclesiastical Power, the House of _Austria_, and by _France_;—the Armed Neutrality appeared, and presented a code of laws unheard of before; it was just; every nation, that had not bowed beneath the _English_ yoke, adopted it:—there was an instant, when this armed neutrality might have dictated both to _England_ and _France_, laws as equitable as the code itself; and all _Europe_ would have applauded, had even _England_ and _France_ united, at that very instant, to exterminate in concert the whole naval force of _Europe_, then burnt the exterminating fleets, and themselves given to all the world those very laws of equity which were intended to be imposed upon them.

Every thing, at this moment, is in that happy state, which gives time to reflect upon what is past, to see what is present, to look forwards to what is to come, and to consider an _ensemble_, the very idea of which could not be admitted during former periods. A few clouds, dispersed here and there, do not spoil the beauty of the horizon; no body can now, for any length of time, think it his interest to ruin and destroy; and every body is concerned not to suffer any thing to be destroyed. I return to my subject, if I may be said to have deviated from it.

If a diminution in the price of the necessaries of life be looked upon as so very important, there exists a sure method of effecting it, even in _England_, without any detriment to the land proprietor. Let us see whether this very method would prove injurious to the true interest of the manufacturer, who must be patronised, cherished as the fountain head of riches; I mean that kind of riches called _money_, which could not long subsist without the riches called _wheat_.

_Fourteenth Hypothesis._

Let us suppose, that, by the suppression of the monopoly enjoyed by the manufacturers, and of which they are so jealous, the price of the whole of their goods should fall one tenth; in such a case, the wheat which the new taxes will enhance in price, I suppose, in the proportion of 40 to 44, would, upon a medium, fall back to 40; and in this case again the produce of the manufactories would only cost industry 20 instead of 22, at which they will be rated when wheat shall have risen from 40 to 44; for, in the latter supposition, it will be necessary for industry to pay finally this increase of expence, in favour of the artificers, who would not long submit to an injustice, without presenting _petitions_ in their own way: just as wheat must indispensably rise from 40 to 44, in order that the land and money-proprietors be not compelled to leave their country, to the great prejudice of the internal consumption, so essential to the truest interest of the manufacturer.

Let it then be supposed, that wheat should fall from 44 to 40, and so of all the rest;—I confess that the proprietor of money would thereby become a gainer, and that the general persuasion is, that it is salutary he should lose: but would he long support his gain? Would not the encouragement which every thing must derive from this new order of things, from that activity which trade would find in the new channels that would open every day, when commerce should build on that true principle, acknowledged to be the only unerring one, _the exchange of commodities_, (excepting the bullion required for the five articles before mentioned)—would not that activity, I say, that encouragement, inspire in all parts of _Europe_ an eagerness for labour, necessarily followed by an increase of _real_ wealth, a creation of new productions, and by an increase of that _imaginary_ wealth, still more stimulating than the former, because it is its proof and its pledge, but which cannot be obtained without a general increase in all the prices?

Will it be said, that, on the first moment, the fall of prices would affect the intellects of those who can only see, but never compare? that the people, for instance, would lament their being reduced to 10, from the 12 they had been accustomed for some days to receive, although they should pay only 5 for what cost them 6 before? In this case, keep up the prices, but without exception, and export on the true principles of exportation: take for your guide the example set up by my countryman, the _American_ of _Philadelphia_, in selling dearer because you are compelled to do so; propose to buy dearer also, and this will be only an act of justice; you will see hereafter that you would at last be just, in spite of yourselves; be so intentionally: you cannot come down to the price of your purchasers; raise their prices to a level with your own, they will observe that even the first profit is not the lot of the first bidder, if every one doing justice to himself bids in proportion: mean while, the eagerness for labour goes on increasing, and by little and little the benefit extends to the lowest wretch that dwells in the community; he finds more work to do, and a greater reward for it.

It will be said no doubt, that this is another supposition of a general agreement.—No, certainly not; it is enough for every one to see that it must be so; that it will happen without any other help than the private interest of each individual; that these private and niggardly measures, already taken, or to be taken, in order to prevent the result of all those personal interests, are of no use but to keep justice at a distance; to multiply the number of injuries which daily take place, till what must be, comes to pass; to produce a greater evil, where it might be less; to substitute _forced_, to _necessary_ prices: but it is so evident that wheat, and all the productions of the earth, should increase by one tenth, as soon as the taxes, or an accession of wealth, shall increase by one tenth the price of the products of industry, that it is necessary to lay this principle as the basis of all regulations, _or else openly to adopt as a maxim, that agriculture should be sacrificed to industry_.

This maxim, I set forth of the correspondence required between the prices, together with the inconvenience of having them too much out of proportion with those of other nations, militates, it is true, against that monstrous system of prohibitions, corporations, &c. which is the only burden entailed upon us by our forefathers, _the only burden_ which the present legislatures can transmit to posterity; but although it might be an absurdity to suppose a reform as sudden as it would be advantageous, yet would it be less absurd to suppose that, the evil being once found out, the remedy will constantly be rejected? Would it be less absurd to suppose, that the manufacturers, better acquainted with their real interests, will persist in endeavouring to aggravate the evil, instead of complying with the only means of retrieving it? Would it be less absurd to suppose, that each of them will never perceive that he pays for the privilege of ransoming in his branch of industry, by the disadvantage of being himself ransomed on a thousand other objects? _Russia_, 30 years ago, was perhaps more distant from her present state, than the unmasking of monopoly, and the knowledge of its effects, will be from its extirpation.

_On a Cause little suspected of high Prices._

I am not ashamed to own the prejudice I entertain against a diminution in the price of any thing whatever, when I observe that discouragement, at least in the part affected, would be the consequence of such a diminution; whilst, on the contrary, a gradual, general, and proportioned advance in the prices of every thing, is constantly followed by a greater activity in all the branches of labour, which really increases the quantity of its productions, in a proportion far superior to the advance on that imaginary, _nominal_ value, acquired by fermentation; my intention, therefore, cannot be to declaim against one of the most potent causes of the high prices prevailing in _England_, and which nobody, I think, has yet mentioned. This last expression shews, that I do not mean here, that quantity of paper-money, to which many people, in more than one kingdom, ascribe all the evil, of which the sole real part is the work of monopoly. I think I have proved, that it is impossible there should long remain in circulation any paper above the necessary quantity: all would flock to the Bank to be paid in cash, had not the Bank enough of it to discharge her notes, when presented, with such readiness as to leave no doubt of the validity of those other notes, which, in the natural course of things, would not be presented there to be paid in money. The Bank would derive very little advantage from the momentary cheat of paying off large sums in sixpences; this legerdemain is admirable, but can suffice only to correspond to the wanton tricks sometimes played by great politicians, to give the Bank a momentary trouble. It is, _then_, necessary to rock those children, whom great men make it their amusement to scare; and they must be rocked till they are fast asleep, or till the great men are tired of making faces at them. After the farce is over, the children wake, and do not even remember to have been frightened; money is found wherever it is necessary, and every thing returns to that order which it is every one’s interest to maintain.

What then is that other cause, so active, so cogent, not of that extravagant price which monopoly alone can occasion, but of that price rather above the _necessary_ one, which gives to every thing an increase of vigour? It is credit. It is that prodigious talisman which realises all that it conceives, since all that it conceives has the same advantage as reality. How many capitals would never have existed, had not credit supposed them several years before they did really exist? How fill up the real chasm of capitals, which may, in an instant, suspend a hundred manufactories in a kingdom, and, by that suspension, ruin, starve, the trader, the merchant, the manufacturer, the mechanic, all, except the farmer, whether proprietor or tenant, who, by the counter-blow, could not die of hunger, but in real misery on his stacks of wheat, which he would no longer attempt to reproduce.

That man is ignorant of his own value, who, pen in hand, weighs, calculates, measures time, distances, expenditure, obstacles, facilities, occurrences; and whose signature, on account of the supposed exactness of his combinations, will soon after produce, at two or three hundred leagues distance, and in fifty places on the road, the same effect which would have resulted from the real possession of the object of which this signature is the pledge. If he shares with all those whom he makes easy, re-animates, or puts in action, the benefit which they derive from the speed, as well as from the supposed certainty of his operations, undoubtedly no one will dispute his title to the reward; and yet we shall see presently, that this medal is not without its reverse, _supposing an advance in prices to be an inconvenience_.

I shall apply the principle to a fact very well known in _England_.

In the year 1762, about 2000_l._ sterling, carried to the island of _Grenada_, was there received with that veneration due to gold when we have been years without seeing any, and have not yet forgot its virtues.

The above sum regulated the markets; coffee was set up at eight or ten pence _per_ pound; sugars sold _per_ quintal thirty or forty shillings currency; the inhabitants were in perfect ecstacy: I shall say nothing of the device practised in order to _hook in_, by means of those 2000_l._ about thirty times the value of that sum, and yet satisfy every body: that is foreign to my subject; but I will say, with pleasure, that an honest gentleman, moved at the distressed situation of another who was dunned by merciless creditors, gave him in hard cash a trifling part of the sum he wanted, and for the remainder furnished him with his own bills of exchange on _London_, assuring him that those to whom they might be presented would take them for cash without any demur. Those bills had fully the promised effect; the same gentleman obliged several other persons; the benefactor soon met with competitors, all difficulties disappeared by means of scraps of paper on _London_, and the debtor who, on the landing of the precious metal, had deemed himself too lucky to sell his coffee at ten-pence and his sugar at 40 shillings, now offered impudently his bill on _London_, indorsed by some patron, if a creditor refused to give him 45 shillings for his sugar, and twelve-pence for his coffee.

Gold, attracted by the first homage paid to it, came in plenty, and fell in value by the establishment of credit; it afterwards took another course, and went, no doubt, somewhere else to supply the want of credit, and pave the way to it. From that moment very little money came to _Grenada_, and no one ever wished for more; but then the price of commodities was advanced, and the readiness with which goods, to the amount of several thousand pounds sterling, were delivered to such a planter as, six months before, would not have presumed to demand the sixth part of them, did not permit him to start any objection against the prices set on the goods he stood in need of, when he thought himself indemnified for the excess in those prices, by that at which his were rated, _and by the time granted him to make good his payments_. The _Grenadians_ abused this credit, as they did in _Scotland_, and unfortunately at the same period. But this is not the matter in point; the present object is, that the establishment of credit in _Grenada_ enhanced the price of every thing there, and that the encouragement and activity resulting from that increase doubled, in the space of six years, the real quantity of the products in that colony, whilst credit had, in the end, increased its nominal value hardly one tenth. In 1764 the exports of _Grenada_ amounted to 206,889_l._; in 1770, they were at 433,421_l._; two years after, they rose as high as 492,974_l._: it may be added, that in _England_, thanks to the extension of that miracle wrought by credit, the benefit arising from those new products, and the necessity of furnishing the balance thereof in merchandise, propagated, if I may be allowed the expression, from county to county, the necessary means of _consuming_, that is to say, of _realising_, that augmentation of wealth, whose price was constantly kept up by the additional consumption of all kinds which followed it: such is the usual chain.

In effect, do but observe how easily a creditable merchant buys from the manufacturer, payable at twelve months, an enormous stock of goods, which he is himself obliged to sell, either to the consumer or to the retailer, at twelve, eighteen, or twenty-four months credit, and which often are not totally paid for at the end of three years. What difference in the prices must be the consequence of that series of _facilities_! Are high prices an evil? Put an end to credit, nothing more easy; nothing more is required, than to suffer to lie dormant all those laws, which secure to the creditor, the payment of his advances at the precise time when they become demandable: it is that certitude of being repaid, at the needful hour, that often induces the creditor himself to borrow, in order to extricate a debtor, whom he knows to be indiscreet, but from whose custom he derives a considerable yearly profit, upon a prodigious consumption; a profit he would lose, by being less indulgent: take away from the creditor the certainty of extorting his repayment, if it should be refused at a moment when a critical event should render such rigour indispensable, credit is destroyed, _as well as_ the consumption which followed it, _as well as_ the production of the earth which could not be paid, but by those manufactories annihilated by the want of consumption: cross the Straits of _Calais_, and (in order to console the _worshippers of the balance_) add, _as well as_ thousands of acres of vineyards in _France_, the produce of which _strips England_ annually of so vast a sum! _as well as_ thousands of acres in _Italy_, set apart for the rearing of silk-worms, and the culture of olive-trees, which swallow up a prodigious sum of _English_ money; _as well as_ thousands of acres in _Silesia_, where they cultivate the hemp which _English_ money buys in that country; _as well as_ thousands of acres in _Russia_ and in _Sweden_, whence we are obliged to import, at the expence of so much _English_ money, that immense quantity of timber, iron, canvass—articles which would become useless by the extinction of credit, and the destruction of that trade, of which credit was the very soul;—the chain would lead us too far. It is sufficiently evident, that then all the goods remaining unsold could not be purchased but with ready money, and _then_ indeed every thing would be excessively cheap. Would all that be for the best?—In a word, give up all thoughts of riches, or submit to the highest prices; but let those high prices come to you from the profusion of wealth universally diffused, and not from the tyranny of your own monopoly.

_The happy Issue of a desperate Combat between Monopoly and some private Interests._

The scene of this combat does not lie in _England_; we have seen that there they think of nothing more than to keep the balance even, and make up, as fast as possible, each in his own department, for the injustice granted to the importunity and cupidity of others, without any other inconvenience arising therefrom, than that of having a very large surplus, excessively dear, and that of not being able to procure what is wanted at the lowest rate, nor of the best quality. Even Smuggling, which follows certain regulations, with bludgeons and pistols in hand, cannot produce any great effect on the sum of national labour, though it may perhaps considerably influence the revenue of the Exchequer; it is probable that the smuggler exports as much _English_ work into _France_ as he imports of _French_ work into _England_; and that, in this respect, the gain of the most fortunate individual comes to very little: my intention is, to speak here of a combat, which has lasted a hundred years between the _French_ FAIR trader and the _American_ smuggler.

The system of administration adopted under Mons. _Sartine_, for the _French_ colonies, a system, for which they are indebted to ten years labour of Mr. _Malouit_, the present Intendant of _Toulon_, permits us to speak now of that combat, and to descry the dawn of a more serene day, opening upon those colonies; till then, I should not have hesitated to call them unfortunate, _in regard to their means_, if the private interest of the inhabitants, as well as that of the general-officers, Intendants and Directors of the Domain, (interests never combined but amongst the latter) had not moderated the effects of that dreadful punishment the galleys, denounced at the request of the _French_ merchants, against any one who should presume to import a negro or a cheese from the _English_ islands into the _French_ colonies, however good the one, however industrious the other might be; and whatever advantage might be gained by paying for both in molasses which the planter was obliged to throw away, _because the French merchants would not buy it_.

It is true, that the humanity of the _great_ smugglers has often suffered the _little_ ones to escape, before or after sentence, (the negro and the cheese being duly seised); and that a dozen of the little smugglers whom the policy of the great ones sacrificed _by installments_ to the clamours of the merchant, were nearly the only victims of that barbarous law, the strict execution of which would have deprived _France_,

First, Of the fifth part, at least, of the present revenue arising to her from her colonies;

Secondly, Of all those branches of industry to which such an addition of revenue gives constant life;

Thirdly, Of all the profit which the _fair_ trader, the instigator of that barbarous law, gets annually on the importations and exportations which that additional income requires;

Fourthly, Of the duties which the King’s treasury receives directly, or indirectly, from the one and the other; (it is impossible to estimate this article.)

Fifthly, and in fine, of the assistance which the State derives for the Royal navy, from that increase in its trading one, which became necessary after the increase of a revenue, due to people who should have been sent to the galleys, had they been caught in the flagrancy of such a crime. One half of the cotton and coffee which is gathered at _St. Domingo_, _Martinico_, _Guadaloupe_, and _Grand Terre_ above all, owes its existence to negroes, constantly furnished to the _French_ smuggler, both great and small, by the _English_ merchant, the natural, _and as it plainly appears_, the necessary enemy to _France_ and her trade; the quantity of sugar and indigo which in the said colonies owes its existence to the same means, is much more than necessary to make up that fifth of the revenue, the glory of which may be claimed by the smuggler, though the _fair_ trader comes in for a share in the profits.

Any one desirous to have this fact confirmed, may be informed of it by nine tenths of the _French_ planters, provided they be taught that the time is now come, when every useful truth may be spoken, even with energy, when accompanied by decency. This once ascertained, he is no native of _America_ who will refuse his evidence; an _American_ believes in every thing that is just and reasonable, the very instant that it is pronounced.

I sincerely wish that smuggling might produce in _England_ the same good it has done to the _French_ colonies; this would appear to me very just, and the more so, since it will not be the fault of the _British_ commerce, if that blessed contraband, after having given life to _America_, does not spread the same animation every where, _Great Britain excepted_. I have heard an _English_ manufacturer prove at the bar of the House of Lords, that his manufactory was in want of a special patronage, by so much the more, as the size and brittleness of his ware made it a difficult point for him to smuggle it over to the continent, and as a duty of 30 _per cent._ had been lately laid upon it, in the two countries where it concerned him most to have it exported. Amongst other questions that were put to him, I remarked four, which would have stunned me, had I been in his place. One of these questions was as follows: “Have you not heard that that 30 _per cent._ of which you complain, was laid in consequence of some prohibitions, or extra duties imposed in _England_ on some articles imported from those very countries which you allude to?” I could make nothing of the manufacturer’s answers; they were so long-winded, they had been so carefully studied, they were so very full of a policy which I do not understand, that it became impossible for me to class them under any heads in my memory.

_Reflexions on a very strange Revolution in ~France~._

A General maxim, almost universally adopted beyond contradiction, and the foundation of an hundred regulations, enforced from pole to pole, is, that it is essential for all national commodities to be at the lowest price, in order that foreign trade may turn out to the best advantage; that is to say, for the native traders to be able to dispose abroad of the products of national industry, at a cheaper rate than any other nation can sell those of her own. Certain it is, that the less price national commodities will bring, the less of the products of national industry will be necessary to pay them off, the more of course will there remain of those products to stock the foreign markets, and the more also will the foreign purchaser be gratified by the reduced price at which they may be given, to the detriment of the land proprietor of the nation; this is so self-evident that it cannot be withstood. This, methinks, is carrying to an excess the principles of Christian charity, if the Legislators are land proprietors; it is a shameful abuse of power, if the Legislators are at the head of manufactures; and in either case one must be blind to the necessity of keeping up an even balance between agriculture and industry.—_Had not Nature militated under hand, and with some advantage against the dreams of speculators in this respect, and against the much more dangerous surreptions of cupidity, to what state of abjection and misery would not agriculture be now reduced in all countries!_

I have said, that the price of every thing would perhaps be now in _France_, very little different from what it was 40 years ago, had it not been for an eventual circumstance, (I might have said a regulation,) which a few years ago tertiated, at least, the fortune of every subject in that kingdom;—nominally at first, it is true; but afterwards in reality, owing to the prodigious encouragement that ensued; I mean the regulation which permitted the exportation of wheat, and authorised each of the _French_ Provinces not to consider herself as a stranger to all the others. I shall only make a few reflexions on a matter which might furnish enough to fill a volume.

First, The adopted maxim of the pretended advantage of enjoying the national commodities at the lowest prices, _for the better encouragement of industry_, was not held less sacred at the time the regulation took place, than when that maxim was considered as the basis of the system of exportation _the most advantageous to the kingdom_, and the condition (_sine quâ non_) of the many wonders that might be expected therefrom, towards an increase of wealth.⸺Yet if there exist a regulation calculated to operate in diametrical opposition to the _sacred maxim_, it is clearly the freedom of the corn trade; to be convinced of this truth, one need but attend to its effect in _France_. The little success I have met with in my endeavours to come, in this respect, at some particulars which might perhaps have given me a few ideas, confines me to what I can gather from recollection; but with truth I can say that my memory seldom deceives me on the abstracts it presents to my mind. The reader may perceive, that the summary I now stand in need of, has no manner of connexion with the little springs that were put in play to ruin the author of the scheme; the chief and true point, is, that all secret intrigues, all public combinations, ended only in occasioning a reform in what was deemed abusive, in a regulation the advantages of which were fully demonstrated; and that the price of wheat, after having tertiated, doubled, trebled perhaps by the help of the forestallers, from whose abilities were expected the repeal of the law and the fall of its devisers, was fixed at last between one half and three fourths above the price, as it was upon the medium of ten years preceding the regulation. It is easily conceived that the price of wheat dictated that of all other commodities; in effect, previous to the last war, the only decisive period in the present point, the nominal revenue of the lands in _France_, increased by one half at least of what it was 15 years before;—then, commodities were, upon the whole, dearer by one half; yet the maxim was held _sacred_ still, and is not less so at the present time—in _England_ as well as in _France_;—nevertheless I can see no medium; either the maxim is absurd in itself, or _French_ industry has lost one third of its benefits by a regulation which tertiated, almost suddenly, the price of all productions in _France_.

Secondly, In order that industry may be said to have lost that third, the increase of revenue, yielded by the land to its proprietor, must have been cast into some national _vortex_, or sent into some foreign one, or concealed in the earth by the suspicious proprietor; for if the surplus of the landed revenue has occasioned a greater demand for and consumption of the products of industry, and more culture of the land, industry, by raising the price of her goods on the very first increase of the demand, has obtained in the first year, her first share in that accession of wealth; and she could not miss the second, so soon as a larger sum of savings bestowed upon the lands, had brought about what they never fail to produce, I mean, more productions, and soon after a greater demand for goods, and _soon after_ again more goods to answer the additional demands.

Thirdly, If that sudden advance in the price of provisions, ended only in an increase almost equally sudden in the price of the products of industry, there could not be then any inconvenience, either to industry or agriculture, in a sudden and proportionate rise which preserved the former equilibrium, and presented the same correspondence between the two revenues; (the only thing that can materially affect the two _capitalists_, though neither of them think about it.)

Fourthly, If there has been no inconvenience in so considerable but proportionable increase in the prices, _coming from agriculture_, where could be the inconvenience in a proportioned increase, equally sudden and general if _it should come_ from industry?

Fifthly, What difference can there be between a regulation which raises the landed revenue in a kingdom, from 6 to 9, followed by a re-action in industry, which raises equally to 9 what usually went for 6; and another regulation which would begin the same operation in industry, and should be equally followed by a proportionable re-action in agriculture?

Sixthly, When, by a regulation respecting the corn, industry is at liberty to enhance the price of her goods, in the same proportion as the effects of the regulation have raised the products of agriculture, cannot a regulation that concerns or imposes taxes, and by which industry is forced to increase her prices by the full amount of the taxes,—cannot such a regulation, I say, permit the cultivator, without inconvenience, to advance the price of the productions of the earth, in the same proportion as the taxes, or the regulation concerning them, have increased that of the products of industry?

Seventhly, Let us suppose that the operation is effected, and followed by the sum of money which a nominal revenue, grown more considerable, requires for the circulation; can there exist then the most trifling difference between the present state of any individuals in the nation, and the state they were in previous to their being loaded with that enormous burden, called taxes?

Eighthly, If after enquiry, the only answer that could be given should be a negative, would it not be profitable to let the public into the secret, in order that after having observed a very singular analogy between a young nymph loaded with a column of several thousand pounds weight of air, each of them as heavy as if it were of lead, and the _French_ as well as the _English_ loaded annually, constantly, in the same manner, the one with 600 millions of _livres Tournois_, the other with 14 or 15 millions of pounds sterling, they should be led further to observe, with what agility, what graces, what sprightliness, the young dancer plays with her load—“trips it along on the fantastic toe,” and with what grimaces, what groans, what lamentations, the two vigorous nations shrink under a burden which is not more sensible than air, from the instant that it is as perfectly divided?

I must here go some steps back:

Ninthly, If the nullity of the burden depended on the equality with which it should be divided, and if this equality should depend on an addition to the supposed burden, might it not be expected (not from the tricks of customary seduction, or from the shorter method of authority, but from all the means calculated to enforce conviction) that the nation would find herself less aggrieved by an additional tax, which would tend to equalise the weight, than she could be by an increase of taxes laid for the purpose of effecting a reimbursement, which, upon a second thought, no one can wish for?

Tenthly, Before the regulation alluded to, wheat was, in _France_, one third or one half cheaper than it is at this day; the rest of the other productions of the earth stood in the same proportion: in _England_, at that very time, the price of wheat differed very little from what it now is. How could _England then_ maintain a competition—a combat, as it were, of exportation, against her _natural_ enemy (the _French_ industry), so lightly, so advantageously armed by the low price of the commodities in _France_?—If the maxim is as just as it is held _sacred_, surely _France_ must have derived a prodigious benefit from the barricadoes by which the exportation of wheat was prevented, even from one Province to another, in order that it should be in all at the lowest possible price:—it follows also that _England_, already compelled by her taxes, her internal monopoly, and her riches, to raise the price of her wheat at home, must have undergone dreadful inconveniences, by availing herself, as she has ever done, of the least dearth abroad, to make that very wheat dearer in _England_, whilst she was going to diminish its price wherever scarcity had made it excessive.

Eleventhly, If _France_ has obtained such wonderful advantages from her internal as well as external barriers, it is not in respect to her agriculture; her agriculture has clearly lost, not only that part of the value in her productions, of which she was daily deprived by this barrier, but also the encouragement which a gradual increase in the price of the productions would have occasioned, to increase their quantity: it is therefore by the exportation of the products of her industry, which, being sold at a price below that of all other nations, have procured her in money that prodigious balance of exported goods, _which the wretched state of the national cultivator did not permit him to pay for_:—but observe, that the _French_ exportation, carried on with that advantage (pretended to be so very considerable) of the low price of national commodities, brought no more money to _France_, than that which she wanted for the five articles I have mentioned before, when treating of the balance of _England_. This matter I hope I shall set in the fullest blaze of evidence.—But, on the other hand, observe also that _England_, by an exportation carried on with the utmost regularity, under the supposed disadvantage of her commodities being rated much higher than those of her competitors, a rate which she even increased herself, by the exportation of wheat, which she encouraged by premiums—_by premiums, destructive of the sacred maxim_; observe, I say, that under that disadvantage, in spite of those inconsistencies, as fortunate as they are real and palpable, _England_, nevertheless, has not failed to procure the money wanted for the five articles, the only ones that can give any value to money.—Shall it be said that _France_ would have obtained a balance in money much less considerable, if she had not kept her prices so low, if she had acted with less respect to the maxim?—Shall it be said, that the balance in money would have been far more favourable to _England_, had not the price of her commodities been so high at home; if she had more consistently acted upon the maxim; if, above all, she had prohibited the exportation of wheat, which is so often lamented, and even sometimes so loudly complained of by her manufacturers?—This indeed would be to appropriate great merit to the resource of hiding money under ground, when we cannot flatter ourselves with the thoughts of having too much of it, but at the expence of agriculture: but no matter; let us see whether the inference be just.

Twelfthly, Had _France_ been indebted to the disparagement in the prices of her commodities, for the advantage of procuring the money wanted for the five articles before mentioned, she would have found herself in the impossibility of answering that want, as soon as, by the new regulation, those commodities were restored to their natural value, as soon as the liberty of exporting wheat had raised its price almost to the level of that which it bore in _England_.—Now will it be said, that ever since the landed revenue in _France_ has risen from 40 to 50 _per cent._ by an advance in the price of commodities, less bullion has been spent by the _French_ in plate, in gilding, and other articles of luxury?—Will it be said that _France_ stood in need of the money necessary to settle in cash with her foreign correspondents, when this resource from circumstances became preferable to the mode of paying in bills of exchange?—Will it be said that she fell short of it for all those Jewish and miserable operations, or for that reciprocally beneficial smuggling with her neighbours?—Will it be said, that her circulation, which, beyond any doubt, required a more considerable mass of money, as soon as her revenue had tertiated, has suffered by that necessity of a higher balance, become impossible (according to the maxim) as soon as it grew indispensable?—Will it be said, that her industry has lingered away as soon as her agriculture has been more able to enliven it?—Yet all these absurdities must be admitted, or it must be acknowledged that the price of commodities may be tertiated, or doubled in a nation, not only without injuring industry, whose business it is to keep within the kingdom all the money wanted for circulation, but even with securing to the nation a more considerable balance in money, since it must become so whenever the price of every thing is raised one third, and perhaps more than one half.—The _sacred maxim_ therefore has not even common sense, _when applied to the internal trade of the State_.

Thirteenthly, If _France_, who has not the assistance of paper-money, did actually procure so clearly to herself an annual balance more considerable in money, as soon as she had tertiated her revenue, it follows that _England_ must, really, have experienced a competition much more disagreeable, from that very circumstance from which, _according to the maxim_, she had less reason to fear it; for whilst the price of commodities was below _par_ in _France_, it is clear that having no _national vortex_, she required less money for the circulation of a revenue of 100 than for one of 150: it was therefore more to the advantage of _England_, _in spite of the maxim_, that the commodities should be at a low price in _France_, than to have them raised 50 _per cent._ The _sacred maxim_ then is destitute of common sense, _when applied to foreign trade, to the competition abroad_.

Fourteenthly, But if the circumstance which drove _France_ to the necessity of acquiring a greater balance in real cash, stood at a very small distance from another circumstance by which _England_ was compelled to procure one still more considerable, for a general re-coining of her guineas; and if _France_ and _England_ have done each other no material injury in this kind of competition, (this is proved by the fact, since both nations have equally and certainly, ever since, procured the annual balance which they wanted); may it not be fairly concluded, that _England_ has been no loser, by a revolution in the price of wheat, which enriched _France_ by tertiating her revenue, and forced her to receive annually, in cash, a balance far greater than she did previous to that revolution?

Fifteenthly, Now if _England_, since the revolution in the _French_ prices, has obtained as much bullion as she wished for, or rather all that which she could lay out on the five articles of her common expenditure, and for the additional circumstance of a re-coinage, whilst on the other hand _France_ had all her wants supplied with the greater ease, may it not be inferred that _England_ could have gained nothing, even upon the supposition that the annual supply of money, become necessary to _France_, had been less considerable, that is to say, even if the _French_ commodities had remained in their former state of disparagement?

Sixteenthly, If that increase of prices in the landed revenue has not been restrained to _France_; if it be a fact, as all travellers pretend to have observed, that all the other parts of _Europe_ have experienced the same revolution, the same encouragement, the same success, except the difference produced in some places by the singularity of certain laws; may it not be concluded, that although _England_ has lost nothing by the revolution, although _France_ has proved a gainer by it, other nations have also enriched themselves, namely, one tenth, those where the prices have been advanced a tenth; a ninth, those where the prices have been raised one quarter; one half, those where the prices have risen one half, &c. independently of an increase still more essential, _viz._ that of the quantity of the productions of the earth, _which always closely follows that of their prices_.

Seventeenthly, Were one to reflect, that this increase in the prices, in regard to the productions of the earth, is always followed by a similar increase with respect to the products of industry, which thereby receives the same encouragement; if, after examination, no one can harbour any doubt of the fact; would it be an easy matter, even with the help of the _sacred maxim_, to persuade any nation, whose prices have been doubled, to reduce the nominal of her revenue from 20 to 18, in order to get the advantage in the competition with another nation who, by some disagreeable circumstances, should have been obliged to raise her products from 20 to 22, as _England_ is compelled to do? Would not one, on the contrary, conjecture that every wise nation will follow the advice of the _American_ of _Philadelphia_, _i. e._ that she will not hesitate to raise equally her own products from 20 to 22, certain, as she will be by this means, to give fresh encouragement both to her agriculture and her industry, and not to hurt in the least the interest of the nation whom those disagreeable circumstances should have compelled that rise from 20 to 22; compelled, I say, without procuring for her that encouragement which cannot spring from such a rise, _but in as much as it is not necessitated by taxes_?