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ON 
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY, 
 
 IN CONNEXION WITH THE 
 
 MORAL STATE AND MORAL PROSPECTS 
 
 OF 
 
 SOCIETY.. 
 
 BY 
 
 THOxMAS CHALMERS, D.D. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. 
 
 NEW-YORK: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY DANIEL APPLETON, 
 
 CLINTON-HjlLL. 
 
 Jonathan Leavitt, 182 Broadway. — Boston, Crocker & Brewster, 
 
 4r Washington Street. — Philadelphia, Grigg& Elliot. 
 
 Baltimore, Armstrong & Plaskett. — Richmond, 
 
 R. I. Smith. — Cincinnati, Corey ss, 
 
 Fairbanks. 
 
 1832. 
 
J. H. Turney, Printer, 
 133 East- Broadway. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Political Economy, though not deemed an essen- 
 tial branch of education for churchmen, touches very 
 closely, notwithstanding, on certain questions, in which 
 both the interest and the duty of ecclesiastics are deeply 
 concerned. The questions of Pauperism and of a Re- 
 ligious Establishment, though no others could be speci- 
 fied, would, of themselve^/justify a reference to the les- 
 sons and principles of this science, even in a theological 
 course. 
 
 But there is one general application that might be 
 made of the whole subject, and which gives it, in our 
 judgment, its principal claim on the earnest and respect- 
 ful attention of a Christian philanthropist. Pohtical 
 economy aims at the diffusion of sufficiency and comfort 
 throughout the mass of the population, by a multiplica- 
 tion or enlargement of the outward means and materials 
 of human enjoyment. Now, we hold it to be demon- 
 strable, on its own principles, that, vary its devices and 
 expedients as it may, this is an object which it never can 
 secure^ apart from a virtuous and educated peasantry. 
 Our endeavour is to prove, that, in every direction, there 
 is a limit to the augmentation of our physical resources ; 
 and that, in virtue of this, there must, especially in old 
 countries, be a felt pressure and discomfort throughout 
 every community, which has either outgrown the means 
 for its christian instruction, or, in any other way, renounc- 
 ed the habits and decencies of a christian land. In other 
 words, our object will be gained, if we can demonstrate. 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 that, even but for the economic well being of a people, 
 their moral and religious education is the first and great- 
 est object of national policy; and that, while this is ne- 
 glected, a government, in its anxious and incessant labours 
 for a well conditioned state of the commonwealth, will only 
 flounder from one delusive shift or expedient to another, 
 under the double misfortune of being held responsible 
 for the prosperity of the land, and yet, finding this to be 
 an element most helplessly and hopelessly beyond its 
 control. 
 
 It is obvious of such a task as that which we have pre- 
 scribed to ourselves, that it cannot fully be accomplished, 
 without an extensive range and survey among the doctrines 
 of political economy. More especially, the theory of 
 wealth had to be examined in connexion with the theory 
 of population ; and the great resulting lesson is, the inti- 
 mate alliance which obtains between the economical and 
 the moral ; insomuch, that the best objects of the science 
 cannot, by any possibility, be realized, but by dint of 
 prudence and virtue among the common people. 
 
 Some of the text in this volume was recently delivered 
 in Lectures to the Students of the Theological Hall in 
 Edinburgh. We gladly transfer them from the chair to 
 the press, were it for no other reason, than to relieve our 
 academic work, in all time coming, even from the sem- 
 blance of aught that is extra professional.* We cannot, 
 however, bid adieu to political economy, without an ear- 
 nest recommendation of its lessons to all those who enter 
 upon the ecclesiastical vocation. They are our church- 
 men, in fact, who could best carry the most important of 
 these lessons into practical efiJect. If sufficiently enlight- 
 ened on the question of pauperism, they might, with the 
 greatest ease, in Scotland, clear away this moral leprosy 
 
 * It may be right to mention, that all which we did deliver upon 
 this subject, was in a separate lectureship of one hour in the week, 
 distinct from the regular lessons of the Theological course, though 
 preparatory to our views on the treatment of pauperism, and other 
 questions in parish economics, which enter largely into the duties and 
 attentions of the pastoral care. It, beside, formed the natural pre- 
 cursor to another lectureship which we have begun, on the methods 
 and the machinery of christian education. 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 from their respective parishes. And, standing at the head 
 of christian education, they are the alone effectual dis- 
 pensers of all those civil and economical blessings which 
 would follow in its train. 
 
 We are not sanguine either of a general or of an instant 
 reception for the doctrines of our work. Its novelties 
 may long be disregarded or derided as paradoxes. And 
 it is not the achievement of a day, to overturn the prin- 
 ciples of a reigning school. And if not very hopeful of 
 an instant acquiescence in our principles, far less do we 
 look for the instant adoption of our practical suggestions. 
 The urgencies of the country may perhaps speed onward 
 the commutation of tithes, and the measure of a universal 
 education. The commutation of taxes into a territorial 
 impost, will be the work of a later age ; though we should 
 rejoice even now, did we witness a commencement how- 
 ever humble, an approximation however slow, to this 
 great political and economical reform. 
 
 May God of his infinite mercy grant, that whatever the 
 coming changes in the state and history of these nations 
 may be, they shall not be the result of a sweeping and 
 headlong anarchy; but rather, in the pacific march of im- 
 provement, may they anticipate this tremendous evil, and 
 avert it from our borders. There is a general impression 
 upon all spirits, that something must be done. But to 
 be done well, it must not be by the hand of violence, but 
 by the authority of legitimate power under the guidance 
 of principle ; by a government having both the wisdom 
 and righteousness to direct, and the strength to execute. 
 Amid the conflicts and agitations of our social state, it will 
 be the heart's desire of every christian, the fondest prayer 
 of every true patriot, that Religion and Reason may ever 
 preside over the destinies of our beloved land. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page, 
 
 CHAP. I. — On the Increase and Limit of Food, 9 
 CHAP. II. — On the Increase and Limit of em- 
 ployment, -__--_ 29 
 CHAP. III. — On the Increase and Limit of Capi- ^ 
 
 tal, 60*^ 
 
 CHAP. IV. — On the parallel between Population 
 
 and Capital, both in respect of their Limits and ^ 
 
 their Powers of Expansion, - - - 82 
 
 CHAP, v.— On the Possibility of Over Produc- 
 tion, or of a General Glut, _ _ - X83 
 CHAP. VI. — On the Limits of a Country's Fo- 
 reign Trade, and its supposed Power to Fur- 
 nish a People with Employment and Mainte- 
 nance, - - - - - - 129 
 
 CHAP. VII. — The same subject continued, 158 
 
 CHAP. VIII.— On the supposed effect of Taxes 
 in aggravating the condition of the Labouring 
 Classes, with the converse effect which the Re- 
 mission of Taxes is conceived to have on their 
 Relief, and the enlargement of their Comforts, 176 
 CHAP. IX. — The same subject continued, 192 
 
 CHAP. X.— On Tithes, - . - - 219 
 CHAP. XI. — On the Distinction made by Eco- 
 nomists between Productive and Unproductive 
 Labour, ----___ 240 
 
 CHAP. XII. — On the Law of Primogeniture, 254 
 CHAP. XIII. — On Emigration, - - 272 
 
 CHAP. XIV. — On a Compulsory Provision for 
 the indigent, - - - - - - 286 
 
8 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. XV.— On the Christian Education of the 
 People, 302 
 
 CHAP. XVI Conclusion, - - - 323 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 
 
 On the Rent of Land, 
 
 . . 
 
 - 329 
 
 On Machinery, - - - 
 
 - 
 
 - 339 
 
 On Home Colonization, 
 
 - 
 
 - 343 
 
 On the National Debt, - 
 
 - 
 
 - 351 
 
 On profit, - _ - 
 
 - 
 
 - 365 
 
 On Free Trade, - - - 
 
 - 
 
 - 370 
 
 On the Corn Laws, 
 
 - 
 
 - 375 
 
 On the gradual Reform of our Financial Svs 
 
 ;tem, 387 
 
 Synoptical View of the Political Economy of this 
 Volume, 394 
 
ON 
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY, 
 
 "IN CONNEXION WITH THE 
 
 MORAL STATE AND MORAL PROSPECTS 
 
 OF 
 
 SOCIETY. 
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 ON THE INCREASE AND LIMIT OF FOOD. 
 
 1. Each science has certain commanding positions, 
 whence, if the observer look rightly around him, he may 
 obtain an extensive view of important truths and impor- 
 tant applications. Such a position, we think, has been 
 recently gained in Political Economy, although full ad- 
 vantage has not yet been taken of it. We hold it the 
 more interesting, that it includes within its range certain 
 unexplored places of the science ; and, more especially, 
 that department where the theory of wealth comes into 
 contact with the theory of population, and where the two, 
 therefore, might be examined in connexion. 
 
 2. The doctrine, or discovery, to which we refer, is 
 that promulgated some years ago, and both at the 
 same time, by Sir Edward West and Mr. Malthus. 
 It respects the land last entered upon for the purposes 
 of cultivation, and which yields no rent. It is obvious, 
 
 2 
 
10 INCREASE AND LIMIT OF FOOD. 
 
 that land of this inferior productiveness must mark the 
 extreme Umit of cuhivation at the time ; as land of still 
 inferior quality could not be broken up without loss to 
 the cultivator. 
 
 3. Any land, that is cultivated for food to human 
 beings, must, at least, yield as much as shall feed the 
 labourers who are employed in working it. But it 
 must do more than this. These agricultural labourers 
 require to be clothed and lodged, as well as fed. 
 They must be upheld, not in tbod alone, which is the 
 first necessary ; but in, what may be termed, the second 
 necessaries of life. The people whose business it is to 
 work up these, may, in contradistinction to the agricul- 
 tural, be termed the secondary labourers of a country. 
 It is evident, that the worst of cultivated land must, at 
 least be able to feed those who are directly employed 
 upon the soil, and, moreover, those who prepare for 
 the agricultural labourers all the other articles, besides 
 food, which enter into their support or maintenance. 
 JSlse the cultivation of it behooved to be abandoned. 
 All that land which, by no possible improvement, 
 either in the processes of husbandry or of manufactur- 
 ing labour, could yield as much as would subsist the 
 agricultural labourers and their secondaries, is doomed 
 by nature, to everlasting sterility, and must always 
 remain without the scope of cultivation. 
 
 4. The imagination is, that the land of greatest fer- 
 tility was first occupied. Men would naturally settle 
 on those soils which yielded the most plentiful return for 
 their labour, or which enabled them to subsist with the 
 least labour. It is farther conceived, that after all the 
 first rate land had been cultivated, an increasing popu- 
 lation flowed over, as it were, on the second rate land ; 
 which, in virtue of its inferior quality, yielded a scan- 
 tier return for the same labour. As mankind continu- 
 ed to multiply, a still further descent behooved to be made, 
 through a gradation of soils, each of less fertility than the 
 one before entered on ; and so, either requiring a great- 
 er amount of labour to draw from it the same food, or 
 yielding a smaller amount of food to the same labour. 
 
INCREASE AND LIMIT OF FOOD. 11 
 
 This process, it is evident, admits of being extended, till 
 the produce of the soil last entered on shall, by the utmost 
 labour which men will expend on it, be barely sufficient 
 for the subsistence of its agricultural labourers, and of 
 their secondaries. 
 
 5. In filling up this sketch, or histoire raisonnee, of the 
 conjunct progress of culture and population, economists 
 have given in to certain conceptions, which require to be 
 modified. They sometimes describe the process, as if, at 
 each successive descent to an inferior soil, the comfort 
 and circumstances of the human race underwent deterio- 
 ration ; or as if, under the impulse of a hard and hunger- 
 bitten necessity, men were driven, like so many famishing 
 wolves, to those intractable soils, whence they could only 
 force out a more stinted and penurious fare than before ; 
 and that, at a greater expense of toil and of endurance. 
 Agreeably to this imagination, even economists and cal- 
 culators have, by a reverse process, found their way to a 
 golden age at the outset of the world — when men reposed 
 in the lap of abundance ; and, with no other fatigue than 
 that of a slight and superficial operation on a soil of first 
 rate quality, richly partook in the bounties of nature. 
 But when all this soil came to be occupied, and the race 
 continued to multiply, land of a second quality behooved 
 to be taken in ; and the conception is, that, at every such 
 transition from a better to a worse land, a heavier impo- 
 sition of toil was laid upon workmen, and a smaller 
 amount of produce was yielded to them in return for their 
 industry. This, certainly, represents to us the species in 
 a course of deterioration, at least, in as far as the comfort 
 of the labouring classes is concerned. They are pictured 
 to the eye, as if goaded on by hard and stubborn neces- 
 sity at every step of this movement, and going forth, in 
 starving multitudes, from that better land, which is now 
 too narrow for them. At each new stretch of cultiva- 
 tion, a more ungrateful soil has to be encountered, on 
 which it is thought that men are more strenuously 
 wrought, and more scantily subsisted, than before .* till, 
 St the extreme limit of this progression, a life of utmost 
 
12 INCREASE AND LIMIT OF FOOD. 
 
 toil, and utmost penury, is looked to as the inevitable 
 doom that awaits the working classes of society. 
 
 6. Now, generally speaking, this is not accordant with 
 historical truth. We do read of extensive emigrationSj, 
 hy men who felt themselves straitened in their native 
 land, and went forth in quest of a settlement. But we 
 do not witness, throughout the various countries of the 
 world, the successive degradation of their peasantry» 
 There may be fluctuations in their economic state, from 
 year to year, or from generation to generation. But on 
 the survey and comparison of centuries, we should rather 
 say, that there had been a general march and elevation 
 in the style of their enjoyments. There is a seeming in- 
 compatibility in this fact with the process which has just 
 been described — and this has cast a suspicion over its re- 
 ality. Men have been at a loss to reconcile the descent of 
 labourers among the inferior soils, with the undoubted rise 
 which has taken place in their circumstances, or in the 
 average standard of their comfort. This has darkened 
 the whole speculation, and brought on a controversy, 
 which admits however, we think, of a very obvious and 
 easy adjustment. 
 
 7. For as the fresh soils that had to be successively 
 entered on became more intractable, the same amount of 
 labour, by the intervention of tools and instruments of 
 husbandry, may have become greatly more efl'ective. 
 The same labour which, by a direct manual operation, 
 could raise a given quantity of subsistence from soil of 
 the first quality, might, with our present implements of 
 agriculture, raise as much from soil of the last quality 
 that has been entered on. If, from one generation to 
 another, a descent had to be made on more stubborn and 
 impracticable soils, and which, therefore, required a far 
 more operose treatment, ere they could be brought to 
 yield as abundantly as did their predecessor soils, in the 
 career of agriculture, it should be remembered that, by 
 this time, the labour of human hands might have been 
 helped and facilitated, to the whole extent of the differ- 
 ence, by the implements of labour. With the scraping 
 and stirring of first rate land by the branch of a tree^ 
 
INCREASE AND LIMIT OP FOOD. 13 
 
 there might be as much of real muscular work required 
 to obtain from it the same quantity of produce, as from 
 second rate land by means of a wooden spade, or from 
 third rate land by means of an iron one, or from fourth 
 rate land by means of a plough, or lastly, from fifth rate 
 and following lands, by means of those successive im- 
 provements in the form of the plough, whereby it is made 
 more eftective than before. We will not yet designate 
 the implements of husbandry by the name of capital ; 
 but, considering them merely as the products of labour, 
 it is enough at present to affirm, that the whole labour, 
 first, of making the plough, and then working it on the 
 soil of the last and latest quality, might fetch back as 
 liberal a return of food to the cultivators as an equal 
 quantity of labour bestowed either directly by the hand, 
 or with the intervention of some rude and clumsy instru- 
 ment on the land that was earliest entered on. It is thus 
 that there may at once be a progress in agriculture, and 
 yet, through all the gradations of it, the species be up- 
 held in as great ease and sufficiency as at first. Instead 
 of the strong impulse of population driving them help- 
 lessly and ungovernably onward, to those more inhospi- 
 table regions, where they are doomed to all the miseries 
 of a more stinted provision than before, they may, 
 simply, and spontaneously, and without the pressure of 
 any felt agony or violence, have entered on the posses- 
 sion of these regions, because now furnished by art with 
 the means of extracting, even from the comparative bar- 
 renness of nature, as generous a remuneration for their 
 toils as they before drew from nature's greatest fertility. 
 We are not, therefore, to imagine of the great family of 
 mankind, that as they grew in numbers, and spread them- 
 selves over upon tracks of greater sterility than before, 
 they must necessarily sink down into a state of greater 
 endurance, whether in the way of privation or fatigue. 
 It is not always at the call of hunger or distress that these 
 successive movements have been made. They are often 
 made in another character — not in that of famishing 
 hordes, making forcible descent on some untried region, 
 in quest of that which might satiate their cravings ; but 
 
14 INCREASE AND LIMIT OF FOOD. 
 
 in the higher character of dominant and devising men, 
 walking forth with master step, and in the triumph of 
 their new energies and acquisitions, to subdue some yet 
 untrodden territory, and force from it as Uberal subsis- 
 tence as any which their ancestors had ever gotten in more 
 favoured climes. We are not to suppose that every in- 
 crease of cultivation is marked by an increase of wretch- 
 edness. Through its whole process, from the first to the 
 last of it, the species might be sustained on as high a 
 level, and even be made to ascend higher than at the 
 first. And, as at the commencement of cultivation, there 
 might have been impediments to be struggled with at the 
 entrance upon the first land, such as the clearing it of 
 wood, so, on the extreme verge of our newest cultiva- 
 tion, there might have been helps to labour on the last 
 and worst land, such as the perfection of our modern im- 
 plements, w^hich could insure as generous a repayment 
 for the same quantity of work, in the most recent, as 
 in the most remote stages of this great process. 
 
 8. It follows not, that in the act of descending to an 
 inferior soil, men have to put forth a greater quantity of 
 labour for the same return — because, it may have been 
 some improvement in the modes or operations of hus- 
 bandry, which has enabled them to make the descent, 
 and to make the same labour as eflective on the ground 
 v^hich they are now reclaiming from the waste, as on 
 that which they had last brought witliin the domain of 
 cultivation. When, therefore, we see the wilds of nature 
 further broken in upon, we are not always to imagine, that 
 it is from the pressure of a felt necessity, by which men 
 have been forced to submit to a more painful endurance, 
 and to put up with a scantier subsistence in return for it. 
 It may have been the pacific, the prosperous result of 
 some enlargement in the powers of agricultural labour ; 
 and in consequence of which, men go spontaneously forth 
 on an inferior soil, because now, for the same work, they 
 earn the same recompense as they did on the soil imme- 
 diately above it. It is thus a possible thing, that culti- 
 vation may be extended, without deterioration to the 
 comfort of labourers ; and that along its last possible fron- 
 
INCREASE AND LIMIT OF FOOD. 15 
 
 tier there might be stationed as high and well-condi- 
 tioned a peasantry as ever flourished in any olden or 
 golden period on the lawns of Arcadia. 
 
 9. And cultivation may be extended by an improve- 
 ment in manufacturing, as well as in agricultural labour. 
 It may be conceived, of the land last entered, that in re- 
 turn for a certain quantity of labour, it yields the subsis- 
 tence of a hundred families — and that the land next infe- 
 rior to it cannot be profitably culti^?ated, because in return 
 for the same labour, it yields the subsistence of only 
 ninety families. Now, overlooking for the present the 
 element of profit, one might conceive these hundred fami- 
 lies to be made up of seventy belonging to the agricultu- 
 ral, and of thirty belonging to the secondary class — it 
 being the employment of the latter to prepare, for the 
 whole hundred, the second necessaries of life. It matters 
 not \vhether there be such an improvement in agricultu- 
 ral labour, that sixty can do the work of seventy, or such 
 an improvement in manufacturing labour, that twenty can 
 do the work of thirty. In either way, ninety labourers 
 can do as much as a hundred did before ; and whereas, 
 formerly, land behooved to return for their labour the sub- 
 sistence of a hundred families, ere it could be taken in, it 
 may now be taken in, though of such inferior quality, as 
 to return the subsistence of but ninety families. By the 
 former improvement, the agricultural labourers necessa- 
 ry, for a given effect, became fewer than before — by the 
 latter improvement, though still as numerous, they would 
 require the services of fewer secondaries than before. It 
 is thus that a step of improvement in manufactures alone, 
 can give rise to an onward step of extension in agricul- 
 ture — and just because a method has been devised for 
 the fabrication of as many yards of cloth, by fewer hands, 
 soils of poorer out-field, than any that had yet been 
 reached, may now be profitably entered upon. An im- 
 provement in the form of the stocking machine, may, as 
 well as an improvement in the form of the plough, bring 
 many an else unreclaimed acre within the reach of culti- 
 vation. 
 
16 INCREASE AND LIMIT OF FOOD. 
 
 10. The actual and historical process that has taken 
 place, we believe to be as follows. The labourers of our 
 day work harder than before, but live better than before. 
 They put forth more strength, and receive more suste- 
 nance, than they were wont to do. There has been an 
 increase on both of these terms ; or, such has been the 
 change of habit among workmen, that while greatly 
 more industrious, they, at the same time, have become 
 greatly more luxurious. They at once toil more strenu- 
 ously, and live more plentifully — putting forth more 
 strength, but withal, drawing the remuneration of a lar- 
 ger and more liberal sustenance. This we apprehend to 
 be the actual change of habit and condition which has 
 taken place, with artizans and labourers, in all the coun- 
 tries of civilized Europe — so that while, on the one 
 hand, we behold a harder working peasantry, we, on the 
 other hand, behold them more richly upholden, both in 
 the first and second necessaries of life. 
 
 11. Now, this may be either a deterioration or an im- 
 provement in their circumstances. One can imagine a 
 day of slavish fatigue, followed by an evening of gross 
 and loathsome sensuality — as is often exemplified in the 
 life of a London coal-heaver, whose enormous wages is 
 absorbed in the enormous consumption, by which he re- 
 pairs the waste and the weariness of an excessive labour. 
 This surely is not a desirable habitude for the common- 
 alty of any land— nor do we read the characteristics of a 
 high or a well-conditioned peasantry in a state of exist- 
 ence, made up, first of drudgery to the uttermost of their 
 strength, and then of grovelling dissipation to the utter- 
 most of their means. They spend one part of their re- 
 volving day in the exercise of powers, which are merely 
 animal; and the other part in the indulgence of enjoy- 
 ments, which also are merely animal — like beasts of bur- 
 den, who are better wrought than before, and, in return 
 for this, are better fed, and lodged, and littered, than be- 
 fore. They are now in better keep than their fore- 
 fathers ; and this puts them into heart for the greater 
 w^ork that is extracted out of them. Still it is conceiv- 
 able of the work, that it may be so very extreme as, on 
 
INCREASE AND LIMIT OF FOOD. 17 
 
 the whole, to degrade and to depress these overdone 
 children of modern industry — and that, in spite of the 
 greater abundance wherewith their senses and their 
 spirits are coarsely regaled, during the intervals of their 
 sore bondage. 
 
 12. If this be the extreme to which the workmen of 
 our present day are now tending, there is an extreme op- 
 posite to this, from which men only began to emerge at 
 the outset of civilization, and which is still realized among 
 barbarous and demi-barbarous nations. We advert to 
 the sordid condition of those whom naught but the ago- 
 nies of hunger can impel to shake off an indolence that is 
 else unconquerable ; and who, as soon as they have sa- 
 tisfied its cravings, lapse again into the rooted and ha- 
 bitual lethargy of their nature. If they have but enough 
 of sleep, and enough of surfeiting, they care for no higher 
 gratification ; nor will they make one effort above that 
 level to which they subside by the weight of their own 
 constitutional sluggishness. Food of some description or 
 other they must have; but having it, they are pleased to 
 live in filth and nakedness, and nearly in utter want of 
 all the secondary accommodations. It is obvious, of 
 such a people, that so long as they abide in this habit, 
 the inferior soils of the earth never will be reached by 
 them It is even possible that they may stop short at the 
 very first and most fertile of the land, and never taste of 
 that abundance, which is within their reach, just because 
 of their insuperable aversion to the labour of extracting 
 it. It is thus that they might doze away their existence, 
 on the surface of an earth whose dormant capabilities 
 they never enter upon ; and in vast territories, capable of 
 sustaining milHons over and above the few stragglers by 
 whom they are occupied, both cultivation and population 
 may, just because of this moral barrier, have been fixed 
 and limited for many centuries. 
 
 13. So that, in reasoning on the causes which have led 
 to the extension of agriculture among sterile and intrac- 
 table soils, other things must be taken into account be- 
 side the mere energy of the principle of population. We 
 have already shown how, without bringing this principle 
 
18 INCREASE AND LIMIT OF FOOD. 
 
 into collision with a taste for the enjoyments of life, there 
 may, without any compromise of these enjoyments, and 
 by a mere improvement in the powers of mechanical la- 
 bour, be a descent among the inferior soils, and so an 
 extension of agriculture, to afford the increasing popula- 
 tion as large and liberal a subsistence as before. And, 
 it is evident, the very same thing would happen with 
 every increase that took place in the amount of manual 
 labour, or in the industrious habits of the people. Cer- 
 tain it is that, in climes and countries the most favour- 
 able to production, we may often witness the squalid des- 
 titution of whole tribes, restrained, by the mere force of 
 indolence, from the enjoyment of that plenty which, with 
 but a little effort, they could so easily realize. Now this 
 proceeds, not from the principle of population being of 
 smaller strength there than in other parts of the world, 
 but from the counteractive force of indolence being there 
 of greater strength. There is a lethargy, or love of ease, 
 in certain temperaments, which will even carry it over the 
 love of offspring ; so that should it not prevent early 
 marriages, it will, at least, prevent a larger proportion 
 of the fruits of marriage from ripening into maturity. Of 
 the many children who are born, a few only will survive 
 the sickliness and the spare living to which they are ex- 
 posed, from that state of voluntary destitution wherein 
 their parents will rather abide than put forth those efforts 
 of industry which they feel to be intolerable. Just as the 
 taste for secondary enjoyments has not yet aroused them 
 to exertion, so neither might affection for their famishing 
 and misguided little ones arouse them. This accounts 
 for the population being stationary in many countries 
 where, as yet, the first rate soils have scarcely been en- 
 tered upon — and it should convince us that something 
 else than the mere energy of this principle must be ad- 
 verted to, when we reason on that historical progress 
 which has conjunctly taken place in the extension of 
 husbandry and in the numbers of mankind. 
 
 14. But if, by the strength of human indolence, the 
 process of cultivation may be arrested at an earlier stage 
 ia the se^le of descending fertility, then, should this in- 
 
INCREASE AND LIMIT OF FOOD. 19 
 
 dolence, by some cause or other, be removed, or got the 
 better of, the process may be again set at liberty. Now 
 there is no influence by which man is more effectually 
 roused to exertion than the excitement of new desires, 
 which require exertion ere they can be appeased. Let 
 him, by any chance, come to have a greater number of 
 wants than before, andj to supply these, he may be led 
 to work a greater number of hours than before. His taste 
 for idleness will give way to his taste for other things, 
 when he comes to like these other things better than his 
 idleness. If he will not be satisfied but with a certain 
 style of dress and lodging, or with the enjoyment of cer- 
 tain luxuries, which his forefathers never dreamed of, 
 then, rather than be without them, he will put forth a 
 strenuous and sustained effort of regular industry, which 
 his forefathers would have felt to be intolerable. This 
 change of habit has actually taken place in modern 
 Europe. Workmen both labour more, and live better, 
 than their ancestors. 
 
 15. This is one important service which commerce has 
 rendered to agriculture. It was the instrument of that 
 great economic change which took place at the termina- 
 tion of the middle ages — when landlords dismissed their 
 retainers, and expended the surplus produce of their es- 
 tates on the purchase of those articles which trade and 
 manufactures brought to their door. This great transi- 
 tion has been well described both by Adam Smith and 
 Dr. Robertson ; but it should not be overlooked that, 
 beside the reaction on landlords, there was also at that 
 time a strong reaction produced on the habit of labour- 
 ers. With their growing taste for the new enjoyments 
 which had been placed within their reach, there was, in 
 order to obtain them, a willingness to forego the lounging 
 and lazaroni life which they formerly indulged in, and to 
 brook the restraints and the toils of regular industry. A 
 mighty extension must have arisen to agriculture — not 
 merely from the new power that has been given to the 
 implements of labour, but from the new habit that has 
 been given to the labourers themselves. If they now 
 work double of what they did formerly, then, all other 
 
20 INCREASE AND LIMIT OF FOOD. 
 
 circumstances being equal, the land last entered on will, 
 in return for the same labour, only have to feed half of 
 the number of agricultural labourers which it did former- 
 ly. It affords room for an immense enlargement when, 
 in virtue of this moral transition alone, the cultivation 
 which stopped short at the land that, for a given amount 
 of work, returned the subsistence of twenty families, may 
 now be carried downward to a more barren and uncom- 
 plying soil that, in return for the same work, ;yields but 
 the subsistence of ten families. In this way too, then, 
 have trade and manufactures widened the domain of cul- 
 tivation ; and the products of the former have stimulated 
 and called forth in greater abundance the products of the 
 latter. 
 
 16. It is thus that, by a more strenuous industry, and 
 a more effective machinery together, the poorer soils may, 
 to a certain extent, be forced to yield an equal, or, per- 
 haps, a more liberal subsistence to the labourer, than at 
 earlier stages in the process of cultivation. Yet it must 
 be quite evident that, whether in single countries, or in 
 the whole world, it is a process which cannot go on in- 
 definitely. The time may be indefinitely distant, and 
 indeed may never come, when the absolute and impassa- 
 ble barrier shall at length be arrived at. But to be 
 satisfied that there is such a barrier, one has only to look 
 to the extent and quality of the land in any region of the 
 earth. By labour we might grind even the naked rock 
 into an arable soil ; but a soil thus formed never would 
 return the expense of food bestowed upon the labourers. 
 In every country there is an upland or outfield territory, 
 which will always bid defiance to agriculture. And even 
 though it were not so — though to its last acre it possessed 
 a uniform richness — though the plough might be carried 
 over the whole of the mighty continent, and should find 
 an obstacle nowhere but at the margin of the sea, yet, 
 as sure as that every country has its limit, and every con- 
 tinent its shore, we must acquiesce in it as one of the stern 
 necessities of our condition, that the earth we tread upon 
 can only be made to yield a limited produce, and so to 
 sustain a limited population. 
 
INCREASE AND LIMIT OF FOOD. 21 
 
 17. It seems very generally admitted, that should it 
 ever come to this, the population, brought to a stand in 
 respect of numbers, must either have to encounter great 
 positive distress, or must anticipate this distress by a pre- 
 ventive regimen. In the midst of all the minuter criti- 
 cisms to which the doctrine has been exposed, the great 
 historical fact remains unshaken — that, let the means of 
 subsistence be increased however largely and suddenly, 
 this is sure to be followed by a corresponding increase 
 of population. Every state and country in the world 
 bears evidence to this truth — whether in the steady aug- 
 mentations of Europe, or in the gigantic strides that are 
 now making in the population of America. The invaria- 
 ble connection, as of antecedent and consequent, between 
 a great extent of fertile and unoccupied land, and a great 
 multiplication of families, when once it is entered upon, 
 is too palpable to be obscured b}^ any sophistry, or by 
 the allegation of any mystic principle whatever. Yet the 
 power to support, and the power to create a population, 
 are just as distinct, the one from the other, as the consti- 
 tution of the external world is distinct from the constitu- 
 tion or physiology of human nature. It is not an in- 
 crease of the former power which gives rise to an increase 
 of the latter ; it only gives situation and space for the 
 development of its energies. Should a population, when 
 every let and hindrance of a straitened subsistence is re- 
 moved, be able to double itself in fifteen years, it would 
 still have the inherent abihty of doing so, after that every 
 acre on the face of the globe had been advanced to its 
 state of uttermost cultivation. The power of population 
 would then be kept in perpetual abeyance — with a con- 
 stant disposition to transgress beyond the limits of the 
 world's food, and as constant a check on the expansion 
 of the capabilities which belong to it. 
 
 18. All this is very generally allowed; but then the 
 imagination of many is, that, not until the world be fully 
 cultivated and fully peopled, shall we have any practical 
 interest in the question. They seem to think of the doc- 
 trine of Malthus, that the consideration of it may, with 
 all safety, be postponed, till the agriculture of every 
 
 3 
 
22 INCREASE AND LIMIT OF FOOD. " 
 
 country and every clime have been carried to its extreme 
 perfection ; and that, meanwhile, the population may pro* 
 ceed as rapidly and recklessly as it may. When a house- 
 hold is straitened by its excessive numbers, or a parish is 
 oppressed by its redundant families, they would bar every 
 argument about the proximate causes of this inconve- 
 nience, by the allegation that there were still thousands 
 of unreclaimed acres at home, or millions in distant 
 places of the earth, though of as little real or substantial 
 consequence to the suffering parties, as if the land were 
 situated in another planet. They appear to conceive, 
 that ere any body can be felt as an obstacle to our pro- 
 gress, it must have come to a dead stand ; not aware 
 that to act as a check, or impediment, it has only to move 
 more slowly though in the same direction, than at the 
 rate in which we are advancing ourselves. They pro- 
 ceed on the idea, that no shock or collision can be felt 
 but by the stroke of an impellent on a body at rest ; 
 whereas it is enough if the body be but moving at a tar- 
 dier pace. In the one case, the strength of the collision 
 would be estimated by the whole velocity ; yet, in the 
 other, there might still be a very hard collision, though 
 estimated only by a difference of velocities. It is thus 
 that, for the continued pressure of the world's population 
 on its food, it is far from necessary that the food should 
 have reached that stationary maximum, beyond which it 
 cannot be carried. It is enough, for this purpose, that 
 the limit of the world's abundance, though it does recede, 
 should recede more slowly than would the limit of the 
 world's population. A pressure, and that a very severe 
 one, may be felt for many ages together, from a differ- 
 ence in the mere tendencies of their increase. The man 
 who so runs as to break his head against a wall, might 
 receive a severe contusion, even to the breaking of his 
 head, if, instead of a wall, it had been a slowly retiring 
 barrier. And therefore we do not antedate matters by 
 taking up now the consideration of Malthus' preventive 
 and positive checks to population. There is scarcely a 
 period, even in the bygone history of the world, when the 
 former checks have not been called for, and the latter 
 
INCREASE AND LIMIT OF FOOD. 23 
 
 liBve not been in actual operation. To postpone either 
 the argument or its application till the agriculture of the 
 world shall be perfected, is a most unpractical, as well as 
 a most unintelligent view of the question — for long ere 
 this distant consummation can be realized, and even now, 
 may the obstacle of a slowly retiring limit begin to be 
 felt. The tendency of a progressive population to out- 
 strip the progressive culture of the earth, may put man- 
 kind into a condition of straitness and difficulty; and 
 that for many generations before the earth shall be 
 wholly cultivated. We are not sure but it may have 
 done so from the commencement of the race, and through- 
 out all its generations. Certain it is, at all events, that 
 the produce of the soil cannot be made to increase at the 
 rate that population would increase. Neither mechanical 
 invention nor more intense manual labour, is sufficient 
 for this purpose. On the supposition that the numbers 
 of mankind were to increase up to their natural capa- 
 bility of increase, no human skill or human labour, though 
 doing their uttermost, could suffice for raising a produce 
 op to the population ; nor will the mass of society ever 
 be upheld in comfort, without the operation of certain 
 other principles, by which to restrain the excess of the 
 population over the produce. 
 
 19. The impotency of the one expedient, and efficacy 
 of the other, are nowhere more convincingly exhibited 
 than along what may be termed, the extreme margin of 
 cultivation. It is there where the land pays no rent;* 
 and, laying aside for the present, the consideration of 
 profit, it is there where the produce that is reared can do 
 no more than feed the labouring cultivators and their se- 
 condaries. But let the population increase to the extent 
 of its own inherent power of increase, and it would force 
 
 * We are aware of a certain modification and minuter sort of con- 
 troversy, to which the affirmation of the land absolutely paying no 
 rent has given rise. We shall not stop to offer any adjustment on 
 this matter, as it is in no way essential to the validity of our argu- 
 ment. See Mr. Prinsep's note to his translation of Say's Political 
 Economy, volume IL p, 168; and Dr. Hamilton on the Progress of 
 (Society, 
 
24 INCREASE AND LIMIT OF FOOD. 
 
 the existing limit of cultivation ; or, in other words, flow 
 over upon a soil inferior to that which had last been en- 
 tered on, or inferior to that which, at the then rate of en- 
 joyment, could do no more than feed the labouring culti- 
 vators and their secondaries. The consequence of such 
 a descent is inevitable. The rate of enjoyment must fall. 
 The agricultural workmen must either submit to be worse 
 fed than before, or, parting with so many of their secon- 
 daries, they must submit to be worse clothed, or lodged^ 
 or furnished than before. The likehhood is, that they 
 would so proportion their sacrifices as to suffer in both 
 these ways ; and so there behooved to be a general degra- 
 dation of comfort in the working classes of society. 
 There is, to be sure, another way in which they might 
 possibly extract from the more ungrateful soil on which 
 they had just entered, the same plenty as before. They 
 may submit to harder labour, by putting forth a mOre 
 strenuous husbfxndry on the inferior land— but this too is 
 degradation. Whether by an increase of drudgery, of 
 an increase of destitution, there may, in either way, be a 
 sore aggravation^ to the misery of labourers. 
 
 20. If it be not possible, then, to sustain in comfort 
 and sufficiency the working classes, by keeping up the 
 produce to the population, when suifered to proceed ac- 
 cording to its own spontaneous energies ; there seems 
 only to be another alternative for the achievement of this 
 great problem, that of keeping down the population to 
 the produce. We know of no right, or comfortable, or 
 efficient way of doing this, than by the establishment of 
 a habit and a principle among the labourers themselves. 
 If they will in general enter recklessly into marriage, it 
 is not possible to save a general descent in their circum- 
 stances. By the operation of causes already explained, 
 a population may flow onward, in the way of increase, 
 from one age to another, without any abridgment on the 
 comforts of our peasantry. When these are trenched 
 upon, it is no longer a flow ; but we should call it an over- 
 flow. And the only way, we apprehend, of preventing 
 this overflow, with all its consequent wretchedness and 
 crime, is by the formation of a higher taste for comfort 
 
INCREASE AND LIMIT OF FOOD. 25 
 
 and decency among the peasantry themselves. Marriage 
 is not necessarily the effect of a headlong impulse ; but 
 may be a voluntary act, in the determination of which 
 prudence and forethought have had an influential share. 
 It is evident, that the more we elevate man into a reflec- 
 tive being, and inspire him with self-respect, and give 
 him a demand for larger and more refined accommoda- 
 tions, and, in one word, raise his standard of enjoyment, 
 the more w^ill the important step of marriage become a 
 matter of deliberation and delay. There is the utmost 
 difference, in this respect, between the man who is con- 
 tent to live on potatoes, and spend his days in a sordid 
 hovel, and the man who aspires, and, indeed, will not be 
 satisfied without that style of food, and furniture, and 
 dress, which we find generally to obtain among a well- 
 conditioned peasantry.* There is a sense of character, 
 as well as a taste for comfort, connected with this habit ; 
 and when these become general in a land, there is, of 
 consequence, a most sure and salutary postponement in the 
 average date of matrimony. In a newly settled country, 
 where there is much good land still unoccupied, the 
 
 * Mr. T. Perronnet Thomson, in his able Tract on the " True 
 Theory of Rent," has stated the effect of this difference with laconic 
 fehcity and force. " A labourer in Ireland will live and bring up a 
 family on potatoes ; a labourer in England will see the world un- 
 peopled first." " Englishmen have the physical capability of living 
 on potatoes as much as other men, but fortunately they have not the 
 habit ; and though it might be wrong to say they would starve first in 
 their own proper persons, they will utterly refuse to multiply upon 
 such diet, the effect of which, on population, is ultimately the same." 
 " The Englishman will not live and bring up a family on potatoes ; 
 because, though he may consent to live on them, when he can posi- 
 tively procure nothing else — habit, custom, the opinion of those 
 around him, have made it in his eyes contemptible, irrational, ab- 
 surd, for a man to be living on potatoes, when he has the opportuni- 
 ty of getting any thing better. In his hours of prosperity, therefore, 
 he will to a certainty solace himself with bacon, and most probably 
 venture upon beef; and as this absorbs a greater portion of his in- 
 come in what he views as necessary to his individual existence, it 
 proportionally reduces his disposition to burden himself with new 
 mouths. If the Irishman had the prospect of all this bacon and beef, 
 he would view it as convertible into potatoes for a family like a pa- 
 triarch's. The Englishman thinks it but decency to swallow all, 
 and omits the family." 
 
 3* 
 
26 INCREASE AND LIMIT OF FOOD. 
 
 moral preventive check might not be called for. In an 
 old country, where it is called for, but not observed, we 
 are sure to behold a wretched and degraded peasantry. 
 There is no other method by which to raise them above 
 this level, or to prevent their falling into it, than by the 
 rigorous operation of this check. Our peasantry, it 
 should be understood by all, have in this way, though in 
 this way only, their comfort and independence in their 
 own hands. They are on high vantage-ground, if they 
 but knew it; and it is the fondest wish of every enlight- 
 ened philanthropist, that they should avail themselves to 
 the uttermost of the position which they occupy. It is 
 at the bidding of their collective will, what the remunera- 
 tion of labour shall be ; for they have entire and absolute 
 command over the supply of labour. If they will, by 
 their rash and blindfold marriages, over-people the land, 
 all the devices of human benevolence and wisdom cannot 
 ward off from them the miseries of an oppressed and 
 straitened condition. There is no possible help for them, 
 if they will not help themselves. It is to a rise and re- 
 formation in the habits of our peasantry that we would 
 look for deliverance, and not to the impotent crudities of 
 a speculative legislation. Many are the schemes of ame- 
 lioration at all times afloat. We hold, that, without the 
 growth of popular intelligence and virtue, they will, 
 every one of them, be ineffectual. This will at length 
 save the country from the miseries of a redundant popu- 
 lation ; and this, w^e apprehend, to be the great, the only 
 specific for its worst moral and its worst political disorders. 
 21. It is not, however, by a direct promulgation of the 
 doctrines of Mr. Malthus, that the people will be convert- 
 ed to the side of their own interest. We can imagine 
 nothing more preposterous than the diffusion, for this 
 purpose, of tracts on population among the families of 
 the land. The change will be accomplished surely, 
 though indirectly, and by insensible progress, through 
 the means of general instruction, or by the spread of 
 common, and more especially of sound Christian educa- 
 tion over the country. There is an indissoluble con- 
 nexion between the moral character and the economic 
 
INCREASE AND LIMIT OF FOOD. 27 
 
 comfort of a peasantry ; and the doctrine of Malthus is 
 the vinculum by which to explain it. But it is not ne- 
 cessary to point out the vinculum to them. To make 
 good the effect, it is not at all necessary that they should 
 understand its dependence upon the cause. It is enough, 
 if in the state of their own principles and feelings, they 
 present or provide the cause. Let them only be a well- 
 taught and moralized people ; and, in that proportion^ 
 will they mix prudence, and calculation, and foresight, with 
 every step in the history of their lives. The desirable 
 effect will follow without any theory, or any anticipation 
 of theirs. Let it, on the average, be held disreputable to 
 marry without a fair and adequate prospect or provision ; 
 and the result would be a certain average of later marri- 
 ages, or a country less burdened with an excess of popu- 
 lation. It is thus that, half a century ago, in the Low- 
 lands of Scotland, the habit of a large preparation, that 
 often required for its accomplishment the delay of years 
 after the virtuous attachment was formed, this habit was 
 nearly universal among our well schooled and well order- 
 ed families. And so, though poverty was not unknown, 
 yet pauperism was unknown ; and notwithstanding the 
 general barrenness of our soil, did the moral prevail over 
 the physical causes, and uphold within our borders, an 
 erect and independent peasantry. They exemplified the 
 doctrine of Malthus, and realized its benefits, long before 
 that doctrine was propounded to the world. 
 
 2.2. In the mechanism of human society, it needs not 
 that, to effectuate a given result, the people, who do in fact 
 bring it about, should be able intelligently to view their 
 own part in it. This is not more necessary in truth, than 
 that, to fulfil the beneficent end of the planetary system, 
 its various parts should be endued with consciousness ; 
 that the satellites of Jupiter, for example, should under- 
 stand and design their own movements. The multitude 
 may be wholly innocent of economical science themselves, 
 yet may they exemplify, and by their agency sustain, its 
 most wholesome processes. They may realize the full 
 benefits of an operation which they do not comprehend ; 
 though, in very deed, they were themselves the operators. 
 
28 INCREASE AND LIMIT OF FOOD. 
 
 We object not to the highest possible education of the 
 peasantry ; yet it is not to the lessons of the political, but 
 to those of the moral and religious school, that we look 
 for the best and speediest instruments of their economic 
 well-being. Neither teachers nor taught may understand 
 this connection ; nor is it necessary they should. The 
 main object and the collateral good of Christianity may 
 be indissolubly conjoined; but there are thousands who 
 have verified this conjunction in experience, though they 
 have never viewed it in theory. In labouring for the 
 good of their eternity, they have reaped, by the way, 
 those blessings which religion so abundantly sheds over 
 the pilgrimage that leads to it. 
 
 23. All the remedies which have been proposed against 
 a state of general destitution in society, may be classified 
 under two descriptions. By the first, it is sought to pro- 
 vide the adequate means for the increasing numbers of 
 mankind. By the second, to keep down the numbers to 
 the stationary, or comparatively speaking, to the slowly 
 increasing means. The first may, we think, be conveni- 
 ently designated the external remedies ; insomuch that 
 their object is to equalize the means with the population, 
 by an increase on the former term, or by an increase and 
 enlargement of the resources from without. The second 
 ma}'^, perhaps, be contradistinguished from the other, by 
 viewing it in the light of an internal remedy ; insomuch 
 as its object is to maintain the equality of the two, by pre- 
 venting an undue increase on the latter term, which can 
 only be achieved, in a right way, by adding to the re- 
 straints of prudence and principle from within. It is our 
 main design to demonstrate the insufiiciency of one and 
 all the remedies put together which belong to the. first 
 class ; and to contrast, with their operation, the efiect of 
 the moral remedy, the prosperous economic state that will 
 surely be realized through the medium of general intelli- 
 gence and virtue, or by an action of the minds of the 
 people themselves. 
 
29 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 ON THE INCREASE AND LIMIT OF EMPLOYMENT. 
 
 1. The great and immediate demand is for the appli- 
 cation of the external remedies ; and, till these have done 
 their uttermost, the feeling is, that the application of the 
 internal is meanwhile micalled for. So long, it is ima- 
 gined, as there are still unevoked any possible resources 
 from without, it is yet time to think of a restraint from 
 within. It is readily admitted, that, as cultivation is car- 
 ried downward through the gradation of soils, the last 
 which has been entered on, does no more, in the existing 
 state of our agriculture, than barely remunerate the ope- 
 rations of its husbandry ; or, laying capital at present out 
 of the account, than feed the agricultural labourers and 
 their secondaries. And it is further granted, that, if 
 the last possible limit is ever to be reached, the tendency 
 of the population to increase must either be corrected 
 by the positive, or kept in by the preventive checks ; and 
 that, were the operation of the moral preventive check 
 sufficiently powerful, there might, even in the ultimate 
 state of the world's agriculture, be as high, or a more 
 highly conditioned peasantry, than at any preceding 
 stage of the world's history. But it is not seen that, 
 long anterior to this consummation, the moral preven- 
 tive check may be imperiously called for, in order to sus- 
 tain the comfort and circumstances of the working pop- 
 ulation. Nevertheless, this moral restraint is desirable 
 now, as well as then; and that, just because the tendency 
 to an increase in the number of labourers far outstrips 
 the tendency to an increase in the productive powers of 
 labour. It is quite true, that, by the inventions of m^^ 
 chinery, and the improvements which are ever taking 
 place, both in the methods of agriculture, and the implex 
 ments of agricultural labour, the poorer soils may, for an 
 Indefinitely long period, be made to yield as much, in re-a 
 
so INCREASE AND LIMIT OF EMPLOYMENT. 
 
 turn for the same work, as did their predecessor soils in 
 their series of cultivation. Yet there is nothing in this 
 to supersede the moral restraint, and precisely because, 
 with every possible enlargement, subsistence will not 
 increase so fast as population would increase. And 
 therefore it is that, notwithstanding all which may be 
 alleged of the still unexhausted capabilities of the soil, 
 either in this, or in any other country of the world, we 
 cannot possibly be saved from the present and the per- 
 petual miseries of a redundant population but by a high- 
 er taste for the comforts and the decencies of life among 
 the population themselves. This, by its controling eifect 
 on the date of marriage, and so on the largeness and 
 number of rising families, keeps up the price of labour, 
 by keeping down the supply of it in the labour market. 
 This we hold to be the great specific for ensuring a high 
 average style of comfort among our peasantry ; nor do 
 we regard it as a less wise and beautiful connection in 
 the mechanism of society, that the most direct way to 
 establish it is through the medium of popular intelligence 
 and virtue; giving thereby a practical importance to 
 efficient Christian instruction, unknown to the most of 
 economists, and which no mere economist can possibly 
 realize. 
 
 2. But though the progress of cultivation, and the pro- 
 duce extracted by labourers from the last and farthest 
 margin of it, do truly represent both the progress in 
 numbers, and the state in respect to comfort, of our ope- 
 rative population ;* and though, when viewed in this 
 way, the conclusion seems irresistible, that there is a 
 slowly receding limit to the means of subsistence, on 
 which population is ever pressing, so that if it press too 
 
 * The produce extracted by that portion of our labourers who are 
 employed at the extreme margin of cultivation will, after a deduc- 
 tion for profit and taxes, truly represent and measure the general 
 state of comfort among the operative population at large ; because 
 an inferiority of condition cannot long subsist between one class of 
 labourers and another, there being a constant tendency to equaliza- 
 tion, by the free movements of individual labourers from the employ* 
 ment that is worse remunerated to the employment that is better, 
 
INCREASE AND LIMIT OF EMPLOYMENT 31 
 
 hardly, it must straiten and depress the condition of la- 
 boftrers ; yet we hear of a thousand other expedients for 
 an amelioration in the state of the working classes of so- 
 ciety, beside the only effectual expedient of a general 
 principle and prudence in regard to marriages, which it 
 is for the working classes of society, and them alone, to 
 put into operation. What gives plausibility to these ex- 
 pedients is, that society is so exceedingly complicated a 
 thing ;* insomuch that, when viewed in some one aspect,, 
 
 * It has been well remarked by MaltHus, in his Essay on Popu^ 
 lation, that the largeness and complication of a society tend to ob- 
 scure the truth upon this subject :- — 
 
 " Norway is, I believe, almost the only country in Europe where 
 a traveller will hear any apprehensions expressed of a redundant 
 population, and where the danger to the happiness of the lower class- 
 es of people, from this cause, is in some degree seen and understood, 
 This obviously arises from the smallness of the population altogether, 
 and the consequent narrowness of the subject. If our attention were 
 confined to one parish, and there were no power of emigrating from it, 
 the most careless observer could not fail to remark that, if all mar- 
 ried at twenty, it would be perfectly impossible for the farmers, how- 
 ever carefully they might improve their land, to find employment and 
 food for those that would grow up; but when a great number of 
 these parishes are added together in a populous kingdom, the large- 
 ness of the subject, and the power of moving from place to place, 
 obscure and confuse our view . We lose sight of a truth which be- 
 fore appeared completely obvious ; and, in a most unaccountable 
 manner, attribute to the aggregate quantity of land, a power of sup- 
 porting people beyond comparison greater than the sum of all its 
 parts." " From the small number of people, and the little variety of 
 employment, the subject is brought distinctly within the view of 
 each individual ; and he must feel the absolute necessity of repress- 
 ing his inclinations to marriage till a vacancy offers." " In countries 
 more fully peopled, this subject is always involved in great obscuri- 
 ty. Each man naturally thinks that he has as good a chance of find- 
 ing employment as his neighbour, and that if he fails in one place he 
 shall succeed in some other. He marries, therefore, and trusts to 
 fortune ; and the effect too frequently is, that the redundant popula- 
 tion, occasioned in this manner, is repressed by the positive checks 
 of poverty and disease. In Norway the subject is not involved in 
 the same obscurity. The number of additional families, which the 
 increasing demand for labour will support, is more distinctly mark- 
 ed. The population is so small, that even in the towns it is difiicuit 
 to fall into any considerable error on this subject ; and in the country, 
 the division and improvement of an estate, and the creation of a great- 
 er number of houseman's places, must be a matter of complete no- 
 
32 INCREASE AND LIMIT OF EMPOLYMENT. 
 
 it holds out a promise of improvement or relief, whichj 
 under another or more comprehensive aspect, is seen to 
 be quite illusory. For example, when one witnesses the 
 vast diversity of trades, or employments, in society, by 
 each of which, or at least in the prosecution of which, so 
 many thriving families are supported, then it is conceiv- 
 ed, that the highway for the relief of the unprovided is, 
 to find them a trade, to find them employment. Or, 
 when looking to the connexion between capital and la- 
 bour, and perceiving that the office of the former is to 
 maintain the latter, then, on the idea that capital may, 
 by the operation of parsimony and good management, be 
 extended ad infinitum, is it held, by almost every econo- 
 mist of high name, that every accumulation of capital 
 carries an addition along with it to the subsistence of la- 
 bourers. Or again, when one looks to the multitudes 
 supported by foreign trade, in all its departments, the 
 imagination is, that, as agriculture has its capabilities, so 
 commerce has its distinct and additional capabilities ; 
 and that, whatever limit there may be to the power of 
 the one for the maintenance of families, this is amply 
 made up by the indefinite extension which might be 
 given to the other. Again, we often hear taxation 
 vaguely, though confidently talked of, as the great incu- 
 bus on the prosperity of labourers ; and that, if this were 
 only lightened or removed, there would thenceforth ensue 
 
 toriety. If a man can obtain one of these places he marries, and is 
 able to support a family ; if he cannot obtain one, he remains single. 
 A redundant population is thus prevented from taking place, instead 
 of being destroyed after it has taken place." " There are no large 
 manufacturing towns, to take off the overflowing population of the 
 country ; and as each village naturally furnishes from itself a supply 
 of hands more than equal to the demand, a change of place in search 
 of work seldom promises any success. Unless, therefore, an oppor- 
 tunity of foreign emigration offers, the Norwegian peasant generally 
 remains in the village in which he was born ; and, as the vacancies 
 in houses and employments must occur very slowly, owing to the 
 small mortality that takes place, he will often see himself compelled 
 to wait a considerable time before he can attain a situation which 
 will enable him to rear a family." 
 
 These extracts are all taken from the chapter on the "Checks to 
 Population in Norway." 
 
INCREASE AND LIMIT OF EMPLOYMENT. 33 
 
 a mighty enlargement both of industry and comfort to 
 the families of the working classes. And then, in the 
 list of national grievances, we hear of the enormous and 
 overgrown properties which are vested in the few — and 
 a general abundance diffused among the many is fi- 
 gured to be the consequence that would result, if not 
 from the spoliation and forcible division of this wealth, 
 at least from the abolition of entails, and of the law of 
 primogeniture. Or in the absence, perhaps the faihire, 
 of all these expedients, emigration is held forth as a sove- 
 reign specific for all the distresses of an over-crowded 
 land. And, lastly, after every thing but the moral habit 
 of labourers themselves has been thought of, there fol- 
 lows, in this list of artifices for their relief, a scheme, 
 which no longer existing in fancy, has been bodied forth 
 into actual operation, and is the one of all others most 
 directly fitted to undermine the principle and prudence 
 of labourers; even a compulsory tax on the wealthy for 
 the relief of the destitute, so as to disarm poverty of its 
 terrors, and proclaim a universal impunity for dissipation 
 and idleness. Now that this last great expedient has 
 been adverted to, we need scarcely advert to any of 
 those lesser ones, which, though but the crudities of mere 
 sentimentalism, have been proposed, each as a grand 
 panacea, for all the disorders of the social state, sucli as 
 the cottage system, and the cow system, and the village 
 economy of Mr. Owen, and the various plans of home 
 colonization that have been thought to supersede the 
 lessons of Malthus, or, at least, practically to absolve us 
 from all regard to them for centuries to come. 
 
 3. Now the remedies we have just specified, may be 
 regarded as belonging to the first class. They are all 
 external remedies, and it will be our distinct aim, to 
 demonstrate, in succession, the inefiicacy of each of 
 them. There is not one of them that will serve as a 
 measure of permanent relief. In as far as they hold out 
 the promise of an indefinite harbourage for an ever in- 
 creasing population, they but practice a deceitful mockery 
 on the hopes of the philanthropist. To whichever of 
 the quarters now specified we may with fond expectation 
 
 4 
 
34 INCREASE AND LIMIT OF EMPLOYMENT, 
 
 turn ourselves, we shall speedily be met b}^ a check in 
 every way as difficult to force as is the last limit between 
 cultivation and barrenness. To this limit, in fact, one 
 and all of them may he reduced, and just as really, though 
 not so obviously, in Britain as in Norway. In every 
 society of complicated structure and widely diversified 
 interests, many are the distinct propositions that might 
 be offered for enlarging the sustenance and comfort of 
 the human species. They can all, however apparently 
 remote and various among themselves, be brought to the 
 place at which husbandry ceases from her operations, 
 because no longer profitable, and there the merits of each 
 may be tried and pronounced upon. That is the place, 
 in fact, though but recently adverted to in the science of 
 political economy, where many a question can be decided, 
 which involves the greatest earthly hopes and interests of 
 society. 
 
 4. It may be thought, however, that, without proceed- 
 ing further in our argument, we might pronounce at 
 once on the scheme of home colonization. And we 
 trust it is abundantly obvious, that it is utterly incompe- 
 tent to the end of providing indefinite sustenance for a 
 population proceeding without restraint in the increase 
 of its own numbers. If there be any sanguine enough 
 to imagine, that cultivation may be so speeded forward 
 beyond its natural rate, under the auspices of government, 
 as to absorb all the redundancies of a population whom 
 the scheme itself may have helped to emancipate from the 
 checks that would otherwise have restrained them, we 
 would appeal to the mighty enlargement which has taken 
 place in our own land within these few years, the mil- 
 lions which have been added to the inhabitants of Britain 
 and Ireland within the lapse of a single generation. The 
 progress of agriculture during this period, from individual 
 enterprise alone, is quite obvious, and it satisfactorily 
 accounts for the commensurate increase that has taken 
 place in the population. And yet though a larger, is it 
 a more comfortable population than before ? Has the 
 increase of food wrought out any sensible increase on the 
 average sufficiency of famlhes ^ Have not the absolute 
 
INCREASE AND LIMIT OP EMPLOYMENT. 35 
 
 plenty in the land, and the relative poverty of the people 
 who Jive in it, kept pace the one with the other ? And if 
 this be all the result of that progress in our husbandry 
 which has taken place under the enterprise of individuals, 
 and has afforded room for additional millions of human 
 beings, can we anticipate a more prosperous result 
 from an}' government enterprise, which at best will but 
 afford room and sustenance for as many additional 
 thousands ? The history of the last thirty years may 
 well demonstrate, that with a mighty enlargement in our 
 means of subsistence, the population may retrograde, or at 
 least be stationary, in point of comfort, notwithstanding. 
 It affords the clearest experimental proof of the little 
 which can be done by mere resources for an increasing 
 population, without restraints on the rate of their increase. 
 There was nothing in the vast augmentation which has 
 recently taken place of the one, that superseded the use 
 or necessity for the other. And still less ought it to be 
 superseded by any paltry augmentation of the means ab 
 extra, which can be looked for from the scheme in 
 question. The philosophy of Malthus, or rather the 
 practical wisdom of families, ought not to be suspended, 
 till home colonization has made full develop raent of the 
 capabilities which belong to it. A reckless population, 
 made more reckless by the show and promise of such a 
 relief, will shoot ahead of all that can possibly be achieved 
 by it. The additional food that may have been created, 
 will be more than overborne iii the tide of an increasing 
 population. The only difference will be a greater 
 instead of a smaller number of wretched families; a 
 heavier amount of distress, with less of unbroken ground 
 in reserve for any future enlargements ; a society in 
 every way as straitened as before, yet nearer to the 
 extreme limit of their resources than before ; in short, 
 a condition, at once of augmented hardship and 
 diminished hope ; with ail the burden of an expensive 
 and unprofitable scheme to the bargain. 
 
 5. We cannot complete our view of the system of 
 home colonization, without the help of certain ulterior 
 principles, which we shall afterward apply to the further 
 
36 INCREASE AND LIMIT OF EMPLOYMENT. 
 
 consideration of this scheme. We shall therefore enter 
 immediately on the proper subject of our present chapter, 
 which is, the increase and limit of employment. 
 
 6. But before we commence this attempt, it will be 
 necessary to premise a general view of the manner in 
 which the distribution of the labouring classes is regulated 
 by the state of landed property ; and to show how a 
 distinct class of labourers, additional to the agriculturaly 
 and secondary, arises in the progress of cultivation, and 
 increases in number with every descent which it makes 
 among the inferior soils. Hitherto we have only been 
 attending to the limit of cultivation, where, at the soils 
 last entered upon, the produce is barely adequate to the 
 expenses of the husbandry, or, abstracting still from the 
 consideration of profit, where the produce could do no 
 more than feed the agricultural labourers and their 
 secondaries. But the produce of the superior soils is 
 more than adequate to this object. The same improve- 
 ment in agriculture, in virtue of which we now draw a 
 full subsistence for its labourers, from land that had long 
 lain beyond the outskirts of cultivation, will enable us to 
 draw from the fertile land, that had long lain within its 
 boundary, a greater surplus of produce than before, over 
 and above the expenses of the farm management. It is 
 this surplus which constitutes rent, which, generally 
 speaking, is measured by the difference between the 
 produce of a given quantity of labour on any soil,- and 
 the produce of the same labour on the soil that yields 
 no rent. It goes in the shape of revenue to the landlord, 
 who either receives it in kind, or receives in money the 
 power of purchasing it; a power which, in the act of 
 expenditure, he transfers in various parts throughout the 
 year, to those who labour in his service, or who minister 
 in various ways to his accommodation.* 
 
 7. Now, it is this expenditure on the part of landlords, 
 which gives rise to another class of labourers, beside the 
 two that we have already specified. Should the rent 
 but enable the proprietor to provide himself with the 
 
 * See Appendix, Note A, On the rent of land, 
 
INCREASE AND LIMIT OF EMPLOYMENT. 37 
 
 necessaries of life, then that part of it which goes to 
 purchase the first necessaries, would but serve to subsist 
 an idle man instead of a labourer ; and that part of it 
 which went to the purchase of second necessaries, would 
 but serve to discharge additional maintenance, and so 
 give additional extent to the secondary population. But 
 such is the unequal distribution of landed property, and 
 so large are the shares which fall in general to the pos- 
 sessors, that, in the vast majority of instances, the rent 
 can do a great deal more than uphold the proprietor in 
 the necessaries of life. It can enable him to subsist bet- 
 ter, and to lodge and clothe himself better, than an ordi- 
 nary workman. He can afford to indulge in the luxuries 
 of life : and the preparation of these constitutes the 
 employment of a very large population. It will be found 
 very convenient to distinguish them by a particular name, 
 even though we should not for this purpose fix on the 
 best appellation. We conceive that the fittest term by 
 which to characterize them, is one descriptive of a cir- 
 cumstance in which their employment differs from that 
 of the two first classes. The two first classes are em- 
 ployed in the preparation of articles which cannot be 
 dispensed with, the preparation of the first and second 
 necessaries of life. The others are employed in the 
 preparation of articles which can be dispensed with. A 
 man can want luxuries, he cannot want necessaries. He 
 might forego luxuries altogether ; and so dismiss from 
 his service the whole of this third class, who are em- 
 ployed in preparing them. Or, he might commute one 
 set of luxuries for another ; and so, without dismissing 
 them from his service, he might at least shift their em- 
 plo3^ment in that service. It is this liability of being 
 transferred from one employment to another, and this 
 power, on the part of their employers, of dispensing, if 
 they choose to make a surrender of their luxuries, with 
 their services altogether, which has led me to affix to 
 this class the title of the disposable. They form the 
 disposable population, in contradistinction to the agri- 
 cultural and the secondary. 
 
 4* . 
 
38 INCREASE AND LIMIT OF EMPLOYMENT* 
 
 8. It is for the sake of dejSning, and not of stigma- 
 tizing, that we speak of luxuries. By this term we 
 would comprehend every thing prepared by human 
 labour, and which enters not into the average mainte- 
 nance of labourers. The landed proprietor must at 
 least have the food of other men ; but, in as far as, in 
 style and in quality, it is above that of common labourers, 
 he indulges in luxuries; and so there are cooks and con- 
 fectionaries, and many others employed in preparing 
 delicacies for the table, who should have their place 
 assigned to them among the disposable population. He 
 must be lodged as well as other men ; but then, in as far 
 as his house exceeds in magnitude and elegance that of 
 an ordinary workman, for that excess, he must have an 
 additional service of masons, and carpenters, and roofers, 
 and smiths, who, in respect of their contributing to this 
 higher style, belong not to the secondary but to the dis- 
 posable population. He must be provided also with 
 furniture, and clothing, up to a degree of comfort and 
 tastefulness which prevail among the common people ; 
 but, in as far as additional labourers are required, for 
 upholding a higher tastefulness, or a greater abundance, 
 tliere is a host of tradesmen, and artificers, tailors, and 
 shoemakers, and upholsterers, and cabinet makers, who 
 must be classified in thousands with the disposable popu- 
 lation. We shall not attempt to enumerate the exceeding 
 diversity of employments, which the taste, and the hu- 
 mour, and the artificial wants, and the way ward appetency 
 of the landed proprietors give rise to. It is mainly they 
 who impress on the industry of the disposable population, 
 any direction which seemeth unto them good ; and who, 
 by spending among them their rents, or, in other words, 
 hy making over to them the surplus produce of their 
 estates, (or, which is the same thing, by transferring to 
 them the power of purchasing that produce,) do, in return 
 for their varied services, effuse maintenance upon their 
 families. This disposable population must, like the 
 agricultural, have a train of secondaries attached to them ; 
 and receive as much from their employers as shall pro- 
 vide themselves with the first necessaries, and as shall 
 
INCREASE AND LIMIT OF EMPLOYMENT. 39 
 
 suffice for the food of those who provide them with the 
 second necessaries of hfe. It is not enough that the dis- 
 posable population are subsisted ; this would only imply 
 their being fed by their employers. They must be 
 maintained, which, in addition to their being fed, implies 
 their being clothed, and lodged, and furnished, in all 
 those secondary accommodations that enter into the 
 average comfort of labourers. The price of their services 
 includes in it the power of purchasing food for them- 
 selves, and food for all the secondary labourers who, 
 either mediately, or immediately, are employed by them. 
 9. This completes our view of the distribution which 
 takes place in society of the labouring classes. The 
 agricultural population are employed in providing all 
 with the first necessaries of life. The secondary popu- 
 lation, in providing all with the second necessaries of 
 life. And the disposable population, in providing all 
 who are elevated above the condition of labourers, with 
 the higher comforts of life, its luxuries, its elegancies, 
 which are not essential to the maintenance of human 
 beings, but minister to the wealthy an endless diversity 
 of gratifications, and give rise to a like diversity of em- 
 ployments among the people. It is needless to explain 
 here, how it is that the wages of labour, in all the three 
 classes, are nearly equalized, insomuch, that they who 
 are toiling at the extreme margin of cultivation, and 
 there trying to force a return from soils which had never 
 been attempted before, are equally remunerated for 
 their services, with those who, in the walks of busy 
 artizanship, are ministering to the most refined enjoy- 
 ments of the wealthiest and the noblest in our land. 
 For this, and for many other doctrines which we pre- 
 suppose, without any exhibition of their proof, we must 
 satisfy ourselves with a reference to the general science 
 of political economy. 
 
 10. Here, however, we cannot refrain from observing 
 the connexion which obtains between the state of the soil 
 and the state of human society. Had no ground yielded 
 more in return for the labour expended on it than the 
 food of the cultivators, and their secondaries, the existence 
 
40 INCREASE AND LIMIT OF EMPLOYMENT* 
 
 of one and all of the human race would have been spent 
 in mere labour. Every man would have been doomed to 
 a life of unremitting toil for his bodily subsistence ; and 
 none could have been supported in a state of leisure, 
 either for idleness, or for other employments than those 
 of husbandry, and such coarser manufactures as serve to 
 provide society with the second necessaries of existence. 
 The species would have risen but a few degrees, whether 
 physical or moral, above the condition of mere savages. 
 It is just because of a fertility in the earth, by which it 
 yields a surplus over and above the food of the direct and 
 secondary labourers, that we can command the services 
 of a disposable population, who, in return for their main- 
 tenance, minister to the proprietors of this surplus all the 
 higher comforts and elegancies of life. It is precisely to 
 this surplus we owe it, that society is provided with more 
 than a coarse and a bare supply for the necessities of 
 animal nature. It is the original fund out of which are 
 paid the expenses of art, and science, and civilization, 
 and luxury, and law, and defence, and all, in short, that 
 contributes either to strengthen or to adorn the common- 
 wealth. Without this surplus, we should have had but 
 an agrarian population ; consisting of husbandmen, and 
 those few homely and rustic artificers who, scattered in 
 hamlets over the land, would have given their secondary 
 services to the whole population. It marks an interesting 
 connexion between the capabilities of the soil, and the 
 condition of social life, that to this surplus we stand in- 
 dispensably indebted, for our crowded cities, our thousand 
 manufactories for the supply of comforts and refinements 
 to society, our wide and diversified commerce, our armies 
 of protection, our schools and colleges of education, our 
 halls of legislation and justice, even our altars of piety, 
 and temple services. It has been remarked by geolo- 
 gists, as the evidence of a presiding design in nature, that 
 the waste of the soil is so nicely balanced by the supply 
 from the disintegration of the upland rocks, which are 
 worn and pulverised at such a rate as to keep up a good 
 vegetable mould on the surface of the earth. But each 
 science teems with the like evidences of a devising and 
 
mCREASE AND LIMIT OF EMPLOYMENT. 41 
 
 intelligent God ; and when we view aright the many be- 
 neficent functions to which, through the instrumentality 
 of its surplus produce, the actual degree of the earth's 
 fertility is subservient, we cannot imagine a more won- 
 drous and beautiful adaptation between the state of ex- 
 ternal nature aad the mechanism of human society. 
 
 11. By this mechanism of human society, as far as we 
 have explained it, the exceeding diversity of trades and 
 employments may be accounted for. Even were the 
 barrenness of the land such, that it only yielded food for 
 an agricultural and a secondary population ; this distri- 
 bution would of itself give rise to a considerable variety of 
 distinct occupations; and, under the system of a division 
 in labour, we should have shoemakers, and tailors, and 
 weavers, and masons, and carpenters, and artificers in 
 hardware, and dealers, as well as fabricators in sundry 
 more articles ; making out on the whole a pretty copious 
 enumeration of separate callings, with the separate inte- 
 rests belonging to them. But when, in addition to the 
 subsistence of an agricultural and a secondary, there is 
 fertility in the land for the subsistence of a disposable popu- 
 lation, the multiplication of trades and employments is 
 thereby indefinitely extended ; being as numerous as the 
 caprices of human fancy and taste, or the varieties of 
 human indulgence. It is thus that, in proportion as the 
 mechanism of social life becomes more complex, it is also 
 all the more bewildering; and, amid the intricacy of its 
 manifold combinations, we lose sight both of the springs 
 and the limits of human maintenance. One very wide 
 and prevalent delusion, more especially, and which has 
 misguided both the charity of philanthropists and the 
 policy of statesmen is, that the employment in which men 
 are engaged is the source of their maintenance, whereas, 
 it is only the channel through which they draw that 
 maintenance from the hands of those who buy the pro- 
 ducts of their employment. This principle has in it all 
 the simplicity of a truism ; and yet it is wonderful with 
 what perversity of apprehension, both the managers of a 
 state and the managers of a parish miss the sight of it. 
 Whether we look to acts of parliament, or to the actings 
 
42 INCREASE AND LIMIT OF EMPLOYMENT. 
 
 of a parochial vestry, we shall find them proceeding on 
 its being the grand specific for the rehef of the poor, to 
 find employment for them. Now, unless that employ- 
 ment be the raising of food, it does nothing to alleviate 
 the disproportion between the numbers of the people and 
 the means of their subsistence; and if there be a limit, as 
 we have already demonstrated, to the food, we may be 
 very sure that this device of employment will not turn 
 out a panacea for the distresses of an overburdened land. 
 
 12. But the fallacy to which we now advert, is not 
 confined to the matters of practical administration. It 
 may also be recognised in the theories of those who have 
 attempted to adjust the philosophy of the subject. In 
 political economy it will often be found, that the channel 
 is confounded with the source ; and hence a delusion, not 
 in the business of charity alone, but which has extended 
 far and wide among the lessons of the science. 
 
 13. And yet it is a delusion which, one might think, 
 should be dissipated by but one step of explanation. A 
 single truism puts it to flight. Nothing appears more 
 obvious, than that any trade or manufacture originates 
 only its own products. All that a stocking maker con- 
 tributes to society is simply stockings. This, and 
 nothing more, is what comes forth of his establishment. 
 And the same is true of all the other trades or employ- 
 ments which can be specified. They work off nothing, 
 they emanate nothing but their own peculiar articles. 
 Were this sure and simple axiom but clearly and stead- 
 fastly kept in view, it would put to flight a number of il- 
 lusions in political science, illusions which have taken 
 obstinate hold of our legislators, and which to this mo- 
 ment keep firm possession in the systems of many of our 
 economists. They almost all, in a greater or less degree, 
 accredit a manufacture with something more than its own 
 products. The inclination is, to accredit it also with the 
 maintenance of its labourers. In every transaction of 
 buying and selling, there are two distinct elements, the 
 commodit}^ and the price of the commodity ; of which 
 price, the maintenance of the labourers is generally far the 
 krgest ingredient. Now, the thing to be constantly kept 
 
INCREASE AND LIMIT OF EMPLOYMENT. 4$ 
 
 m view is, that a manufacture should only be accredited 
 with its own commodity, and not, over and above this, 
 with the price of its commodity. These two stand, as it 
 were, on different sides of an exchange. To the manu- 
 facture is to be ascribed all that we behold on the one 
 side. It furnishes the commodity for the market. But 
 it did not also create the wealth that supplies the price of 
 the commodity. It does not furnish society with both it- 
 self and its equivalent. The latter comes from a distinct 
 quarter ; and we repeat, that by confounding in imagina- 
 tion two things, which are distinct in fact, a false direction 
 has been given, both to the policy of States and to the 
 theories of philosophers. 
 
 14. This confusion of sentiment appears in a variety of 
 ways. When one sees a thriving and industrious village, 
 and that the employment of the families secures for them 
 their maintenance, it is most natural to invest the former 
 with a power of command, tantamount to a power of 
 creation over the latter. The two go together ; and be- 
 cause when the employment ceases, the maintenance 
 ceases, it is conceived of the former, that in the order of 
 causation it has the precedenc}^. We affirm of a shawl- 
 making l^illage, that all which it yields to society is 
 shawls. We accredit it with this, but with nothing more. 
 But it is accredited with a great deal more, by those who 
 talk in lofty style of our manufacturing interest, and the 
 dependence thereupon of a nation's support and a nation's 
 greatness. We hold, that if, through the exhaustion of 
 the raw material, or any other cause, there were to be an 
 extinction of the employment, the country would only be 
 deprived of its wonted supply of shawls ; but the preva- 
 lent imagination is, that the country would be deprived of 
 its wonted support for so many hundred families. The 
 whole amount of the mischief, in our estimation, would 
 be the disappearance of shawls ; in theirs, it would be the 
 disappearance of that which upheld an integral part of. 
 the country's population. It is forgotten, that though 
 shawls may no longer be produced or brought to market, 
 the price that wont to be paid for them is still in reserve, 
 and ready to be expended by the purchasers on some 
 
44 INCREASE AND LIMIT OF EMPLOYMENTo 
 
 Other article of accommodation or luxury. The circum- 
 stances which have brought the manufacture to ruin, do 
 not affect the ability of those who consumed the products 
 of the manufacture. The employment is put an end to ; 
 but the maintenance comes from another quarter, and can 
 be discharged in as great abundance as before, on as large 
 a population. Their employment in making shawls was 
 not the source of their maintenance ; it was only the 
 channel by which they drew it to their homes. The de- 
 struction or stoppage of the channel, does not infer a 
 stoppage at the source ; that will find for itself another 
 channel^ through which all that enters into the mainte- 
 nance of our industrious families, might be effused upon 
 them as liberally as before. We dispute not the tempo- 
 rary evils of the transition. We allow that a change of 
 employment may bring individual and temporary distress 
 along with it. But we contend, that the expenditure of 
 those who support our disposable population will not be 
 lessened, but only shifted by this new state of things ; 
 and that, after the change is accomphshed in the direction 
 of their industry, we should behold as numerous a society 
 as ever, upheld with the same liberality in every thing 
 (with the single exception of shawls, and the substitution 
 of some other luxury, in their place) that enters into the 
 comfort and convenience of families. 
 
 15. But we are further persuaded, that the confusion 
 of sentiment which we are now attempting to expose, has 
 had a most misleading effect on the views and the policy 
 of statesmen : at one time, inspiring a false hope on the 
 promised extension of trade and manufactures ; and, at 
 another time, creating a false alarm on the appearance of 
 their decay. Our legislators do ascribe a higher function 
 to trade and manufactures, than that of simply furnishing 
 society with the articles manufactured. They conceive 
 of them as the dispensers of a transcendently greater be- 
 nefit than the mere use and enjoyment of these articles. 
 There are other and nobler interests associated in their 
 minds with the trade and manufactures of the country, 
 than the mere gratification and convenience which indivi- 
 duals have in the use of their products. This will at 
 
INCREASE AND LIMIT OF EMPLOYMENT. 45 
 
 t)nce be evident, if we resolve the manufacturing interest 
 into its several parts, as the shawl making interest, where- 
 with our senate would not for a moment concern them- 
 selves, if they thought that all which hinged upon it was 
 the supply of shawls ; nor the stocking making interest, 
 if in their opinion nothing else depended on it but the 
 supply of stockings ; nor the carpet making interest, if it 
 involved no other or higher consideration than the supply 
 of carpets ; nor the buckle making interest, if they did 
 not suppose that, beside owing to it the supply of buckles, 
 we furthermore owed the maintenance and wealth of 
 buckle makers. And the remark may be extended from 
 manufactures to commerce.* We should have had no 
 grave deliberations on the China trade, or the Portuguese 
 trade, or the West India trade, if something far loftier 
 had not been associated with these respective processes 
 than that of serving the families of the land with tea, or 
 wine, or oranges, or sugar, or coffee, or tobacco. These 
 mighty commercial interests are conceived to be produc- 
 tive of something greatly more magnificent and national ; 
 and not only the income of all the capitalists, and the 
 maintenance of all the labourers engaged in them, but 
 the strength, and revenue, and political greatness of the 
 state, are somehow associated with their defence and pre- 
 servation. It is forgotten, of each trade and each manu- 
 facture, that it furnishes, and can furnish, nothing but its 
 own proper and peculiar articles ; and that, abstracting 
 from the use and enjoyment of these, every other associ- 
 ated benefit is comprehended in the equivalent price which 
 is paid for them. All that the wine trade of Portugal, 
 for example, furnishes to our nation is wine; and, in re- 
 ference either to the public revenue which arises from it, 
 or to the private revenue wherewith it both enriches the 
 capitalists and supports the labourers employed in it, these 
 are yielded, not most assuredly by the wine, but by the 
 
 * In extending the observation from home to foreign trade, we pre- 
 suppose, what we shall afteward attempt to show more particularly, 
 that the terminus ad quern of foreign trade, is the benefit, or enjoy- 
 ment, administered by the commodities which it imports, to the in- 
 land consumers. 
 
 5 
 
46 INCREASE AND LIMIT OF EMPLOYMENT, 
 
 price given for the wine. The wine trade is but the 
 channel through which these flow, and not the source in 
 which they originate. But, notwithstanding, there is yet 
 a mystic power ascribed to the wine trade, as if part of 
 the nation's glory and the nation's strength were linked 
 with the continuance of it. And hence a legislature 
 tremulously alive to the state of our relations with Por- 
 tugal, lest the wine trade should be destroyed. Now 
 though, from the interruption of these relations, or from 
 any other cause, the wine trade, on the one side, were 
 destroyed, the counterpart wealth, on the other side, 
 would not be destroyed. It would remain with its owners, 
 to be expended by them on the purchase of some new 
 luxury in place of the wine ; by the natural price of which, 
 the same return could be made to capitalists and labour- 
 ers, and by a tax on which, the same revenue might be 
 secured to government as before. 
 
 16. It must be obvious, that employment in agricul- 
 ture is not an indefinite resource for an indefinite popula- 
 tion, seeing that it must stop short at the land w^hich 
 refuses to yield the essential food of its direct and secon- 
 dary labourers. And it should be equally obvious, that 
 as little is employment in manufactures an indefinite 
 resource, seeing that the definite quantity of food raised 
 can only sustain a certain and definite number of labour- 
 ers. The latter position seems, on the first announce- 
 ment, to carry its own evidence along with it ; yet there 
 is a certain subtle imagination in its way, which we have 
 attempted to dispose of. Our argument rests on the 
 veriest truism, that a manufacture jis creative of nothing 
 beyond its own products. But triiism, though it is, it 
 has been strangely overlooked, not only in the devices 
 of the charitable, but both in the policy^^ statesmen, 
 and in the doctrinal schemes of the economists. Yet we 
 think a sufficient explanation can be given, both of the 
 manner in which the perverse misconception at first 
 arose, and of the obstinacy wherewith it still lingers and 
 keeps its ground amongst us. 
 
 17. In opposition, then, to the principle, that employ- 
 ment is creative of nothing but its own products, it might 
 
INCREASE AND LIMIT OP EMPLOYMENT. 47 
 
 be alleged, that the presentation of these products excites 
 a desire for the acquisition of them, and so stimulates 
 other employments in the fabrication of new products, to 
 be given in exchange for the former ones. It was re- 
 markably exemplified throughout the whole of Europe, 
 at the termination of the middle ages. Of this we have 
 a masterly sketch by Dr. Adam Smith, in his Wealth of 
 Nations;* when he traces the great economic change 
 which took place, in virtue of a new taste and a new 
 habit on the part of the landholders. Historical!}^, it 
 was the presentation to their notice of those articles of 
 splendour and luxury which manufactures had produced, 
 and which commerce brought to their doors, that prompt- 
 ed the change. This was the moving force which shifted 
 their old expenditure, and gave another direction to it. 
 They dismissed their idle retainers, and appropriated the 
 surplus produce by which they had been fed, to the pur- 
 chase of luxuries in dress, or of luxuries in equipage and 
 furniture. They furnished subsistence to as many as 
 before, but in a new capacity, and in return for a differ- 
 ent service. The disposable population were differently 
 disposed of. Instead of so many idle marauders, living, 
 save at their seasons of warfare, in sloth and sordidnesSj 
 on the domain of their feudal lord, they were transmuted 
 into orderly, industrious citizens, as dependent, for the 
 first necessaries of life, on the country as before, but 
 yielding, in return for these, not the homage of their 
 personal attendance, but the tangible produce of their 
 own handiwork. And along with this economic, there 
 was effected a great moral change in the state of society. 
 The contests of violence between adjoining proprietors, 
 were exchanged for the more peaceful contests and rival- 
 ships of vanity. The hundreds, who in other days 
 would have followed them to the field, on services of 
 revenge or plunder, were now at peaceful occupation in 
 their workshops, congregated into villages, which grew 
 into cities, and there placed under the protection of law 
 
 * And by Dr. Robertson, in the introduction to his History of 
 Charles Y, 
 
48 INCREASE AND LIMIT OF EMPLOYMENT. 
 
 and social order. Liberty, and justice, and civilization, 
 and right government, all emerged from this altered con- 
 dition of things ; and when we reflect, that commerce 
 was the prime mover in this great transition, by the new 
 desires which it infused, and the change which it effected 
 in the style of living and habit of our landlords, it must 
 be allowed, that, historically, to commerce we owe bene- 
 fits of a much higher order than the mere gratification 
 of any of the physical or inferior appetencies of our 
 nature. 
 
 18. But there is still another reason (beside the new 
 direction given to the expenditure of landlords) wh^^ com- 
 merce might be said to have been creative at that period 
 of more than their own immediate products. When the 
 landlords parted with their idle retainers, and they were 
 compelled to be industrious for their livelihood, along 
 with a new habit of indulgence among the proprietors, 
 there sprung up a new habit of industry among the 
 people. At one and the same time, the proprietors 
 became more luxurious than before, and the people 
 became more laborious than before. Even these latter 
 participated to some degree in the taste of their supe- 
 riors, and were willing also to make their sacrifices, that 
 they might be admitted to their own humble share in 
 those recent gratifications which were beginning to be 
 placed too within reach of the peasantry, and were every 
 where raising the standard of enjoyment. They accord- 
 ingly made sacrifice of their indolence and love of ease, 
 even as the grandees above them made sacrifice of their 
 power and parade of attendance. At the same time, the 
 rights of all were beginning to be more recognised and 
 respected ; and, under the administration of more benign 
 and equitable laws, the poor man felt a greater stimulus 
 to labour than before, in the greater security which he 
 now had for the possession and enjoyment of its fruits. 
 And then the severe and regular industry of manufac- 
 tures, was followed by a more severe and regular indus- 
 try than heretofore in agriculture. The desire of each 
 man to better his condition, now began to develope its 
 energies in all the classes of society. Landlords, with 
 
INCREASE AND LIMIT OP EMPLOYMENT. 49 
 
 a larger and juster sense of their interests, disposed of 
 their farms in the way that yielded the greatest revenue 
 to themselves ; and husbandmen, with the benefit of a 
 now more industrious peasanttry, so laboured the farms 
 as to work out the greatest remainder of produce for 
 themselves. In addition to this, the business of the 
 country participated, though never to such a degree, 
 with the business of towns, in the benefits that result 
 from the division of labour, and in the greater power 
 given by mechanical invention to the implements of 
 labour. Altogetlier, the limit of cultivation, under 
 the operation of these various causes, has receded an 
 immense way back within these three centuries. Mil- 
 lions of acres that, under the old lazaroni system, had 
 never been entered on, are now yielding subsistence 
 to man ; and the increase of food has been surely and 
 speedily followed up by an increase of population. The 
 land of inferior soils, that formerly yielded nothing, is 
 now productive ; and the land that formerly produced, is 
 now, in virtue of deeper and more laborious culture, of 
 tenfold greater fertility than before. Now, in Europe, 
 all this may be in a great measure traced to the reaction 
 of commerce upon agriculture. It was commerce which 
 gave the impulse; and, in addition to its own products, 
 it, through the medium of the new system of society 
 which it introduced, called forth products from the earth, 
 that, but for it, might never have been extracted. In 
 this instance at least, commerce seems to have been the 
 ci'eator, not of its own commodities alone, but of the 
 equivalents for these commodities ; a fountain-head, not 
 merely for the products of its labour, but for the mainte- 
 nance of its labourers. 
 
 19. It is not to be wondered at, then, that he who 
 traced with so graphic and powerful a hand the reflex 
 influence of commerce upon agriculture, should have 
 sometimes forgotten the natural order of precedency 
 betwixt them. He certainly did more than any of his 
 predecessors in the science, in restoring to agriculture 
 the proper honours and ascendancy which belong to her. 
 Yet he does give a power to the enterprise and the 
 
 5* 
 
50 INCREASE AND LIMIT OF EMPLOYMENT. 
 
 accumnlation of merchants, which neither experience nor 
 the nature of things will justify. None was more suc- 
 cessful than he, in exposing the crude imaginations of 
 those who thought to enrich the country by means of a 
 restricted commerce. But along with this, he greatly 
 overrated the effect of an emancipated commerce, or of 
 commerce set at liberty from its fetters. He very clearly 
 demonstrated the impolicy of those artificial checks, 
 which, in the shape of monopoly or prohibition, had 
 been laid upon trade. But he seems not to have been 
 full}' aware of the natural check which stands in the way 
 of its indefinite extension, and by which a gradual retar- 
 dation, and ultimately an immovable arrest, are laid on 
 the progress of agriculture, and of population, and of 
 capital, and so of commerce. The truth does appear, 
 throughout the work of this great author, in occasional 
 glimpses, but not so explicitly, or with such appHcation 
 and effect, as it would have done had the doctrine of 
 population been understood in his day. This single 
 element alone w^ould have modified a number of his con- 
 clusions ; and more particularly, he would not have held 
 out to society the promise of an endless advancement, as 
 if every effort of parsimony, and every accumulation of 
 capital, were infallibly to speed it forward. He seems to 
 reason as if the simple act of preparing commodities, and 
 placing them as it were on one side of an exchange, will, 
 through the operation of stimulus, call forth into exist- 
 ence equivalent commodities on the other side of it. 
 This process, it is true, was conspicuously and memora- 
 bly exemplified, at that period in history which may be 
 characterized as the period of transition from the middle 
 to the modern ages of Europe. But that was no suffi- 
 cient cause, why it should have been regarded and rea- 
 soned upon as the universal process for all ages. 
 
 20. There is, in truth, a wide difference between the state 
 of things at the com.mencement, and after the full estab- 
 lishment and continuance, of this new era. Then the 
 passion for war had just given place to the passion for 
 wealth and luxury ; and this latter passion, when newly 
 awoke, found a soil of boundless and yet unentered capa- 
 
INCREASE AND LIMIT OF EMPLOYMENT. 51 
 
 •bilitles on which to expatiate. The rude and infant 
 husbandry of Europe had a mighty career before it, along 
 which the increasing" products of commerce met with their 
 sure return in the increasing products of agriculture. The 
 spirit of mercantile adventure could safely indulge in 
 every variety of caprice and speculation; for the unsated 
 appetite of the landlord found, in the before untouched 
 resources of his land, the means of extended gratification. 
 Commerce appeared tO anticipate agriculture, and might 
 almost have ventured in reality to do so, yet not be dis- 
 appointed ; for however it multiplied its wares and its 
 whimsies, it found a ready admission for them in the 
 growing wealth, and the now stimulated fancy and taste 
 of its country customers. It is really not to be wondered 
 at, that men should have been led to imagine, as if com- 
 merce had a commencing and a creative virtue in this 
 process ; and that it had only to accumulate, and to em- 
 ploy, and to produce, in order to carry forward the pros- 
 perity of the nation with uniform, or with accelerated 
 progress. Commerce, in fact, was the prime, the execu- 
 tive agent in Europe, for unlocking the capabihties of the 
 soil ; and, at a period when these were rapidly evolved, 
 the articles which it fabricated and brought to market 
 seldom failed to meet wdth purchasers of sufficient wealth 
 and sufficient number ; and so also with a price which 
 enveloped in it the profit of all the capitalists, the com- 
 fortable subsistence of all the labourers. It was most 
 natural, in these circumstances, to conceive of commerce 
 as an efficient cause, not merely for the commodities of 
 its own workmanship, but for the maintenance of its own 
 workmen; and, if agriculture was not just made of sub- 
 ordinate rank to commerce, commerce was regarded as 
 of fully co-ordinate rank with agriculture. Nevertheless 
 it will be found, we think, on further consideration, that 
 however events may have fallen out historically in the 
 order of time, there is an order of nature, and an order 
 of influence, which must be attended to, ere the essential 
 relations of agriculture and commerce be rightly under- 
 stood. We hold the real dependence of the latter upon 
 the former, to be a truth of capital importance in politi- 
 
52 INCREASE AND LIMIT OF EMPLOYMENT. 
 
 cal economy ; and that, if steadfastly kept in view, and 
 carried forward to its legitimate applications, it would 
 put to flight a number of those delusions and errors 
 which, in the course of speculation, have gathered around 
 the science. 
 
 21. One plain distinction, and a distinction not to be 
 overlooked by the slight exceptions which can be alleged 
 against it, is, that to agriculture mainly, we owe the ne- 
 cessaries of life ; whereas, many of its luxuries cannot be 
 had without commerce and manufactures. This is a most 
 momentous distinction, and a vast deal turns upon it. 
 We not only see in it, that manufactures must necessarily, 
 in point of extent, be limited by the produce of the soil ; 
 but that the owners of the soil, in virtue of the property 
 which belongs to them, have a natural superiority over 
 all other classes of men, which by no device of politics or 
 law can be taken away from them. The holder of what 
 I cannot want, is the master of my services. He can 
 impress upon them any direction which seemeth unto him 
 good. He can transfer his demand from one luxury to 
 another ; and so, as far as his consumption goes, he can 
 extend one manufacture at the expense of a proportional 
 abridgment on another manufacture. Or, he can part 
 with the use of some tangible commodity altogether, and, 
 with the price which went to purchase it, may obtain for 
 himself the use of a menial servant; and, in so doing, 
 he effects an absolute reduction in the manufactures of 
 the country. Or, whether in the spirit of a voluntary 
 patriotism, or in submission to lawful authority, he may 
 render to the State the price of many luxuries ; and thus 
 withdraw so many of the disposable population from the 
 business of trade, to the business of our national establish- 
 ments. It is thus that any given change in the taste or 
 habit of our landlords, would effect a corresponding 
 change in the employment of the great mass of our dis- 
 posable population. They are virtually the holders of 
 the maintenance of this class of labourers ; and it is their 
 collective will which fixes the direction of their labour. 
 Apart from the importation of food, there can be no more 
 labourers in the country than the produce of their estates 
 
INCREASE AND LIMIT OF EMPLOYMENT. 53 
 
 will subsist. It is the quantity of this produce which 
 fixes the amount of labour ; and as far as the labour of 
 the disposable population is concerned, it is the will of the 
 holders of this produce which fixes the direction of it. 
 They are the natural masters of the country ; and the as- 
 cendancy wherewith their property invests them, hinges 
 on this clear and simple distinction. Men can want 
 luxuries ; they cannot want necessaries. 
 
 22. But more than this. Every increase of food is 
 followed up by an increase of population. It is not so 
 with any other manufactured goods, save in as far as that 
 may work an increase of food, by pushing on thelimit of 
 cultivation in the way that we have already explained. 
 Such at all events is the difference between the two sorts 
 of produce, that the market cannot permanently be over- 
 laden with corn, even though its growers should persist in 
 keeping up and increasing the supply of it. Unlike to 
 all other articles of merchandise, an increased supply of 
 food is surely and speedily followed up by an increased 
 demand for it. It may be a drug in the market for a 
 year or two ; but though it should continue to be sent ia 
 the same, or in superior abundance, season after season, it 
 will not remain so. The reason is, that, unlike to other 
 commodities, it creates a market for itself. Through the 
 medium of the stimulus given to population, it does what 
 no other articles of merchandise can do ; it multiplies its 
 own consumers. Aplenty of the first necessaries, is the 
 only species of plenty which surely and largely tells on 
 the population. A plenty of luxuries has no such effect; 
 and not even a plenty of the second necessaries, as shoes 
 or stockings, or the materials of house building. The 
 proprietors of the first necessaries, are on the only sure 
 vantage ground. They alone have nothing to fear ul- 
 timately, from the indefinite supply of their peculiar com- 
 modity. The produce of agriculture may be made to 
 increase, up to the uttermost limit of its capabilities ; for, 
 whatever the additional number may be which it can feed, 
 that number will rise to be fed by it. 
 
 23. We can therefore be at no loss to perceive, how an 
 indefinite supply of the products of agriculture, must be 
 
54 INCREASE AND LIMIT OF EMPLOYMENT* 
 
 followed up by a like indefinite supply of the products of 
 manufactures, or commerce. The people whom it feeds, 
 givC) in their handiwork, a return for their subsistence. 
 But this does not hold true of the reverse proposition. 
 The products of manufactures do not indefinitely call 
 forth the products of agriculture. They did so histori- 
 cally, at that period when they efiected a change in the 
 taste and habit of landlords. They still do so gradually, 
 when, in virtue of their greater supply by an improvement 
 in the powers of labour, they reduce the numbers of the 
 secondary class, and so push cultivation further among 
 the inferior soils. But beyond this limit they have no 
 power. An increase of agricultural produce will, through 
 the medium of an increasing population, be followed up, 
 pari passu, by an increase of manufactured commodities. 
 But a mere increase of manufactured commodities, can- 
 not force the existing barrier in the way of cultivation, or 
 force an entrance upon that land, which is not able to 
 feed its agricultural labourers and their secondaries. 
 There is one way in which this barrier may be made to 
 retire. Labourers may consent to be worse fed than be- 
 fore, or to put up with fewer of the secondary accommo- 
 dations. If, with this reduction in the standard of enjoy- 
 ment, they still work as hardly, or, if even with the same, 
 and perhaps a higher standard, they are willing to put 
 forth more than their wonted labour, this might widen 
 the limits, and so multiply the products of agriculture. 
 Still, after these modifications are admitted, there is a 
 wide difference between agriculture and manufactures ; 
 the former influencing the latter, in a way that the latter 
 cannot influence the former. Agriculture, with every 
 permanent increase of its products, can, through the me- 
 dium of an increasing population, command a like in- 
 crease in the products of manufactures. Manufactures 
 cannot by any increase of its products, while the standard 
 of enjoyment, and the powers of personal and mechanical 
 labour remain the same, force a like increase in the pro-» 
 ducts of agriculture. 
 
 24. This distinction between agriculture and manufac- 
 turfs, would serve greatly to modify the reasonings of 
 
INCtlEASE AND LIMIT OP EMPLOYMENT. 55 
 
 Dr. Smith, when, without reference to any such distinc* 
 tion, he tells of one species of commodities stimulating the 
 production of another species of commodities. It follows 
 not, because commerce had the power, by tempting land- 
 lords from an old to a new habit of expenditure, of ex- 
 torting additional products from a soil whose capabilities 
 had scarcely been entered on ; it therefore has this power, 
 when agriculture, with its stationary or slowly receding 
 limit, has either reached, or is so much nearer the utter- 
 most length to which it can be carried. The stimulus 
 might be as powerful as before. There might be as in*- 
 tense a desire for the increase of enjoyments, whether they 
 be the enjoyments of pleasure, or those of pageantry. 
 But this moving force is in contact now with an obstacle 
 which stood then at a distance so remote as to have 
 permitted an advancing movement, and that a tolerably 
 free one, for several centuries. We now begin to feel, 
 and may indeed be said to have long felt, the utter pow- 
 erlessness of mere production in manufactures, to enlarge 
 the wealth, or speed forward the economic prosperity of a 
 land. What commerce did in an incipient, it cannot do 
 in an extreme state of agriculture ; and in the oldest and 
 richest countries of Europe, the sanguine, the splendid 
 anticipations which the earlier experience awakened, 
 checked and chastised as they have been by the later ex- 
 perience, are now beginning to be abandoned. 
 
 25. But not only is there a visionary hope associated 
 w^ith this contemplation, there is also an alarm which, it is 
 comfortable to think, is alike visionary. They who so 
 count on the reaction of a stimulus, as to imagine that 
 every addition beyond their present extent to our manu- 
 factures will give a proportional enlargement to our agri- 
 culture, might also imagine, that every subtraction be- 
 neath their present extent from our manufactures, will 
 proportionally lessen and contract our agriculture also. 
 The two imaginations, in fact, are products of one and 
 the same fallacy. He who thinks that it was the creation 
 of a manufacture which stimulated and called forth an in- 
 crease of agriculture, may well be apprehensive lest the 
 destruction of the manufacture should as much throw the 
 
B$ INCREASE AND LIMIT OP EMPLOYMENT* 
 
 agriculture back again. Now, it is not so. Though a 
 particular manufacture should be brought to ruin, and the 
 employment in it should cease, the counterpart mainte- 
 nance will not cease ; and our security against this effect 
 is, that there would still remain a sufficiency of objects, 
 on which it were not only possible, but felt by the land- 
 lords to be desirable, that they should still spend their 
 incomes. There is not a luxury that can be named, the 
 loss of which would cause our agriculture to go back ; 
 even though, historically, it may have been the first pre- 
 sentation of that luxury to their notice, which, by its effect 
 on the appetency of landlords, helped to bring the agri- 
 culture forward. Now that the revulsion has taken place 
 from the habit of the middle ages, there is no danger of 
 the surplus produce of their estates lying idle in their 
 hands. They will set their hearts on as large a revenue 
 as before ; and notwithstanding the ruin or disappear- 
 ance of many separate trades, they will still find use for 
 it all. In other words, amid the numerous failures and 
 fluctuations of employment, they in the meanwhile will 
 not let down the cultivation of a single acre ; so that 
 there shall remain as large a maintenance for the same 
 population as before. The expenditure of its holders 
 would be changed, but not lessened. The destruction of 
 one manufacture would be followed up by the creation or 
 the extension of another ; or there would be a propor- 
 tionate addition to the retinue of our landlords. At all 
 events, we should behold as large a disposable class as 
 well supported as ever. It may be utopianism to expect, 
 that beyond the limits of our present agriculture, there 
 ijes before us a career of endless and ever-advancing 
 prosperity; but we might at least give up all our sensitive 
 alarms, lest by any revolution in the trading world, our 
 prosperity shall ever be sensibly and permanently reduced 
 beneath that limit. So long as we have law and liberty 
 amongst us, our economic resources will be found as stable 
 as the constitution of the seasons or of the soil. Unless 
 we are struck from Heaven with the curse of barrenness, 
 the present means of our subsistence will remain to us. 
 We may have little to hope from a great enlargement of 
 
INCREASE AND LIMIT OF EMPLOYMENT. 51 
 
 these means, yet have every thing to hope from a right 
 distribution of them. There may be, there is, an impas- 
 sable limit to the physical abundance of our products. 
 There is no limit to the moral cultivation of our people. 
 We maty not be able greatly to increase our stores ; but 
 with the stores we have, a mighty achievement remains 
 to us. We may indefinitely increase the virtuous and 
 prudential habits of the community ; and on these mainly, 
 on these we should say exclusively, it depends, whether 
 there shall or shall not be a high average of sufficiency 
 and comfort among the families of the land. 
 
 S6. It is now high time that the statesmen and philan- 
 thropists of the old world should take this direction. It 
 is to a moral restraint on the numbers of mankind, and 
 not to a physical enlargement of the means for their sub- 
 sistence, that we shall be henceforth beholden for suffi- 
 ciency or peace in our commonwealth. It is from the 
 power of Christian education, and not from the devices 
 of the economists, that our deliverance is to come. And 
 yet we abide almost as reckless of this truth, as if in the 
 morning of our history we had still the world to begin, or 
 had still in reserve a land of boundless extent and ferti- 
 lity, on which, as in America, we might expatiate un- 
 checked by any barrier of physical necessity for many 
 generations. To employ the language of the schoolmen, 
 we are still looking objectively to the enlargement of re- 
 sources in the outer world of matter, instead of looking 
 subjectively to the establishment of habit and principle 
 in the inner world of mind. Yet thence, and thence 
 alone, will proceed our lielp and our emancipation from 
 the miseries which beset and straiten us ; and nothing 
 will more effectually demonstrate the supremacy of the 
 moral over the physical, in the system of human affairs, 
 than will the ameliorated condition coming in the train 
 of ameliorated character, after the tried impotency of all 
 other expedients. 
 
 27. Meanwhile, as the difficulties thicken, and the 
 pressure becomes more severe, the expedients multiply. 
 This is a teeming age for all sorts of crudities ; and we 
 have no doubt, that our very nearness to the ultimate and 
 
 6 
 
58 INCREASE AND LIMIT OF EMPLOYMENT. 
 
 immovable barrier of our resources, has made the neces- 
 sity to be all the more intensely felt, and so given addi- 
 tional impulse to the speculations of philanthropists. 
 Among others, the favourite device of employment has 
 been acted on to a very great extent ; though its ineffica- 
 cy as a resource, one might think, should be abundantly 
 obvious, on the simple axiom, that employment is creative 
 of nothing but its own products. It was a far more 
 rational and likely expedient centuries ago, in the earlier 
 state of our agriculture, than it is at present; nor need 
 we wonder, though in these days they should often have 
 experienced a most convenient absorption of poverty and 
 idleness in whole masses, simply by providing and deal- 
 ing out work. There was room then for such an ab- 
 sorption, when the increasing products of the towns and 
 villages could be met by the increasing products of a land, 
 whose capabilities were yet so far from being fully over- 
 taken. We accordingly meet with this expedient in the 
 innumerable parliamentary acts of other days, for the 
 suppression or the regulation of mendicity; and it was 
 long the favourite scheme, both of parochial counsellors, 
 and of individual philanthropists. The general rule of 
 society is, that each man lives by his business ; and the 
 first natural imagination is, that this conjunction between 
 work and maintenance is just, in every instance where 
 poverty and idleness are seen together, to be repeated 
 over again. England is rife with this experiment through- 
 out her teeming parishes; and quarrying, and road ma- 
 king, and breaking stones, and digging in gravel pits, 
 and the manifold branches of indoor labour in work- 
 houses, have all been devised ; that, if possible, by the 
 products of their industry, their surplus people might 
 earn for themselves their subsistence, or a part of their 
 subsistence. The .conception is prevalent all over, and 
 has been endlessly diversified into various ingenuities, 
 alike amiable and abortive. The platting of straw, 
 and picking of hemp, and various sorts of millinery 
 and hand manufactures, have all been tried and found 
 wanting. The eflect is a general depression in the 
 price of the prepared article, whatever it may be ; or 
 
INCREASE AND LIMIT OF EMPLOYMENT. 59 
 
 if the article be altogether new, the purchasers who are 
 allured to it are withdrawn from the purchase of other 
 articles. On either supposition, a whole body of regu- 
 lar labourers are impoverished by the weight of these 
 additional products upon the general market ; and so ut- 
 terly fruitless indeed has it turned out as a permanent re- 
 source, that, in despair, the expedient has been abandoned 
 in many parishes, and the extra population are suffered 
 to lead a kind of lazaroni life in idleness, and ia the mis- 
 chief and crime which are attendant upon idleness. The 
 truth is, that if home colonization fail, employment in 
 manufactures is far more likely to fail. By the former, 
 a certain portion at least of sustenance, is drawn from the 
 earth in return for labour ; though inadequate to the full 
 maintenance of the labourers. By the other, something 
 is produced too, but it is not sustenance, but a commodity 
 to be offered in return for sustenance ; and which cannot 
 earn that sustenance for additional labourers, save at the 
 expense of all previous labourers. The home colonist, at 
 work among the inferior soils, may perhaps extract from 
 them three-fourths of his maintenance, and leave the re- 
 maining fourth a burden upon society. The workman 
 in a charity manufacture, burdens society with the whole 
 of his subsistence. The article he prepares becomes 
 cheaper and more plentiful than before ; but he himself 
 becomes the instrument of a general distress, by inducing 
 a dearness and a scarcity on that which is most essential 
 to families.* 
 
 * SeeAppeiklix, B. — On Machinery. ..' 
 
60 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ON THE INCREASE AND LIMIT OF CAPITAL. 
 
 / 
 y 1. We use the term capital, in the sense which is as- 
 signed to it by the great majority of our economists ; not 
 as comprehending all material and moneyed wealth, but 
 only that part of it which is employed in the business of 
 production, and is generally so employed for the purpose 
 of obtaining a profit. Stock is the generic term, of 
 which capital forms only a part. Were a manufacturer 
 to take account of his stock, he would put his dwelling- 
 house, and his furniture, and his clothes, into the invento- 
 ry, along with all other things which belong to him ; but 
 his capital we should restrict to his machinery, and the 
 houses which contain it, and his implements of labour, 
 and the amount of money which he reserved either for 
 the repairs of his trading establishment, or the payment 
 of his labourers. They are these, and not his dwelling- 
 house or furniture, which obtain for him the profit that 
 constitutes his revenue. By laying up part of this profit, 
 instead of spending the whole of it, he may add to his 
 capital; and we hold it one of the most important inqui- 
 ries in political economy, what the circumstances are 
 which promote or limit the augmentation of an element 
 that enters so largely into the views and reasonings of the 
 science.* 
 
 * Capital, as an instrument of production, is conceived to be bound 
 up by means of agricultural improvement, with every piece of land, 
 on the permanent amelioration of which, certain sums have been ex- 
 pended. And that part of the produce, which would have been 
 yielded independently of this improvement, is ascribed, not to the 
 capital which has been laid out upon the farm, but to the original 
 powers of the soil, 
 
INCREASE AND LIMIT OF CAPITAL. 61 
 
 2. Capital behooved to make an early appearance in 
 the history of human society. The rudest implement 
 that was first used in preparing the ground for the recep- 
 tion of seed, possessed all the essential attributes of capi- 
 tal. If by the direct application of human hands to the 
 soil, the requisite treatment of it could have been as 
 easily effected, as with the intervention of tools and in- 
 struments, these latter would never have been employed. 
 But the contrary of this was soon found ; and when the 
 branch of a tree w^as broken off, and rightly fashioned 
 for scratching the surface of the earth, even at this rudi- 
 mental stage do we behold the application of capital to 
 agriculture. This primitive expedient for facilitating 
 human labour, and making it more effective, exemplified 
 the functions and the benefit of capital as distinctively as 
 do the spade or the plough that have superseded it, or as 
 does all the various and complicated apparatus of modern 
 husbandry.^^ 
 
 3. Having, for the first time, introduced the element 
 of profit to the notice of our readers, we think it right to 
 premise this part of our argument with two distinct no- 
 tices regarding it. 
 
 4. The first is, that though profit enters as a distinct 
 ingredient into the price of every article, yet that article 
 may be supplied in far greater abundance, and, as it re- 
 gards manufactured commodities, may be afforded far 
 more cheaply to the consumer than if there had been no 
 capital applied to the production of it, and, consequently, 
 no room for the imposition of such a charge. Even 
 though it should require the constant labour of one man 
 to make and to repair a plough, and the constant labour 
 of another to use it, yet if, with one plough, as great an 
 amount of work can be performed as with the mere han- 
 diwork of ten men, then, out of the maintenance of ten 
 men, a liberal profit might well be afforded to the capi- 
 talist, and a large surplus produce, over and above, be 
 afforded to the country. It is thus that capital, in the 
 shape of farm utensils of various sorts, by opening a 
 descent to inferior soils, has inconceivably augmented 
 the produce of the land, and so enabled it to maintain a 
 
 6* 
 
62 INCREASE AND LIMIT OF CAPITAL. 
 
 vastly lar^e population. And furthermore, capital, by 
 superadding mechanical to manual labour, has so aug- 
 mented the amount of manufactured articles, that, not- 
 withstanding the charge of profit to which it has given 
 rise, both the luxuries and the second necessaries of life 
 are furnished in mucli greater profusion, as well as greater 
 cheapness, to society. 
 
 • 5. Our next notice in regard to profit is, that it has 
 the efiect of attaching the services of the disposable 
 population to other masters, beside the mere landed pro- 
 prietors. We beheve, that, in a country constituted like 
 ours, the latter will engross by far the largest proportion 
 of these services. Yet every man elevated above the 
 condiiion of the working classes has, more or less, the 
 command of them. Every man whose expenditure reach- 
 es higher than the necessaries of life, has a certain amount 
 of enjoyment ministered to him, by one or more of the 
 disposable population. Their ofHce is the preparation 
 of luxuries ; and, when one looks to the style, and the 
 splendour, and the establishment of merchants and manu- 
 facturers, it is obvious that they are admitted to a consi- 
 derable share in the services of this class, along with the 
 proprietors of land. 
 
 6. With these prehminary remarks, we may now inquire 
 — What the real power of capital is for the maintenance 
 of a people ? There is nothing more constantly affirmed, 
 in the writings of political economists, than the connexion 
 between these two elements : " The power of a country 
 to maintain a population, is in proportion to its capital." 
 " Increase the capital, and you increase its power to em- 
 ploy and to remunerate labour." " Capital is the fund, 
 out of which the wages of labour are paid, and labourers 
 are supported." These are so many diiferent expressions 
 for an oft-repeated aphorism in political science. Now, 
 capital is the fruit of accumulation ; and one might be 
 led to imagine, from such representations, as if the fru- 
 gality of merchants were the primary fountain head, 
 whence issued forth all the comfort and subsistence of 
 labourers. At this rate, indefinite parsimony would be 
 followed up by the indefinitely-augmenting power of 
 
INCREASE AND LIMIT OF CAPITAL. 63 
 
 maintaining labour ; and, through the medium of per- 
 sonal economy, an unobstructed highway would be 
 opened to increasing and successive enlargements in the 
 amount of the population, or in the general sufficiency 
 of their circumstances. This is the unequivocal impres- 
 sion given by the reasonings of Dr. Smith, on the subject 
 of capital, and the methods of its increase.* There are 
 checks to this progress, which he has either altogether 
 overlooked, or at least forborne to dwell upon, and bring 
 prominently forward. The rationale of a country's ad- 
 vancement in wealth and economic prosperity, has thus 
 been misconceived. The limits, placed by nature and 
 necessity in the way of this advancement, have not been 
 sufficiently regarded ; and more especially has it been 
 thought, that there was a creative and an emanating 
 power in capital, which could overleap these limits, and 
 form a guarantee against all the evils that have been as- 
 cribed to redundant population. 
 
 7. And on this subject, too, we might learn a lesson 
 at that place in the science where so many other of its 
 lessons are to be gathered ; even at the margin of sepa- 
 ration between the cultivated and the uncultivated land. 
 We have already seen that cultivation cannot be speeded 
 forward beyond this margin, at a rate faster than the im- 
 provement in the powers of labour enables the land of 
 next inferior quality to feed the agricultural labourers and 
 
 * " Every prodigal appears to be a public enemy, and every frugal 
 man a public benefactor." " Parsimony, and not industry, is tbe im- 
 mediate cause of the increase of capital." " Parsimony, by increas- 
 ing the fund which is destined for the maintenance of productive 
 hands, tends to increase the number of these hands." " By what a 
 frugal man annually saves, he not only affords maintenance to an 
 additional number of productive hands, for that of the ensuing year, 
 but, like the founder of a public work-house, he establishes, as it 
 were, a perpetual fund, for the maintenance of an equal number in 
 all times to come." — Wealth of Nations. 
 
 These, and similar passages, taken together, certainly give the im- 
 pression of an indefinite power, in indefinite parsimony, to carry the 
 capital of a country, and its power to maintain labourers, beyond any 
 limit which can be assigned. This has, accordingly, been contended 
 for by several of Smith's commentators, in formal and express argu- 
 ment. 
 
64 INCREASE AND LIMIT OF CAPITAL* 
 
 their secondaries. If, by an undue increase of populatioHj 
 the cultivation is forced a greater way than this, then the 
 land last entered on is not able to repay its cultivation, 
 and distress is felt in die country because there are too 
 many men. But as surely as there might be too many 
 ploughmen, so there might be too many ploughs. If, in 
 virtue of the excessive number of ploughmen, all cannot 
 find employment, without forcing an entrance upon soils 
 that would return inadequate wages for the labour, so, in 
 virtue of the excessive number of ploughs, all cannot find 
 employment without a like return of inadequate profit for 
 the capital. Nay, profit forms such a fraction in the 
 price of most articles, that a large fluctuation of price 
 might not only diminish profit, but annihilate it, or even, 
 by the conversion, as in algebra, of positive into negative, 
 might transmute the profit into loss. It appears, from 
 this instance, that just as agriculture might be overladen 
 by an excess of labour, so might it be overladen by an 
 excess of capital. And at the extreme boundary of culti- 
 vation, might there be distinctly seen the operation of that 
 check which opposes the indefinite advancement of both. 
 Diminish the wages of agricultural labour beneath a cer- 
 tain rate, and ploughmen will cease to be multiplied. 
 Diminish the profit of agricultural capital beneath a cer- 
 tain rate, or, still more surely, annihilate profit, and 
 ploughs will cease to be multiplied. Both the popula- 
 tion and the capital are here brought alike to a stand ; 
 and, at the point now specified, both are alike impotent 
 for the purpose of enlarging the wealth of the country. 
 The boasted power of capital for the maintenance of la- 
 bour is, in this instance at least, found to be an illusion. 
 There is no virtue in the excess of ploughs to maintain 
 the excess of ploughmen. Nothing but an adequate re- 
 turn from the soil can uphold either ; and for want of 
 this, each excess must at length disappear, it being as true 
 of the capital as of the population, that it is heavier than 
 the land can bear. 
 
 8. Now, what is true of agricultural, is true also of 
 manufacturingcapital. If, as we have found already, 
 there may be too many manufacturing labourers, so may 
 
INCREASE AND LIMIT OF CAPITAL. 65 
 
 there be too many manufacturing implements of labour. 
 On the former taking place, there is work done by hu- 
 man hands, without the return of an adequate human 
 subsistence ; and so a diminution of the population. On 
 the latter taking place, there is work done by pieces of 
 machinery, without the return of an adequate profit to 
 their owners; and so a diminution of their capital. What 
 is true of the living, is true of the inanimate instruments ; 
 both might be unduly multiplied. As there might be too 
 many men, so might there be too many machines; too 
 many power looms, as well as too many weavers at hand 
 looms ; too many cotton mills, as well as too many cot- 
 ton spinners. There is a check to the one, in the lessen- 
 ing of wages; and in every way as sure a check to the 
 other, in the lessening of profits. They have not looked 
 far onward, who speak of the power which lies in capital 
 to employ and to maintain labour. They have looked 
 only to the first step in the process ; that at which the 
 capitalist enlists workmen into his service ; and for one 
 year, or one term, can pay them liberally and well. They 
 have not looked to the second step ; that at which the 
 return is made by them who purchase and use the com- 
 modity that has been thus manufactured. If this return 
 be not an adequate one, the capital is not replaced ; and, 
 after a single revolution of the economic cycle, it again 
 starts in diminished magnitude, and with a proportionally 
 diminished power for the maintenance of labour. 
 
 9. There has recently been proposed a just and feli- 
 citous distinction, between the work done by human 
 hands, and that done by tools, or machinery of any sort. 
 The one is called the product of immediate, the other the 
 product of antecedent labour. Under this view or con- 
 ception of the matter, it will perhaps be more readily seen, 
 that there may be a redundancy of capital as well as of 
 population. In respect of there being more of both than 
 there can be obtained any adequate return for, there is a 
 complete identity between them. If there may be too 
 much of immediate, so also may there be too much of an- 
 tecedent labour, brought to bear both on agriculture and 
 manufactures. Agriculture cannot be extended, unless 
 
66 INCREASE AND LIMIT OF CAPITAL. 
 
 the additional land that is taken in be able not only to 
 feed the ploughmen, but also the makers of the plough. 
 A manufacture cannot be extended, unless the additional 
 commodity produced will more than exchange for the 
 maintenance both of the workers of the machine, and the 
 makers of the machine that is employed. In each case a 
 return must be yielded, v/hich shall both maintain the im- 
 mediate labourers, and also remunerate the outlay that 
 was expended, in maintaining the antecedent labourers. 
 There is occasionally an excess of both : and the effect, 
 in the one case is the distress and diminution of work- 
 men ; in the other, the distress of capitalists, and the di- 
 minution of capital. 
 
 10. The reasoning is just as applicable to moneyed as 
 to material capital. There is nothing in the intervention 
 of this new element to affect our conclusion. Money, 
 when consisting of the precious metals, is itself viewed as 
 a commodity. It may rather be regarded, as that which 
 possesses the property, or the power of lifting all commo- 
 dities ; or, under the very general aspect, of being that 
 which enables its possessor to lift by purchase, any com- 
 modities which may be presented, or which may be had 
 for sale, the quantity thus lifted depending on the rela- 
 tive value which obtains between the money and the com- 
 modity in question. It is of no consequence to any infe- 
 rence of ours, whether gold or paper be the instrument of 
 exchange, or, in other words, what the substratum of 
 money is ; of as little consequence truly, as what the 
 material is on which an order for payment shall happen 
 to be written. Enough that it is an effectual order ; and, 
 however interesting the other questions may be which 
 relate to currency and its fluctuations, it is sufficient, for 
 the determination of our particular question, that the ex- 
 isting currency, whether paper or metallic, possesses for 
 the time being, a certain power of lifting all such articles 
 as are presented in a market, and so has the substantial 
 functions of a circulating medium. 
 
 11. Let us now imagine the sum received by any 
 merchant or manufacturer, at his great annual sale, to be 
 ©leven thousand pounds j of which he allocates one thou« 
 
INCREASE AND LIMIT OF CAPITAL. Q1 
 
 sand to the expenses of his family, and reserves ten thou- 
 sand for the continuation of his business. This latter 
 sum he may be conceived to lay out in the repairs of his 
 material capital, and in the maintenance of his workmen, 
 who repeat the course of the by-gone year, that is, work 
 up the same commodities for their employer ; and which, 
 if he again sell them for eleven thousand pounds, will 
 enable him to start with the same advantage, and to enter 
 on another rotation, in precisely the same circumstances 
 as before. 
 
 12. The length of such rotations varies exceedingly 
 in different trades, though they may all be generalized 
 into one summary expression; and the world of trade 
 may be conceived to revolve in what we shall call an 
 economic cycle, which accomplishes one revolution, by 
 business coming round again through its successive 
 transactions, to the point from which it set out. Its 
 commencement may be dated from the point at which 
 the capitalist has obtained those returns, by which his 
 capital is replaced to him: whence he proceeds anew, to 
 engage his workmen ; to distribute among them, in 
 wages, their maintenance, or rather the power of lifting 
 it ; to obtain from them, in finished work, the articles in 
 which he specially deals; to bring these articles to mar- 
 ket, and there terminate the orbit of one set of movements, 
 by effecting a sale, and receiving in its proceeds a return 
 for the whole outlays of the period. 
 
 13. There is nothing in the intervention of money 
 which should disguise the real character of this opera- 
 tion. If landed proprietors be the chief customers for 
 the commodities in question, they do not just give, on 
 the instant, the ipsa corpora of their wealth; but they 
 give what is equivalent, a lifting power to a certain ex- 
 tent, or an order to a certain amount, for the produce of 
 their land. This passes from the hand of the capitalist 
 to the hand of his workmen ; and they, on presenting it 
 at a shop or a market, just get in food, that chief article of 
 maintenance, the proper and essential return for their la- 
 bour. It must be obvious then, that principally with the 
 holders of this maintenance is lodged the power of re- 
 
68 INCREASE AND LIMIT OP CAPITAL. 
 
 placing the outlays of the capitalist. His power to 
 uphold, and still more to extend production on the one 
 side, is mainly dependent on their power of affording 
 him equivalents for his products upon the other. Eco- 
 nomists have looked too exclusively to the accumulations 
 of the merchant, as if these could indefinitely advance the 
 wealth of a land. They have not enough considered 
 the nature or the limits of that replacing power, which 
 lies in the hands of his customers. They have calcula- 
 ted too much on his ability to produce, without at the 
 same time calculating on their ability to purchase. It is 
 thus that the check to the augmentation of capital,has 
 not been sufficiently kept in view ; and the most sanguine 
 and splendid anticipations have been indulged, respect- 
 ing the progress of society, without sufficient regard to 
 those immovable barriers which nature and necessity 
 have placed in its way. 
 
 14. In the first place, it is abundantly obvious, that 
 mere accumulation by merchants or manufacturers, can 
 only go a certain way, and, without the concurrence of 
 other causes, must be speedily arrested. The capitalist 
 often thousand pounds, who, upon its whole outlay, has 
 eleven thousand pounds returned to him annually, can 
 afford to spend a thousand pounds in the year, and to 
 maintain, in a stationary condition, the principal which 
 belongs to him. But it may happen, that the taste for 
 accumulation shall prevail over the taste for splendour or 
 comfort. Let him reduce his yearly expenditure from a 
 thousand pounds to eight hundred, and he will be able to 
 vest an additional two hundred pounds in his business. 
 And he may succeed by this, in realizing a proportional 
 increase of revenue, seeing that no individual parsimony 
 of his can sensibly affect the general rate of profit in the 
 country. But suppose that the same passion for accu- 
 mulation should seize upon all the capitalists in the land. 
 Let the whole sum invested by them in trade be ten mil- 
 lions ; and their united revenue, with a profit of ten per 
 cent, will be one million. Should all this revenue be 
 spent, both the capital and the profit will remain stationa- 
 ry. But if, in virtue of the change which we now ima- 
 
INCREASE AND LIMIT OF CAPITAL. 69 
 
 gine— a change in the average taste and will of mer- 
 chants— one-fifth of this revenue were saved, and em- 
 ployed in giving additional extent to their business ; 
 then, at the next revolution of the economic cycle, in- 
 stead of ten millions, we should behold ten milhons and 
 two hundred thousand pounds vested in trade. The 
 parsimony of one, or a few individuals, could have no 
 noticeable eifect; but such a general parsimony would 
 tell most sensibly on the rate of profit. The truth is, 
 that, all other circumstances remaining the same, the 
 revenue of merchants would fall, and that to the very 
 extent in which they had enlarged their capital. For 
 the one saving of two hundred thousand pounds, they 
 would just lose this sum yearly in all time coming. 
 The producing power of manufactures would be extended 
 by this accumulation of theirs, but the returning power 
 of consumers may remain unaltered. There would be 
 more goods brought to market than before, but the whole 
 price given for them may not be greater than before. 
 Anterior to the general saving that we now imagine, 
 capitalists, for the prime cost of ten millions receive, in 
 the whole price of their commodities, eleven millions. 
 But since that saving, they, for the prime cost of ten 
 millions two hundred thousand pounds, receive the same 
 sum of eleven millions. By the saving in question, they 
 have become at once richer in capital, and poorer in 
 revenue. For the two hundred thousand pounds which 
 they have added to the one, they have sustained a greatly 
 overpassing loss ; for they have taken two hundred thou- 
 sand, and that yearly, from the other. It might be safe 
 and profitable for one capitalist, or a certain fractional 
 number of them, to accumulate. But a general accu- 
 mulation cannot take place, save at the expense of the 
 general revenue of capitalists. It is true that, so long 
 as agriculture is in progress, there might be yearly ad- 
 ditions to the returning or replacing power, by which as 
 large, or a larger revenue, might be afforded to a still 
 enlarging capital. But when the progress of agriculture 
 becomes slow and difficult, or, most of all, when it 
 touches upon the extreme limit, then the impotency of 
 
 7 
 
70 INCREASE AND LIMIT OF CAPITAL. 
 
 accumulation on the part of capitalists must be severely 
 felt. Each new investiture, in fac't, will then be followed 
 up by an adverse reaction, or recoil upon themselves. 
 As they grow in capital, they will decline in revenue. 
 There is no escaping from this consequence, after that 
 the returning power has become stationary. Every ad- 
 dition to capital causes just a permanent yearly abstrac- 
 tion of the same amount from revenue; and the same 
 return, on a larger prime cost is all which the capitalists 
 reap for their pains. Society obtains their enjoyments 
 at a cheaper rate when, by an overdone competition 
 among capitalists, each strains at becoming richer than 
 before. But if there be no increase in the wealth of cus- 
 tomers, capitalists cannot persevere in such a walk of spe- 
 culation, without impoverishment and ruin to many of 
 themselves. 
 
 15. We may now see what the check is to an indefi- 
 nite accumulation on the part of capitalists. If the return- 
 ing power be represented by eleven millions, it is obvious 
 that the capital vested in business cannot go beyond it. 
 At ten millions, it would command a profit of one million 
 to the capitalists ; and, if they choose to accumulate to a ca- 
 pital above this, they may successively advance it up to ten 
 millions one hundred thousand, ten millions two hundred 
 thousand, ten millions three hundred thousand, or ten 
 millions four hundred thousand pounds : in which case, 
 they would as surely reduce their collective income to 
 nine, or eight, or seven, or six hundred thousand pounds. 
 They might even, by the mere force of their own accu- 
 mulations, bring up the capital indefinitely near to the 
 eleven millions, but with the sure effect of bringing down 
 this revenue indefinitely near to annihilation. Could 
 they afford to live on nothing, they might push forward 
 the capital to eleven millions, and annihilate profits en- 
 tirely. Or if, from some other source than their accumu- 
 lations, capital were still farther extended, and so as to 
 overpass the eleven millions, profit would be converted 
 into loss, and there would take place the absorption of a 
 yearly excess. At the termination of the economic cycle, ca 
 pital would constantly revert to eleven millions. Whatever 
 the amount of capital may be, which, at the commencement 
 
INCREASE AND LIMIT OF CAPITAL. 71 
 
 of the economic cycle, merchants and manufacturers are 
 able to advance, its amount, in the end, must of necessity 
 be limited by what customers are able to return. 
 
 16. This brings into view a most important element, 
 which hitherto has scarcely been admitted into the consi- 
 deration of profit. We are abundantly familiar with the 
 idea, that the rate of wages is dependent on the average 
 standard of enjoyment among labourers. But we have 
 not been so accustomed to think of the rate of profit, as 
 depending on the average standard of enjoyment among 
 capitalists. Nevertheless, it is actually so. It is a ques- 
 tion with every individual capitalist, whether he shall spend 
 the whole revenue of the current year, or how much of it he 
 shall reserve, for the purpose of vesting it in trade, and so 
 giving additional extension to his business, or, finally, 
 whether he shall expend more than his revenue, and so 
 trench upon his capital? This question turns precisely 
 on the balance between two appetites of his nature; be- 
 tween the appetite for eventual gain, and the appetite for 
 present comfort. Should the latter prevail, and prevail 
 generally, capital would be kept down, and profit be sus- 
 tained. Should the latter prevail, and also prevail gene- 
 rally, capital would be augmented, and profit be depress- 
 ed. It does not affect this conclusion, that the highway 
 to fortune, on the part of the individual merchant, is to 
 save as much, and spend as little of his revenue as he can. 
 It is true of every single capitalist, that he is all the rich- 
 er by saving than spending ; and that, under any given 
 rate of profit, or with any given general habit on the part 
 of capitalists. But it is not true that capitalists collec- 
 tively, will become richer by saving than hy spending; 
 for, on their general habit, the rate of profit immediately 
 and essentially depends. Could they eflectuate a combi- 
 nation amongst themselves, they might uphold, at their 
 general and collective pleasure, the rate of profit and in- 
 terest in the land. But they are not able to achieve so 
 extensive a concert, nor would its members be individu- 
 ally faithful in their observation of it ; and this is not the 
 only instance, in which the good of society is secured by 
 the impossibility of combinations. Meanwhile, nothing 
 can be truer, than that just as the wages of labour depend 
 
72 INCREASE AND LIMIT OF CAPITAL. 
 
 on the collective taste and will of labourers, so the profits 
 of stock depend on the collective taste and will of capi- 
 talists. With this view, profits are what capitalists in the 
 aggregate choose to make them. And however little the 
 rate of profit may have been associated in the minds of 
 economists, with the standard of enjoyment in the middle 
 classes of society, yet, ultimately and efficiently, this is 
 precisely the element on which it turns.* 
 
 * Mr. Thomas Perronet Thomson has, with his accustomed shrewd- 
 ness, noticed this connexion, and thus felicitously remarks upon it : — 
 
 " And as opinions and habits determine the final or average pro- 
 portion, which shall be maintained between the numbers of the la- 
 bouring population and the funds for their support, or in other words, 
 determine the average rate of wages ; so they also determine the ave- 
 rage rate of profits of stock, which are only the wages of another de- 
 scription of labourers, consisting partly of the recompense of present 
 labour, exerted in the form of superintendence, and partly of the re- 
 compense^ of past labour exerted in the creation of their capital. Pub- 
 lic opinion and custom require, for example, that a shopkeeper shall 
 have a good coat ; shall drink at all times malt liquor, and sometimes 
 wine, and give them to his neighbours; that his wife and daughters, 
 if he has any, shall wear clean linen, and moreover not wash it them- 
 selves ; and that when they travel, it shall be by the stage coach, and 
 not by the wagon. Though he may do without some or other of 
 these things, in a certain degree, when necessity presses, he cannot 
 and will not do without them in the main. If, therefore, he is a man 
 of foresight, he will at all events defer adding to the population of 
 shopkeepers, till he sees a fair prospect of supporting a family in the 
 way which public opinion pronounces to be respectable. But if he 
 engages in it without foresight, he will keep down the population of 
 shopkeepers in another way ; for he will break. Bankruptcy is the 
 check to the indefinite multiplication of traders, as the evils arising 
 from diminished food are the check to the indefinite multiplication of 
 the lower classes of labourers. In the same manner, if the higher or- 
 der of traders would, or could, do without a certain rate of expendi- 
 ture, they might remit something of their rate of profits. If a great 
 brewer, for example, would drive his family to the two shilling gal- 
 lery in one of his own drays ; or a banker be content, as in India, to 
 sit on a mud floor in the shop of his forefathers, and retire to swallow 
 rice with the condiment of ghee, there would be some chance of the 
 thing being brought to pass. But the crowning city has deteranned, 
 that her merchants shall be princes, and her traffickers the honour- 
 able of the earth ; and they neither can, nor will resist the award. 
 The opinion of society, therefore, is what, in the long run, determines 
 and keeps up the rate of recompense in this class, as well as in the 
 other ; and though there may be individual exceptions, men in gene- 
 ral will break, sooner than not live up to what is expected from them. 
 The difficulty is not in finding men to liye up to this m^rk ; but iu 
 
I]N CREASE AND LIMIT OF CAPITAL. 73 
 
 17. But it will demonstrate still more forcibly and 
 clearly the limit to accumulation, if we reflect that the 
 power of accumulating is not confined to capitalists, but 
 that it may be, and often is, exemplified by their custom- 
 ers ; and more especially by those who are the chief con- 
 sumers of luxuries, and who have it therefore in their 
 power to economise the use of them. We can imagine 
 that part of our capital, which is connected with the in- 
 dustry of the disposable population, to amount to ten 
 millions, being the prime cost of all the goods wrought 
 up by this class of labourers, which enter into one revo- 
 lution of the economic cycle. Should these be met by a 
 returning power of eleven millions, the capital is fully 
 replaced, and with a profit that enables the capitalists to 
 live at d certain rate of luxury and comfort. But if, after 
 the commencement of this revolution, the holders of the 
 returning power had been visited with the inclination to 
 save more and spend less, if a general retrenchment had 
 taken place among them, so that instead of spending 
 eleven millions, they had laid up five, and had only as- 
 signed six millions to the purchase of those articles which 
 had been brought to market at the expense of ten millions, 
 
 finding men who will live within their means. The profits of stock, 
 like wages, may be momentarily elevated or depressed, by the fluctu- 
 ations, in the proportion between the business to be done, and the 
 men who are to do it. When business is scarce, the competition may, 
 to a certain degree, induce traders to do it at a cheaper rate ; and the 
 contrary. But if the scarcity of business is permanent, traders will 
 begin to go out by the horn gate of bankruptcy, and so the balance 
 will be preserved." — True Tlieory of Rent, 7th edit. pp. 16, 17. 
 
 Mr. Thomson does not, perhaps, advert distinctly enough to over- 
 trading, as a far more copious source of bankruptcy than over living. 
 Under a system of universal parsimony , a permanent scarcity of bu- 
 siness relatively to the capital would ensue, and the horn gate might 
 be far more crowded, than under a liberal system of expenditure on the 
 part of merchants. It is true, that the same general recklessness which 
 leads men to overspend, might lead them to overspeculate ; but it is 
 far more to the latter, than the former habit, that our bankruptcies are 
 owing. On the other hand, the same caution which restrains a man 
 from spending beyond his revenue, may restrain him from trading 
 beyond his capital ; as perhaps in Holland. It is from the latter exer- 
 cise of caution, greatly more than from the former, that bankruptcies 
 are so rare in that country. 
 
 7* 
 
74 INCREASE AND LIMIT OF CAPITAL. 
 
 it is quite evident, that, in this instance, the original ca* 
 pitalists of these ten millions would find the market sadly 
 overladen, at least with their commodities. They had 
 enlisted into the service of their difierent establishments 
 a disposable population, whose office it is to work up 
 luxuries for those who are enabled by their revenues to 
 purchase them. But should a taste for luxury give place 
 to a taste for accmnulation, in the degree that we have 
 now specified, it is obvious, that the lessening of the ef- 
 fective demand from eleven to six millions, must just have 
 the effect of lessening in this proportion, the price of their 
 commodities. And, so far from its being in their power 
 by parsimony, or in any other way, indefinitely to extend 
 the capital in their hands ; we find that this is not only 
 limited by the power of their customers, but that, by a 
 change in the will or taste of these customers, this capital 
 could be wrested to any given extent away from them, 
 
 18. To intercept all evasions, it may be right to trace 
 the effect of this change a little farther. The sum of five 
 millions, that we conceive to have been laid up by landed 
 proprietors, is not therefore hoarded. Generally, it 
 would be deposited in hands which lay it out in quest of 
 gain, or on production, for the sake of a profit. We 
 are aware of its being equally spent in either way. But, 
 whereas formerly it wont to be spent as revenue, and 
 with an immediate view to consumption, now it is spent 
 as capital, and with an immediate view to production. 
 Let this conversion of revenue into capital be supposed 
 to have taken place at the commencement, or along the 
 progress, of the one economic revolution, which we sup- 
 pose to have been signalized by the change in question. 
 Then it had been possible, that, prior to the result of a 
 market overstocked with luxuries, and the price of them 
 falling to the level of the reduced demand, this sum of 
 five millions might have been, imprudently or unfore- 
 seeingly, vested in the manufacture of luxuries^ — when, 
 with fifteen millions expended on their preparation, and 
 a returning power of only six millions to replace this 
 outlay, the failure in the speculation behooved to be all 
 the more signal. But, though this conversion of revenue 
 
INCREASE AND LIMIT OF CAPITAL. 75 
 
 into capital had not taken place till the economic cycle 
 had fully revolved, still there would have been but a 
 return of six millions to a cost of ten millions; and a 
 reduction to this extent behooved to have taken place in 
 the capital of the original manufacturers. Or, allowing 
 them, as before, a million a year for their maintenance, 
 they could only begin their operations anew with a capi- 
 tal of five millions. So that this conversion of revenue 
 into capital by consumers, has not increased the capital 
 of the country. It has only shifted it into other hands. 
 The sum of five millions, that formerly wont to be spent, 
 is saved ; or, in other words, instead of going to replace 
 capital in its old situation, it has gone to create capital 
 in a new situation. The whole difference is, that, instead 
 of being returned, it has been retained ; and for the ori- 
 ginal capitalists in the possession often millions, we now 
 behold their capital reduced to five, and the remaining 
 five in the possession of so many customers, who, by their 
 savings, have enriched themselves, but only to the extent 
 in which the others have been impoverished. 
 
 19 We may pursue this hypothetical case a little fur- 
 ther. The manufacturers of luxuries must now reduce 
 their establishments in the proportion of the reduced de- 
 mand. Should only six millions' worth of the commo- 
 dities in which they deal continue to be bought, from 
 year to year, they have still capital enough left for this 
 extent of business. But, meanwhile, the sum of five 
 millions, now in the hands of their old customers, waits 
 for a profitable occupation ; and, in seeking after it, they 
 will have been effectually warned, by the losses of their 
 predecessors, from the manufacture of luxuries. Let us 
 now, then, turn from this department of business, that 
 has just rejected the excess of capital, wherewith it was 
 overladen, and try to imagine a settlement for the new- 
 formed capital, in some other branch of the national in- 
 dustry. And there is a great, and withal a distinct de- 
 partment of this sort, where are prepared, not the luxu- 
 ries of life for the wealthy, but the second necessaries of 
 life for the general population. This sum will be super- 
 added to the capital already vested in that species of 
 
76 INCREASE AND LIMIT OP CAPITAL. 
 
 industry, which we may suppose to have been previously 
 of the amount of ten milhons. It will thus be made to 
 attain the magnitude of fifteen milhons. By this change, 
 the sum of five millions is withdrawn from the support of 
 industry in the third class of labourers, and transferred 
 to the support of industry in the second class. The la- 
 bourers, on the whole, will have the same money, but 
 not more distributed among them as formerly ; though a 
 great change will be effected in the distribution of their 
 industry, half the disposable population being taken off 
 from the manufacture of luxuries, and passing into the se- 
 condary population, whose employment is the manufacture 
 of second necessaries. At all events, the great customers 
 for the second necessaries, the labourers, will not be able to 
 make larger offers of money in the market for them than 
 they wont; that is, if, in the purchase of second necessa- 
 ries, they could only afford to pay eleven millions pre- 
 vious to this change, this is all the sum which they can 
 afford still. Formerly, they replaced the capital of ten 
 millions, and afforded an additional million in profit 
 for the livelihood of the capitalists. They would now 
 fall short of replacing the capital of fifteen millions, em- 
 barked in the preparation of second necessaries, by the 
 sum of four millions. The capitalists who dealt in second 
 necessaries, allowing them one miUion to live upon, would 
 only be able to start, as before, with ten millions, and 
 that notwithstanding the investiture of an additional five 
 millions at the commencement of the last economic cycle 
 in their business. Such a yearly investiture, in fact, all 
 other circumstances remaining the same, would be fol- 
 lowed up by a regular yearly extinction of the sum in- 
 vested. There would of course, so long as it continued, 
 be an unnatural cheapness of the second necessaries. 
 Let the wealthy stint themselves to one-half of their usual 
 luxuries, and then vest the produce of their economy in 
 the manufacture of second necessaries, and this were tan- 
 tamount to a gratuitous distribution, to that extent, of 
 additional second necessaries among the general popula- 
 tion. The additional investiture of five millions, calling 
 forth no additional return from the purchasers, is, in ef- 
 
INCREASE AND LIMIT OF CAPITAL. 77 
 
 feet, equivalent to a gift of five millions' worth shared 
 among them. It is not necessary to strengthen our argu- 
 ment, by supposing the taste for accumulation to extend 
 also among the common people. They would certainly 
 be enabled to indulge this taste, by the cheapness of all 
 the second necessaries, and might, if they so chose, spend 
 less than their wonted sum on the purchase, and yet be 
 as well clothed and lodged as formerly. This, as far as 
 it went, would reduce their return for the fifteen millions 
 to a less sum than the eleven millions, and serve to en- 
 hance still more the proof of an utter powerlessness on 
 the part of indefinite parsimony to create or to sustain an 
 indefinitely increasing capital. 
 
 20. As capital, then, would not continue to rush into 
 a business where the goods, from the excess and super- 
 fluity of their production, sold for less than prime cost, 
 we may now, with all safety, conclude, that the five mil- 
 lions annually saved by the landed proprietors, and which 
 had been rejected from the manufacture of luxuries, would 
 be equally rejected from the manufacture of second neces- 
 saries. And should the saving continue to be made, 
 there only remains another great department on which to 
 try the investiture of this sum. After having sought in 
 vain for the profitable occupation of itself in the business 
 of the disposable and secondary classes, we may now 
 suppose, for a moment, that it has found a landing-place 
 in agriculture. In this case, half the disposable popula- 
 tion, withdrawn from their old employment, would be 
 turned to the new employment of cultivating the land, 
 spreading tillage over a greater extent than before among 
 soils which had been yet unbroken, and carrying it to a 
 greater depth and perfection than before, in the soils that 
 had previously been entered on. It should be recollected 
 that, previous to this accumulation and its investiture, 
 the agriculture had been already carried forward to that 
 limit which has so often met our notice ; and from the 
 contemplation we may again draw an important lesson, 
 even that there is a like limit to the extension of capital. 
 But, before adverting to this limit, we would remak, in 
 the first instance, that, if the agricultural capital, pre** 
 
78 INCREASE AND LIMIT OF CAPITAL. 
 
 viously to this new investiture, was ten millions, it now 
 becomes fifteen millions. And as there is nothing in 
 this change which can immediately, and at once, furnish 
 the general population with a greater returning power 
 than before, there would only, for one year at least, be a 
 return of ten millions for the now extended investiture of 
 fifteen millions. We believe, that, in this department of 
 business, the loss would be greatly aggravated by the 
 circumstance of the great increase that must at first take 
 place in the food of the country, without an instant cor- 
 responding increase of population. This would cheapen 
 the article much beneath the rate at which luxuries or 
 second necessaries would be cheapened, from the same 
 cause of an excess in their production. One can indefi- 
 nitely extend his use of luxuries, or his use of second 
 necessaries, but he cannot indefinitely extend his use of 
 the first necessaries of life. One can treat himself with 
 double the amount of splendid furniture, or use double 
 the amount of clothes, but he cannot eat double the 
 quantity of bread that he wont. It is thus that an excess 
 of food causes a much greater depression of its price 
 than a like excess of most other articles; so that the 
 return for the fifteen millions of capital, now embarked 
 in agriculture, would, we are persuaded, be greatly less 
 than the eleven millions, formerly returned for the ten 
 millions that wont to be embarked in it. This will al- 
 ways form a strong initial barrier in the way of vesting 
 more capital in agriculture than what the state of the 
 country at the time admitted of. No distant anticipa- 
 tions could tempt capitalists very far in this walk of spe- 
 culation, with such a grievous absorption to meet them 
 at the outset, or could tempt men by their savings to be- 
 come capitalists. 
 
 21. But although there were no fall of price from the 
 extension of agriculture beyond its natural limit, there is 
 a sufiicient barrier to this extension in the unproductive- 
 ness of the land which lies beyond it. The agriculture 
 stops where it dees, just because the land of last quality 
 is barely sufficient to repay the expenses of its husbandry ; 
 and, in the existing state of agricultural labour and ma» 
 
INCREASE AND LIMIT OF CAPITAL. 79 
 
 chinery, no land beneath this could be attempted without 
 loss to the cultivator. We might conceive of the next 
 land beneath, that its produce fell short, by one-tenth, of 
 the ability to feed its agricultural labourers and their se- 
 condaries ; or, that it woald require a hundred, made up 
 from both these classes, to raise food for ninety labour- 
 ers. This would obviously increase the whole means of 
 subsistence in the country. By this single instance, 
 there would be food for ninety labourers added to the 
 whole previous amount of the national produce, although 
 it did require the work of a hundred labourers to raise 
 it. Were this instance multiplied into an extensive sys- 
 tem of home colonization, there is no doubt that, in the 
 first instance, there would be a sensible increase of the 
 chief necessaries of life, and a temporary cheapening 
 thereof, to the sensible relief of all the labouring classes in 
 the land. But the increase of population would speedily 
 restore the old price, when we should behold a larger 
 but not a more comfortable peasantry than before ; 
 and the last land, now that the natural limit of cultivation 
 had been forced, only yielding the food of ninety labour- 
 ers in return for the work of a hundred. It may be 
 asked, whence are the ten labourers obtained f The 
 husbandry of these inferior soils not being able to repay 
 itself, must be maintained, either by the voluntary bene- 
 volence of individuals, or by taxation. In either way 
 there is a sacrifice of luxury on the part of the wealthier 
 classes ; or, in other words, so many labourers are with- 
 drawn by this operation from the disposable, and placed 
 in the agricultural or secondary classes. The process 
 by which food has been raised for an additional hundred, 
 has had the effect of at least withdrawing ten from the 
 disposable population. It may be extended to land of 
 the next inferior quality; where, for every additional 
 hundred that can be fed by its produce, twenty must be 
 withdrawn from the disposable population. This may 
 be conceived to go downward, till rent is annihilated, or 
 the last man is withdrawn from a disposable population, 
 now upheld by the landed proprietors. So that home 
 colonization, the moment it passes beneath the limit of 
 
so INCREASE AND LIMIT OF CAPITAL. 
 
 that land which yields a profit to the cultivator, may he 
 regarded as having entered on the first step of a process 
 that, if consummated, would give us a larger population 
 certainly, but a population almost wholly made up of the 
 secondary and agrarian classes ; and, therefore, labour- 
 ing for the supply of a now larger society in the mere 
 necessaries of existence. Meanwhile, the disposable popu- 
 lation must have waned toward its extinction. The 
 community will have gained in numbers, but not in com- 
 fort, even to the general mass of families ; and it will 
 have lost the services which are rendered by the disposa- 
 ble class — a forfeiture this, not merely of the elegances 
 of life to the wealthier classes, but the far heavier forfei- 
 ture of all that can civilize the species, or subserve the 
 purest and highest objects of patriotism.* 
 
 22. But, without here pursuing this speculation so far, 
 we may clearly see how, even at the outset of such a 
 process, there is a limit to the profitable embarkation of 
 additional capital on agriculture. The land which can- 
 not even feed its direct and secondary labourers, will far 
 less yield a remuneration to the capital which landlords 
 may have saved from their revenue ; and which, rejected 
 from two of the great branches of national industry, is 
 vainly endeavouring to find a profitable investment for 
 itself in the greatest and most important of all — the agri- 
 cultural department. The domain of cultivation is, no 
 doubt, gradually widening with the improvements that 
 are ever taking place in the methods of agricultural la- 
 bour. But when capital makes a rash attempt beyond 
 this boundary, it is sure to be absorbed. While landed 
 property continues, and the owners have a free controul 
 over their own movements, this cannot long be submitted 
 to. The landlord will not continue to employ, on a land 
 that brings no return, agricultural labourers, who might, 
 for the sum he is yearly spending in the shape of unpro- 
 ductive capital, be serving him in the capacity of dispo- 
 sable labourers ; and from whose hands he might obtain 
 a substantial return of comfort for the same sum, when 
 
 * See Appendix, C. — On Home Colonization. 
 
INCREASE AND LIMIT OP CAPITAL. 81 
 
 expended in the shape of revenue. Neither will the tenant 
 persist in cultivating land which yields him no profit. 
 There is no escaping- from the conclusion. Accumula- 
 tion, or the conversion of revenue into capital, has its 
 limits in this as well as in every other division of the 
 business of society. In other words, capital is hemmed 
 on all sides by a slowly receding boundary, which it can- 
 not overpass ; and beyond which, if it attempt to enlarge 
 itself, it is broken into surges at the barrier by which it 
 is surrounded.* 
 
 * We may here remark, how extraordinary it is, that the doctrine 
 of the impossibility of a general glut — or, which comes to the same 
 thing, the doctrine, that capital might find indefinite room for its own 
 profitable investiture — should have been strenuously advocated by 
 the disciples of a school, which connects the rate of profit with the 
 return that is yielded to the husbandman by the last cultivated land. 
 It is sufficient, to establish our view of the question, that the land 
 which can afford a rent is of finite quantity, and requires but a finite 
 capital for the full occupation of it. Let the capital then exceed this, 
 and flow over on soils of inferior fertility, and you will soon reach an 
 agriculture, the produce of which cannot even feed the direct and se- 
 condary labourers. This affords a clear example of a return falling 
 short of the outlay, the food produced falling short of the food ex- 
 pended. Now, on the principle, and it is a just one, that the profit 
 on all other business is commensurate with that on agriculture, we 
 shall, in such a state of things, from their general exuberance of 
 capital, have profit converted into loss, or what may be termed a 
 negative profit, repressing this exuberance throughout all the depart- 
 ments of enterprise, and so. keeping down the capital to what the 
 country can bear. 
 
 8 
 
82 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ON THE PARALLEL BETWEEN POPULATION AND CAPI- 
 TAL, BOTH IN RESPECT OF THEIR LIMITS AND 
 THEIR POWERS OF EXPANSION. 
 
 1. We have now abundantly shown how impossible 
 it is to sustain or accumulate capital beyond what a coun- 
 try can bear in the existing state of its agriculture ; though 
 when the agriculture itself extends, every thing else ex- 
 tends along with it. The larger population, consequent 
 on the increase of agricultural produce, demands a larger 
 supply of the second necessaries, and the manufac- 
 ture of these requires additional hands, and the investi- 
 ture of new capital. The increase of rent consequent 
 on the descent among inferior soils, gives to landlords a 
 larger command over the luxuries of life than before ; 
 and hence, a greater disposable population, with room 
 also for the employment of additional capital in this 
 branch of the nation's industry. Only let the agriculture 
 be such that the population may be comfortably fed, and 
 there is no fear of a right distribution for them, falling in 
 as they will, among the agricultural, the secondary, or 
 the disposable classes, just according to circumstances. 
 And there is as little fear of the labourers, in all the 
 three, being rightly proportioned between the immediate 
 and the antecedent.* Too many labourers, on the 
 w^hole, would argue an excess of population ; and too 
 large a proportion of antecedent labourers, would just 
 as certainly argue an excess of capital. The one excess 
 is limited by the impossibility of labourers being subsist- 
 ed beneath a certain rate of wages; and the other excess, 
 as effectually limited by the impossibility of capital being 
 supported beneath a certain rate of profit. Historically, 
 
 * See Chap. IH, Sect. 9. 
 
POPULATION AND CAPITAL. 8^ 
 
 both undergo an increase — but just as the increasing 
 agriculture lets them. Population wont force agricul- 
 ture beyond a certain limit ; but agriculture will ever 
 draw population after it. And the same may be as truly 
 aiSrmed of capital. It wont force agriculture beyond a 
 certain limit; and should it, in the moment of its redun- 
 dancy, seek to do so, it will be sunk or dissipated, and 
 so its excess lopped off. There is a prevalent mistake 
 respecting the order of causation, or the order of antece- 
 dency in this matter. It is not an uncommon imagina- 
 tion, that let capital be only accumulated to any extent, 
 and to that extent it will, without let or obstruction, 
 speed on the agriculture. It were far more correct to 
 say, that agriculture opens room for the occupancy of 
 capital. 
 
 2. We are not blind to the circumstance, that popula- 
 tion, through its excess, and the consequent lowering of 
 wages, opens a way into inferior soils, which, under a 
 higher wage, could not have been entered on — nor to 
 the circumstance that capital, through its excess, and the 
 consequent lowering of profits, causes a similar descent, 
 and so an extension of the agriculture. Even such may 
 be the redundancy of the former, that, in a general dis- 
 tress for provisions, land may be attempted, from which 
 but a miserable subsistence can be wrested ; and such 
 may be the redundancy of the latter that, in the general 
 difficulty for a profitable investment, land may be attempt- 
 ed which, instead of sustaining and extending, extin- 
 guishes the capital that is put upon it. In this view, both 
 population and capital may be regarded as impellent 
 causes for hastening forward the progress of agriculture. 
 Yet it is not the object of a wise policy to stimulate, be- 
 yond the natural incitements to their progress, the increase 
 of either. Grant but a state of security and social order, 
 and the spontaneous tendency, whether of population or 
 of capital, is to increase with a rapidity far beyond the 
 movement of that slowly receding barrier which, ever 
 and anon, is checking the precipitation and repressing 
 the increase of both. And better, we think, than that 
 either should be urged forward against this barrier, by 
 
84 POPULATION AND CAPITAL. 
 
 the inconvenience of a painful excess — better if the secret 
 could be discovered, by which both might be taught to 
 moderate their pace, and to walk in pacific and prosper- 
 ous advancement, side by side with the natural enlarge- 
 ment of agriculture ; that capital, as well as labour, 
 might be saved from those visitations of distress which 
 are sure to come on both, when alike straitened and 
 overborne, each by the weight of its own undue accu- 
 mulation. 
 
 3. There is a parallel between population and capital, 
 which, if more dwelt upon, would rectify the sanguine 
 and extravagant imaginations that are still afloat re- 
 specting the power and indefinite capabilities of the lat- 
 ter ; seeing they are the ver}^ imaginations which at one 
 time prevailed regarding the former. The days once 
 were, when population was the great demand of patriots 
 and political economists ; and accordingly, it w^as held 
 the wisest policy of a state to encourage early marriages, 
 and raise foundling hospitals, and artificially foster in 
 every sort of way this one element of national greatness. 
 The days still are, when capital is the great demand of 
 politicians and philanthropists ; and it is imagined, that 
 by every effort of parsimony, by retrenchment in all di- 
 rections, whether public or private, by accumulation to 
 the uttermost, we may build up to an indefinite extent, 
 this other element of national greatness. The limits of 
 the first are now understood ; and also its own spontane- 
 ous tendency to overpass these limits, so as to supersatu- 
 rate a country, and produce distress among families. 
 The limits of the second are not understood; neither is 
 it seen, how, instead of being the object of an anxious or 
 watchful solicitude on the part of statesmen, it may safely 
 be left to the operation of those natural principles, in 
 virtue of which it is ever tending to its own redundancy, 
 and working by its very excess the infliction of many a 
 heavy misfortune on the capitalists of the land. In this 
 respect, there is no diflerence between immediate and 
 antecedent labour. The one is liable to as great excess 
 as the other. As too many human hands may be work- 
 ing now, and drawing in return an inadequate subsis- 
 
POPULATION AND CAPITAL. 85 
 
 tence, so too many human hands may have been work- 
 ing" last year, and the existent products of their industry, 
 whether in the shape of goods, or instruments of future 
 production, may be drawing a return of gains that are 
 wholly as inadequate. What the action of low wages is 
 upon popukition, so the action of low profit is upon capi- 
 tal. They prevent the increase of both beyond a cer- 
 tain amount. Nay, support in the one case may decline 
 into starvation, and population be lessened in conse- 
 quence ; and profit, in the other case, may be turned 
 into loss, and capital be efiectually lessened also. 
 
 4. But population and capital not only resemble each 
 other in respect of the limit which opposes their indefi- 
 nite augmentation. They are both subject to losses and 
 deficiences beneath this limit, and they resemble each 
 other in respect of the exceeding force and facility where- 
 with these deficiencies are repaired. If, by the operation 
 of disease or war, any sudden and large blank have been 
 made in the population, it is now understood how speedily 
 this vacuum is filled again, by the general translation of 
 the families into better circumstances, and the stimulus 
 given from this cause to a number of marriages that 
 would have otherwise been postponed. And, accordingly, 
 an unwonted number of deaths in one year is followed 
 up, as may be seen from the tables of political arithmetic, 
 by a like unwonted number of births, throughout the 
 short period of a i^ew years thereafter. But it is not ad- 
 verted to, that the deficiencies of capital are repaired by 
 a process still more sudden. Let the whole capital em- 
 barked in glassmaking, for example, be a million of mo- 
 ney, which, if replaced in one revolution of the economic 
 cycle by eleven hundred thousand pounds, would enable 
 the manufacturers to live, and to commence their course 
 anew in the same circumstances as before. But we may 
 conceive one of these manufacturers, with the capital of 
 a hundred thousand, to have withdrawn it from business, 
 and to have squandered it in a fit of extravagance, so 
 that, in a few months, there is not a vestige of his fortune 
 remaining. The common imagination is, that the capital 
 thus wasted by the dissipation of one capitalist can only 
 
 8* 
 
86 POPULATION AND CAPITAL. 
 
 be repaired by a strenuous parsimony on the part of all 
 the rest. But the truth is, it may be repaired, and that 
 in the course of a single twelvemonth, from another cause. 
 There is nothing, generally speaking, in the extravagance 
 of this said glassmaker, that can affect the wealth or 
 ability of his customers. It may lessen, for one year at 
 least, the quantity prepared, but it lessens not the ability 
 to purchase. If eleven hundred thousand pounds were 
 in readiness last year, for buying up the glass that had 
 been manufactured at the expense of a million, there is 
 nothing, in the wasteful expenditure of one of the capi- 
 talists, that can prevent the same sum of eleven hundred 
 thousand pounds from being in readiness next year. 
 The producing power is, for one season, impaired; but 
 the returning power is as great as ever. And the effect 
 is just a rise in the price of the article. When the effec- 
 tive demand is the same as before, the price, averagely 
 speaking, is in the inverse proportion of the quantity 
 brought to market. The price of eleven hundred thou- 
 sand pounds, given last year, in return for the cost of a 
 million, is given this year in return for the cost of nine 
 hundred thousand. The capital is thus restored to its 
 original magnitude ; and that, without any effort or hard 
 straining on the part of the remaining capitalists. The 
 truth is, that to them it has been a prosperous, a holiday 
 season of high prices and flourishing markets. That 
 extravagance which has ruined their brother capitalist, 
 has enriched them. They, in a single year, have fallen 
 both into his profits and his capital. So far from being 
 more painstaking, or penuriously economical than before, 
 they might spend among them the ten thousand pounds 
 which came to him in the shape of revenue, and still in- 
 herit the whole of his capital, or the hundred thousand 
 pounds into the bargain. The glassmaking capital is 
 fully replaced, not with any sacrifice or self-denial on 
 their part, but at the expense of their customers — and 
 with the temporary mischief to these, of a tenth less of 
 the article of glass than they would otherwise have had? 
 
POPULATION AND CAPITAL, 87 
 
 the capital starts again into as great extent and efficiency 
 as before.* 
 
 5. It is thus that, in capital, there is a restorative vir- 
 tue which, as if by the instant force of elasticity, causes 
 it, speedily and spontaneously, to recover the encroach- 
 ments that have been made upon it. Grant but a secure 
 administration of justice, and a well regulated social eco- 
 nomy, and as certainly as the population of a country 
 follows hard upon its food, so certainly does the capital 
 follow hard upon all that business which, in the existing 
 state of things, it is profitable or possible to carry on in 
 it. If in excess, then it over produces ; and, through the 
 medium of consequent low prices, the excess is lopped off 
 in one revolution of the economic cycle. If in defect, 
 then it under produces ; and, through the medium of con- 
 sequent high prices, the deficiency is repaired in one re- 
 volution of the economic cycle. It is thus that, from year 
 to year, the capital may oscillate on each side of the re- 
 turning power ; but the latter is the place to whidr the 
 former is constantly, though tremulously tending ; nor 
 will the vibrations ever go far, or for a great length of 
 time, in either way. The capital, ever adjusting itself to 
 the likely returns, is just the supply ever adjusting itself 
 to the effective demand. And whether that demand be 
 for immediate labour, or for the products of antecedent 
 labour, it will, according to its relative magnitude, act 
 at one time as a check, and at another as an encourage- 
 ment, on population, or on capital, or on both. 
 
 6. The general effect of the reasoning in Dr. Smith's 
 Wealth of Nations, (and that notwithstanding his occa- 
 sional recognitions of the truth,) is to impress the idea, 
 that by accumulation a country makes unceasing ad- 
 
 * Or the capital may be repaired, not at the expense of the cus- 
 tomers, but at the expense of the manufacturing labourers, who, if 
 they all keep by their wonted employments, must be satisfied for one 
 year with a proportional reduction of their wages. In this way 
 the usual quantity of glass may be supplied at the usual price, but 
 with such a profit from the diminished outlay, as to make up the 
 deficiency which had been created in the capital of glassmakers. 
 This subject is treated at greater length in my work on the Christian 
 and Civic Economy of Large Towns, Vol. III. p. 308, et seq,. 
 
88 POPULATION AND CAPITAL* 
 
 varices, and without any let or hindrance, db extra, in 
 wealth and economic prosperity. It is not mere hoarding 
 that he recommends, but the accumulation of productive 
 capital, or of capital turned to use, and going forth in re- 
 peated outlays on the business of production. But to 
 upheld thp capital, these outlays must be replaced, which 
 they can only be by the expenditure of those who consume. 
 Mr. Makhus, on this, institutes a question respecting the 
 balance between production and expenditure; arguing 
 rightly, that if it was to be no expenditure, the motive 
 to production would cease, and if it was to be all expen- 
 diture, the materials and instruments of production would 
 be destroyed.* There must, then, be a line somewhere 
 between production and expenditure, which it were best, 
 on the whole, for a country to observe ; but whether it 
 be possible verbally to describe that line or not, practi- 
 cally nature hath, as in the case of population and food, 
 
 * " Adam Smith has stated, that capitals are increased by par- 
 simony, that every frugal man is a public benefactor, and that the 
 increase of wealth depends on the balance of produce above con- 
 sumption. That these propositions are true to a great extent is per- 
 fectly unquestionable. No considerable and continued increase of 
 wealth could possibly take place v^dthout that degree of frugality 
 which occasions, annually, the conversion of some revenue into ca- 
 pital, and creates a balance of produce above consumption ; but it is 
 quite obvious that they are not true to an indefinite extent, and that 
 the principle of saving, pushed to excess, would destroy the motive 
 to production. If every person were satisfied with the simplest food, 
 the poorest clothing, and the meanest houses, it is certain that no 
 other sort of food, clothing, and lodging, would be in existence; and 
 as there would be no adequate motive to the proprietors of land to 
 cultivate well, not only the wealth derived from conveniences and 
 luxuries would be quite at an end, but if the same divisions of land - 
 continued, the production of food would be prematurely checked, and 
 population would come to a stand, long before the soil had been well 
 cultivated. If consumption exceed production, the capital of the 
 country must be diminished, and its wealth must be gradually de- 
 stroyed, from its want of power to produce ; if production be in a 
 great excess above consumption, the motive to accumulate and pro- 
 duce must cease, from the want of will to consume. The two ex- 
 tremes are obvious; and it follows that there must be some interme- 
 diate point, though the resources of political economy may not be 
 able to ascertain it, where, taking into consideration both the power 
 to produce, and the will to consume, the encouragement to the in- 
 crease of wealth is the greatest." — Malthus' Political Economy, pages 
 8,9. 
 
POPULATION AND CAPITAL. 89 
 
 provided both checks and stimulants, in virtue of which 
 the economic machine might, with all safety, be left to its 
 own movements. There is, on the one hand, an appetite 
 for future wealth, and, on the other, an appetite for pre- 
 sent indulgence. If either were to take possession of the 
 country, in the shape of a universal mania, it might over- 
 turn the balance of society. But just in proportion as 
 either of these forces goes to excess, and so causes a de- 
 viation from the line of optimism on one side, in that pro- 
 portion is the other, or counteractive force augmented, so 
 as at length to recal the stray movement, and cause an 
 oscillation toward the other side. Should accumulation 
 go to excess, and so the supply in markets overpass the 
 demand, the lowering of profits will check the farther 
 tendency, and the wealthy feel tempted to purchase pre- 
 sent enjoyment with the overflowings of their revenue, 
 rather than throw them away on unproductive invest- 
 ments. Should expenditure go to excess, and so the de- 
 mand in markets overpass the supply, the rise of prices 
 will not only prove a check to farther expenditure, but 
 will tempt the cupidity of capitalists to every possible ac- 
 cumulation, that they may multiply and spread out their 
 investments to the uttermost, and so catch, each for him- 
 self, as large a share of the current prosperity as he may. 
 It is thus that there are restraining forces in operation, 
 which prevent the extremes either of accumulation or of 
 expenditure from being predominant in the land. The 
 capital never goes to such excess as to annihilate all pro- 
 fit, or that fraction of it, the interest of money. And 
 the expenditure never goes to such excess, as to sweep off 
 capital from any branch of industry where it can be safe- 
 ly or lucratively employed. 
 
 7. But instead of one universal mania on the side 
 either of expenditure or accumulation, the former appe- 
 tite may be in excess with a certain number of individu- 
 als in the community, and the latter appetite be in excess 
 with a certain and distinct number of other individuals. 
 This represents the actual state of society, and it may be 
 right to consider for a moment the effect of it. It will 
 be found that expenditure, though in great excess, and 
 
90 POPULATION AND CAPITAL. 
 
 that too amongst a great number of people, may not, af- 
 ter all, operate to the extinction, or even to a stay on the 
 proper increase of capital. The truth is, that the love 
 of indulgence in one quarter of society will ever be suf- 
 ficiently met by the love of acquisition in another quarter 
 -of society, to keep up the capital of the country in an 
 abundantly effective state for producing all, which capi- 
 talists find it their advantage and their interest to pro- 
 duce. We can imagine each appetite carried so far, as 
 that one set of men shall spend in extravagance more than 
 their income, and another set of men shall lay out in bu- 
 siness more than their capital. Let us begin with the 
 first supposition, and it might make the effect more pal- 
 pable, to make use in illustration of large numbers, nor 
 will it affect the validity of our conclusion, though the 
 numbers should be greater than are ever realized. We 
 shall state the income of all our landed proprietors at one 
 hundred millions, and conceive that in virtue of an ex- 
 travagant habit amongst them, their whole expenditure is 
 one hundred and ten millions. It matters not to the ar- 
 gument, whether they are enabled to spend this excess of 
 ten millions, by means of a credit directly afforded to 
 them of the dealers from whom they buy, or of a credit 
 afforded to them from men in whose written engagements 
 the country has faith, and whose notes, therefore, have the 
 power which belongs to money, of lifting the commodi- 
 ties for which it is offered in exchange. In either way, 
 ten millions more have been offered, and ten millions 
 more have been received, for the various articles of 
 enjoyment and expense that have been brought to 
 market throughout the year, than otherwise would have 
 been, but for this wasteful extravagance on the part of 
 the landlords. Had new purchasers to the amount often 
 millions started up, this addition to the demand would just 
 have raised the money price of all these articles; but not 
 more than does this extended demand of old purchasers. 
 The effect of extravagance, on the part of old customers, 
 is just to raise prices as much as if the additional pur- 
 chases had all been made by new customers. There is no 
 waste of productive capital incurred by this extravagance 
 on the part of landlords. Capitalists may have been car» 
 
POPULATION AND CAPITAL. 91 
 
 ryiiig on their operations, through one year of this ex- 
 travagance, in the very same way ; and, of consequence, 
 brought the same quantity of finished goods to market, 
 as if landlords had been spending their incomes on]}^, and 
 no more. And the whole effect of their spending more 
 is just to raise the price of these goods. If they bring a 
 pecuniary demand to the market, of ten millions more 
 than they ought to have done, this raises prices, and ac- 
 cordingly profits, to the extent often millions more than 
 they otherwise would have been. Extravagance does not 
 immediately and of itself increase the quantity of goods 
 brought to market. The individuals who are extrava- 
 gant, engross a larger quantity of these goods for the 
 year than would else have come to their share. But 
 they are indulging their love of pleasure at the expense 
 of their own fortune, and also at the expense of the gene- 
 ral enjoyment of all other consumers who may keep within 
 their incomes, but have the disadvantage of greater 
 prices, and, consequently, a less amount of enjoyment than 
 they would have had, but for the wasteful expenditure of 
 so many of their fellows. This extravagance for a year 
 leaves the supply unaltered, but, by increasing the de- 
 mand, raises for that year the price of all the articles on 
 which so much of additional expenditure has been lavish- 
 ed. Landlords have been impoverished to the extent of 
 ten millions by this extravagance ; but to that very extent, 
 through the augmentation of price or profit, have capi- 
 talists been enriched by them. As much as they have 
 mortgaged their estates, and thereby reduced their own 
 wealth, so much have they transferred of a lifting power 
 that enables others to purchase land to the whole value 
 of the mortgage. The extravagance of landlords does 
 not have all the effect which is ascribed to it, in the way 
 of reducing the property of the nation. Mainly, its effect 
 is but to transfer the property of the nation. In as far 
 as it keeps up prices and profit, it retards the progress of 
 cultivation among new soils. And so long also as an es- 
 tate is in the possession of a dissipated proprietor, this 
 may be a temporary let in the way of its improvement. 
 Yet, bating these exceptions, the extravagance of land- 
 
92 POPULATION AND CAPITAL. 
 
 lords does not produce a reduction in the property of the 
 nation, but only a rotation of it.* 
 
 8. And the effect of overspending-, on the part of con- 
 sumers, to raise prices, is neutraUzed by the effect of 
 overtrading on the part of capitahsts, to lower prices. 
 These two opposite vices may prevail to a great extent 
 in society, and that too, from their counteraction of each 
 other, without sensibly impairing the capital, or altering 
 the rate of profit. As there may be an extravagant love 
 of pleasure, leading one man to lay out on present in- 
 dulgence more than his revenue, so there may be an 
 excessive love of gain, leading another man to excessive 
 speculation, or to lay out, on business, more than his ca- 
 pital. He is enabled to do this by the trust reposed in 
 him, either on the part of those from whom he purchases 
 the various materials of his speculation, or on the paj*t of 
 lenders, who accommodate him with money, or with writ- 
 ten engagements, which have the virtue that belongs to 
 money. At all events, if he purchase more than he ought, 
 to that extent he raises the price of the things purchased, 
 and so the cost of the articles which he manufactures, or 
 of the articles in which he deals. But he furthermore 
 pours a larger supply of these articles into market, and so 
 far reduces their selling price. For every new adven- 
 turer, who enters any walk of commercial enterprise, or for 
 every old capitalist, who has already entered it, and be- 
 come more adventurous than before, the cost of the com- 
 modity is proportionally raised, and its price proportion- 
 ally .lowered. This soon meets with its corrective in 
 bankruptcies and losing; speculations, by which some are 
 driven from the trade altogether; and only those whose 
 fortunes are reduced, but not annihilated, can keep pos- 
 session of the field. t 
 
 * By its effects on prices, this ultra expenditure of landlords lessens 
 the sliare of the annual supply, which would otherwise have fallen to 
 all other customers. 
 
 t The problem suggested by Mr. Malthus, in the passage which 
 we have extracted at sect. 6 of this chapter, meets with its readiest 
 solution, by connecting it with the influence which an increase of 
 production on the one hand, or of consumption on the other, has 
 
POPULATION AND CAPITAL. 93 
 
 ^. In the matter of population, and consequently of 
 wages, there may be a balance between the improvidence 
 of many individuals on the one hand, who rush precipi- 
 tately into marriage, and the licentious celibacy of many 
 on the other hand, who, though entitled by the sufficien- 
 cy of their circumstances to enter upon this state, prefer 
 a life of dissipation. The one excess may so neutralise 
 the other, as to produce betwixt them no aggregate eifect 
 upon the population ; but better, certainly, that neither 
 excess obtained, and that the same result were brought 
 about, by the avoidance alike of profligacy and of pre- 
 mature marriages. So in the matter of capital, and con- 
 sequently of profits, there may be a balance between the 
 extravagance of many individuals on the one hand, and 
 the reckless temerity of many commercial speculatists on 
 the other. And the one excess may so neutralise the 
 other, as to produce betwixt them no aggregate effect 
 upon profit. But better too, in this instance, that neither 
 the one excess nor the other did obtain ; that no man spent 
 beyond his income, and no man speculated beyond the 
 fair and honest likelihoods of the business he was enga- 
 ged with. It may cause no sensible difference to the two 
 great public and economic interests of profit and wages; 
 but there is involved in it a momentous difference to the 
 worth of individual character, and the comfort of families. 
 We feel no dread anticipation of national loss, either from 
 
 on cultivation. The more that production prevails over consump- 
 tion, as in peaceable, and industrious, and well-regulated communi- 
 ties, the more do prices, and therefore profits fall, so as to carry 
 down the cultivation among poorer soils, and by enlarging the agri- 
 cultural produce, or the maintenance of labour, to make the country 
 richer in all the products of labour. This will meet with its effectual 
 check ; when this superiority of production over consumption, with 
 its effect on profit is carried so far, that the last returns, whether 
 from agriculture or any other business, do not yield what has been 
 called a living profit. On the other hand, in those countries where 
 the consumption or expenditure bears a greater proportion to the 
 production, as in demi-barbarous and unsettled, and oppressed com- 
 munities, where profit and the interest of money are high, the culti- 
 vation is proportionally contracted ; and wealth, as being mainly 
 dependent on the amount of agricultural produce, is contracted along 
 with it. 
 
 9 
 
94 POPULATION AND CAPITAL. 
 
 profuse expenditure or from excessive speculation. But 
 both habits are much to be deprecated, as being alike un- 
 favourable to private virtue and happiness. And both 
 these excesses may in fact be realized by the same indi- 
 vidual; in whom the appetite for gain, and the appetite 
 for indulgence, may meet together in hurtful and vicious 
 combination. This we often find exemplified in the pre- 
 sent age, when splendid extravagance is followed by 
 splendid bankruptcy, out of the wrecks and ashes of which 
 there suddenly ariseth a phoenix as splendid as before. 
 But we deem that all the hberalities of such an age form 
 no equivalent for those virtues of more severe and un- 
 bending aspect, which flourished in other days ; when the 
 good old temperament, of hard and honest, sat more 
 conspicuously than they do now on the visage of plod- 
 ding and painstaking, but withal well conditioned and 
 well principled citizens : and when, sturdy and well built 
 in all the cardinal virtues, the grandfathers of our present 
 race, with their homely fare and their primitive habits, 
 were still uninfected by the vice and vanity of modern 
 times. This we deem to have been better and whole- 
 somer far, than is a commerce of proud and precarious 
 adventure ; and we do indeed hold the passions, and the 
 profligacies, and the gaming artifices of her now deeper 
 play, to be wretchedly atoned for, by all the gaudy efflo- 
 rescence of her pageant style, and her mushroom palaces. 
 10. We may with all safety conclude, then, that under 
 the protection of equitable law, capital is sure to main- 
 tain itself fully up to the state at which it is most benefi- 
 cial ; and even tends to go beyond this. When reduced 
 by any cause beneath this standard, it evinces the same 
 restorative force as that which belongs to the element of 
 population. The increase of the one need be no more 
 the subject of demand or anxiety than that of the other. 
 The expenditure in excess of mere customers, as of land- 
 ed proprietors, does not lessen capital. It but raises 
 money prices, and so the very extravagance which mort- 
 gages the land to the extent often millions, transfers the 
 power of purchasing, to that extent, to some other quar- 
 ter in society, and thus occasions a mere change or divi- 
 
POPULATION AND CAPITAL. 95 
 
 sion in property, without a diminution of it. The ex- 
 penditure of capitalists themselves may lessen capital, but 
 the operation of a high profit almost instantly recovers it, 
 just as when disease or war lessens population, the opera- 
 tion of a high wage is to act as a stimulus to marriage, 
 and so bring, in a little time, the number of the people up 
 to the means of their subsistence. There is no artificial 
 fostering requisite for the upholding of either. Each may 
 with all safety be left to itself, and the danger is as small, 
 that we shall not have enough of antecedent, as that we 
 shall not have enough of immediate labour. The less of 
 population to the food, the more is there of plenty among 
 labourers. The less of capital to the business, the more 
 is there of profit among capitalists. But neither will the 
 food remain long in excess, nor the profit in excess. With 
 both there is a rapid tendency to excess the other way ; 
 that is, to an excess of population on the one hand, and 
 an excess of capital on the other. It is not by the defi- 
 ciency of those, but by the redundancy of these, that dis- 
 tress and inconvenience begin to be felt, first among the 
 labourers, secondly among their employers. There is 
 no need for exciting, beyond the operation of its own 
 spontaneous forces, an increase of the supply of imme- 
 diate labour ; for, in truth, it is the over supply of this 
 that, by the lowering of wages, spreads discomfort among 
 the people. And there is just as little need for exciting, 
 beyond the operation of its own spontaneous forces, an 
 increase of the supply of antecedent labour ; for it is the 
 over supply of this, which, by the lowering, or the de- 
 struction of profits, turns merchandise into a desperate 
 game, and spreads disorder among capitalists. 
 
 11. We hear much from the economists of ruinous 
 extravagance. Now individual landlords, and individual 
 capitalists, will find it ruinous to themselves; but it is 
 only because the extravagance of the former causes a 
 rotation of wealth, by which it is moved away from them, 
 and because the extravagance of the latter causes first a 
 destruction, and then an almost instant replacement of 
 wealth, which springs up in other hands. Meanwhile, 
 and notwithstanding the play of these yearly oscillations, 
 
96 POPULATION AND CAPITAL, 
 
 the property and capital of the nation abide in unim- 
 paired magnitude. But the general fancy is, that if there 
 have been a defalcation of capital, through the extrava- 
 gance of some, it is repaired through the parsimony and 
 painful accumulation of others. Instead of which it is 
 repaired, and that almost per saltum, not by means of 
 parsimony on the part of capitalists, but by means of 
 high prices for a year, which is tantamount, we admit, to 
 a privation for that time on the part of customers. 
 Never are capitalists more exempted from the duties and 
 the cares of frugality, than when this restorative is going 
 on ; for to them it is a season of hey-day prosperity, 
 wherein, without any change of habit, or rather, not- 
 withstanding an increase, if they so choose, of expendi- 
 ture and luxury, the capital, wasted or withdrawn from 
 business by others comes back, with almost instant refluXj 
 upon themselves. They, without effort, fall into posses- 
 sion of the ground which the others had abandoned, and 
 find it as full of capital, and as productive of revenue, as 
 before. It is all an enlargement to them ; and at no 
 time was this more apparent than when the borrowing 
 system, by government, was in full activity: producing, 
 therefore, a yearly extinction of capital, and yet closely 
 followed up by its yearly regeneration. It was not re- 
 generated, as Dr. Smith imagines, by parsimony, but by 
 a rise of profits. The twenty millions, borrowed one 
 year, and withdraw^n from the business of production, 
 just by the inverse action of supply upon prices, were re- 
 placed next year, to the great and sudden enrichment of 
 all the moneyed and mercantile interests in the land. 
 And the same loan to government, if repeated for ten 
 years, would just be followed by the same effect; that is, 
 a season of this duration distinguished by its high prices, 
 and so by its high profits. The reality of this process 
 stands palpably forth to observation in the price of stocks 
 which fall in war sometimes to half of their value in 
 peace ; and indicating, therefore, no less than a double 
 rate of profit. This will sufiice to account for the full 
 maintenance of the capital of a nation, notwithstanding 
 the repeated drafts on that capital by borrowing. The 
 
POPULATION AND CAPITAL. 97 
 
 lenders withdraw their fortunes from business, and virtu- 
 ally become mortgagees upon the land ; having their in- 
 terest paid by a perpetual tax, that falls upon the country, 
 and we think upon the landlords. The capitals which 
 remain in trade are then suddenly enlarged, by the im- 
 pulse given to profits. The perfect sufficiency of this 
 capital for the business of the nation, even under all the 
 encroachments to which it is subjected by government 
 loans, is abundantly obvious; and is ascribed, by Dr. 
 Smith, to the compensation by the savings in one class 
 of the community for the squanderings of another. But 
 the true explanation is, that it arises from the high 
 prices to which the community at large are subjected ; 
 it being, in truth, a season of privation to them, while 
 a season of feverish prosperity to manufacturers and 
 merchants. And, meanwhile, the expenditure does not 
 diminish the property of the nation ; it only transfers 
 a part, and so divides it. The land is as good as parti- 
 tioned between the landed proprietors and the national 
 creditors, who are the mortgagees. Should the debt over- 
 take the wealth of our proprietors ; should the mortgage 
 equal the value of the land, and still justice be scrupu- 
 lously adhered to, there would be no disappearance of 
 property in consequence; there would only be the dis- 
 possession of existing proprietors. Landlords would have 
 to do generally, in consequence of the extravagance of 
 government, what they have often to do severally, in 
 consequence of their own individual extravagance. They 
 would have to renounce their estates in favour of their 
 creditors ; when, as we have already said, the ultimate 
 effect of the expenditure would be found, not in the 
 main to have been a reduction of property, but only a 
 rotation of it. 
 
 12. Dr. Smith mourns over our national debt, as if, 
 by each successive act of its extension, the country had 
 been thrown permanently back in the career of economic 
 prosperity. It has been computed by some, how much 
 more populous we should have been had the practice of 
 innoculation been discovered sooner; and, in like man- 
 ner, he computes how much richer we should have been, 
 
 9* 
 
98 POPULATION AND CAPITAL. 
 
 had the different sums borrowed by government been all 
 retained as capital. But the truth is, that it never could 
 have stood as capital. The effect of the debt, while 
 under its process of formation, was to subject the people 
 to higher prices, and so to a scantier supply of all the 
 comforts of life. Had there been no formation of a debt, 
 and the people been left to their v^onted supply of these 
 articles, they would just have made all the larger use of 
 them ; and if not, there would have been an excess of 
 capital beyond what the country could bear, and so an 
 absorption of this excess, in the losses and the bankrupt- 
 cies of over-trading. The whole effect of the debt at the 
 time of its contraction, is to expose the people to those 
 higher prices, which have both to return the abiding, and 
 to replace the withdrawn capital. And the whole effect 
 of the debt afterward is, to divide property, just as a 
 mortgage divides it between the creditor and the landed 
 proprietor. We look to the wrong quarter for its effect, 
 when we look for a diminished capital. We are aware, 
 that for a time it may keep back the cultivation of the 
 land, by the temporary elevation which it imparts to 
 profit ; but even this is speedily recovered, when the 
 borrowing system ceases, and profit falls again. The 
 truth is, that while this borrowing system lasted, capital 
 was upheld in full extent and sufficienc}^; and when the 
 borrowing system terminated, capital, unprovided with its 
 wonted vent or absorbent, went to dissipation, in the 
 overflow of its own exuberance. It was felt to be a 
 paradox at the time ; but we think it admits of lucid 
 explanation, that capitalists flourished in war, and that 
 in peace they suffered the reaction of many adversities 
 and losses.* 
 
 13. It is readily enough perceived how soon the 
 population of a country recovers from the effects of a 
 desolating war ; and how, with its agriculture and its 
 seasons unchanged, it witnesses, in a few years, an equal 
 number of equally thriving families. But there is just 
 as great vigour and indestructibility in the element of 
 
 * See Appendix, D.-— On the National Debt, 
 
rOPULATION AND CAPITAL. 99 
 
 capital; which, though wrecked to the uttermost by vic- 
 torious armies, will, in the course of a few years, attain 
 to all the magnitude, and all the efficiency, which it ever 
 had. If, by the multiplication of labourers, the country 
 will soon have enough of population, then, simply by a 
 right distribution of them into the immediate and antece- 
 dent, the country will almost as soon have enough of 
 capital. And this distribution may, with all safety, be 
 left to the guidance of individual interest. The first 
 effect of the lessened capital would be a lessened pro- 
 duction; and in repairing this, the chief and foremost 
 effects would, of fcourse, be directed to those things that 
 were of most urgent necessity. Hence a greater than 
 ordinary proportion of the people would be set to repair 
 the deficiency of food, who, between their immediate and 
 antecedent labour, would speedily put the fields into their 
 wonted order, and give their wonted completeness to the 
 instruments of husbandry. After this had been achieved, 
 the great and extraordinary effort would then be transfer- 
 red to the manufacture of second necessaries ; for that 
 would now be the quarter of greatest demand, and at the 
 same time deficiency ; and where, therefore, under the 
 encouragement of highest price, capital would be most 
 readily allured, or rather, most quickly forced up to its 
 original magnitude. And so this matter would proceed, 
 till, in a very few years, the recovery both of population 
 and of capital would be completed. By one revolution 
 of the economic cycle, what is termed the circulating 
 capital would be nearly restored ; and by a few revolu- 
 tions more, what is termed the Jixed capital, would be 
 fully restored ; and all this, not by the parsimony of suc- 
 cessive generations, but by the privations of a very few 
 successive seasons. It has been a theme of wonder to 
 historians, that after the most sanguinary and destructive 
 wars, a country should so fast emerge again into its 
 wonted prosperity and strength. Like the mysterious 
 sanative principle in the human body, it has had a mys- 
 terious appellation given to it, and been ascribed to an 
 unknown vis medicatrix in the body politic. But such a 
 disguise for ignorance is altogether unneeded ; for there 
 
100 POPULATION AND CAPITAL. 
 
 is no mystery whatever in tlie process. It is all due to 
 the action of forces perfectly understood, however little 
 applied to the explanation of the phenomena in question. 
 The effect of a high profit, on a deficient capital, may be 
 just as lucidly apprehended as the effect of a high wage 
 on a deficient population. They, in a very short time, 
 cease to be deficient. The facts of history upon this 
 subject are notoriously in accordance with the principles 
 of science ; nor should we any longer marvel, why Rus- 
 sia, and Prussia, and Austria, and France, after having, 
 to all appearance, exhausted each other, should, in less 
 than half a generation, be able to renew their conflicts in 
 as great force and fulness as before. 
 
 14. It is in old and well governed countries where 
 capital is most exposed to the discomfiture of its attempts 
 for its own enlargement. It is in these where profit has 
 sunk to the lowest state that is consistent with the main- 
 tenance of capital; and where, therefore, if capital were 
 farther extended, the profit might be annihilated, or even 
 converted into loss. A country, though well governed, 
 yet if new, may have its profits high, because of the un- 
 broken tracts which yet lie open for cultivation, as in the 
 United States of America ; and on which the exuberance 
 of capital may overflow, and find profitable investments 
 for generations to come. And a country, though old, 
 yet if ill governed, may also have its profits high. The 
 insecurity to which all property is exposed, from injustice 
 and violence, will prevent the wealthy, in such countries 
 from exposing their capital, without the promise of a con- 
 siderable return. The high profit is an indemnification 
 for risk; and should be equal to the ordinary profit in 
 ordinary circumstances, with a premium, over and above, 
 for a very hazardous insurance. In balancing the matter 
 between the value of a present indulgence, and that of a 
 future acquisition, the uncertainty attendant on the latter 
 will tempt merchants to give a larger proportion of their 
 gains to expenditure ; and this, by keeping down their 
 capital, upholds their profit. It is in perfect accordance 
 with this that, in countries under oppression, the culti- 
 vation should have made so short a descent among the 
 
POPULATION AND CAPITAL, 101 
 
 inferior soils. The same consideration which operates in 
 restraining the application of mercantile, will also operate 
 in restraining the application of agricultural capital; the 
 latter of which requires, as much as the former, the in- 
 ducement of a large return in barbarous or demi-barba- 
 rous countries. Hence the prodigious capability of soils 
 that lie without the margin of cultivation, in far the grea- 
 ter number of countries in the world ; in Asia Minor, in 
 South America, in Hindostan, along the Northern shores 
 of Africa, and, generally speaking, in all territories under 
 the Mahometan yoke. This holds out the brilliant per- 
 spective of a great enlargement in the physical resources 
 of the human family, as being the sure attendant of their 
 growth in morality, and religion, and social order. Even 
 the larger countries of civilized Europe have still this 
 prospect in reserve for them ; as is evident from the 
 higher interest of money in conjunction with the yet im- 
 perfect agriculture of such countries as Spain, and 
 Austria, and Russia, and Poland. Perhaps there is no 
 first rate nation so near, in this respect, to its extreme limit 
 as Britain, that has long been the seat of pure legislation, 
 and of safe and prosperous industry. There, a low in- 
 terest, a high wrought agriculture, the distress both of a 
 redundant population among the labourers, and of a re-, 
 dundant capital among the mercantile classes, go hand 
 in hand. Ireland, with its higher interest of money, and 
 its less perfect agriculture, has yet a career of greater 
 advancement to describe than there is now room for in 
 this country. One of the recipes often given for the 
 medication of that interesting land, is to pour capital into 
 it. But this is mistaking the consequence for the cause. 
 The economic will follow spontaneously in the train of 
 the moral improvement. With the progress of education, 
 and law, and industry, capital will naturally be attracted 
 hither; and, what is still better, a capital of home growth 
 augmentation will speedily be formed. Their slovenly 
 agriculture, and unreclaimed wastes, are to us the mate«» 
 rials of a cheering anticipation ; for they tell how large 
 are the still undeveloped capabilities of Ireland. The re-^ 
 (Jundancy of the Irish population, is only, as compared not 
 with the potential, but with the actual amount and distri« 
 
102 POPULATION AND CAPITAL. 
 
 bution of their produce, an amount which might be doubled 
 with a better system of husbandry ; and a distribution 
 which will become more thoroughly internal than at pre- 
 sent, when landlords begin to feel, that on their own es- 
 tates, and among their own peasantry, they may taste 
 the charm and tranquillity of home. It is competent for 
 moral causes, and for these alone, to effect every desirable 
 amelioration ; and, if man would but do his part, nature 
 has in store for Ireland a liberal subsistence for millions 
 more of human beings than are now famishing upon its 
 territory. 
 
 15. If the disease in Ireland be a plethora of popula- 
 tion, the disease in this country is more like to a plethora 
 of capital. If there, the mendicity be among the living 
 instruments; here, if I may be permitted such an image, 
 the mendicity is among the dead instruments of labour. 
 If there, immediate labour be wretchedly remunerated by 
 a low wage ; here, the low proiit makes a wretched re- 
 muneration for antecedent laboqr. The phenomena on 
 this side of the water indicate as surely that capital has its 
 limits, as the phenomena on the other side indicate that 
 population has its limits. The annoyance one feels in the 
 competition of porters for employment, is not more deci- 
 sive of the one than the annoyance he is exposed to from 
 the competition of steam boats or hackney coaches is de- 
 cisive of the other. The noisy clamour of beggars on 
 the street does not tell more significantly of an excess of 
 population, than the signs of unoccupied houses, and the 
 flaming advertisements of commodities at prime cost, and 
 the incessant cheapening of articles to the bankruptcy 
 and ruin of their owners, tell by another sort of clamour 
 of the excess of capital. Between the two elements, in 
 fact, there is a marvellous and multiplied accord ancy. 
 Both are subject to incessant checks from the want, each 
 of its own proper aliment ; the one from an insufficient 
 wage, the other from an insufficient profit. And though 
 both are greatly short, at present, of that magnitude 
 which they may yet rttain in the course of ages, both 
 ma}' press at all times on a slowly retiring limit ; nor is 
 there room in the world for the indefinite extension of 
 either. 
 
103 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ON THE POSSIBILITY OF OVER PRODUCTION, OR OF 
 A GENERAL GLUT. 
 
 1. By our division of labourers into three classes, we 
 are enabled to refute the modern paradox, of the impos- 
 sibility of over production, or the impossibility of a gene- 
 ral glut. They who maintain this doctrine, represent 
 what they term unproductive consumption, or unproduc- 
 tive expenditure, as an injury to the nation. They know, 
 that though all wealth were turned into capital, there 
 would just be as much expenditure as before ; but it 
 would be expenditure on the tools and materials, or on 
 the maintenance of industry. Instead of spending my 
 income of a thousand guineas in the year, it is certainly 
 possible to stint myself to fifty pounds ; and either directly, 
 or through the medium of a loan, I may spend a thousand 
 pounds annually in the employment of labourers, who 
 shall work up a return for the maintenance bestowed on 
 them. It is in virtue of this return, that the latter mode 
 of spending a thousand pounds, has, in opposition to the 
 former, been termed productive expenditure, when viewed 
 as coming from the hands of the employer ; or productive 
 consumption, if viewed as going to the maintenance of 
 so many workmen and their families. And their work- 
 manship is the product; a product that we should not 
 have had, if the owner of the sum, instead of giving it 
 the supposed destination, had spent it on his own perso- 
 nal or family indulgences. 
 
 2. The thing wanted, therefore, by these new econo- 
 mists, is, that each man, laying out as much as possible 
 of his income on productive expenditure, should lay out 
 as little as possible on his own individual enjoyments. 
 And this can certainly be done, till the man reduce him- 
 
104 POSSIBILITY OF OVER PRODUCTION* 
 
 self to the necessaries of life. This is the extreme limit 
 of the possibility in regard to him ; and the extreme limit 
 in regard to the country at large, might be reached by all 
 men of wealth, higher than that of a labourer, doing the 
 same thing; that is, confining themselves to the use of 
 necessaries, and spending the surplus, not in the purchase 
 of existent products for their own and their families fur- 
 ther enjoyment, but in the maintenance of workmen whom 
 they put to the formation of new products. At this rate 
 it is obvious, that all luxuries would be proscribed. 
 These products would fall out of demand, and cease to 
 be fabricated. The men now employed in their fabrica- 
 tion would still continue to be supported, and by the same 
 people too; only,^nstead of being supported by them in 
 the act of spending their revenue on the old and custom- 
 ary products, they would be supported by them in the 
 act of laying out that revenue, now turned into capital, 
 on the manufacture of new products. And these products, 
 in virtue of this universal change that had taken place in 
 expenditure, behooved to be either the first or second ne- 
 cessaries ; seeing that, when society was brought to this 
 state of alleged optimism, all men behooved to confine 
 themselves to the use of necessaries, and devote the sur- 
 plus of their incomes to that production, which it is im- 
 possible by this new doctrine to carry to excess. That 
 this new production should be a production of luxuries, 
 after the use of luxuries has been thus proscribed, and 
 banished from the land, is surely out of the question. If 
 production at all, it must be that of the first and second 
 necessaries. In other words, by this change, the dispo- 
 sable population would be, not destroyed, but transferred. 
 The class would be destro^^ed, but the men who compose 
 it would be supported, and as well supported as before, 
 in other employments ; or merged into the other two 
 classes of agricultural and secondary labourers. 
 
 3. By tracing the effect of such a change in the habit 
 of expenditure, (were it possible, which it is not, that 
 such a change could be realized,) we shall find that it 
 would be productive of no real benefit or blessing to 
 society. We might perhaps satisfy ourselves with the 
 
POSSIBILITY OF OVER PRODUCTION. 105 
 
 certainty, that it is a thing not to be done, but we hold 
 it of importance furthermore to know, that it is a thing 
 not to be desiderated. At all events it will be found, in 
 the course of the investigation, that this new doctrine, of 
 the impossibility of a general glut, is altogether a chime- 
 ra. And like many other important lessons in political 
 economy, we think that this one too can best be learned 
 at the extremity of cultivation, at the limit of a country's 
 food, beyond which it is utterly impossible to carry any 
 one economic interest that is dependent either on the 
 number of human beings, or on the industry of human 
 hands. 
 
 4. First, then, let us imagine that the farmer, in any 
 given state of the husbandry, lays out, and persists in 
 laying out, the uttermost he possibly can, on the business 
 of that production wherewith he has to do. There can 
 be no doubt, that the less he spends upon himself, and the 
 more he spends upon his business, the faster will he carry 
 out upon his land the limit of cultivation. Even when 
 he has reached that soil, which can yield no more than his 
 profit, over and above the food of its direct and second- 
 ary labourers, he may still persevere in making a surren- 
 der of that profit ; and, instead of consuming it on his 
 own enjoyments, may continue to put it out on the ex- 
 penses of a further cultivation. With this determined sacri- 
 fice, year after year, of all the profits of his husbandry, he 
 will not only carry out the cultivation at a faster rate, 
 but he will carry it further than he could othel'\^dse have 
 done. He may be obliged to stop at last, when he comes 
 to a soil which yields him no profit, and which can barely 
 feed the agricultural labourers and their secondaries ; but 
 yet he stops at a line ulterior to that which would have 
 bounded his progress, had he been in the habit of spend- 
 ing the profits upon his family, instead of sinking them 
 upon his farm. The land last entered on, would be 
 further down in the gradation of qualities of soil, because 
 it would have less to do ; having only to yield the food 
 of its direct and indirect labourers, instead of having both 
 to yield that much, and a profit to the cultivator beside. 
 This attempt then at production, on the part of the far- 
 
 10 
 
106 POSSIBILITY OF OVER PRODUCTION. 
 
 mer, to4he uttermost of his power, this surrender of Ms 
 own profits to the cause, must give a certain stretch to 
 cultivation, and be the means of reclaiming a belt that 
 would have otherwise remained on the exterior of the 
 domain of cultivation. There would have been room 
 thus afforded for a larger, but not certainl}? on that ac- 
 count for a happier or a richer population. Their com- 
 fort, in fact, depending as it does, not on the absolute 
 quantity of food, but on the relation which the quantity 
 bears to their own number ; and this again depending 
 on their own standard of taste and of enjoyment, all that 
 the extreme parsimony of the farmer can work out for us, 
 is a bulkier, but not a better conditioned society than be- 
 fore ; a greater number of families, but these not at all 
 more thriving families than they were formerly. Let us 
 state truly the effect of this straining after production, 
 with all his might and all his means, on the part of the 
 cultivator. He annihilates his own profit by it. He adds 
 something to the magnitude of the commonwealth. He 
 adds nothing to the prosperity or comfort of the individu- 
 als who compose it. 
 
 5. It seems needless to make a distinct argument, for 
 it is essentially the same on the case of another species 
 of capitalist ; even him who heads, and who by his funds 
 sustains, the manufacture of second necessaries. He too, 
 like his brother agriculturist, may, in his zeal for produc- 
 tion, choose to live as a labourer, and to embark all profit 
 on the enlargement of his concern. The consequence 
 would be a larger supply of second necessaries, and such 
 a consequent cheapening of them, that profit should be 
 annihilated. We have already demonstrated how this, 
 too, would give a stretcb to cultivation. It would pro 
 tantOy have the same effect, in this way, that we ascribed 
 to the cheapening of second necessaries, by an improve- 
 ment in the machinery employed to prepare them. It 
 would not of itself lessen the number of secondary la- 
 bourers requisite for this preparation. The last land 
 w^ould still have to feed the same number of these. But 
 it would have no longer to feed the disposable population, 
 that wont to be employed in the preparation of luxuries 
 
POSSIBILITY OF OVER PRODUCTION. 107 
 
 for the manufacturing capitalist. He, by the supposi- 
 tion, has give up this idle expenditure, and embarked all 
 the proceeds of his retrenchment on the extension of his 
 business. The effect of thus freeing the last land from 
 the burden of subsisting so many as would have been 
 otherwise required of it, is just to enable the cultivator to 
 make a step down to worse land. By this change in the 
 habit of the capitalist, a few of the disposable class would 
 be transferred, as in the former case, to the business of a 
 now more extended agriculture ; and, with the conse- 
 quent increase of population, to the business of a then 
 proportionally extended manufacture of second necessa- 
 ries. In both cases, there might be a temporary enlarge- 
 ment of comfort to labourers. But this, so long as the 
 standard of enjoyment remained the same, would soon be 
 followed up, and therefore compensated, by an increase 
 of population. And so the result of this second effort at 
 an indefinite production, would come, like the first, to a 
 very definite and limited result. It would annihilate 
 profit. It would add something to the magnitude of the 
 commonwealth. It would ultimately, or permanently, 
 add nothing to the prosperity and comfort of its indi- 
 vidual families. 
 
 6. But the extension of agriculture that would ensue 
 from capitalists, whether agricultural or manufacturing, 
 giving up their profits, is as nothing to the extension 
 that would ensue from landed proprietors giving up their 
 rents in the cause. We need not make a separate case 
 of the capitalists employed in the manufacture of luxu- 
 ries, for the most which they could surrender to the ob- 
 ject of increasing production, is the profits of their busi- 
 ness. But were their great customers, the landlords, to 
 be enlisted in this warfare against all unproductive ex- 
 penditure, they could, by giving up the use of whatever 
 is superfluous, turn, not merely the profit made on luxu- 
 ries, but the whole price of luxuries, to the purposes of 
 capital. The most that capitaHsts could do, by a yearly 
 sinking of their profits, would be to carry down the cul- 
 tivation to the soil that barely feeds the labourers, di- 
 rectly and secondarily employed on it. But landlords. 
 
108 POSSIBILITY OF OVER PRODUCTION. 
 
 by a yearly sinking of their rents, could do a great deal 
 more ; could make, in fact, the cultivation pass a very far 
 way beyond this line among the deficient soils.* With 
 the exception of their own essential maintenance, which 
 they might reduce to that of labourers, they could turn 
 the whole of their immense revenues into capital, for the 
 object of production ; though, from the universal change 
 which we now suppose in the state of the demand, it be- 
 hooved to be the production of first and second necessa- 
 ries. Of course, the present employments of the dispo- 
 sable population would be completely broken up, and 
 we should behold them spread in immense numbers over 
 the deficient soils of the territor}'-, where they would be 
 supported, partly by the scanty and inadequate returns 
 of their penurious husbandry; but this made up by the 
 successive outlays of that revenue which landlords drew 
 from their superior soils. In effect, this scheme of pro- 
 duction, to the uttermost, would give rise to the very 
 same distribution, and be attended by the same conse- 
 quences, with a scheme of home colonization carried to 
 the uttermost. The landlords would only be denuded of 
 their revenues in a somewhat different capacity ; not in 
 that of philanthropists or leypayers, but in the capacity 
 of over traders. The ultimate effect of that system which 
 the enemies of unproductive expenditure so strenuously 
 recommend, supposing it carried to the uttermost, would 
 be a regular yearly investiture of all the superfluous re- 
 venue of landlords ; and that followed up, by as regular 
 a yearly loss to them of the whole sums invested. There 
 would not be the extinction of rent from the superior 
 soils; but there would be the absorption of it on the de- 
 ficient soils. There would be the extinction of a dispo- 
 sable population. There would be a considerable increase 
 of the general population; but with this addition to the 
 number, there would most assuredly be no addition to the 
 comfort of families. With the surrender of luxuries on 
 the part of the landlords, agriculture could be carried a 
 
 * We name those the deficient soils where produce is insufficient 
 for the subsistence of their direct and secondary labourers, 
 
POSSIBILITY OF OVER PRODUCTION. 109 
 
 great way beyond its natural limit ; yet it is not illimi- 
 table. When the last luxury had been given up, and the 
 last man been withdrawn from the disposable population, 
 then would agriculture reach the farthest possible barrier 
 which nature and necessity had laid in the way of its ex- 
 tension ; as the beach, or the sand desert, or the imprac- 
 ticable rock, or the climate of eternal frost, within which 
 no esculent can be reared. 
 
 7. Our first remark on this process of indefinite parsi- 
 mony, and of laying forth to the uttermost on production, 
 is, that it never can be realized. We have endeavoured 
 to trace its effects ; but we are quite sure, all the while, 
 that they never can be exemplified. Capitalists will not 
 persist in stinting themselves to the bare necessaries of 
 life, and laying out the whole surplus of their profits on 
 the extension of their business, when they come to find 
 that, after all, these profits are at length annihilated. 
 Landlords will not persist in foregoing such indulgences 
 as might be spared, if they come to find that any returns 
 which might be made, only go to make out the support 
 of an increasing population, instead of coming back in 
 the shape of additional wealth, and additional command 
 over the enjoyments of life to themselves. No man would 
 continue to superintend the operations of a capital, no 
 man would continue to administer and manage the afiairs 
 of a landed property, if such were to be the result of it. 
 The moving forces which actuate, and which lead either 
 to the operations of merchandise, or to the arrangements 
 of agriculture, would cease, on this system of production 
 to the uttermost, and of no consumption save for the 
 object of production. If such a system were once entered 
 on, it would speedily be checked by its profitless, and, in 
 many instances, by its positively losing and ruinous re- 
 sults. So that it is not in opposition to any apprehended 
 practical evil, but in opposition to a theory, that we have 
 been induced to frame, or at all to insist on our present 
 argument. 
 
 8. But even though practicable, we should hold it to 
 be a proc-ess not at all desirable. That it would hasten 
 the progress of agriculture, and so the growth of society 
 
 10* 
 
110 POSSIBILITY OF OVER PRODUCTION. 
 
 in respect of population, is very certain. With a less 
 amount of frugality in times past, we should have had, 
 at this moment, a narrower domain of cultivation ; and 
 a domain so much the larger and more productive, had 
 there been greater frugality, even though many owners 
 and occupiers of land had starved or ruined themselves 
 in the cause. There can be no doubt, that cultivation 
 has often received a permanent stretch at the expense of 
 an irrecoverable loss to the individual cultivator ; and 
 that, better than this, instances can be named, where, but 
 for a large outlay on the part of owners, there are many 
 extended improvements, at length yielding an ample, 
 though distant return, which might have been postponed 
 or never undertaken. Yet, with all these admissions, 
 while we should deprecate the encroachments, by waste 
 and extravagance, on agricultural capital, we should 
 also deprecate the encroachments by parsimony, on the 
 general habit of capitalists living in the enjoyment of 
 their profits, and land-owners in the enjoyment of their 
 rents. For ourselves, we have no fear whatever of the 
 former encroachment, and would again advert to that 
 beautiful compensation, by which the excessive love of 
 present enjoyment on the part of spendthrifts, when car- 
 ried to the length of abridging their capital, does, by its 
 effect on supply and price, call forth a counteractive force 
 in the opposite direction, by inviting others, in whom the 
 love of gain predominates, the more to extend their ope- 
 rations, whether in trade or in husbandry. We have no 
 alarm for the effect of economic theories on the habit of 
 individuals; but even though they had the influence, 
 which they have not, we should hold it a thing to be re- 
 gretted, if they led our capitalists either to spend more, 
 or to spare more, than they would spontaneously. We 
 should rather confide the progress of agriculture to the 
 improvement of its own machinery?, and its own methods, 
 than hasten that progress unnaturally by an extreme par- 
 simony, whether among the owners or the occupiers of 
 land. We have no demand for a forced increase either 
 of food or population ; neither do we look on that system 
 as being at all friendly to our species, which, by an 
 
POSSIBILITY OF OVER PRODUCTION. Ill 
 
 abridgment on the free control of every man over his 
 own revenue, would either speed the advances of cultiva- 
 tion beyond the rate at which it might otherwise proceed, 
 or carry it beyond the boundary at which it would other- 
 wise stop. The final result of such a system, when con- 
 summated and brought to its perfection, were an agricul- 
 ture carried not merely to the limit beyond which it 
 could not produce so much as pay its own expenses, 
 but to the limit beyond which it could not produce at all. 
 Our preference is for an agriculture that stopped at the 
 upper extremity of the deficient soils, rather than an 
 agriculture that did not stop till it reached their lower 
 extremity. In very proportion to the progress made 
 among tlie deficient soils, are profits and rent encroached 
 upon, and the disposable class dwindles away, by succes- 
 sive abridgments, till the last man is transferred to the 
 agricultural or the secondary. We repeat, that we have 
 no value for such a consummation ; and, infinitely rather 
 than this ultra agrarianism, would we have a more limit- 
 ed, because, along with this, we should also have the 
 composition and the materials of a more secure and far 
 happier society. We see not the good of an addition to 
 the mere numbers of the commonwealth, if it can only be 
 effected at the expense of the whole, and to the utter ruin 
 of certain great interests which cannot otherwise be pro- 
 vided for than with a disposable population ; implying, 
 no doubt, the means of leisure and luxury to an opulent 
 class, but implying also, beside a thousand bland and 
 beneficent influences on the comfort and moral state of 
 all classes, an ability on the part of the ruling power, to 
 appropriate of these means for all the best and highest 
 objects of an enlightened patriotism. 
 
 9, This is a great question ; and something of far 
 mightier import than the maintenance of a rank and a 
 property, for the upper classes is involved in the determi- 
 nation of it. We hold that, on the moment when agri- 
 culture overpasses its natural limit, and enters on the 
 deficient soils, the condition of the general peasantry is 
 put into a state of fearful precariousness. And it matters 
 not whether this shall happen by a scheme of home colo- 
 
112 POSSIBILITY OF OVER PRODUCTION/ 
 
 nization for the purposes of charity, or by the schemes 
 and speculations of over trading, either for the sake of a 
 profit that wont be realized, or on the false system, that 
 all unproductive expenditure is ruinous. If the first, or 
 an undertaking of charity for the good of others, we can 
 prove, that though it may land us in a greater, it will 
 land us ako in a more wretched population.* If the se- 
 cond, or an undertaking of business for the good of our- 
 selves, it cannot long be persisted in under a continued 
 experience of the losses which are incurred by it ; and it 
 is always to the distress of multitudes, when any enter- 
 prise of industry, because of its unproductiveness, be- 
 hooves to be abandoned. We therefore deem it an alter- 
 native altogether big with efiicacy on the ultimate condi- 
 tion of our species, whether they shall keep within the 
 natural hmit, or, breaking through among the deficient 
 soils, push onw^ard to the extreme limit of the agricul- 
 ture. Our preference is wholly, and that for the sake of 
 the prosperity of all classes, to the former term of this 
 alternative. We should rather the liberal consumption 
 of their rents, than the yearly absorption of them in 
 losing schemes of husbandry, on the part of the landed 
 proprietors. We should rather a high rate of profit, up- 
 held by a large expenditure on the part of capitalists, 
 than the utter degradation of this class by a parsimony 
 that would annihilate profit, and sink their condition to 
 that of the general population ; even although this larger 
 expenditure and larger profit did somewhat retard the 
 progress of agriculture. And we should infinitely rather, 
 on the part of labourers, behold them keeping within the 
 superior soils, in more limited number, but in larger 
 sufficiency, than flowing over on the deficient soils, and 
 there bringing down, by the very weight of their redun- 
 dancy, the state and circumstances of the whole order to 
 which they belong. We are sensible that, at this rate, 
 we should have a more contracted agriculture, and there- 
 fore a less populous world; but our preference is for a 
 higher wage and higher profit too with a narrower, ra- 
 
 * Again see Appendix, C. 
 
POSSIBILITY OF OVER PRODUCTION. 113 
 
 tlier than a lower wage and profit with a wider cultiva- 
 vation. It is at the natural limit of cultivation that we 
 should feel disposed to take our most resolute stand, as- 
 sured as we are, that if the attempt to pass beyond it be, 
 from whatever cause, largely and systematically prosecu- 
 ted, a general want and wretchedness among labourers or 
 capitalists, or both, would follow in its train. 
 
 10. But it is now time for addressing ourselves to the 
 argument of our more recent economists, for the impossi- 
 bility of a general glut, in the terms which they them- 
 selves have employed when propounding it. Their rea- 
 son for there being no such thing as over production, or 
 for a general glut being impossible, is, that any partial 
 over stockings of the market which may accrue, arise, 
 not from an excess of commodities upon the whole, but 
 from the excess of certain commodities, and so a wrong 
 or mistaken distribution of them. They ground their 
 proposition on the indefiniteness of human wants, or ra- 
 ther of human desires, in virtue of which, they affirm, 
 there can be no excess in the supply, if known only what 
 the desires specially are. The mal-adjustment in the 
 market, according to them, has arisen, not from the de- 
 sires of men being over satiated with too many objects, but 
 from these desires not being met by the right objects. If, 
 for example, there be an excessive quantity of cotton 
 goods in the market, they become immoderately cheapj 
 and purchase less than they otherwise would, of all other 
 commodities, which of course are in reference to this one 
 commodity immoderately dear. This must proceed, it is 
 argued, from an excess of labour employed in the pre- 
 paration of cotton goods, and a corresponding deficiency 
 of labour in the preparation of the other articles which 
 come into exchange with them. Had a certain portion 
 of labour, then, been transferred from that quarter, where 
 it has been in excess, to those quarters in which it has 
 been deficient, the equilibrium would have been restored, 
 and the cotton goods been exchanged, with all others, at 
 a fair relative value. At this rate, there would have been 
 no glut of any one commodity ; and yet the quantity of 
 commodities, on the whole, would have, been as large as 
 
114 POSSIBILITY OF OVER PRODUCTION. 
 
 ever. On these grounds it is contended, that there can 
 be no glut arising from over production in the general, 
 but only from a miscalculation as to the real state of the 
 demand ; and so a disproportionately large supply of 
 certain articles of merchandise, with a corresponding 
 defect and diminution in the supply of others. 
 
 11. Now, in the first place, it must be obvious, that so 
 long as the food of a country is ahead of its population, 
 there is no danger of such a general glut extending to all 
 commodities, as shall produce general distress among la- 
 bourers ; and less danger than otherwise, of such a 
 partial glut in some of them, as shall bring distress to 
 certain classes of labourers. The holders of this food 
 are the holders of that which is the chief ingredient in the 
 maintenance of families ; and, holding it in excess, there 
 can be no doubt, on the average, of an ample remunera- 
 tion for the products of manufacturing industry. Even 
 should the first holders, the landed proprietors, confine 
 themselves exclusively to the use of certain favourite 
 commodities, and neglect the others, by their more in- 
 tense demand for the former, they raise their price, and 
 transfer to the venders of certain articles the whole of that 
 surplus food, which might have otherwise been distributed 
 among the venders of all articles. But after this food, 
 or which is the same thing, the power of lifting it, has 
 been placed in the hands of the second holders, the fortu- 
 nate calculators on the taste of the original ones, there 
 will still be a surplus to them, the whole food being in 
 excess to the population, which rather than left to moulder 
 in their own idle possession, will find its way either to 
 such articles as can be found, or to the purchase of labour 
 for the preparation of other articles. It is thus that, in 
 the state now supposed, the products of industry will 
 seldom miss being exchanged with a liberal maintenance 
 to workmen ; or, at all events, workmen will seldom miss 
 of a liberal maintenance. Capitalists may suffer a dimi- 
 nution in their gains, or even a positive loss, by miscalcu- 
 lation. But in a general excess of food, this will not 
 affect the general comfort of labourers ; as exemplified 
 now in America, and as perhaps exemplified in various 
 
POSSIBILITY OF OVER PRODUCTION. 115 
 
 Stages, in the enlargement of European agriculture since 
 the termination of the middle ages. 
 
 12. But periods of general comfort are periods of fre- 
 quent and early marriages ; and so of more frequent, as 
 well as larger families. An increasing population fol- 
 lows in the train of increasing food, and at length over- 
 takes and presses on it. That the pressure be felt, even 
 long before the agriculture has come to its uttermost per- 
 fection, it is enough if the rate of increase in the popula- 
 tion exceed the rate of increase in the means of subsistence. 
 The nearer the agriculture is to its extreme limit, the 
 pressure will be the more felt; and it will be greatest of 
 all, when, instead of a slowly receding barrier, the food 
 of the country has reached its maximum, and the barrier 
 has become stationary. Hence the straitness that is felt 
 in the old countries of Europe, as marked by the tide of 
 emigration, compared with America ; where vast tracts of 
 yet unbroken land await the enterprise of adventurers^ 
 and afford additional harbourage for additional millions 
 of families. It is in the former countries, where those 
 gluts, which create a reaction of poverty and distress 
 amongst the working classes, are of most frequent occur- 
 rence. It is there that miscalculation occurs most readily, 
 and it is also followed up by the severest consequences. 
 It is in countries of saturated population, where the work- 
 men who had been engaged in the preparation of a ne- 
 glected commodity, experience the most fearful distress, 
 when dismissed in thousands by their employers, because 
 unable, from the want of returns, to uphold their estab- 
 lishments. Had this taken place in a country where 
 there was a sufficiency of food for all, the discarded la- 
 bourers might still have met with their subsistence in re- 
 turn for some new service to those who were the holders 
 of it. But there is no such resource, when the food is 
 already engrossed by those more fortunate of their class, 
 who have been engaged in the preparation of the more 
 favoured commodities. It is thus that, in every country 
 so situated, when there is any disproportion among the 
 manufactured articles which are brought to market, there 
 must fall a weight of suffering on certain classes of the 
 
116 POSSIBILITY OF OVER PRODUCTION. 
 
 industrious ; even the makers of the articles which are m 
 excess. But it is a mistake to imagine, that by simply 
 rectifying this disproportion, the suffering will be done 
 away. It would only be more divided than before. There 
 might be no increase of severe distress in any one quar- 
 ter ; but in exchange for this, there would be a straitness 
 and certain feeling of penury amongst all the operatives 
 in the land. Still there would be a glut; though not 
 proceeding from excess in certain manufactured articles, 
 with a corresponding deficiency in others. After the 
 adjustment of the best relative proportion had been es- 
 tablished between them, there would remain a glut of 
 these commodities upon the whole ; and that proceeding 
 from an anterior glut, not to be rectified by any skill in 
 the transference or new distribution of capital; even a 
 glut of human beings, which nothing can prevent, but the 
 reign of prudence and principle amongst families ; and 
 nothing can correct, but the famine, and disease, and war, 
 which are so many chastisetiients inflicted by the hand of 
 nature, on human guilt and human improvidence. 
 
 13. It is vain to say that, in these circumstances, a 
 transference of labour should be made from manufactures 
 to agriculture. We have already seen, that there is not 
 room for an indefinite employment of labourers in the one 
 department more than in the other. The population who 
 are now working on the land last entered, or on the land 
 that is placed along the extreme margin of cultivation, 
 only obtain from it a produce which feeds the agricultu- 
 ral labourers and their secondaries, and which remune- 
 rates the capitalists An additional population, if it an- 
 ticipate and exceed the natural progress of agriculture, as 
 already explained, behooved to enter upon land of inferior 
 quality to this ; which land could only continue to be 
 cultivated with loss to the capitalist, or by means of an 
 under fed or inf^riorly maintained population. It is thus, 
 that there can be demonstrated to exist a limit all round 
 to the employment of labourers. And for the right di- 
 rection of philanthropy, for the purpose of giving effect 
 to her devices and her doings, to save the wasteful or the 
 pernicious expenditure of her powers, it is well that all 
 
POSSIBILITY OF OVER PRODUCTION. 117 
 
 the false lights should be extinguished, which may have 
 heretofore bewildered her, and that she should be no 
 longer misled by a delusive confidence in impotent or 
 fruitless expedients. 
 
 14. There is nothing more fitted to inspire this delu- 
 sive confidence than the doctrine which we now endea- 
 vour to expose. It suggests the idea of an indefinite har- 
 bourage for the people, let them multiply and increase to 
 whatever extent they may. It gives a virtue unlimited to 
 credit and commerce, and the enterprise of merchants ; 
 and removes from contemplation that barrier to the exten- 
 sion of agriculture, which must ever prove a barrier, alike 
 firm and impracticable, to the extension of trade. It over- 
 looks the obvious truth, that there maybe too much pro- 
 duction, just because there may be too many producers. 
 It is this which may give rise to a general glut, at least 
 of all but the first necessaries of life. It is but a poor 
 evasion, that because there is a deficiency in these, the 
 glut is not universal; so that if all sorts of products were 
 included, the doctrine has still a foundation to rest upon. 
 It needs but one qualification to meet this. Generally^ 
 and with one single exception, even that of food, there 
 may be an excess of products ; and universally, or in- 
 clusive of food and of all things else, there may be an ex- 
 cess of productive efibrt. We shall at length come to a 
 limit, beyond which the expense incurred in the fabrica- 
 tion must exceed the expense of the thing fabricated. At, 
 or rather beyond, the natural margin of cultivation, we 
 see this truth in all its nakedness ; stripped of those ac- 
 companiments which, in the shape of marketing, and 
 money, and exchanging processes, but obscure the 
 character of the proceeding without essentially changing 
 it. Then it becomes quite palpable, for then the food 
 which has been consumed by workmen, during the process 
 of their labour, exceeds in quantity the food which they 
 raise. There is no mere distribution which can avert this 
 calamity; a calamity that, wherever it occurs, is felt 
 throughout the whole community of labourers. And a 
 scanty return for the labour bestowed on the production 
 of the one commodity of food, is very generally associ- 
 
 11 
 
118 POSSIBILITY OF OVER PRODUCTIOiV. 
 
 ated with a glut of all other commodities. Commensti* 
 rate to a smallness of produce in the department of agri* 
 culture, is there a smallness of price in the department of 
 commerce and manufactures. When immediately, and 
 without exchange, there is a scanty return for the last 
 agricultural labour expended on our overwrought fields, 
 then mediately, and with exchange, is there a like scanty 
 return for all manufacturing labour, and that because of 
 our overstocked markets. It is thus that starvation, or 
 more severe distress, may be realized from the want of 
 first necessaries, in the midst of general abundance, both 
 as to the second necessaries and luxuries of life. Thisj 
 if there be not a virtuous and well educated commonalty, 
 is the ultimate state of every industrious nation ; a state 
 from which it can only be saved, not by the multiplica- 
 tion of its products, but by a wholesome and moral re- 
 straint on the multiplication of its people. 
 
 15. This, then, is the substantial refutation of the new 
 doctrine ; that there can be no glut, if capitalists, in their 
 speculations, would but speculate soundly ; or, that they 
 cannot overload the market, if they would but select and 
 offer the right commodities for sale. The reasoning in 
 behalf of this doctrine we hold to be wrong, even though 
 we should admit the supposition whereon it rests ; which 
 is, that the object proposed, in every presentation of com- 
 modities for sale, is to obtain other commodities in ex- 
 change for them. Although this were true, still there is 
 one sense in which, notwithstanding the nicest possible 
 adjustment, in the way of proportioning the respective 
 articles to the respective demand for them, there yet would 
 be a glut. There might be an over population of the 
 country, and so a glut of men ; who, with the best pos- 
 sible accommodation of their industry to the taste and the 
 wants of those who hold the materials of human suste- 
 nance in their hands, may still find the products of their 
 industry to be too abundant, and therefore too cheap for 
 their obtaining an adequate maintenance in return for 
 them. The escape from this conclusion is, that still the 
 glut is resolvable into a mistake in point of proportion, 
 food being in defect, and all other commodities in excess ; 
 
POSSIBILITY OF OVER PRODUCTION. 119 
 
 and that so a rectification would be brought about, were 
 a portion of the capital transferred from the preparation 
 of the latter to that of the former ; or, speaking generally, 
 from manufactures to agriculture. But this goes on the 
 presumption that food can be raised by turning capital to 
 this object, just as indefinitely as houses, or ships, or 
 steam engines, can be multiplied in the same way. The 
 state of matters at the extreme margin of cultivation is 
 not adverted to. It is forgotten why, in the present cir- 
 cumstances of the country, that is the margin ; and why 
 it cannot, without loss, be carried further onward or 
 downward than it actually has been. The ulterior land 
 would not, in the present state of agricultural science, 
 feed both the primary and secondary population who 
 should be employed on it. At least, it would not do this, 
 and also remunerate the capitalist for his outla}^ Nay, 
 there is the utmost hazard, or rather certainty, in such a 
 state, of lighting upon soils so ungrateful, as to convert 
 profit into loss, and so diminish the capital. It were well 
 i£ this check to indefinite enlargement could be fully kept 
 in view; for a recklessness to limits, and necessary laws 
 on the part of the savans in political economy, might in- 
 duce a corresponding recklessness on the policy of states- 
 men, and even on the general habits of society. There 
 are certain recent doctrines in the science, which, beside 
 being unfounded in themselves, have precisely this effect. 
 In particular, the position that there is no limit whatever 
 to the means of productive and profitable employment, 
 is really tantamount to the position, that there is no ne- 
 cessary limit on the numbers of the species. If work 
 can thus be augmented indefinitely, then might workmen 
 be augmented indefinitely. It is under the influence of 
 some such maxim as this, that a delusive confidence is 
 encouraged, and relief for a straitened and over burdened 
 community is always sought for in the wrong quarter ; in 
 the enlargement of work, rather than the limitation of 
 workmen ; in the increase of produce, when nothing will 
 effectually or permanently keep the country at ease, but 
 a check on the increase of population. 
 
 W. We feel unwilling to protract an argument already 
 
120 POSSIBILITY OF OVER PRODUCTION. 
 
 too much lengthened out ; else, instead of viewhig the 
 outlay of capital for the sake of production in the form of 
 a material, we might proceed to view it in the form of 
 a moneyed investiture. Under this distinct aspect, the 
 reasoning might be so managed as not only to demon- 
 strate a fallacy in the conclusion of our adversaries, but 
 to detect a fallacy in the assumption on which their ar- 
 gument rests. And a further advantage would be, that 
 without adverting to the limit of agriculture at all, the 
 possibility of a universal glut might be established, in 
 whatever state, or at whatever stage society might be ; 
 whether bordering on the extremity of its resources, as in 
 some countries of Europe ; or in the rapid progression 
 of infancy and youth, as in America. Let any country 
 be imagined, whose moneyed capital for the year amounts 
 to a hundred millions, which by one revolution is repla- 
 ced with a profit of ten millions, to be expended by the 
 capitalists in the shape of revenue. Matters might be 
 conceived to go on easily and prosperously at this rate, 
 with a fair wage to the workmen, and a fair profit to 
 their employers. And 3'et even here, without supposing 
 any glut of men, there might be produced a glut of com- 
 modities ; and that simply, from an increased desire, be- 
 yond a certain limit, on the part of the wealthy to become 
 wealthier still. Under the influence of this desire, con- 
 sumers might, at one and the same time, be led to save, 
 and capitalists to speculate. Landed proprietors, for ex- 
 ample might, by dint of economy, abridge their expendi- 
 ture by twenty millions in the year ; and, instead of laying 
 it out on those ulterior soils that would not repay, might 
 lay it up in banks, and with the prospect of an interest 
 for the sum deposited. This sum, on the other hand, 
 lent out to capitalists, will increase their facilities of spe- 
 culation ; and extend the moneyed capital embarked in 
 production, from one hundred to a hundred and twenty 
 millions.* In this ratio then, will the moneyed cost of the 
 
 * Here it may be said, that the capitalists will still have to start 
 anew with only a hundred millions, because the twenty millions 
 which they have borrowed, only come in place of the twenty millions 
 that were withdrawn from expenditure tlie year Ijefyre, ayd by wliich 
 
POSSIBILITY OF OVER PRODUCTION. 121 
 
 country's products be increased ; but what is the result 
 when they are brought to market? Instead of being 
 met by a proportional moneyed price, they will be met by 
 a returning power, just as much reduced as the producing 
 power has been increased. The twenty millions that have 
 passed from one side to the other will overturn, for one 
 year at least, the balance between production and con- 
 sumption ; and that year there is an over production or 
 glut, to the annihilation of all profit, and the positive loss 
 of thirty millions over and above ; or even of forty 
 millions, if the capitalist spend as much in the shape of 
 revenue as before. At all events, the capital of a hundred 
 and twenty millions, laid out on commodities, would be 
 met by ninety millions only on the part of purchasers. 
 
 17. It cannot surely be said, in this instance, that still 
 the producers had erred in working up more of certain 
 commodities than were wanted. Their error simply lay 
 in over production ; and this was an error, from the con- 
 sequences of which no imaginable shifting of the pro- 
 duction to other commodities could have saved them. 
 What new accommodation to the taste of their customers 
 who had only ninety millions to spend, could have ena- 
 bled them to dispose with a profit, the hundred and twenty 
 millions worth of goods which they had brought to mar- 
 ket f The consumers did not want other commodities in 
 lieu of those which were presented. They simply wanted 
 to be richer than before ; and that, not by possessing 
 themselves in greater abundance than before of certain 
 special commodities, but by possessing themselves of a 
 greater general power than before to purchase all com- 
 modities. It is the oversight of this distinction, we think, 
 which has led to this new doctrine on the subject of gluts. 
 When a consumer refuses certain commodities, it is not 
 always, as has been assumed, because he wants to pur- 
 chase others in preference; but he wants to reserve en- 
 tire the general power of purchasing. And when a mer- 
 
 sum their capital fell short of being replaced in the last revolution of 
 the economic cycle. This is only saying, that the glut takes place 
 a year earlier than we think necessary to insist upon for the purposes 
 of our argument, 
 
 11* 
 
122 POSSIBILITY OF OVER PRODUCTION. 
 
 chant brings commodities to market, it is not generally in 
 quest of other commodities to be given in return for 
 them ; so that were these other commodities in defect, 
 then had a portion of the capital expended on the first 
 been transferred to the second, the balance would have 
 been restored ; and neither set of commodities being 
 either too cheap or too dear, there would have been a 
 glut of neither. This is not the way of it. The proper 
 object of the merchant is not to obtain, in return for the 
 articles wherein he deals, any one species of commodi- 
 ties more than another ; but it is to extend his general 
 power of purchasing all commodities. It makes no valid 
 evasion, that money is a commodity. This may com- 
 plicate the question, but does not affect its essential cha- 
 racter. The truth is, that the real metallic money for 
 which a merchant has any use, does not amount to more 
 than a small fraction of his capital, even of his moneyed 
 capital ; all of which, though estimated in money, can be 
 made, on the strength of written contracts, to describe its 
 orbit, and be effective for all its purposes, with the aid no 
 doubt of coin, but of coin amounting to an insignificant 
 proportion of the whole. The great object of the moneyed 
 capitalist, in fact, is to add to the nominal amount of his 
 fortune. It is that, if expressed pecuniarily this year by 
 twenty thousand pounds for example, it should be ex- 
 pressed pecuniarily next year by twenty-four thousand 
 pounds. To advance his capital, as estimated in money, 
 is the only way in which he can advance his interest as a 
 merchant. The importance of this object to him is not 
 affected by fluctuations in the currency, or by a change 
 in the real value of money. It is possible that he may 
 succeed in advancing his fortune, by the business of one 
 year, from twenty to twenty-four thousand pounds ; and^ 
 yet, from a decline in the value of money, he may not 
 have increased thereby his command over the comforts 
 and conveniences of life. Still it was as much his inter- 
 est to have engaged in the business, as if money had not 
 fallen ; for else, his moneyed fortune would have remained 
 stationary, and his real wealth would have declined in 
 the proportion of 24 to 20. Better than lose this ground, 
 
POSSIBILITY OP OVER PRODUCTION. 123 
 
 IS it for him to have laboured as he did, even though he 
 should only succeed in keeping himself even with what 
 he was at the outset. So that the great aim of every 
 trading capitalist is, to increase his fortune as estimated 
 in money. Commodities are not his terminating object, 
 save in the spending of his revenue, and when he pur- 
 chases for the sake of consumption. In the outlay of his 
 capital, and when he purchases for the sake of produc- 
 tion, money is his terminating object. If he start at 
 present with a certain sum expressed in pounds, shillings, 
 and pence, the great end of his exertion or enterprise is, 
 that after the current speculation is completed, he might 
 start anew on another speculation, with a larger sum, ex- 
 pressed as before in pounds, shillings, and pence ; whether 
 these have meanwhile increased or decreased in their 
 value. Had this consideration been kept in view, we 
 feel persuaded that the doctrine of the impossibility of a 
 universal glut would never have been framed. 
 
 18. There is nothing in the operations of credit to 
 affect, but rather to confirm this reasoning. Generally 
 speaking, when men trade upon credit, the only diffe- 
 rence which it makes is, that they trade not with their 
 own capital, but with that of other people ; and there is 
 naught surely in this, which should lead us to modify any 
 of our conclusions on the subject of capital. Very often 
 too, when trading upon credit, it is not strictly with the 
 capital of others ; and yet it may be a credit which has a 
 substantial basis to rest upon. A landed proprietor may 
 bind himself to a future payment, on a written deed or 
 instrument which he makes over to a trader ; and in this 
 way a species of wealth, that is not fitted in itself to per- 
 form the functions of moneyed capital, is made available 
 for this end. The truth is, that his written engagements, 
 just like the notes issued by a bank whose credit is unex- 
 ceptionable, because grounded on the immense landed 
 wealth of its proprietors, have in them all the virtue of 
 money. It is curious to trace the effect of such an ope- 
 ration. We can imagine an additional ten millions crea- 
 ted in this way ; and that at a time when the trade of 
 the country was moving evenly and surely, with the an- 
 
IM POSSIBILITY OF OVER PRODUCTION* 
 
 iiual outlay of capital to the extent of a hundred millionSj 
 and the return of a hundred and ten. If the additional 
 ten millions that we now suppose, are created for the 
 purposes of speculation, this has just the effect of ad- 
 vancing the cost of all the means and materials of manu- 
 facture; and so, causing an outlay of a hundred and ten 
 with the old return of a hundred and ten, profit would be 
 annihilated. If the additional ten millions be created 
 for the purposes of extravagance, this has just the effect 
 of advancing the price of all the finished articles in trade 
 and manufactures ; and so, causing a return of a hun- 
 dred and twenty to the old outlay of a hundred, profit 
 would be advanced from ten to twenty millions. In 
 either way there would be effected, not the reduction of 
 wealth, but the rotation of it. Should landed proprietors 
 over speculate to the extent often millions, to that extent 
 do they mortgage their estates ; and their creditors may 
 be traced to the holders of the means and materials 
 in manufacture, who, by a commensurate rise in the 
 price of these, have become as much richer as the 
 speculatists have become poorer. Or, should landed 
 proprietors over spend to the extent of ten millions, to 
 that extent also do they mortgage their estates ; and their 
 creditors may be traced to the holders of all sorts of 
 finished articles for sale, who, by a commensurate rise in 
 the price of these, have become as much richer as the 
 spendthrifts have become poorer. In the latter case, the 
 error lies in turning to revenue that which should have 
 been suffered to remain unalienated and undisturbed in 
 the bosom of their property. In the former case, the 
 error (and in spite of all the demand which there is by 
 economists for capital to the uttermost, and production 
 to the uttermost, the one is just as great an error as the 
 other) lies in turning to capital that which should have 
 been suffered to remain alike undisturbed and una- 
 lienated. 
 
 19, However interesting to pursue credit into all its 
 issues and final consequences, we must not detain our- 
 selves among the varieties and numerous modifications of 
 which it is susceptible. We shall only instance the case 
 
POSSIBILITY OF OVER PRODUCTION. 125 
 
 when credit is entirely fictitious, but in virtue of a delu- 
 sive confidence obtains currency to its notes or instru- 
 ments for a time ; as to the bills which are drawn and 
 accepted by men of no capital, and the issue of engage- 
 ments by a bank beyond its power of hquidation, should 
 they have been turned to the prosecution of rash and 
 ruinous undertakings. These, while their credit lasts, 
 have the same power of effecting exchanges as money 
 itself has ; and one can imagine, that in this way there 
 may be sent afloat into the world of enterprise an addi- 
 tional sum of ten milhons, while the whole pecuniary 
 returns for the outlay of moneyed capital were the same 
 as before. There behooved, in consequence, to be a 
 diminution of profit to the extent of ten millions. Amid 
 the general losses which ensue by this over trading, the 
 adventurers, it is possible, may come in for a fractional 
 share of the returns along with the previous traders 
 amongst whom they have thrust themselves. But in as 
 far as fictitious credit in the hands of some has thus made 
 good its encroachments, it will be found to have been by 
 the shifting of a solid capital that was before in the hands 
 of others, now elbowed out by the more fortunate gam- 
 blers who have succeeded them. One melancholy effect 
 often is, that labourers, thrown adrift and defrauded of 
 their wages, have to live many days in penury. But for 
 this excessive and unwarrantable speculation they may 
 have continued in their wonted fulness ; so that in this 
 instance, too, capital may be said to have been forced, 
 though by anticipation, out of that which should have 
 been left to its proper destination ; and which, instead of 
 being speculated with by merchants in the shape of capi- 
 tal, ought to have been spent by workmen in the shape 
 of revenue. 
 
 20. At all events, the phenomena of credit, though 
 we can afford to dwell upon them no longer, lend the 
 most ample and satisfactory confirmation to our views on 
 the subject of capital. In a season of great commercial 
 distress, occasioned by many failures, we often hear the 
 calamity ascribed to so many people trading upon credit, 
 instead of trading with capitals of their own. But thi^ 
 
126 POSSIBILITY OF OVER PRODUCTION* 
 
 very circumstance proves, that capital cannot be carried 
 beyond a certain limit in miy country. Grant that the 
 sum" embarked this year on mercantile transactions was 
 raised by credit from a hundred to a hundred and ten 
 miUions, there need have been no failure, had the return 
 for this sum, in the price of the goods prepared and 
 brought by it to market, been a hundred and ten millions, 
 with a sufficient profit beside to all who were engaged. 
 But if, instead of this, the return is but a hundred and 
 ten millions without any profit, then, on the supposition 
 that capitalists have lived as usual, there must be failures 
 to the amount of ten millions. It is not, however, the 
 mere circumstance of these commodities being manufac- 
 tured partly by capital and partly by credit that has pro- 
 duced this result. It is simply the excess of commodities 
 over the effective demand for them ; an excess that would 
 liave been the same although wrought up altogether on 
 capital, instead of partly on capital and partly on credit. 
 If, after that a hundred millions were embarked on the 
 yearly business of the country, there was no room for 
 adventurers trading in addition on a credit of ten mil- 
 lions, there would have been just as little room for them 
 trading to this amount with capitals of their own. The 
 same loss would have ensued, with this only differencej 
 that capitalists to the amount of ten millions would have 
 lost their own, instead of adventurers losing the same 
 sum to other people. In the one case, the rash adventu- 
 rers, and they who trusted them, would have received 
 their chastisement. In the other case, the excess of capi- 
 tal would have been lopped off. Whether it be an excess 
 of production from rash adventure or redundant capital, 
 the result is altogether similar. And thus it is, that just 
 as population, when pressing on the food of a country, 
 limited in its power of subsisting labourers, receives a 
 check by poverty and disease ; so capital, when pressing 
 on the business of a country, limited in its power of re- 
 turning the outlays with a profit, receives as effectual a 
 check by the losses of real, and the bankruptcies of ficti« 
 tlom capitalists* 
 
POSSIBILITY OF OVER PRODUCTION. 127 
 
 21. In conclusion, we would only observe, though at 
 the hazard of some reiteration, that the number of human 
 beings in a country is very nearly on a level with the 
 amount of human subsistence, and tends to go beyond it. 
 Labour is the return given by the general population, to 
 those who uphold them in the necessaries of life ; and the 
 products of this labour may be either turned by their 
 owners into self consumption, or laid up by them for the 
 purpose of future production. But just as labourers can- 
 not be multiplied beyond the possibility of a wage to 
 sustain them, so neither will the products of antecedent 
 labour, be multiplied and employed as capital, beyond 
 the limit at which profits are diminished, so as to be on a 
 level with the least possible maintenance of the capitalists. 
 When a country is improved to the uttermost, and is, 
 therefore, pressing on its ultimate resources, the neces- 
 saries of life have become stationary in their amount; and 
 then nothing can raise wages but a diminished population, 
 and nothing can raise profit but a diminished capital. 
 An increase in the necessaries of life would afford room 
 for the enlargement of both. So long as there is fresh 
 land to be entered upon, there is scope for the investiture 
 of more agricultural capital ; and in the larger demand 
 of an increasing population for second necessaries, as 
 well as the larger demand of the new, and now wealthier 
 proprietors for luxuries, there is scope for the investiture 
 of more manufacturing capital also. While this is in 
 progress, profit is upheld from sinking so rapidly as it 
 would ; and so the interest of money, which is propor- 
 tional to profit, is higher in America than in the old, and, 
 at the same time, well governed countries of Europe. 
 But though, for along period, agriculture may thus draw 
 capital after it, it follows not that capital can, beyond a 
 certain limit, force agriculture. In proportion as that 
 limit is approached, profit falls ; and capital, ever tending 
 to an overflow, feels itself beset within the confines of a 
 field too narrow for the advantageous occupation of it. 
 The days have been, when the great prescription of po- 
 litical empiricism, for the distresses of a weak or wretched 
 country, was an increase of population ; but this has now 
 
128 POSSIBILITY OF OVER PRODUCTION. 
 
 gone by. The next remedy, at one time embodied in the 
 acts of government, and still proceeded on in the schemes 
 of provincial or parish philanthropy, was the increase of 
 employment ; but this too, in ways innumerable, has 
 proved itself to be a resource that is not indefinite. There 
 is still an unbroken faith in the increase of capital, as a 
 specific for the distempers of a land that labours, and is 
 oppressed under the multitude of its suffering families. 
 But this device too, is impotent like the rest ; and we 
 must look to some other quarter still, ere we can find the 
 secret principle of a nation's secure and permanent well 
 being.* 
 
 *In the following extracts from Say's Political Economy, the read- 
 er will observe his assertion of the doctrine which we have attempt- 
 ed throughout this chapter to expose as erroneous : — 
 
 " Neither individuals nor communities can extend or fertilize 
 their territory, beyond what the nature of things permits ; but they 
 have unlimited power of enlarging their capital, and, consequently, 
 of setting at work a larger body of industry, and thus of multiplying 
 their products: in other words, their wealth." — Book I. Chap. v. ^ 
 
 " Moreover, it may be remarked, that the powers of man, resulting 
 from the faculty of amassing capital, are absolutely indefinable ; be- 
 cause, there is no assignable limit to the capital he may accumulate, 
 with the aid of time, industry, and frugality." — Book I. Chap. xi. ^ 
 
 In the following extract, he seems to overlook what the real dis- 
 tinction is, between an old and a new country, in respect of the slow 
 accumulation of capital in the former, and its rapid accumulation in 
 the latter ; and, in overlooking this distinction, he of course must niiss 
 altogether the perception of any absolute limit, beyond which capital 
 cannot be extended : — 
 
 " In point of fact, capital is of much more rapid accumulation in 
 new countries, than in countries long civilized. It would seem as if 
 the colonists, in abandoning their native country, leave behind them 
 part of their vicious propensities ; they certainly carry with them 
 little of that fondness for show that costs so dear in Europe, and 
 brings so poor a return. No qualities, but those of utility, are in es- 
 timation in the country they are going to ; and consumption is limit- 
 ed to objects of rational desire, which is sooner satisfied than artificial 
 wants. The towns are few and small ; the life of agriculturists, 
 which they must necessarily adopt, is of all others, the most econo- 
 mical ; finally, their industry is proportionally more productive, and 
 requires a smaller capital to work upon. 
 
 " The character of the colonial government usually accords with 
 that of individuals ; it is active in the execution of its duties, sparing 
 of expense, and carefiil to avoid quarrels; thus there are few taxes, 
 sometimes none at all; and, since the government takes little or 
 
129 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 ON THE LIMITS OF A COUNTRY'S FOREIGN TRADE, 
 AND ITS SUPPOSED POWER TO FURNISH A PEOPLE 
 WITH EMPLOYMENT AND MAINTENANCE. 
 
 I. The case of a country whose population is limited 
 hy its agricultural produce, 
 
 1. The next resource which dazzles the imagination 
 of philanthropists and statesmen is, foreign trade. This 
 is held to be a fountain head of wealth and of employ- 
 ment ; which, in the eyes of many, are altogether indefi- 
 nite. Such is the virtue, indeed, associated with the very 
 
 nothing from the revenues of the subject, his ability to multiply his 
 savings, and, consequently, to enlarge his productive capital, is very 
 great. With very little capital to begin upon, the annual produce of 
 the colony very soon exceeds its consumption. Hence the astonish- 
 ingly rapid progress in its wealth and population ; for human labour 
 becomes dear in proportion to the accumulation of capital ; and it is 
 a well known maxim, that population always increases according to 
 the demand." — Book I, Chap. xix. 
 
 It is pretty evident from this passage, that, in order to keep up as 
 fast a rate of accumulation in an old as in a new country, all which 
 Mr, Say holds to be necessary, is, that the individuals, and govern- 
 ment of the former, should equal those of the latter, in frugality and 
 good conduct. 
 
 We conclude this list of extracts, with a passage which depones to 
 the fact, of the speedy restoration of a spent, or diminished capital, to 
 its original magnitude; but indicates the prevalent misconception 
 which obtains, as to the principle or reason of the fact. 
 
 " It would seem that there exists in the politic, to a stronger degree 
 than even in the natural body, a principle of vitality and elasticity, 
 which cannot be extinguished without the most violent pressure. 
 One cannot look into the pages of history, without being struck Avith 
 the rapidity with which this principle has operated. It has nowhere 
 been more strikingly exemplified, than in the frequent vicissitudes 
 that our own France has experienced, since the commencement of 
 the Revolution." — Book III, Chap. vi. — See Appendix E, on Profit. 
 
 12 
 
130 FOREIGN TRADE. 
 
 names of capital and commerce, that many wonder how, 
 in a country where these have attained an unexampled 
 magnitude, there should be any distress, and far more, 
 aught like general distress among its famiUes. One 
 might understand how a people, confined witliin the li- 
 mits of their own home trade, should be in a straitened 
 condition. But open the world to them, and the con- 
 ception is, that all straitness and limitation are necessarily 
 put an end to. With access to all the markets of the 
 globe it is felt, as if every clime, and every nation, were 
 made to contribute to our abundance ; and that a horn, 
 filled with treasure from the various regions of the earth, 
 were thereby poured over the towns and villages of our 
 land. The imagination is greatly confirmed, when we 
 see the largest towns of the empire, in special connexion 
 with foreign countries, and, to all appearance, upheld by 
 the demands and the payments of customers there. The 
 very existence of these large and flourishmg establish- 
 ments, and the maintenance of their thousands, and tens 
 of thousands of industrious families, are ascribed to a 
 foreign trade ; the annihilation of which would involve 
 the annihilation, not merely of their work, but of their 
 livehhood, and the extension of which, it is thought, 
 would carry along viith it a proportional extension of 
 support for an unprovided, or a yet unborn population. 
 
 2. And this popular imagination receives great counte- 
 nance from the representations and the views of our most 
 distinguished economists. Home trade consists in the 
 exchange of one set of home products for another. But 
 over and above these, there might be commodities pro- 
 duced at home, for which there is no demand within the 
 country ; and for which, therefore, no equivalents can be 
 obtained among ourselves. These Dr. Smith terms the 
 surplus produce of the nation, the exchange of which, for 
 equivalents from abroad, gives rise to foreign trade. 
 Now, he so represents it as to give the impression, that 
 wdthout these equivalents there would have been no sur- 
 plus produce ; that the former, in fact, have stimulated 
 the production of the latter ; and that, therefore, without 
 a foreign trade, we should have wanted, not merely the 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 131 
 
 exportation of a surplus, but the very existence of one. 
 He clearly accredits foreign trade with a gain to the 
 nation, equal to the value of this surplus, which, but for 
 the excitement of what is given in return for it, would 
 not, he intimates, have been called into being. Had 
 there been nothing to import, there would, according to 
 him, have been nothing to export ; and this gives cur- 
 rency to the notion, that neither would our present ex- 
 ports, nor aught else in the place of them, have been 
 produced. At this rate the foreign trade is a superin- 
 duceraent on the home, which tells in the way of a dis- 
 tinct addition to the wealth and resources of the country. 
 If a million of our people be emploj'ed in the manufac- 
 ture of export commodities, there is a very general ima- 
 gination, and certainly an imagination which the views 
 of our distinguished economist do not serve to correct, 
 but to confirm, that they are employed in a business 
 which foreign trade has called into existence ; and, as 
 their employment is the vehicle of their support, that to 
 this foreign trade we are indebted for the support of a 
 large proportion of our families. 
 
 3. Let us now attend, for a moment, to the real charac- 
 ter and effect of these interchanges in foreign trade. Let 
 us put, for an example, the two countries of Britain and 
 Portugal ; the hardware of the one country being export- 
 ed, and the wine of the other being imported, a mil- 
 lion worth of hardware, and a million worth of wine. 
 The manufacturers of hardware in Britain, become the 
 creditors of Portugal to the extent of a million ; and 
 to the same extent do the wine growers of Portugal be- 
 come the creditors of Britain. And there is a set of debt- 
 ors, as well as a set of creditors in each of the countries : 
 the Portuguese debtors being the receivers of the hard- 
 ware, and the British debtors being the receivers of the 
 wine. The exporters in each country look to the con- 
 sumers of the other as their customers ; yet, in fact, neither 
 receive payment, by a direct pecuniary remittance, from 
 those to whom they have sold their respective commodi- 
 ties. The matter is adjusted in this way; and the des- 
 cnption applies generally to the interchanges of foreign 
 
132 FOREIGN TRADE. 
 
 trade. The importers of hardware into Portugal pay 
 their debt, not to the exporters of the hardware in this 
 country, but they pay it to the exporters of wine in Por- 
 tugal, and receive in return for their payment an order on 
 the importers of wine in Britain. This order they remit 
 to the exporters of hardware in Britain, who, on present- 
 ing it to the importers of wine, there receive payment. 
 Generally speaking, then, the adjustment takes place by 
 bills of exchange, which have the effect of making over 
 the debtors in Portugal, not to their creditors in Britain? 
 but to the creditors in Portugal; and the debtors in 
 Britain, not to their creditors in Portugal, but to their 
 creditors in Britain. The parties thus brought into re- 
 lation, may be alike unknowing and unknown to each 
 other ; transacting, as they do, through the medium of the 
 bill broker, who alone comes into contact with both. 
 Still, virtually and in effect, the export manufacturers of 
 our hardware, receive their payment from the importers 
 of our wine. They hold themselves to be labouring in 
 the service, and to be maintained by the wealth of custo- 
 mers abroad ; but, in point of fact, they are labouring in 
 the service, and are maintained by the wealth of customers 
 at home. 
 
 4. It is practically felt by commercial men, and clearly 
 demonstrated by economical writers, that the power of 
 exporting with advantage, is limited or measured by the 
 power of importing with advantage ; and that when the 
 one stops, the other must stop also. The export trade 
 ceases to be beneficial, on the moment that the returns 
 which come back in the exchange between ourselves and 
 all other countries cease to be disposable. The deficien- 
 cy of im^ports from one foreign country may be made up 
 by an excess of imports from another; and a circuitous 
 adjustment is then made by round about bills of exchange. 
 But a general deficiency of imports will lay an arrest on 
 a farther increase of exports. In other words, we are 
 enabled to send British commodities abroad, just because 
 there is a demand for foreign commodities at home. The 
 manufacturer of export articles is just as much indebted 
 for his maintenance to our inland consumerg, as the 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 133 
 
 manufacturer of articles for home consumption. The 
 only difference is, that whereas the latter works up a 
 commodity which is immediately purchased by home con- 
 sumers, the former works up a commodity which goes to 
 the purchase of that which is immediately purchased by 
 them. In as far as he prefers hardware to wine, he gives 
 a price for it to the manufacturer, who in this instance 
 works for the supply of the home market. In as far as 
 he prefers the wine to the hardware, he gives a price for 
 it to the wine importer, who is enabled thereby to meet 
 the bills of the export manufacturer who has been work- 
 ing for the supply of the foreign market. It is thus that 
 the export manufacturer works, though not directly and 
 ostensibly, yet virtually and really, in the service of the 
 inland consumer. If not employed in the fabrication of 
 that for which the inland consumer has demand, he is at 
 least employed in the fabrication of that which goes in 
 exchange for such things as the inland consumer has a 
 value and demand for. He works up, not that which 
 the consumers at home want, but that which will pur- 
 chase what the consumers at home want. He is the in- 
 strument of obtaining for them their gratification, although 
 that gratification comes to their door in the shape of a 
 foreign luxury. In effect, he labours for their enjoy- 
 ment, and, in effect, by them he is paid. 
 
 5. We are now able to appreciate the doctrine, that 
 foreign trade not only provides a vent for our surplus 
 produce, but that foreign trade called it into being. 
 The million-worth of hardware exported to Portugal, 
 may be denominated surplus produce ; seeing that there 
 is no effective demand for it at home. But neither would 
 there have been effective demand for it in Portugal, had 
 Portugal not had the power to purchase it ; and what 
 gives this power to her million-worth of wine is, just, 
 that for that quantity of wine there is an effective de- 
 mand, and, of course, a power to purchase it in this 
 country. But for the million-worth of maintenance in 
 the hands of our inland consumers, and discharged by 
 them through the medium of the wine merchant, or the 
 export manufacturers of hardware, to that extent would 
 
 12* 
 
134 FOREIGN TRADE. 
 
 our imports have been lessened, and to tliat extent would 
 our exports have been lessened also. Virtually, it is an 
 antecedent ability on the part of inland consumers, which 
 called this surplus produce into being. In the order of 
 dependence, or in the order of cause and effect, 
 primary rank is due to the inland consumers, and 
 the secondary or derivative, to the export manufactu- 
 rers. And the plain reason is, that the manufacturers 
 cannot do without the maintenance, but the consumers 
 can do without the wine. Should their maintenance 
 be destroyed by a permanent blight that would re- 
 duce the fertihty of our fields, their manufacture would 
 cease ; but should their manufacture be destroyed by 
 some barrier of interception that stopped both the 
 exportation of hardware and the importation of wine, 
 their maintenance would not, on that account, cease to 
 be produced as liberally as before. The effect of the 
 first catastrophe would be a permanent loss to the coun- 
 try, both of a certain population and of the fruits of 
 their industry. The whole effect of the second would 
 be, a change of one enjoj^ment for another to our inland 
 consumers ; and, not a loss of people, but merely a 
 change in the direction of their industry. We deny not 
 the temporary inconvenience of this transition from one 
 employment to another ; but, after the transition had been 
 effected, we should behold the same spectacle of as great 
 and industrious a population as well employed and as well 
 maintained as before. 
 
 6. On this subject, the history of wealth has given 
 rise to an erroneous philosophy of wealth. We are aware 
 that they are facts which form the materials of sound 
 philosophy; yet a false philosophy may be constructed 
 of facts misinterpreted and misapplied. And this we 
 hold to have been strikingly exemplified in the case be- 
 fore us. It is quite true, that at the termination of the 
 middle ages, it was mainly the presentation of luxuries 
 from abroad which impressed a new habit upion our 
 landlords, and gave a new direction to their expenditure. 
 It is quite true that their insatiable appetite for personal 
 enjoyment, when once excited, proved a far more power- 
 
fill spur to the cultivation of their farms than a mere 
 desire to support or to extend the coarse and feudal hospi- 
 tality of the olden times. The love of finery and of 
 sensual indulgence, greatly more inclined them to make 
 the most of their estates, and to draw forth of them the 
 uttermost of their produce, than did the love of a 
 crowded attendance upon their persons, or of a crowded 
 assembly in their halls. It is thus that commerce was a 
 moving force, which speeded their transition from one 
 habit of expenditure to another ; and that it was a transi- 
 tion which led to a far more strenuous agriculture than 
 heretofore. There can be no doubt that the carpets, and 
 the looking-glasses, and the wines of otlier lands, gave 
 an impulse to husbandry all over Europe ; and that his- 
 torically, at that time of day, the produce of foreign 
 parts had in it a force of allurement, which not only at- 
 tracted to itself a pre-existent, but gave birth to a new 
 produce in the various countries of Christendom. But 
 now that the transition has been made, and the modern 
 habit of our landed proprietors has been fully established, 
 are we to imagine, that the withdrawment of any one, or 
 even of all foreign luxuries put together, would cause 
 the agriculture to narrow itself within its ancient limits, 
 or put so much as one field or furrow of land out of cul- 
 tivation ? Whatever the wine of Portugal may have 
 done then in adding to cultivation, has it so much as a 
 particle of influence noiv in keeping up that cultivation ? 
 Although port should, in all time coming, disappear 
 from our markets, is there a landlord in Britain who, 
 on that account, would let down the cultivation of a sin- 
 gle acre of his property ? Would he forego the hundred 
 a year that he wont to expend on this luxury, because 
 the luxury was no longer to be had ? Would he bid his 
 tenants remit of their wonted activity, because he had 
 now remitted so much of their wonted rental, having no 
 use for it, in consequence of this stoppage which had 
 taken place in one of the outgoings of his previous ex- 
 penditure ? Though debarred from one of its accus- 
 tomed channels, would he not fmd, and that most readily, 
 new channels of expenditure, through which to impress 
 
136 FOKElGiN TRADE. 
 
 on industry some other direction, and to discharge the 
 same maintenance on an equal number of people in some 
 other employment ? Would he refuse an income so large 
 as before, because, in the absence of some luxury fur- 
 nished by a single branch of foreign trade, or because in 
 the absence of all the luxuries which foreign trade had 
 placed within his reach, he was now at a loss for objects 
 on which to lavish as great an expenditure as before ? 
 And besides, is there not a charm in the enlargement of 
 income, apart from all thought of the enlargement of ex- 
 penditure ? Wealth, no doubt, is an abstraction, when 
 separated from the comforts and enjoyments which it 
 purchases. But abstraction as it is, does it not tell on 
 human conduct with all the power of a living and sub- 
 stantial reality ? When the offer is made of an advanced 
 rent for land, must the proprietor calculate on the addi- 
 tional wine, and dress, and equipage, it will afford, ere 
 he becomes alive to the happiness of the offer, and is led 
 to close with it? But do we stand in any need of this 
 argument, in the exhaustless variety of nature's gratifica- 
 tions, and the infinitude of resources or openings for ex- 
 penditure ? Amid all the failures and fluctuations which 
 take place, whether in home or foreign trade, will not the 
 desire of a larger revenue, and with it of a larger com- 
 mand over the services of others, remain an indestructible 
 principle in his bosom ? Is any conceivable obstruction 
 in the intercourse with other countries, so to change the 
 nature of humanity in this country, that we should no 
 longer behold the men of it in the same attitude as be- 
 fore, as keen in the feeling of their interests, as insatia- 
 ble in their longings and aspirations, and each on the full 
 stretch of endeavour for bettering his own condition and 
 his own circumstances ? Landlords would just be as 
 eager to receive a rent, and tenants as busy in their call- 
 ings to pay the rent, and appropriate the largest possible 
 surplus to themselves. In other words, many a particu- 
 lar trade may be destroyed ; but the great and primary 
 aliment of all trade would not be destroyed. There 
 might be at shifting of human labour ; but there would 
 be no lessening in the amount of it. And, in the act of 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 137 
 
 sbifting, there might be partial and temporary distress ; 
 yet, conceding this, we should surely and speedily behold 
 as much well-paid industry as before, and that yielded by 
 the hands of as large a population. 
 
 7. We may thus perceive what the whole effect would 
 be, were our trade with Portugal suspended, or even 
 brought to permanent extinction. Our inland proprie- 
 tors would lose their wine, and our export manufacturers 
 would lose one of their markets. But though, on the 
 one hand, the wine should be lost, the ability to purchase 
 it is not therefore lost. It remains entire in the hand of 
 its old possessors, and is ready to be discharged on the 
 purchase of some other gratification. And, on the other 
 hand, though the market should be lost, the maintenance 
 of those who wont to prepare commodities for the market 
 is not therefore lost. There is on the one side the spare 
 maintenance, and on the other the unemployed popula- 
 tion. We may be very sure that things will not continue 
 in this state; that, in the first place, the maintenance 
 will not be suffered to lie waste ; and, in the second 
 place, that the population will not be suffered to lie un- 
 employed. There will, to the proprietor, be the substi- 
 tution of one enjoyment for another. There will, to the 
 labourers, be the substitution of one employment for 
 another. In as far as the revenue that wont to be ex- 
 pended on the wines of Portugal goes to the purchase of 
 foreign articles, there is just the loss of one branch of 
 foreign trade replaced by the extension of other branches. 
 In as far as this revenue goes to the purchase of home 
 articles, there is just a diminution of the foreign trade, 
 compensated by a proportional enlargement of the home 
 trade. Ultimate I37, there is no one interest affected by the 
 change, but the interest of the consumers, who are now 
 obliged to put up with an article which they like not so 
 well as the one they have been forced to abandon. The 
 very fact of their preference for Portuguese wine when 
 they could get it, is a proof that there has been a sacri- 
 fice of taste in passing from the old luxury to the new; 
 and so, a descent of enjoyment. This difference of en- 
 joyment to them, is really the whole amount of the CBi^ 
 
138 FOREIGN TRADE. 
 
 lamity which such a change can inflict upon the nation. 
 Every other interest is comprehended in the price paid 
 by the consumer, and which goes full fraught with all its 
 powers and its blessings into the new direction that has 
 now been opened up for it. It comprises as large a main- 
 tenance to the workmen. It comprises as large a profit 
 to capitalists. And if the former luxury was taxed, and 
 so made the vehicle of a revenue to government, this, 
 too, enters as a constituent into the price, and the same 
 price may still be made to comprise as large a public re- 
 venue as before. 
 
 8. We see, then, that the terminus ad quern of foreign 
 trade, is consumption at home. The maintenance of all 
 those engaged in it ; the wages of the labourers ; the 
 profits of the capitalists; the tax laid on foreign articles, 
 these emanate not from the trade, but from the antecedent 
 ability of consumers, who may be regarded as the real 
 supports and fountain heads of the trade. What is true 
 of home, is true also of foreign trade. It should be ac- 
 credited with no more than with the commodities which 
 it brings to the door of our inland purchasers. This it 
 does, but it does no more than this. There is mysticism 
 in the assertion, that a stockingmaker does aught more 
 for the nation than simply contribute stockings; and 
 there is just as delusive a mysticism in the assertion, that 
 the wine trade of Portugal confers any other benefit on 
 the nation than simply the benefit of wine, or the West 
 India trade than sugar and cofiee, or the China trade 
 than tea. We are aware of other and far more magni- 
 ficent interests being associated therewith ; as the suste- 
 nance of a great population; and along with it, power, 
 and public revenue, and national greatness. It is ima- 
 gined, that by the excision of a given branch of foreign 
 trade, there would be an excision from the land of the 
 means and the maintenance of all who are engaged in it ; 
 whereas, there would simply be an exchange to the con- 
 sumers of one article of enjoyment for another ; and to 
 the people, the exchange of one kind of employment for 
 another, but with as ample means and maintenance as 
 before. The East and the West Indies are regarded as 
 
FOREIGN TRADE* 139 
 
 the two hands of the empire ; and the imagination is, 
 that were our connexion with these destroyed, Britain 
 would suffer as much as from the lopping off of two 
 hands, or, in other words, would be shorn of its strength 
 and its capacity for action, in virtue of this sore mutila- 
 tion. It would positively be shorn of nothing but its 
 sugar and tea.* Were our intercourse with the East and 
 
 * I argue on the supposition of these being their only, as they form 
 their main commodities. When, to vindicate the importance of for- 
 eign trade, the superior worth and usefulness of its import articles are 
 insisted on, as of timber from Norway, or nitre from the East Indies, 
 which are important in a national view, the reasoning proceeds on a 
 principle to which we render all homage ; its subserviency to the be- 
 nefit of consumers at home, being the only principle, in fact, on 
 which we concede any value whatever to foreign trade. But this is 
 not the only, not even the chief principle, ok which our mercantile 
 economists would rate the importance of foreign trade. They look 
 to the interest of the sellers and not of the buyers; although, in the 
 price paid by the buyers, every interest of the sellers is comprehended. 
 
 And when once the real worth of foreign trade is placed on its es- 
 sential and only proper foundation, there is much that can truly and 
 without exaggeration be alleged in its behalf. Even its very luxuries 
 may fulfil, to a certain extent, the part of necessaries in disguise. 
 The tea, and sugar, and wine, which come to us from abroad, super- 
 sede a very great consumption in the shape of milk, or malt liquor, or 
 spirits, which, though not absolutely essential to subsistence, would 
 still have been indulged in, and so have trenched on the amount of 
 that home produce which now goes purely and nakedly to the pur- 
 poses of food. Even the food itself is often imported from abroad in 
 large quantities; but this forms a distinct case, and in our next chap- 
 ter it will form the subject of a distinct consideration. 
 
 Nay, it may so happen, that, in virtue of its foreign trade, the ag- 
 riculture of our land may descend farther into the inferior soils than 
 had otherwise been possible. If any of the second necessaries of life 
 can be obtained, through its imports, with less labour; or if any of 
 our farm implements can, by the same means, be either had cheap- 
 er, or made more more effective ; these would obviously tell at the 
 extreme limit of our agriculture, and have the effect of somewhat 
 pushing it onward to land of greater sterility. 
 
 And in those cases where we could have had a home substitute for 
 some foreign luxury, without trenching on the food of our population, 
 yet, if the actual preference is for the foreign luxury, it is because we 
 have the enjoyment we like best at a less price, or, which is tanta- 
 mount to this, a greater amount of that enjoyment for the same price. 
 But this, too, is altogether an interest wherewith the consumers, and 
 not the producers have to do. The producers wiU be equally well 
 maintained by the consumers, in any way that the latter may choose 
 to employ them. But it is the wisdom, and for the benefit of consu- 
 
140 FOREIGN TRADE. 
 
 the West conclusively broken up, we should lose the 
 services, first of our tea grower, and then of our tea 
 sweetener; for so might these regions be denominated. 
 It is thus that we would reduce the importance of foreign 
 trade to its humbler but juster dimensions; and then as- 
 sert the independence of Britain thereupon. The noble 
 flotillas which periodically leave our shores, and return 
 laden with the spoils of every climate, form altogether an 
 imposing spectacle ; and by which commerce has had a 
 most bewildering glare thrown over it. But this com- 
 merce is really not a superinducement from abroad ; it is 
 the efflorescence of an inherent vigour and vitality at 
 home. Foreign trade is not the creator of any econo- 
 mic interest ; it is but the officiating minister of our en- 
 joyments. Should we consent to forego these enjoyments, 
 then, at the bidding of our will, the whole strength at 
 
 mers, that they should encourage, by their demand, the foreign rather 
 than the home trade ; when, as the result of their so doing, they ob- 
 tain either a better quality, or a greater quantity of enjoyment. 
 
 Still, with all these qualifications, had our estimate of foreign trade 
 been reduced, and rectified, and set on its proper basis, governments 
 would have as little thought of going to war for the purpose of giv- 
 ing laws to commerce, as of going to war for the purpose of giving 
 laws to taste. They would have felt the matters of trade to be 
 as much beyond their province as the matters of fashion; and as 
 little legislated in order to secure for us a market in other, lands, as 
 in order to arrange the dishes and wines of our entertainments, or 
 the dresses of our ball rooms. 
 
 The following extract from Say is pertinent to the subject of this 
 note: — 
 
 " Although all products are necessary ta the social existence of 
 man, the necessity of food being, of all others, most urgent and un- 
 ceasing, and of most frequent recurrence, objects of aliment are justly 
 placed first in the catalogue of the means of human existence. They 
 are not all, however, the produce of the national territorial surface ; 
 but are procurable by commerce, as well as by internal agriculture ; 
 and many countries contain a greater number of inhabitants than 
 could subsist upon the produce of their land. Nay, the importation 
 of another commodity may be equivalent to an importation of an ar- 
 ticle of food. The export of wines and brandies to the North of 
 Europe, is almost equivalent to an export of bread ; for wine and 
 brandy, in great measure, supply the place of beer and spirits distilled 
 from grain, and thus allow the grain, which would otherwise be em- 
 ployed in the preparation of beer or spirits, to be reserved for that of 
 bread." 
 
FOREIGN TRADE, 141 
 
 present embarked in the service of procuring them, would 
 be transferred to other services, to the extension of home 
 trade ; to the enlargement of our national establishments ; 
 to the service of defence, or conquest, or scientific re^ 
 search, or Christian philanthropy. The only change 
 would be a change of object and of end to consumers ; 
 and a change of employment, but not a lessening of their 
 maintenance, to those who are now labouring in the va- 
 rious departments and stages of foreign trade for our 
 gratification. It would greatly subserve the cause of 
 peace, and of enlightened policy, were this juster estimate 
 on the subject of all trade, and more especially of foreign 
 trade, adopted by statesmen. The great majority of 
 wars are mercantile wars, which never might have been, 
 but for the illusion of those great names and imaginary 
 interests that are associated with commerce. We feel 
 persuaded, that the fearful conflicts of other days would 
 not now be repeated, could the nation but clearly see that 
 the only interest for which it was called upon to fight, 
 was a somewhat more luxurious breakfast, or a richer 
 dye to the vestments which covered them, or an easier ac- 
 cess to certain wines, or a more liberal importation of 
 shawls and silks, and figs, and oranges. It was never the 
 menaced loss of one or all of these which formed the 
 jealousy or the provocative that led to war. It was 
 the apprehension of a far more serious disaster, the los^ 
 of revenue to some large class of our merchants, of sup- 
 port to some large class of our industrious population. 
 Had foreign trade been seen in its true character and 
 effect, we cannot imagine that, for the preservation of a 
 monopoly, or a sugar island, so many a struggle would 
 have been entered on. A sense of national honour may 
 still have excited the spirit of discord among the king- 
 doms of the earth ; but not a sense of national interest. 
 
 9. But it would appear as if no experience could un- 
 school our politicians and patriots out of their obstinate 
 imaginations upon this subject. In the loss of our 
 American colonies did many a statesman anticipate the 
 downfal of the British nation. And in spite of the 
 
 13 
 
142 FOREIGN TRADE. 
 
 Utter vanity of this anticipation, do they cling with as 
 fond tenacity to our remaining colonies as before, and 
 would still brave in their defence the expenditure of 
 countless millions. It is not seen, how, with the unabat- 
 ed fertihty of our own fields, and those resources, far 
 beyond tiie reach of any distant influence, which lie 
 within the circle of our own shores^ we would be in pos- 
 session of as ample means as before for calling forth 
 and rewarding the services of all our population. 
 Could this only be apprehended, statesmen would not 
 be so tremblingly alive to the interests of any particular 
 trade, nor would they think the prosperity of our island 
 grounded on aught so precarious as the brittle founda- 
 tion of commerce and of the seas. They would leave 
 commerce to its own spontaneous courses ; and in- 
 stead of undertaking, with anxious heart and uncertain 
 hand, as their predecessors did before them, the guidance 
 or guardianship of its concerns, they would sleep se- 
 cure in the midst of all its fluctuations. But this never 
 has been, nor is it yet the policy of statesmen. The 
 doctrine of its natural insignificance is not understood 
 by them ; and both in the sigh of Napoleon's heart for 
 ships, and colonies, and commerce, and the splendid 
 vision of Canning, who thought he had conjured up the 
 resources of a new world, by which, through the convey- 
 ances of trade, to multiply without Umit and without 
 end the riches of our nation, do we recognize that sub- 
 tle delusion which has misled the legislators of all ages. 
 10. The agriculture of China is represented as now 
 pressing on its extreme limit, yet over and above this, 
 Dr. Smith tells us how much richer that country 
 would have been by the accession of foreign trade. 
 The only effect, we imagine, of foreign trade to a 
 country circumstanced as China is said to be, were the 
 withdrawment of a population from the direct service 
 of ministering to the enjoyment of their maintainers by 
 the preparation of home articles, to the indirect service 
 of working up export articles for the purchase of com- 
 modities in foreign lands. There would be an accession 
 to the enjoyment of the inland consumers, seeing they 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 143 
 
 preferred the product of the foreign, to that of the 
 home manufacture. But to the people, there would 
 only be the transference of so many hands from one 
 employment to another, without any accession either to 
 their numbers or to their maintenance. To whatever 
 extent a foreign trade was superinduced, to that extent 
 the home trade would be diminished. And, in like 
 manner, when a new market is opened up, the imagina- 
 tion is, that all the business created by it is a clear ac- 
 cession to the country. And hence the gratulations 
 that we hear, both in and out of parliament, when the 
 market of South America, or the free market of the 
 East Indies, or any other ample and accessible field, is 
 presented to us for the egress of British commodities. 
 But the truth is, that an egress can only be sustained by 
 means of an ingress ; nor will exports continue to be 
 carried out with advantage any longer than the im- 
 ports which come back in return for tbem can be pur- 
 chased at home. The only advantage of a new mar- 
 ket is, that the wares which it offers may chance to be 
 more agreeable to the taste and the fancy of certain of 
 our inland consumers, than those of any other mai"kets 
 which previously lay open to them. In which case, 
 there will be a transference of expenditure from old to 
 new articles of demand — the formation of a new fo- 
 reign trade, we admit, but at the expense either of the 
 home trade, or of another foreign trade that had been 
 formerly in existence. The extent of our foreign trade 
 is, in fact, limited by the means, or by the extent, of hu- 
 man maintenance in the hands of our inland consumers. 
 The opening of a new market can do no more for the 
 generalwealth of our country, than the setting up of a 
 new stall can add to the wealth of customers at a fair. 
 It may present new commodities more agreeable to the 
 taste of purchasers, or even old commodities at a 
 cheaper rate than before. Either of these is an un- 
 doubted advantage to customers. But it cannot add to 
 the amount of the purchase money ; so that if the new 
 stall be at all resorted to, it must be by a partial forsak- 
 ing of the old ones. The same is true of the world at 
 large, where each new country that is opened for com- 
 
144 FOREIGN TRADE. 
 
 mercial enterprise may add to the number and variety 
 of our nation's markets, yet not add to the general 
 amount of its marketing. There is thus a natural, and 
 for the time, an insuperable barrier in the way of the 
 extension of foreign trade. It is necessarily limited by 
 the wealth of the consumers at home. And hence the 
 mockery of those splendid anticipations which dazzle 
 the fond eye of speculators, when, either by political 
 changes, or by the abolition of monopoly, a new country 
 is laid open to their enterprises. The dream is speedily 
 broken up.; and in the spectacle of glutted markets, 
 both at home and abroad, may we learn that there is a 
 limit to the extension of foreign trade, which no country 
 can overpass.* 
 
 11. The truth of the principles which we have la- 
 boured to expound, was put historically to the test, 
 when, on the one hand, Bonaparte, in utter ignorance 
 of them, thought he was levelling a death-blow at Bri- 
 tain, by the exclusion of our commodities from all the 
 markets of the continent ; and, on the other hand, our 
 alarmists at home, in equal ignorance of them, trem- 
 bled for the result. Neither of the parties understood, 
 wherein lay the secret of our country's strength and re- 
 sources ; that is, in the ability of our inland consumers 
 to turn the manufacturers of our prohibited exports into 
 any other direction^ and in that direction to support 
 them equally well as before. The truth is, that the ex- 
 tinction of foreign trade in one quarter, was almost im- 
 mediately followed up, either by the extension of it in 
 another quarter, or by the extension of the home trade. 
 The stoppage of all intercourse with France, if it 
 should hinder the exportation of our British cloths, 
 would equally hinder the importation of their French 
 wines ; and, the price of these, paid by the inland con- 
 sumers, as it supported the manufacturers engaged in 
 the old line of commerce, would equally support them 
 in some new line, most certain to be struck out, on the 
 former being abandoned. Even had every outlet 
 abroad been obstructed, then, instead of a transference 
 
 * See Appendix, F.~On Free Trade. 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 145 
 
 from one foreign market to another, there would just be 
 a universal reflux towards a home market, that would 
 be extended in precise proportion, with every suc- 
 cessive abridgement which took place in our external 
 commerce. We never deny the consequent change 
 that would thus take place on the enjoyment of consu- 
 mers ; but, along with that, we again repeat, that after 
 this revolution in our affairs, there would survive as 
 large a maintenance to our labourers ; as large a profit 
 to our capitalists ; and the means, with perhaps some 
 new modification of taxes, of as large a revenue to go- 
 vernment as before. The great apprehension, indeed, 
 connected with the non-intercourse acts of other coun- 
 tries, was lest the public revenue should iireparably suf- 
 fer from them ; and an astonishment was .felt, when, 
 on comparing successive years and quarters of the na- 
 tional income, it was found that there had been no 
 diminution. It is in beautiful accordance with these 
 views, that a lessening in the produce of the customs 
 was generally followed up by an enlargement in the 
 produce of the excise, marking the re -action of the 
 foreign on the home expenditure ; and verifying, what 
 we might with all confidence have expected beforehand, 
 the certainty of a full compensation, if not in respect 
 of luxury or physical enjoyment, at least in respect of 
 every substantial economic interest ; or of all in short 
 which either patriot or philanthropist needs to care for, 
 12. It is not our province minutely to explain the va- 
 riations of what has been called, the rate of exchange 
 between two countries, or the causes on which they are 
 dependent. But it is a truth, theoretically understood 
 by economists, and experimentally felt by practical men, 
 that the mutual imports and exports which pass and re- 
 pass, cannot exceed a certain disproportion ; that they 
 must so reciprocate as to be nearly of equal value, the 
 one to the other ; or, at least, that there is a certain 
 difference or excess of the one over the other, which 
 neither of them can pass. The possible amount of ex- 
 ports is limited by the possible amount of imports, and 
 conversely ; and this is distinctly and numerically indi- 
 
 13* 
 
146 FOREIGN TRADE* 
 
 cated by the state of the exchange. If there be a cer- 
 tain point at which the import trade ceases to be pro- 
 fitable, that determines the point at which the export 
 trade ceases to be profitable. When there is a de- 
 ficiency of imports, this produces a state of the ex- 
 change unfavourable to the export merchant, and 
 which goes, in deduction from hisprofit; so that should 
 he enlarge his exports any farther, the profit might 
 cease to be a remunerating one. In other words, his 
 power to export is limited by the power to import: and 
 this latter power is evidently limited by the ability to 
 purchase on the part of our inland consumers. It is 
 therefore in vain to talk of the indefinite demand for our 
 commodities on the part of other nations. This will 
 aivail us nothing for the extension of our trade, unless 
 it be followed by an indefinite power ;on the part of our 
 inland consumers, to purcliase the commodities which 
 come back to us in return. It is conceivable, that 
 there might be a demand in a foreign country, and, but 
 for the obstacle we now insist upon, effective demand 
 too, for British exports ; the preparation of which would 
 require the industry of a million of people, over and 
 above the numbers already subsisted by the agricultural 
 produce of the island. And, could the agriculture be 
 so enlarged as to afford this additional subsistence, 
 there would be no difficulty in meeting this demand 
 from abroad. For the larger imports necessary to meet 
 the now larger exports, could then all be absorbed. 
 Let the maintenance be stretched out to the support of 
 an additional million of human beings, and the wealth 
 of the holders of this maintenance is thereby stretched 
 out to a capacity for purchasing, either the immediate 
 products of their industry, or the equivalents given in 
 exchange for these products. The additional mainte- 
 nance given in return for the new imports, goes to the 
 support of the people who labour in preparing the new 
 or additional exports. It is thus that with every stretch 
 in the agriculture of a country, there is room for a cor- 
 responding stretch in its foreign trade. But should 
 the population of that couiatry have access to no other 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 147 
 
 agricultural produce than that which is raised within its 
 own territory, then, with the difficulty or the impossi- 
 bility of extending the agriculturej will there be found 
 a like difficulty or impossibility of extending its foreign 
 trade. It is by an exchange adverse to him that the 
 export merchant is brought to the test and the feeling 
 of this difficulty. It is when imports cannot ffiid a 
 sale, because there is not wealth in the country to pur- 
 chase them, that foreign trade meets with obstructions 
 to its increase. It is then that the tendency to an ex- 
 cess is counteracted by the heavy diminution which 
 profit suffers, from an unfavourable exchange. The 
 limit, in fact, of our agriculture, is also the limit of our 
 commerce ; and so again, do we find the margin of 
 cultivation to be a place in the science of political eco- 
 nomy, whence another of its important lessons may be 
 drawn. 
 
 13. This subject admits of some weighty and import- 
 ant applications. First, there is a fortunate coinci- 
 dence between the tendency to excess of Britain's ex- 
 port manufacturers, and the tendency of British gen- 
 tlemen to reside and travel in foreign parts. It will be 
 seen, on consideration, how the expenses of our landed 
 gentlemen abroad give an impulse, because they give a 
 real advantage to the business of our export manufac- 
 turers at home. They tell favourably for that busi- 
 ness on the rate of exchange. Had the nonresidents 
 of Britain spent their incomes at home, it must have 
 been chiefly in the purchase of home, and but frac- 
 tionally in the purchase of foreign commodities* 
 Only a small proportion of their revenue would have 
 been appropriated to the purchase of returns from 
 abroad, and, with this limitation on the imports, there 
 behooved to be a corresponding limitation on the ex- 
 ports also. But when, instead of this, they take up 
 their residence, or are much personally in foreign coun- 
 tries, their whole, or at least the far greater part of 
 their expenditure, must be given to foreign produce ; 
 and this, in as far the effect on exchange is concerned, 
 is precisely tantamount to a larger importation of pro- 
 
148 FOREIGN TRADE. 
 
 duce into Britain. The export merchants of this couii- 
 try have the same benefit from the residence of British 
 landlords abroad, that they would have had from the 
 importation of all which they consume abroad. The 
 growth of a taste for foreign travelling, or foreign so- 
 journing, has the same favourable effect on their interest, 
 as the growth of a taste for foreign articles of expense 
 among the gentry who never go from home. It mat- 
 ters not whether the British consumption of foreign produce 
 takes place within our country or out of it. In either 
 case, the price is paid by Britons, and is equally set 
 over and against the price paid by foreigners for our 
 export articles. The sum paid by Britons for articles 
 raised abroad, is, in truth, the great fund out of which 
 those merchants and manufacturers are paid, who carry 
 abroad the articles which are raised at home. If this 
 sum be any how enlarged, then, proportionally to it,, 
 will the amount or the profit-of our export trade be en- 
 larged. The only difference is, that our export manu- 
 facturers, instead of working in the service of British 
 consumers at home, work in the service of British con- 
 sumers, who have chosen to transport their persons and 
 their expenditures abroad. In the one case, they are paid 
 by bills on our merchant importers. In the other case, 
 they are paid by bills on the agents of our absentee pro- 
 prietors ; and an abundance of bills on either of these 
 classes is alike favourable to. the business of exporta- 
 tion. If British landlords, to the extent of a million of 
 rental, have chosen to take up their residence in 
 France, and a million worth of British goods be annual- 
 ly exported there, the adjustment can take place as 
 effectually by bills, as if our landlords had staid at 
 home, and there had been the importation of a 
 million worth of French goods into Britain. .The Bri- 
 tish exporters are paid by bills on the rent collectors of 
 the British absentees. Or, the British landlords have 
 their rents remitted to them by bills on the receivers of 
 British exports in France. There may have been no 
 agricultural produce exported from Britain for the pay- 
 ment of this rent. The full value of it may have beea 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 149 
 
 exported in British manufactures ; in which case, both 
 the capitahsts and the workmen of this country are as 
 eifectually maintained by the abihty of our non-resident 
 landlords, as if these had been living on their own es- 
 tates, and spending their revenues within the coun- 
 try. This non-residence may not have lessened the 
 amount of British industry. It might only affect the 
 direction of that industry. Instead of working in the 
 service of landlords at home, by preparing articles 
 which partly would have been bought by them, and 
 partly been exchanged for imports to be bought by 
 them ; there are so many of our population employed 
 in the service of these same landlords abroad, by pre- 
 paring articles to the full value of their rent, and making 
 an entire exportation of them. The receivers of these 
 articles in France pay the price of them to the British 
 residents there, and thus these obtain their rents. The 
 preparers of these articles can, by means of orders from 
 the British absentees on their agents, or tenantry, draw 
 from the rent which they owe ; and thus these obtain 
 their remuneration. In the whole of this process, there 
 need not be the transportation of any food from Britain 
 to France, even though they are the proprietors of 
 Britain's food who are there spending their incomes. 
 The whole of that food may goto the support of British 
 industry notwithstanding ; and, in spite of denounced 
 and deprecated absenteeism, may there be a population 
 in the midst of as, fully commensurate to the maintenance 
 that we raise, and maintained too in as great a fulness 
 as if the great and wealthy of our land never strayed 
 beyond its borders. 
 
 14. There is much that we cannot demonstrate at 
 full length, which, nevertheless, we might venture, 
 with all safety and confidence, to affirm. The supe- 
 riority of our exports to our imports is connected with 
 peculiar facihties, and tends also to cheapen both the 
 travels and the residence of our countrymen in foreign 
 parts. A gentleman of England, in any foreign coun- 
 try, will find it possible to negotiate his orders on 
 home, both with greater ease and economy, than one 
 
150 FOREIGN TRADE. 
 
 having the same territorial wealth in Poland. Wher- 
 ever he goes, he meets with the debtors of his own na- 
 tion, who would prefer a bill from him, for the settle- 
 ment of their accounts, to the expense and hazard of 
 a pecuniary remittance. It is thus that he may get a 
 premium for his bill, when the traveller of another 
 kingdom would need to offer such a premium, ere he 
 could obtain the conversion of his order into money. 
 The exports of England maybe regarded as the instru- 
 ments by which she can obtain accommodation and ser- 
 vice for her sons in any quarter of the world whither 
 she might send them. The deficiency of return im- 
 ports to England, is made up by the demand and the 
 wants of Englishmen on the spot. What they pur- 
 chase there, comes in lieu of imports. And so long as 
 their expenditure abroad does not exceed in value the 
 superiority of our manufactured exports over our imports 
 we hold that the non-residence of proprietors maybe 
 carried to any extent, without the infliction of any eco- 
 nomic evil upon the nation. 
 
 15. But when a country instead of exporting manu- 
 factures, exports agricultural produce, the economical 
 effect of absenteeism ought to be stated differently. 
 The non-resident landlords of England have their rents 
 sent after them ; not in the produce of their estates, 
 but in the workmanship of a people who remain at 
 home, and are fed by that produce. But the absentees 
 of Ireland are paid, not in the work of Irish labourers, 
 but in the food of labourers. The effect of their non- 
 residence is to carry off, not the ultimate products of 
 industry, but its maintenance — not the food transmuted 
 into the handiwork of those who are sustained by it, 
 but the food itself,— to the positive lessening therefore 
 of the means by which a population are supported. 
 Should the absentees of England be recalled, it might 
 add nothing to the maintenance, but only affect the di- 
 rection of labour. But should the absentees of Ireland 
 be recalled, the maintenance of thousands, now sent off 
 in annual shipments, would be retained within its terri- 
 tgvy. This is another resource in prospect and reserve 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 151 
 
 for that interesting country, when, in the further deve- 
 lopement of moral causes, it shall have become the con- 
 genial home of its own proprietors. This single change 
 in their habit, would as effectually augment the produce 
 applicable to the subsistence of Irishmen, as a better 
 cultivation would ; another proof, that however over- 
 peopled in reference to its present condition, the physi- 
 cal and economical capabilities of the land are adequate 
 to the liberal subsistence of a much larger population. 
 16. But there is another application still more inte- 
 resting. Connected with the facilities which belong to 
 England, for the manufacture of valuable exports, she 
 has not only the power, beyond other countries, of 
 commanding personal services abroad to Englishmen 
 individually, but she has also the same superiority of 
 power, for commanding public and political services to 
 the state nationally. Food, speaking generally, is far 
 more bulky and uncarriageable than workmanship ; 
 and, when we come to certain of the finer and lighter 
 fabrics, we shall find, that within the limits of one ves- 
 sel, a hundred-fold greater value may be comprised in 
 the products of human industry, than in the articles 
 which serve for the maintenance of human industry. 
 It would require, for example, an enormously greater 
 expense to transport into the heart of France, a given 
 value of agricultural produce from Poland, than to find 
 way into Austria for the same value of muslins, or of 
 precious hardware from Britain. It is thus that we are 
 enabled, by the mere conveyance of our manufactures, 
 to obtain a claim or right of command, over the pro- 
 perty and services of a country in some distant part of 
 the world. Instead of taking back in imports the va- 
 lue that we have exported, we may transfer it by loan 
 to the government of the country ; we may agree to 
 subsidize its sovereign, and make good our contract by 
 granting him bills on the receivers of our exports there, 
 who are his own subjects ; we may, by the same expe- 
 dient, command the maintenance of our own armies in 
 foreign parts, or we may pay for the services of merce- 
 nary troops. It is thus that, in fact, we have inter- 
 
152 FOUEIGN TRADE. 
 
 meddled with all sorts of distant politics, and have the 
 means of doing so influentially. Even though Russia 
 had equal wealth with Britain, so that the whole pro- 
 ducts of the one nation, if hrought to the same market, 
 would fully exchange with the whole products of the 
 other, yet the wealth of the former is not so transporta- 
 ble as that of the latter. Russia and Britain have both 
 great ascendancy in Europe, but the forces by which 
 they can assert it, are put forth in a different way. The 
 former country, though not so densely peopled, yet, in 
 virtue of its prodigious extent, may be said to abound 
 in men, and in the sustenance of men. She can collect 
 an overwhelming host from her provinces ; and either 
 send along with her armies the materials of their main- 
 tenance, or find, by plunder, these materials in the 
 countries through which they pass. It is thus that her 
 ascendancy is made good by a ponderous locomotion ; 
 whereas that of Britain may be upheld in the midst of 
 peaceful and civic pursuits, and without the departure 
 of a single soldier from her shores. Instead of sending 
 soldiers abroad, she can hire and employ them in fo- 
 reign parts, by the labour of her artizans at home. 
 With the products of that labour, she can purchase the 
 aid of foreign troops, or the co-operation of foreign go- 
 vernments in her schemes. It is this which has given 
 her a mastery in the negotiations of European policy ; 
 and she has made ample use of the powerful and pecu- 
 liar weapon that her carriageable exports have put into 
 her hands ; carriageable, both from her position in the 
 waters of the sea, and from the nature of the exports 
 themselves. It is interesting thus to connect the poli- 
 tics with the economics of Britain, and trace her influ- 
 ence in other lands to the simple circumstance, of her 
 being able, by manufactures, to comprise much value 
 in little room, of her dealing in such light and trans- 
 portable wares. Dr. Smith, and others, had long re- 
 marked the impulse which a foreign war gave to our 
 exports. It is because our expenses abroad, just serve 
 the very purpose of importation from abroad. Govern- 
 ment pays our export merchants, by purchasing their 
 
FOREIGN TRADE* 15S 
 
 l>ills on their foreign correspondents ; and, in making 
 over these bills to coramissioners, or subsidized go- 
 vernments abroad, they put their schemes of warfare 
 into action. The demand for these bills gives a mighty 
 benefit and enlargement to the business of exportation ; 
 so that, connected with our great public expenditure 
 on foreign objects, there is a glowing industry in our 
 manufacturing districts and great commercial out-ports. 
 17. And here we feel tempted to remark on the 
 egregious delusion of that most mercantile of all our 
 politicians, who founded every calculation of Britain's 
 strength and Britain's glory on the prosperity of her 
 trade ; and verified the maxim of ignorance being the 
 mother of devotion, in the idolatry which he rendered 
 to commerce, whilst all unintelligent and unknowing 
 of its internal mechanism — we mean the late Mr. Pitt. 
 Year after year did he lull the British parliament into 
 mischievous security, by the oft-repeated tale of the 
 superiority of British exports. It never once occurred, 
 that a foreign subsidy, or loan, would of itself create 
 that superiority. If we contract for twenty millions to 
 Austria, it is only by the difference between our ex- 
 ports and imports that the contract can be made good. 
 Had there been no loan, there would have been no such 
 excess to boast of ; as the whole payment for what had 
 been sent abroad, would then have been made to us in 
 the return of commodities sent back again. But there 
 were no such returns, just because the whole of this 
 vaunted superiority in our exports had been absorbed in 
 our foreign expenses. The phenomenon of a perpetual 
 superiority in our exports, is explained by the perpe- 
 tual yearly expense of our foreign establishments, as at 
 Gibraltar, and the Greek Islands, and South Africa, 
 and New Holland, and the other colonial dependencies 
 of Britain in various parts of the world. And the phe- 
 nomenon of that prodigious superiority in our exports, 
 which ministered such complacency and triumph to the 
 mind of Mr. Pitt, was just the enormous addition which 
 he made to this expense by his foreign subsidies and 
 wars. We cannot imagine a more complete specimen 
 
 14 
 
154 FOREIGN TRADE. 
 
 of inverted mental vision, than was given on the^e oc* 
 casions— when the country was bidden to rejoice du- 
 ring the heavy additions that v,rere making to the mort- 
 gage of the state ; and to readj in the necessary effects 
 of this expenditure on the balance of trade, the symp- 
 toms of our national prosperity and greatness. 
 
 18. And whatever it is that we want done in any 
 foreign region, the exportation of British goods to that 
 region, or to its vicinity, facilitates or furnishes a mean 
 for the doing of it. This holds true, let the business be 
 what it may that we wish to have executed — whether 
 the business of war, or the business of Christian phi- 
 lanthropy. The very circumstances which have invest- 
 ed Britain with such effectiveness in the political con- 
 tests of far distant territories, mark her out as pre-emi- 
 nently qualified, among the nations, for the glorious 
 contest with human infidelity and vice all the world 
 over. We have only to look intelligently at the pro- 
 cess, and it will disarm the vulgar complaint, that by 
 supporting missionaries abroad we send money out of 
 the country, and so impoverish our own people. If I 
 indulge in the uise of foreign luxuries, when they are 
 brought to the country they behoove to be paid for ; and 
 they are paid by our exports. Suppose me to abandon 
 this gratification altogether, and that I transfer the ex- 
 pense of it to the support of a missionary enterprise. 
 To myself there is a change — the substitution of an ex- 
 alted moral, in place of a physical enjoyment. To the 
 country there is no change, at least no such economic 
 change as ought to be deprecated. The people who 
 prepared the exports, that wont to pay the foreign luxu- 
 ries which I used at home, may still prepare the same 
 amount of exports to pay the expenses of the missiona- 
 ry whom I support abroad. It is thus that the agents 
 of our apostolical benevolence and zeal may depart in 
 thousands from our shores, and be upheld by us in the 
 whole cost of their expedition and their doings, and yet 
 may we retain a population as great as the agriculture 
 of the island can subsist, and keep them in the same 
 comfort and well-paid industry as before. The pecu- 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 155 
 
 liar advantages of Britain enable her to do this without 
 the transportation of any food ; and simply by the 
 transportation of her manufactures, through the medium 
 of which, she can, without sustaining any economic in- 
 jury whatever, send remittances, to an inconceivable 
 amount, for the support and equipment of her mission- 
 aries. Instead of impairing, it would, in certain direc- 
 tions, give an impulse and extension to our trade ; while 
 to ourselves, the contributors, there would be but the 
 exchange of a sensible for a spiritual gratification — the 
 giving up, it may be, of foreign luxuries, for the high- 
 er luxury of foreign benevolence. We as effectually 
 support our export manufacturers in the one way as in 
 the other ; and though still, the expense of her mis- 
 sionaries forms too insignificant a proportion of British 
 wealth to be admitted into the reasonings of economic 
 science, yet the time may come, when our nation shall 
 exchange her glory in politics and war, for a nobler and 
 more enduring glory, and be the prime instrument of 
 that splendid prediction, that many shall run to and fro 
 upon the earth, and knowledge shall be increased. 
 
 19. On the whole, then, it is obvious that foreign 
 trade will always, or very nearly, maintain itself up to 
 that point which is desirable in the given circumstances 
 of a country ; and this without the anxious or artificial 
 fostering of any national policy. Foreign, like home 
 trade, is only to be accredited with the service of fur- 
 nishing to consumers its own articles of enjoyment ; and 
 not with the maintenance of those who are engaged in 
 it. When two countries enter into mutual trade, the 
 common idea is, that each stands indebted to its cus- 
 tomers in the other, for the maintenance of its foreign- 
 trade population, just as a shopkeeper is maintained by 
 his customers ; and the enjoyment which each has in 
 the use of the other's commodities, is regarded but as 
 a subordinate advantage, as being a thing more of indi- 
 vidual gratification, than of national importance. Now 
 the real state of the matter is, that each stands indebt- 
 ed to the other, only for the enjoyment which it has in 
 the use of the other'3 commodities ; but that, save 
 
156 I'OREiGN TRADE. 
 
 where there is a transportation of agricultural produce'j 
 each maintains its own foreign-trade as effectually as it 
 does its own home-trade population. This view would 
 reduce the natural importance of foreign trade, and so 
 reduce the alarm that is felt in the prospect of its fluc- 
 tuations or its failures. The simple consideration, that 
 they are the consumers at home, who maintain the 
 manufacturers of the articles sent abroad, should keep 
 us easy under all the casualties to which foreign trade 
 is liable. The threatened loss of their subsistence to 
 hundreds of thousands of families might well make us 
 fearful ; but the threatened loss of oranges, or dye- 
 stuffs, or tobacco, or even of sugar, wine, rum, tea, 
 tamarinds, nutmegs, mahogany and coffee, ought not to 
 make us fearful. We might feel annoyed by the loss;, 
 or rather the change of our personal enjoyments. But 
 there are many things which annoy that should not 
 alarm ; and when such magnificent objects as political 
 greatness, and national security, and the sustenance of 
 many thousands of industrious workmen in the cities 
 and manufacturing districts of our land, and the reve- 
 nues of the state, and the consequent support of our esta- 
 blishments, whether civil or military — we may rest 
 assured of a delusive imagination, when these come to 
 be associated with that trade, which but supplies us 
 with foreign ]u5$;uries and does no more. The destruc- 
 tion of our intercourse with any foreign land, between 
 which and ourselves a prosperous and satisfactory trade 
 may now be going on, will but stop an outlet for our 
 commodities, and an inlet for theirs ; but will not de- 
 stroy the maintenance w^hich, through a process already 
 explained, now passes from the consumers of our im- 
 ports to the manufacturers of our exports. It will in- 
 fluence the direction of our industry, but not the amount 
 of it ; and leave to the industrious as good a wage and 
 as liberal a maintenance as before. 
 
 20. But like every other economic interest, by 
 which it is vainly attempted to provide indefinitely for 
 an indefinitely augmenting population, foreign trade, 
 toOj has its impassible limits beyond which it cannot be 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 157 
 
 carried. In most countries, it may be said to repose 
 wholly on an agricultural basis; and in no country of 
 any great extent, can it be made far to overlap the 
 limits of the maintenance raised at home. The imports 
 and the exports mutually limit and determine each 
 other; and, generally speaking, whatever foreign trade 
 a country can support, it is not in virtue of an originat- 
 ing force from without, but in virtue of an inherent 
 ability that resides and has its origin within the terri- 
 tory. If export manufacturers do prosper in any coun- 
 try, it, in the vast majority of cases, is owing to the 
 power of maintaining them in the hands of inland con- 
 sumers. Wanting this, to uphold a foreign trade, there 
 would behoove to be a process of exportation without a 
 counterpart importation; a process which economists 
 can demonstrate by reasoning, and which merchants 
 feel in experience to be impracticable. And the sim- 
 ple reason why foreign trade generally stops at the 
 point, when, if extended further, there would need a 
 larger manufacturing population than the agricultural 
 produce of the country can subsist, is, that agricultural 
 produce is of such expensive transportation. But the 
 further development of this peculiarity we postpone to 
 our next chapter. 
 
 14^ 
 
us 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ON THE LIMITS OF A COUNTRY'S FOREIGN TRADE, AND 
 ITS SUPPOSED POWER TO FURNISH A PEOPLE WITH 
 EMPLOYMENT AND MAINTENANCE. 
 
 II. The case of a country/ which imports agricul- 
 tural produce. 
 
 1. It must be at once obvious, how much more car- 
 riageable the products of manufacturing industry gene- 
 rally are, than the agricultural produce is, which form& 
 the chief maintenance of that industry. This, of itself, 
 causes a great saving; when instead of sending forth the 
 food which maintains the workmen, or the raw mate- 
 rials which form the substratum of any manufacture, 
 we can, in return for our imports, send the finished 
 and wrought commodity itself. There can sometimes 
 a hundred-fold greater value be compressed within the 
 same space, in a finer article of manufacture, than would 
 be occupied by the food which went to the subsistence 
 of the labourers employed in it. Unless the food, then, 
 be relatively in greater abundance, or the country la- 
 bours under some peculiar disadvantage for manufac- 
 tures, it is for its profit to send forth the workmanship 
 •of human hands, rather than the subsistence of work- 
 men; seeing that one cargo of the former is often of 
 greater value than twenty of the latter. It is thus that 
 the same value can be transported at less expense, or, 
 which is tantamount to this, a greater value of commo- 
 dities at the same expense can be landed in a foreign 
 market, in the former shajie, than in the latter; and 
 can there command a greater return of commodities to 
 be sent back as imports. The export merchant finds 
 that he can bring goods cheaper to a foreign market in 
 the one way than in the other j or, with the same cost 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 159 
 
 to himself, can there dispose of articles which bring him 
 larger equivalents; and the country also finds, that, in 
 this way, it obtains a larger return in foreign articles of 
 use or luxury, and so at the same expense can command 
 a larger amount of enjoyments. 
 
 2. But m.ore than this; there may be such facilities 
 for manufacture, as to put a country in the condition of 
 having to import its agricultural produce. It may so 
 abound in the best materials; or it may possess such a 
 quantity of coal, that great impellent of machinery; or 
 it may be the seat of so many mechanical inventions, 
 each, so long as it is undivulged, conferring a monopoly 
 on the possessor of the secret; or it may be so distin- 
 guished by the industrious habits of its people; or, 
 lastly, it may have such superiority over other nations 
 in respect of geographical position, and also in respect 
 to the extent of its sea coast, and so its easy and con- 
 venient access to distant places; that, with the benefit 
 of these various facilities, it may be enabled to work 
 up many a goodly fabrication, and many a desirable 
 commodity, far cheaper than can be done in any other 
 region on the face of the earth. It is thus that the pro- 
 ducts of its industry may become the objects of a very 
 general demand throughout the^ world. In these cir- 
 cumstances, the export manufactures which are carried 
 abroad, may soon be equal in value to the imports which 
 are used at home. They will even tend to exceed this 
 value ; in which case, should there be any barrier, 
 whether natural or artificial, against the importation of 
 agricultural produce, the superiority of exports over im- 
 ports will tell unfavourably on the state of exchanges 
 for any further exportation, which will thus be limited 
 by the difficulty of finding disposable returns. 
 
 3. Now this is the very state in which, on the non- 
 existence, or the removal of such a barrier, agricultural 
 produce will flow into a country from abroad ; seeing 
 -that its importation, notwithstanding the heavy ex- 
 pense attending it, may, to a certain extent, be profita- 
 tle, and therefore practicable. If, by its advantages 
 
160 FOREIGN TRADE. 
 
 for manufacturing, a country can work off commodities 
 cheaper than its neighbours, it may be so much cheaper 
 as to countervail the expense attendant on the importa- 
 tion of food. To meet the general demand for our bet- 
 ter and cheaper manufactures, may require the services 
 of a population over and above what our own agricul- 
 tural produce can maintain. For the maintenance of 
 this extra population an extra produce must be fetched 
 from abroad, subject of course to the charges of its con- 
 veyance. But as there cannot be two prices for an 
 article of the same quality, the home and the foreign 
 grain, if equally good, will be disposed of in the market 
 upon equal terms. The same necessity which caused 
 the importation, must have raised the nominal value of 
 our own agricultural produce. The necessaries of life 
 will have become dearer than they would have been in 
 other circumstances; but connected, as this is, with an 
 additional demand for workmen, labourers will not on 
 that account let down their standard of enjoyment; and 
 so manufacturers will have to lift up the money price 
 of labour. It is thus that the peculiar advantages of a 
 country for export manufactures, are met by a counter- 
 active disadvantage, which will at length limit the 
 amount of exportation. But so long as the cheapness of 
 our manufactured goods, arising from the greater pro- 
 ductiveness of British labour, compensates, or more 
 than compensates for their dearness, arising from the 
 more expensive maintenance of British labourers; the 
 extra demand for our commodities will be upheld or ex- 
 tended; and along with it, the importation of food from 
 distant lands. A population will be formed in our ter- 
 ritory over and above what the territory itself can 
 maintain. For the sake of distinction, we shall esti- 
 mate the natural popidation of our island by the 
 number of human beings within it, actually subsisted 
 on the produce of its soil; and whatever the excess of 
 our whole population beyond this may be, we should 
 term the excrescent ^ or the superinduced population. 
 4. Those export manufactures then, the labourers ir^ 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 16l 
 
 which belong to the natural population, are exchanged 
 for foreign manufactures or foreign luxuries.* Those 
 export manufactures, which are wrought up b}?- the ex- 
 crescent population, are exchanged for the agricultural 
 produce of foreign countries; on which countries, then, 
 we so far depend for the first necessaries of life, the 
 means and the materials of human subsistence. 
 
 5. This excrescent population will not accumulate in 
 a country beyond a certain limit. In the first place, 
 along with every extension of it there must be an in- 
 creased importation of food, which will therefore have 
 to be fetched from greater, or more impracticable dis- 
 tances than before. The sea-coasts, or river-sides of an 
 exporting country, will only supply a given demand for 
 corn;t and should the demand exceed this, the addi- 
 tional supplies must be drawn from the interior, and 
 the heavy expense of land-carriage added to the ex- 
 penses of navigation. It is thus that, with every acces- 
 sion to our excrescent population, there must be an ac- 
 cession to the price of grain, and so to the money-price 
 of labour — a process which must stop, whenever the 
 disadvantage to which a manufacturer is liable in the 
 high wages of his workmen, exceeds the advantage 
 which he has in the facilities of his British situation; 
 for at that point will he begin 1o be undersold, and so 
 shut out from any further enlargement of his business 
 by the competition of foreigners. But secondly, with 
 every addition to the excrescent population, there must 
 be an enlarged exportation of British goods, which will 
 become cheaper in foreign markets in proportion to 
 their supply. These two causes act together in power- 
 ful co-operation; so that between the increasing deaf- 
 ness of their maintenance at home, and the increasing 
 cheapness of their manufactures abroad, an arrest must 
 
 * Foreign manufactures are not always foreign luxuries. — See Note, 
 Chap. vi. Sect. 8. 
 
 t See Jacob's Report to the House of Lords on the Corn Trade. A 
 land-carriage of twenty-four miles adds the expense of 13| per cent, tp 
 the original price of the grain ; from which it may be seen how soon, hy 
 having to fetch it from greater distances, the process of deriving suppliei 
 from abroad behooved to he terrninated. 
 
162 FOREIGN TRADE. 
 
 at length be laid on the increase of an excrescent popu- 
 lation. Add to this the constant approaches to equali- 
 zation, between difierent countries in industry and the 
 arts of life. Britain cannot for ever perpetuate the 
 monopoly which is grounded on the secrets of her su- 
 perior skill, or on the superior habits of her population. 
 Other countries must at length come nearer to us, both 
 in respect of their machinery and of their men, so as to 
 supply themselves, and likewise their neighbours, with 
 many of our commodities cheaper than we can. It is 
 because the workmanship of human hands is so much 
 more transportable than the sustenance of human bodies, 
 that the interchanges of commerce lie far more in manu- 
 factured goods than in agricultural produce. The bulki- 
 ness of food forms one of those forces in the economic 
 machine, which tends to equalize the population of 
 every land with the products of its own agriculture. It 
 does not restrain disproportion and excess in all cases; 
 but in every large state it will be found, that wherever 
 an excess obtains, it forms buta very small fraction of 
 the whole population. 
 
 6. It is all important, then, in our reasonings upon 
 this subject, that we advert to the distinction between 
 the two sorts of foreign trade — that for which the re- 
 turns are made in the manufactures or luxuries of fo- 
 reign nations, and that for which the returns are made 
 in agricultural produce. Each trade must have an agri- 
 cultural basis to rest upon ; for in every process of in- 
 dustry, the first and greatest necessity is that the work- 
 men shall be fed. But it makes the utmost practical 
 difference between these two, that the former rests on 
 the basis of a home, and the latter on the basis of a fo- 
 reign agriculture. In most cases, and more particularly 
 where it is a nation of extensive territory, the whole of 
 their foreign trade is of the first description — the home 
 population engaged in it subsisting exclusively on home 
 produce. When, over and above this, there is an ex- 
 cess of population that requires foreign produce for its 
 subsistence, it will be found, in larger states more es- 
 pecially, that it forms but a small fractional part of the 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 163 
 
 whole. In other words, generally speaking, the ex- 
 crescent bears a very minute proportion to the natural 
 population of a country ; and almost no where does the 
 commerce of a nation overlap, but by a very little way, 
 the basis of its own agriculture. 
 
 7. By keeping this distinction in view, we shall bet- 
 ter estimate the precise character and effect of that cala- 
 mity, which either the suspension or the loss of foreign 
 trade inflicts upon a nation. In as far as foreign trade 
 rests on the basis of a home agriculture, the trade may 
 be destroyed — yet, on that basis all the people employ- 
 ed in it will continue to be upholden. The export 
 manufacturers will be discarded, no doubt, from their 
 present occupations ; yet, supported as they were for- 
 merly by a maintenance in the hands of our inland 
 consumers, by that maintenance they will be supported 
 still, only in return for a new service. As we have 
 often said already, there will ultimately be no loss to 
 them, and but the loss of some enjoyment to their vir- 
 tual maintainers ; or rather, the loss of any difference, 
 if there be a difference of superiority, which the old 
 enjoyment had over the new one. It would greatly 
 mitigate our fears of a calamit)^, and at least take away 
 all sense of its national importance, could we but per- 
 ceive of foreign trade, that its destruction involved in 
 it no other suffering than this — that is, a certain disap- 
 pointment to the taste or fancy of consumers ; but 
 leaving withal, the same amount of well-paid industry 
 in the land, as sufficient a maintenance as before for as 
 large a population. It is different when the foreign 
 trade rests, either in whole or in part, on the basis of a 
 foreign agriculture. There is no disruption between 
 the people and their maintenance, by the extinction of 
 the one trade — there is, by the extinction of the other. 
 Let an end be put to the first, and our export workmen 
 will still find footing, in some new capacity, on the soil 
 that sustains them — where, in the midst of home re- 
 sources, they will be sure of a harbour and a landing- 
 place. If an end be put to the second, it will be tanta- 
 mount to a sentence of decimation on the families of 
 
164 FOREIGN TRADE. 
 
 the land— a sentence which exile or famine will carry 
 into effect. The destruction of foreign trade, in a 
 country w^hich subsists itself, may abridge the enjoy- 
 ments of the community ; iDut it will neither abridge 
 the population, nor the industry of the population, 
 though it changes the direction and the products of that 
 industry. The destruction of foreign trade in a country 
 which has to import agricultural produce, would cancel 
 from the land an integral part of its population and its 
 industry. To depend in part on other countries for en- 
 joyment, is but a slight matter, when compared with 
 depending on other countries for our existence. The 
 effect of a disruption, in the one case, is not to be com- 
 pared in point of vast and /earful importance, with the 
 effect of a disruption in the other. Yet from w\ant of a 
 right discrimination, the two are blended and confound- 
 ed into one. Politicians look with misplaced and ex- 
 aggerated alarm to the loss of foreign trade in the gene- 
 ral — to the loss of all or any foreign trade. The bug- 
 bear and the reality are both viewed with one common 
 feeling ; and an event which involves but the disap- 
 pointment of families in respect of luxurious indulgence, 
 is regarded with the same apprehension, as if it endan- 
 gered the stability or very being of the nation. 
 
 8. When the excrescent bears a great proportion to 
 the natural population, as it sometimes does in smaller 
 states, and more especially in independent cities — then, 
 when their commerce abandons them, their all, or 
 nearly their all, abandons them. They sustain a muti- 
 lation by every abridgement of their foreign trade, 
 seeing that the returns are chiefly made in the first ne- 
 cessaries of life ; and that with the disappearance, 
 therefore, of such a commerce, so much of their popu- 
 lation and their industry must disappear along with it. 
 In ordinary cases, the discarded population are thrown 
 back on the agricultural basis, which upheld them be- 
 fore, and which is broad enough, and solid enough, to 
 uphold them still. But in this case, a population, dis- 
 severed from their maintenance, are thrown adrift on 
 the wide world j and, with their dispersion, there is a 
 
3P0RE1GN TRADE* 165 
 
 toxresponding decline of national strength and national 
 greatness. There is all the difference in the world be- 
 tween that commerce, the annihilation of which would 
 but involve the loss, or rather the change, of luxuries, 
 and that commerce, the annihilation of which would 
 involve the loss of the first necessaries of existence. In 
 the latter circumstances of a country, we are not to 
 wonder at the commercial jealousies which have actu- 
 ated its governments. To be undersold by neighbours, 
 were to them a death-warrant, involving, as it does, 
 their exclusion from those markets whence they fetch 
 the very aliment of their being. This accounts well 
 for the fragility and the precarious existence of all such 
 states — of Tyre, and Carthage, and Venice, and the 
 Hanseatic towns of Germany, which pass before us in 
 splendid, but ephemeral succession, as we contemplate 
 the history of past ages. When deserted by their 
 trade, the very foundation on which they rested gave 
 way under them ; they having no such foundation in 
 any territory of their own. They, in fact, became as 
 helpless as any inland town of home shops or manufac- 
 tures, when deserted by its country customers. This 
 is enough to account for the speed and splendour of 
 many a mushroom elevation — for the speed of many a 
 helpless and irrecoverable fall — for the decay of com- 
 merce in smaller states — and the utter destruction of its 
 isolated cities. Hence the desolation of Tyre, and 
 hence the departed glory from the north of Italy. 
 
 9. Now they are such histories as these, which have 
 inspired many of our compatriot3 with the same feeling 
 of insecurity for Britain. We have a splendid com- 
 merce, which somewhat overlaps the basis of our agri- 
 culture, and, of consequence, a certain amount of ex- 
 crescent population, and that probably would be enlarg- 
 ed, in some degree, were the present restrictions on 
 the corn trade wholly done away. Yet it is consolato- 
 ry to understand, that, in our years of greatest scarci- 
 ty, when all our ports were thrown open, and the 
 utmost encouragement was given to the trade, the im- 
 portation scarcely exceeded one-tenth of the annual 
 
 15 
 
166 f'OREIGN ^RADfi. 
 
 importation of the island ; and that the average impof^ 
 tation of ordinary years would not serve our population 
 for eleven days.* We should not imagine our present 
 excrescent population to be so much as a thirtieth part 
 of the whole ; nor do we believe that, on the removal 
 of all fetters from our trade, we should permanently 
 superinduce upon the country an addition of one-tenth 
 to that population who are subsisted by the produce of 
 our own agriculture. The circumstance of having any 
 excrescent population at all, exposes us certainly to an 
 inconvenience on the interruption of our commerce, 
 which should not otherwise be felt. Yet, whatever 
 that inconvenience might be, it is our co-]f\dent per- 
 suasion that Britain would weather it. Ihat a defi- 
 ciency, by one-tenth of the usual supply in the first 
 necessaries of life, would be seriously felt is very cer- 
 tain ; and the price would be enhanced much beyond 
 the proportion of this deficiency. Yet we believe that 
 the country would experience a speedy and almost 
 elastic recovery from the evils of such a visitation. 
 The very dearness of an article impels to a thousand 
 shifts and expedients for economizing it. The people 
 would, for a season, put up with fewer of the second 
 necessaries ; and this, of itself, would have the effect of 
 at once extending the husbandry to poorer soils, and 
 transferring so many of the secondary into the agricul- 
 tural population. There behooved to be an increase of 
 food, from the additional stretch thus given to the cul* 
 tivation ; and there might be a greater increase still, 
 from the lessened consumption both of animal food and 
 spirits, and from the stoppage of distilleries by an act 
 of the legislature. With these compensations in our 
 
 * Colonel TorrenSj in his able Essay on the External Corn Trade, 
 urges this argument with great effect against the alarmists. He 
 quotes the authority of Mr. Jacob for the importation during the 
 years of greatest scarcity being considerably less than it is stated in 
 the text — namely, that- — if the one be correct in his calculation, and 
 the other in his quotation — the importations of 1800 and 1801, taken 
 together, did not amount to five weeks' consumption, or to little 
 more than two weeks' consumption for each year. 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 167 
 
 power, we have little to fear, even though the violent 
 improbability, '' Britannos toto coelo divisos,^^ wqyq 
 to be realized. We should remain as independent, as 
 stable, and as great a nation notwithstanding. Let 
 commercial failures and commercial fluctuations be 
 what they may, they can never liken our history to 
 that of the Venetian States, or the Hanseatic cities. 
 The maxim, ^' Carthago est delenda,'^ is not applica- 
 ble to us ; and, though lifted in menace by a whole 
 continent, would fall powerless upon our shores. Our 
 commerce, after all, is mainly but the efflorescence of 
 our agriculture; and though lopped off by the hand of 
 violence, it would leave untouched the strength and 
 stamina of the nation. Could we only brook the loss 
 of our foreign luxuries, we might have a means and a 
 maintenance at home for all our population, whom we 
 could employ in the preparation of other luxuries ; or 
 with whom, enlisted in the service of patriotism, we 
 might raise a wall of fire around our island, and brave 
 the hostility of the world. 
 
 10. This distinction between the natural and the ex- 
 crescent trade of Britain, when it comes tobe understood, 
 will hush the inquietude of our present alarmists. The 
 one is based on a maintenance produced at home, the 
 other on a maintenance imported from abroad. The 
 export manufacturers belonging to the former are a dis- 
 posable population, labouring in the service, and sub- 
 sisted by the wealth, of inland consumers. The ex- 
 port manufacturers belonging to the latter, both labour 
 in the service, and are subsisted by the wealth, of foreign 
 customers. They are a disposable population too, but 
 at the disposal of landlords at a distance, instead of 
 landlords at home ; of men who, in changing the direc- 
 tion of their expenditure, would desert them altogether, 
 instead of men whose change of expenditure would but 
 transfer them to a new service. That is altogether a 
 a false analogy, by which Britain is likened to those 
 states of ephemeral glory, whose greatness and power 
 but lasted with their commerce. Our excrescent popu- 
 lation and trade bear no such proportion to our natural, 
 
168 FOREIGN TRADE. 
 
 as theirs did. Should a disruption take place between 
 ourselves and foreign countries, the excrescent, with us, 
 would speedily be absorbed in the natural. When Ye- 
 nice was separated from her customers, the foundation, 
 on which she mainly rested, gave way under her. Our 
 foundation is our own territory. Though separated 
 from our customers, we are not therefore separated from 
 the maintenance of our population. The one would 
 be a change undoubtedly — a change of pursuits to the 
 working, and of enjoyments to the wealthier classes of our 
 community. But, with this exception, it would be as 
 great and flourishing a community as before — as com- 
 petent to all the purposes of defence and national inde- 
 pendence ; and, though shorn of her commerce and 
 colonies, though bereft of these showy appendages, as 
 available, and we think more so, for all the dearest ob- 
 jects of patriotism, 
 
 11. This view^, we think, should serve to moderate 
 our commercial ambition, and to quiet one of our great 
 commercial Jealousies. So long as Britain can pay 
 cheaper for her imports, by the exportation of manufac- 
 tured commodities, which are in effective demand abroad, 
 she will never need to export agricultural produce ; and 
 so, to alienate from her shores the materials of human 
 subsistence, wherewith to purchase foreign articles of 
 any kind for her consumers at home. Her peculiar fa- 
 cilities for manufacture, will always secure .for her this 
 independence ; and her only danger is, lest her over- 
 passing facilities shall make her independence a preca- 
 rious one, by landing her in an excrescent population. 
 In which case, the only effect of being undersold by her 
 neighbours, is the abridgement of this excrescent popu- 
 lation. What a mockery does this lay on the fears of our 
 mercantile statesmen, and on the whole system of their 
 policy. Their great dread is that of being undersold by 
 foreigners ; while yet the chief effect of the commercial 
 superiority they are so anxious to preserve, is just to en- 
 large the sale of British exports beyond the possibility 
 of their being paid for, either by the luxuries, or the 
 other goods not agricultural, that come in return for 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 169 
 
 them from other lands. In which case, there is a sur- 
 plus of exports that must be paid for in agricultural pro- 
 duce. The population is thereby enlarged, beyond the 
 power of the country to feed them from her own stores ; 
 or, which is the same thing, the trade is enlarged be- 
 yond the limits of her own agricultural basis. There 
 are additions made by this to the weight or dimensions 
 of the superstructure ; but without addition either to 
 the strength or amplitude of the foundation. The only 
 effect is to foster an excresence, which, if not mortal to 
 us as to other commercial states, is just because, with 
 the uttermost of our false and foolish ambition, we can- 
 not overstretch the foreign trade so far as they did, be- 
 yond the limits of the home agriculture. By thus seek- 
 ing to enlarge our pedestal, we make it greatly more 
 tottering and precarious than before ; for, like the feet 
 of Nebuchadnezzar's image, it is composed of different 
 materials, partly of clayj and partly of iron. The fa- 
 bric bulges, as it were, into greater dimensions than 
 before ; but while its native and original foundation is of 
 rock, the projecting parts are propped upon quicksand ; 
 for the sake of lodging a few additional inmates in which, 
 we would lay the pain of a felt insecurity, if not an ac- 
 tual hazard, upon all the family. We rejoice in the 
 luxuriance of a rank and unwholesome overgrowth; and, 
 mistaking bulk for solidity, do we congratulate ourselves 
 on the formation of an excrescence, which should rather 
 be viewed as the blotch and distemper of our nation. 
 
 13. But more than this, we are not to imagine of the 
 excrescent, that it either indicates or creates the same 
 Eiddition to the resources of the country as an equal 
 number of the natural population. Suppose that the 
 excrescent should amount to a thirtieth part of the 
 whole, we w^ould estimate the matter wrong by conceiv-^ 
 ing that a thirtieth part had been added thereby to the 
 whole previous wealth and ability of the nation. Let 
 us compare ten thousand of the disposable class taken 
 from the natural population, with ten thousand of an 
 excrescent population. The former give the products 
 Qi their industry, or, if engaged in export manufactureSj^ 
 
 14^ 
 
170 FOREIGN TRADE. 
 
 excliange them for other products, by which they ob* 
 tain their equivalent maintenance from proprietors at 
 home. The latter give the products of their industry 
 in exchange for a maintenance which they draw from 
 proprietors abroad. For each ten thousand of the na- 
 tural population, we can put to the account of the 
 country's wealth the work of ten thousand and the- 
 maintenance of ten thousand. For each ten thousand 
 of the excrescent population, we can only put to that ac- 
 count the work of ten thousand-, for their maintenance 
 cometh from abroad, and becomes only ours by parting 
 with the commodities which are given in exchange for 
 it. In estimating the wealth that is indicated by the 
 existence of the former, we must take into account both 
 the produce of the land which maintains them, and of the 
 labour which they give in return for their maintenance. 
 In estimating the wealth that is indicated by the ex- 
 istence of the latter, we can only take the produce of 
 the labour into account, without the produce of land. 
 In the one case, we can reckon as the property of the 
 nation, both the work and the ultimate equivalents of 
 the work. In the other case, we can reckon but the 
 work — for the ultimate equivalents are produced else- 
 where, and form, an integral part of the wealth of 
 some other land. Dr. Smith defines the wealth of a 
 country to consist in the annual produce of its land 
 and labour. An industrious member of the natural po- 
 pulation, adds the produce of his labour to his country, 
 and b)'^ means of it he fetches a counterpart produce 
 from the land, which is also to be added to the country's 
 wealth. An equally industrious member of the excres- 
 cent population, also adds the produce of his labour to his 
 country's wealth— but the counterpart produce of land 
 which he purchases therewith, must be reckoned to the 
 wealth of another country. If -the former do not cre- 
 ate, he at least represents a double wealth in the coun- 
 try, beyond what the other does. So that a given ex- 
 crescent population betokens only half the wealth which 
 an equal natural population does. If the excrescent 
 populaticm amount to a thirtieth of the whole, the 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 171 
 
 wealth associated with their presence will amount to a 
 sixtieth of the whole. The commerce that is pushed 
 beyond the agricultural basis, to the extent of employ- 
 ing an excrescent ten thousand men, does not effectuate 
 the same addition to a country's resources, as if the 
 agricultural basis were itself extended by means of re- 
 claimed land, or of an improved husbandry, so as to af- 
 ford the additional subsistence of ten thousand men. 
 In the one case, we have the additional work of ten 
 thousand ; but we must accredit the wealth of another 
 country, and not our own, with their maintenance. 
 In the other case, we have the additional maintenance 
 of ten thousand ; and, followed up as this must be, 
 with an increase of population, we should soon have 
 the additional work^ of ten thousand to the bargain. 
 
 13. But it will still more strikingly exhibit the insig- 
 nificance, in a national point of view, of the excrescent, 
 when compared with the natural population ; if we at- 
 tend to the relation in which they each stand to the 
 revenue or service of the state. The excrescent popula- 
 tion is made up exclusively of labourers and capitalists ; 
 and every tax, whether on their income or on the com- 
 modities they use, lessens their remuneration, so as to 
 make a higher price necessary for the commodities pre- 
 pared by them, in order to keep up that rate of wages 
 and rate of profit, without which their manufacture or 
 business could not possibly go on. But in this way the 
 price may rise so high as to cut them out of foreign 
 markets altogether ; the advantage of their British situ- 
 ation, in virtue of which they might have been enabled 
 to undersell the traders of other countries, being so 
 much countervailed by British taxation, as that they 
 at length come to be undersold. It is thus that every 
 such tax lessens the amount of our excrescent population; 
 and, if carried to a certain extent, would cause it wholly 
 to disappear from our borders. At the most, then, the 
 excrescent population can only be made to yield a small 
 fraction, and that a very precarious one, of their wealth 
 to the exigencies of the public service. But let us com- 
 
172 FOREIGN TRADE. 
 
 pare with ten thousand of their number, any ten thou- 
 sand of the natural disposable population. In the first 
 place, as to those of them who are engaged in home 
 manufactures, however high their wages may be raised 
 by taxation, the inland proprietors, for whose enjoyment 
 they labour, cannot escape from the consequent high 
 prices of those commodities, in the preparation of which 
 they are employed. In the second place, as to those of 
 them who are engaged in export manufactures, their 
 Avages admit of being raised by taxation, till the inland 
 consumers shall find that they can obtain the return 
 articles from abroad, at a cheaper rate, by the exporta- 
 tion of agricultural produce. In either way it will be 
 found that, compatibly with their existence and full ex- 
 tent, the natural population could bear to be much more 
 highly taxed than the excrescent population could. 
 But what is more, the landlords at home, who maintain 
 ten thousand of the natural population, can be reached 
 by a direct tax ; so as not merely to transfer a certain 
 fraction, but any fraction whatever, nay, even the whole 
 of this natural population, to the service of government. 
 If a landlord abroad still continue to purchase the ma- 
 nufactures of our excrescent population, though they 
 eome to him at a price enhanced by taxation a tenth 
 part more than they would otherwise have cost him ; 
 then, for every ten of our people whom he maintains in 
 his own service, he may be regarded as maintaining also 
 one in the service of the state. It is thus that for each 
 ten thousand of our excrescent population, government 
 may raise as much by taxation, as might enable it to 
 command the services of a thousand men. But it could, 
 by means of that higher taxation, which would abridge 
 or annihilate the excrescent population altogether, com- 
 mand a much larger proportion of the services of our 
 natural population ; and, by means of a direct tax upon 
 landlords, could obtain a command over the services of 
 the whole ten thousand. An excrescent population inr 
 dicates but half the wealth of an equal portion of the 
 natural population, whatever direction that wealth may 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 173 
 
 be left to take. But the proportion is far more^insignifi- 
 cant, when we compute the respective amounts of wealth 
 from each, that might be made available to the public 
 revenue, or to the general good and service of the nation. 
 14. Yet insignificant in point of national advantage, 
 nay, hazardous in point of national security as we hold 
 this excrescent population to be, we would not recom- 
 mend a corn law to prevent the formation of it.* But 
 still less would we recommend any of the expedients of a 
 mercantile policy, to foster it into being, or force it into 
 greater magnitude than that at which it would naturally 
 settle. More especially, in the circumstance of being 
 undersold by our neighbours in any of the branches of 
 commerce, we can read no symptom whatever of disaster 
 to the country, but would rather hail it with satisfaction, 
 as that which tends somewhat to limit or to abridge the 
 excrescent population. This points to a policy more 
 generous far, than the narrow and heart burning system 
 of prohibitions, alike dissatisfying to the people abroad 
 and the people at home. We would not, on the one 
 hand, restrain the freest importation of food ; but neither, 
 on the other, would we restrain the freest exportation of 
 British skill, whether in the shape of British artificers or 
 British machines, our living or our dead implements of 
 labour. All that we gain by the opposite proceeding, is 
 the very questionable good of an excrescent population, 
 who expose us to danger, and yield us no countervailing 
 benefit in return for the room they stand upon. We have 
 enough of natural superiority in our situation and pro- 
 ducts, to secure us at all times, against any large or per- 
 manent exportation of food ; or, in other words, to secure 
 for us a population commensurate to our agriculture. 
 The advantage of having a population beyond this, is far 
 too problematical to be worthy of the contention and the 
 keenness, by which the rivalry of merchants is charac- 
 terized. We can afford to participate freely with our 
 neighbours in all the advantages which belong to us as a 
 manufacturing people ; and^ so far from regarding with 
 
 * See Appendix Gr, On Com Laws^ 
 
174 FOREIGN TRADE. 
 
 any sentiment of jealousy the exportation of British 
 capital or intelligence to other shores, we should con- 
 ceive, that in this instance too, the magnanimous policy 
 would be found the best for the true interest and safety 
 of the nation. 
 
 15. On the whole, however, we believe, that in a per- 
 fectly free state of things, there might be a considerably 
 larger importation than now of foreign grain into Britain, 
 and of course a larger excrescent population. The 
 causes however already specified, the increasing dearness 
 of imported corn, the increasing cheapness in foreign 
 markets of British commodities, and lastly, the constant 
 tendency to equalization, in point of skill and other ad- 
 vantages between our own and other nations, would all 
 conspire to limit the amount of this importation ; and our 
 hope is, that botji the foreign and the excrescent might 
 ultimately settle down into a very small and manageable 
 fraction, first of the natural produce, and second of the 
 natural population of our island. Still to this quarter we 
 may look for a certain stretch or enlargement of external 
 resources, whereby room and sustenance would be af- 
 forded for a greater number of families than we can now 
 accommodate. Yet, after all, hke every other augmen- 
 tation in the outward means of support, it would but afford 
 a temporary relief to the pressure under which we are at 
 present labouring. As is usual with every increase, from 
 whatever quarter, of the means of subsistence, it would be 
 speedily followed up by a multiplication of our numbers, 
 and so land us in a larger, but not on that account, a 
 better conditioned community than before. They who 
 are sanguine of this and other resources, as if a perma- 
 nent sufficiency for all our families were to be the result 
 of them, would do well to consider the vast enlargement 
 that must have taken place within the last half century, 
 in the produce of our home agriculture ; and yet, the ac- 
 tual straitness that is felt in spite of it. The phenome^ 
 non admits of an easy explanation, palpable as plainest 
 arithmetic to the understandings of any, who will but 
 compare the censuses of different periods, and reflect on 
 be rapid increase of our British population. And on 
 
FOREIGN TRADE. 11 B 
 
 what principle can we expect, that an enlargement of 
 resources from any other quarter, will not be followed up 
 by as full a proportional increase of population as here- 
 tofore ; and, of consequence, that we shall still find our- 
 selves overhung by the same pressure, and in the midst 
 of the very same difficulties as those which now encom- 
 pass us. That the pressure may be somewhat lightened, 
 for a moment, by the abolition of corn laws, and by se- 
 veral other abolitions and changes also, we cannot deny. 
 But the same important remark is applicable to all of 
 them. It is not by means of economic enlargements, but 
 of moral principles and restraints, that the problem of 
 our difficulties is at length to be fully and satisfactorily 
 resolved. No possible enlargement from without will 
 ever suffice for the increasing wants of a recklessly in- 
 creasing population. We look for our coming delive- 
 rance in a moral change, and not in any or in all, of 
 those economic -changes put together, which form the 
 great panacea of so many of our statesmen. Without 
 the prudence, and the virtue, and the intelligence of our 
 common people, we shall only have a bulkier, but withal 
 as wretched and distempered a community as ever; and 
 we repeat, that a thorough education, in both the common 
 and Christian sense of the term, forms the only solid 
 basis, on which either the political or economic well being 
 of the nation can be laid. 
 
176 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ON THE SUPPOSED EFFECT OF TAXES IN AGGRAVATING 
 THE CONDITION OF THE LABOURING CLASSES, WITH 
 THE CONVERSE EFFECT WHICH THE REMISSION OF 
 TAXES IS CONCEIVED TO HAVE ON THEIR RELIEF, 
 AND THE ENLARGEMENT OF THEIR COMFORTS. 
 
 I. Effect of a tax on the net rent of land. 
 
 1. There is not a more popular topic of declamation 
 than the oppressiveness of taxes, and, more especially, 
 their injurious effect on the condition of the working 
 classes in society. The imagination is, that, when laid 
 on the necessaries of life, they trench directly on the 
 comfort and sufficiency of the labourer; and that, when 
 laid on profit, or laid on commodities in general, they 
 trench upon capital, and so upon that power which exists 
 in the country for the remuneration of labour. It is thus 
 that the distresses of the poor, and the straitened condi- 
 tion of the lower orders generally, stand associated in 
 many a mind with the exactions of government. The 
 effect of this opinion is, not only a rancorous politics on 
 the part of the turbulent, but, even among calm philan- 
 thropic men, there is the pretty frequent persuasion, that 
 each retrenchment in the expenditure of the state is so 
 much clear gain to the common people ; and that, by 
 pressing an indefinite economy upon our rulers, they are 
 on the right way for an indefinite augmentation of perso- 
 nal comfort, not to particular classes only, but to society 
 at large. It is therefore of importance to investigate the 
 rriatter ; for, if this abridgment of taxes be really not the 
 specific, which is to charm away all want and wretched- 
 ness from our land, the attention of the patriot may, in 
 
EFFECT OF TAXES. 177 
 
 t?he meanwhile, be diverted from the best expedient for 
 the relief and amelioration of its families. 
 
 2. Now, there is one species of tax which, by the 
 consent of all economists, stands exempted from the 
 charge of infringing on the comfort of the working 
 classes. We mean a tax on the net rent of land. The 
 incidence of such a tax is altogether upon the landlord. 
 He is made poorer by it ; but no other individual or 
 order of the community needs to be at all afiected. A 
 portion of the power which he had to purchase commo- 
 dities, or to maintain labour, is doubtless taken out of 
 his hands. But it is not annihilated. It is only trans- 
 ferred. After the imposition of the tax, the united ex- 
 penditure of government and the landlords equals pre- 
 cisely the whole expenditure of the landlords previous to 
 the tax. In the new state of things, there might be just 
 as large a profit to capitalists as before, and just as large 
 a maintenance to workmen as before. By every such 
 tax, the power of government to uphold or reward indus- 
 try is just as much enlarged as the power of the landlords 
 is lessened. A certain part of the disposable population, 
 employed in preparing luxuries for the proprietors of 
 land, are placed by the operation of the tax at the dispo- 
 sal of government. To them it needs be no other change 
 than a change of masters — a change of employment. 
 From the hands of their new employers, they may obtain 
 as large and liberal a support as they did from their old 
 ones. They may have the same support as before, but 
 for a different service. They exchange the service of 
 working up luxuries to private consumers for the service 
 of the state. They are withdrawn from the business, 
 either of home or export manufactures, by which they 
 ministered to the enjoyment of landed proprietors, to the 
 business of manufacturing government stores; or, of 
 fabricating the whole material of government service, 
 such as ships, and fortifications, and barracks, and 
 churches, and colleges, and prison-houses; or finally, to 
 the direct business of war, or justice, or public instruc- 
 tion. Artizans may, in thousands, be transferred thereby 
 into soldiers, or into artizans of another species. Master 
 
 16 
 
178 EFFECT OF TAXES. 
 
 manufacturers may, in tens, or hundreds, be transferred 
 thereby into officers, or judges, or clergymen. And the 
 latter may be upheld in as great splendour, and the for- 
 mer in as great sufficiency as before. The wealth thus 
 transferred into the coffers of government, can be dis- 
 charged with as great liberality and effect on the various 
 servants of government, as it formerly could when dis- 
 charged by the landed proprietors themselves, through 
 the countless channels of trade and manufacturing indus- 
 try in the land. After this change, we may still behold 
 the spectacle of as large a population, in ever}^ way as 
 liberally upholden, with the only difference of being dif- 
 ferently employed. There is no effect produced on the 
 reward of industry, but solely on the distribution of it. 
 They who are paid by the tax may live as well as before. 
 They who pay the tax are the only sufferers. They lose 
 so many of their luxuries, or rather, they exchange them 
 for the objects of the public expenditure ; perhaps, 
 through the medium of fleets and armies, for national in- 
 dependence ; perhaps, through the medium of schools, 
 and churches, and colleges of justice, for the protection 
 of society from crime and violence, and for the increase 
 of national virtue. Even to them, the tax payers, it may 
 not be a dead loss, but the substitution of one benefit for 
 another — possibly the substitution of a greater for a 
 lesser benefit. 
 
 3. Yet it may be observed, even of this least obnox- 
 ious mode of taxation, that it may be conducted in such 
 a way, as to lay an arrest, or even to impress a retro- 
 grade movement, on the wealth of the country, and es- 
 sentially to injure it in all its economic interests. Under 
 a government of capricious despotism, and unmeasured 
 rapacity, even though it confined, which it would not, its 
 exactions to the net rent, and left untouched all the pro- 
 fits of agricultural capital, as well as the capital itself — 
 the cultivation of estates would languish or decay, from 
 the want of consent and of active countenance on the 
 part of the landlords. The proprietor would lose every 
 inducement to patronize an improving tenantry, if he 
 were sure that all the additional rent, which accrued to 
 
EFFECT OF TAXES. 179 
 
 himself, was to be absorbed in taxes. Even if he were 
 not sure— if in a state of insecurity whether he was to 
 get any of the additional rent that is yielded by land on 
 its better cultivation, or of ignorance how much he would 
 be permitted to share of it — there behooved to be, on his 
 part, the feeling of a slackened interest, and so a far less 
 careful and vigilant administration of the property. It 
 is thus that the taxations of a government, which wanted 
 str^adfastness of principle and good faith, would relax and 
 retard the agriculture of a country, even though these 
 taxations were restricted to the share which accrued to 
 the landlord, in the produce of the soil. But the case is 
 very different when it is a taxation of principle ; justified 
 by the urgencies of the occasion ; levied alike upon all 
 in like circumstances; not liable to fluctuate, as in Turkey, 
 with the cupidity of the rulers, though liable to be ex- 
 tended with the necessities of the state, of which necessi- 
 ties the landlords themselves, through the organ of a free 
 aiid representative government, are the effectual arbiters. 
 In these circumstances, there is scarcely any centage of 
 taxation, however great, that would discourage cultiva- 
 tion. Nay, we believe that, in many instances, it has led 
 to the extension of husbandry ; and that to the income 
 tax of England, while it lasted, we have to ascribe the 
 breaking up of many a lawn, and pushing forward agri- 
 culture to many outfields which had not been entered. 
 The tax, in these cases, stimulated the cultivation. The 
 landlords sought, by a more strenuous agriculture, to com- 
 pensate for the deprivations which the tax laid on them. 
 They drew upon the land for an additional produce, 
 wherewith to meet the impositioiis to which they were 
 subjected ; and though this cannot be done indefinitely, 
 yet done it was in many instances, when, from negligence 
 or pleasure, an estate had not even the average cultivation 
 bestowed upon it. We are aware that, under an oppres- 
 sive and arbitrary system, the tax would not operate in 
 this way. In a country where the government could 
 seize on individual property, no man would try to in- 
 demnify himself for one imposition, by means of an addi- 
 tional produce that might just bring on another imposi- 
 
180 EFFECT OF TAXES. 
 
 tion. The case is altogether different, when the fax, 
 though severe, is equitable, that is, laid in like proportion 
 over the whole country. Each proprietor, feeling that 
 he is safe from any wanton or unlooked for exaction in 
 future, seeks from the capabilities of his soil, after all the 
 reimbursement which it can afford, for the exactions that 
 already lie upon him. In these circumstances, we really 
 cannot specify to what extent the taxation on net rent may 
 not be carried, because of the discouragement it would 
 give to cultivation. I'or this purpose, the taxation would 
 need to be not only excessive, but discretionary, partial, 
 at the mercy of a wayward and unprincipled government, 
 and altogether such as left no reasonable security for the 
 enjoyment of any remainder by the landlord. The effect 
 is totally dissimilar, when the landlords are not only the 
 payers, but, through the predominance of their will in 
 parliament, the establishers of the tax. And then, when 
 the question is put, how far might this taxation on them- 
 selves be carried, without injury to the economic interests 
 of the nation ; it is obvious that it might be carried in- 
 definitely near to that point, at which having surrendered 
 all their luxuries, they satisfied themselves for a season 
 with the necessaries of life. This may be regarded as 
 the extreme limit of the taxation on net rent; and by the 
 actual distance of our landlords from this limit, by the de- 
 gree in which they can still command and enjoy the luxu- 
 ries of life, do we estimate the power which remains with 
 them, of adding to the revenue of the state. They could, 
 on some high call of patriotism, transfer to the service of 
 government, all the disposable population whom they 
 employ. They could transform a million of manufactu- 
 rers into soldiers. They could, if the emergency called 
 for it, assemble round the standard of the nation's inde- 
 pendence, a host many times greater than has yet been 
 exemplified in British warfare ; and, so far from touching 
 on the ne plus ultra of our public resources, we, on the 
 test of that command which still remains with our land- 
 lords over the luxuries of life, do confidently aver, that 
 never was our nation in greater sufficiency for such s^cxl-^ 
 
EFFECT OP TAXES. 181 
 
 fices as might conduce to some high object of patriotism 
 or the public weal. 
 
 4. We adQiit, that by a tax upon net rent, the power of 
 the landlord to improve his estate is abridged ; and yet, 
 we hold, that the progress of this improvement does not, 
 now a days, materially depend, either on his capital or 
 on his enterprise. It is not at this time of day, that we 
 have to complain of the want of capital for any operation, 
 capable of yielding a return, or of replacing the outlay 
 with a profit. We must recollect the opulence of our 
 tenantry, and their ability to enter on improving leases, 
 in all parts of the country where improvement is hopeful. 
 Or, if the proprietor behooves to be the improver, we must 
 recollect the perfect facility wherewith he can now bor-^ 
 row to any extent, on the security of his lands. When 
 capital is at a loss all round, for a profitable investure of 
 itself, and, labouring under the weight of its own ple- 
 thoric magnitude, is ever and anon getting the relief which 
 it needs in the bankruptcies attendant on all wild and pre- 
 carious speculations, we may be very sure, that nothing 
 is wanted, but the prospect of a safe though moderate re- 
 turn for drawing capital to agriculture. In other words, 
 capital will never be wanting to agriculture, so long as 
 agriculture is able to yield a profit to capital. The truth 
 is, that capital has, in every business, a constant tendency 
 to overshoot itself, by the appHcation of itin larger quan- 
 tities than the business can replace with a profit. And 
 this is just as much the case in agriculture as in any thing 
 else. So that though every landlord were to spend to 
 the uttermost of his power, whether on his own private 
 gratifications, or in the support of government, we have 
 nothing to fear for the progress of cultivation. There is 
 perfect security that, on the one hand, a more productive 
 agriculture will bring on a larger population ; and that, 
 on the other, an increasing population will so uphold the 
 demand for food, as to encourage and speed onward the 
 progress of agriculture. Meanwhile, the landlord, though 
 sitting merely as a recipient, if he but give his consent and 
 countenance to the requisite administration, will reap the 
 benefits of a process in which he takes no active share. 
 
 16* 
 
182 EFFECT OF TAXES. 
 
 His rents flow in upon him without exertion on his part.. 
 He will be glad to receive the whole, but should govern- 
 ment interpose with its taxations, he will not reject the 
 part which remains to him. The man of a thousand a 
 year will be glad of an additional hundred, but not more 
 so, than a man of five hundred a year is of an additional 
 fifty. A tax then of fifty per cent, on the net income of 
 landlords, would still leave them in possession of as zeal- 
 ous an interest as heretofore, in the improvement of their 
 property. And should government but leave the profits 
 of capital and the wages of labour untouched by their ex- 
 actions, we are not able to say when it is that the share 
 which government appropriates of the net rent becomes 
 so large, as, by its adverse influence on the mind of the 
 proprietor, to arrest or even to retard the progress of cul- 
 tivation.* 
 
 5. Anterior then to all consideration of what might be 
 yielded, if indeed any thing is yielded by profit and wages 
 to the service of the state, there is at least one source of 
 public revenue that might well stand exempted from the 
 obloquy of indignant patriotism. A tax on the net rent 
 of land needs not to trench on the income of capitalists ; 
 for the united expenditure of government and the land- 
 lords can afford them as large an income after the tax, as 
 did the unbroken expenditure of the landlords before it.t 
 It trenches not on the comfort of labourers; for all the 
 
 * " Both ground rents, and the ordinary rent of land, are a species 
 of revenue which the owner, in many cases, enjoys without any care 
 or attention of his own. Though a part of this revenue should be 
 taken from him in order to defray the expenses of the state, no dis- 
 couragement will thereby be given to any sort of industry. The an- 
 nual produce of the land and labour of the society, the real wealth 
 and revenue of the great body of the people, might be the same after 
 such a tax as before. Ground rents, and the ordinary rent of land, 
 are therefore, perhaps, the species of revenue which can best bear to 
 have a pecuHar tax imposed upon them.."— Smithes Wealth of Nations, 
 Book V, Chap. ii. 
 
 t AVe employ the term income, rather than profit ; because the ex- 
 penditure from the hands of government being more directed to the 
 support of what economists term unproductive labour, may be more 
 in the shape of annual payments, and less in the shape of prices for 
 commodities, than Avhen that expenditure came from the hands of the 
 landlords. 
 
EFFECT OF TAXES. 183 
 
 power of maintenance that has been withdrawn from in- 
 dividual proprietors, may still be discharged as liberally 
 as ever from the coffers of the treasury. It changes only 
 the direction of industry, and not the remuneration of it. 
 As many of the disposable population as the produce of 
 the tax can maintain, were employed in the manufacture 
 of luxuries ; or, while this produce was suffered to remain 
 in the hands of the landlords, they laboured in the service 
 of the landlords. When this produce was taken out of 
 their hands, the maintenance of that population was trans- 
 ferred into the hands of government, and themselves were 
 transferred to the service of government. There might 
 be an abridgment of trade and manufactures by this pro- 
 cess ; for, instead of preparing tangible luxuries, the 
 greater part of those whose employments shall have thus 
 been shifted, might be engaged, in what many economists 
 call the unproductive service of naval or military defend- 
 ers. This new distribution of our people would have 
 the effect of lessening the trade of the nation ; and to those 
 who idolize trade, as if it possessed some mystic virtue in 
 itself, over and above the power of ministering through 
 the medium of its own articles to the enjoyment of cus- 
 tomers, this might appear a great national evil. But, in 
 truth, the gratification which consumers have in the use 
 of its commodities, is the great, the only service which 
 trade renders to the commonwealth. This we admit is 
 destroyed by the tax. This is given away in exchange 
 for whatever benefit the tax may be laid out in purchasing. 
 Landlords have lost their luxuries. But there is no other 
 loss. Every other benefit which has helped to associate 
 in the minds of men the idea of prosperity, with the idea 
 of trade, is fully and perfectly retained. Whatever power 
 lay in the produce of the tax, when in the hands of its 
 original owner, abides with it still, when in the hands of 
 government. And with the single exception of landlords 
 being shorn somewhat of their household, or stinted 
 somewhat in their personal enjoyments, do we behold the 
 spectacle of as large a population, in circumstances of as 
 great comfort and sufficiency as before. 
 
184 EFFECT OF TAXES* 
 
 6. Having this view, we cannot sympathise with the 
 despondency of those who represent our nation, as in a 
 state of extremity and exhaustion. And neither do we 
 comprehend how it is, that taxation cannot be further ex- 
 tended, without bearing oppressively on the maintenance 
 and industry of the people. We hold that there is a 
 world of delusion in the invectives upon this subject, 
 w^hether of demagogues out o£ parliament, or of the 
 champions of reform and retrenchment within its walls. 
 There is at least one direction, in which taxation maybe 
 carried further, without even the semblance, and certainly 
 without the reality of any encroachment on the means of 
 the general population. A territorial impost, anywhere 
 short of the net land rent of the kingdom, would but 
 trench on the luxury of landlords, without at all trench- 
 ing on the livelihood of the other classes. And to speak 
 of our yet touching on the limit of our resources, or even 
 being within sight of it, when the equipage, and the 
 splendour, and the thousand effeminacies of luxurious 
 expenditure, are so paraded before our eyes ! We are 
 aware that the national debt falls with the weight of a 
 mortgage on every estate in the island ; a weight, too, 
 that has of late become more oppressive, by the change 
 which has taken place in the value of money. But, 
 looking comprehensively at the matter, these mortgagees 
 should be regarded in the hght of landed proprietors. 
 By the national debt, there has virtually been a division 
 between them and the land owners of the territory of the 
 empire. Regarding, then, both the land and the stock 
 holders, as in fact proprietors of the soil, and as sharing 
 between them the net rent which accrues from it ; who 
 will deny, that between these two classes, there is at this 
 moment a greater fund for taxation and for the exigen- 
 cies of the state, than there ever was in any former period 
 of the British history ? We have only to survey the dis- 
 tance at which, in habit and expenditure, they stand from 
 the necessaries of life; and, looking on this as the inter- 
 mediate ground, on which government might proceed in- 
 definitely to appropriate for its own uses the price of their 
 luxurious indulgences, we venture to affirm, that never 
 
EFFECT OP TAXES. 185 
 
 Was there a greater capability than now, for enlarghig 
 the number and allowances of the pablic functionaries, or 
 for imparting efficiency and extent to all the departments 
 of the public service. A levy often per cent, both upon 
 land and fund holders, would at this moment invest 
 government, if not with a larger nominal revenue, at least 
 with a real power of command over the services of a 
 larger disposable population, than the same levy would 
 have ^done at any former period in the history of our af- 
 fairs. The funds t'or such an enlargement of the national 
 revenue do exist in the country ; and, without the injury 
 of one economic interest, these funds may be drawn upon, 
 with no encroachment whatever on the sufficiency of the 
 common people, and no other loss to the classes above 
 them, than the loss of a splendour and a luxury unknown 
 to their forefathers. 
 
 7. By disentangling and keeping distinctly apart from 
 each other, the sources out of which a public revenue 
 might be drawn, we are enabled to perceive, in spite of 
 the very prevalent notion to the contrary, how far we yet 
 are from the extremity of our national resources. Even 
 at the time, when an additional revenue seems hopeless, 
 from any, or all the branches of trade put together, there 
 might still be a fund, convertible by taxation to the pur- 
 poses of government, and of greater amplitude than at 
 any former period of our history. It follows not because 
 wages are sinking in every department of industry, or 
 profits are brought to that minimum condition, beneath 
 which the capital of a nation must decay ; it follows not, 
 on these accounts, that government has arrived at the ne 
 jplus ultra of her possible income or possible expenditure. 
 This would be true, if the only way in which a public 
 revenue can be raised, is by extracting out of the existent 
 trade of a country some fraction of its gains. Whereas^ 
 instead of this, let there be a tax on the net rent of land, 
 and then a certain portion of the trade would of necessity 
 be destroyed ; when, instead of drawing by an impost 
 upon commodities, but a part of its value, the whole gross 
 value of the destroyed trade may in fact be transferred to 
 the coffers of the treasury. The capitalists and work-' 
 
186 EFFECT OF TAXES. 
 
 men disengaged in consequence, may be as liberally 
 supported as before in the service of the nation ; while the 
 capitaHsts and workmen who remain may have still the 
 same remuneration in the trade which survives. This 
 then is a species of tax to which the common place decla- 
 mations of an overburdened commerce, or an overbur- 
 dened and oppressed industry, are wholly inapplicable. 
 Both may be overburdened by the weight of their own 
 redundancy, when capital and population are alii^e in 
 excess; but taxation, when confined to the proper reve- 
 nue of landlords, is innocent ot it all. And the proper 
 test for the capability or the possible extent of this tax- 
 ation, is just the power of land and fund holders, to main- 
 tain a disposable population, who prepare for them the 
 superfluities of existence ; and never, may we venture to 
 affirm, was there a greater length rnd breadth of this 
 capability than at the present moment. Never had go- 
 vernment less excuse for foregoing any of the high objects 
 of patriotism, because of inability fully and liberally to 
 provide for them all. We repeat, that it is not the ne- 
 cessity of the lower, but the luxury of the higher classes, 
 which at all stands in the way of our great public inter- 
 ests ; and that every one of them might be most generously 
 supported, with but an abridgment to the hixuries of the 
 one class, and with no aggravation whatever to the ne- 
 cessities of the other. It is only because things are look- 
 ed to with distorted vision, that the retrenchments, which 
 are now made at the altar of popularity, are hailed as so 
 many acts of relief to the general population ; when, if 
 beheld in their true character, they would be regretted, 
 by every sound patriot, as a sacrifice of the public good 
 to the splendour and efieminacj/ of the upper orders in 
 society. 
 
 S. The notion is very prevalent, both among econo- 
 mists and statesmen, that commerce and manufactures 
 are the fountain heads of the public revenue ; and that if, 
 by any chance, these are obstructed or dried up, the great 
 source whence a government obtains its supplies is dried 
 up along with them. The tax on a commodity forms a 
 fraction of its price ; so that when the commodity ceases 
 
EFFECT OF TAXES. ISI' 
 
 to be produced or sold, when no price is given for it, the 
 tax, in its present form, necessarily disappears : and it 
 would therefore seem as if, with the cessation of the trade, 
 government were to lose part of its income. It requires, 
 we should think, no great stretch of visicii to perceive, 
 that the manufacture is not the originator of a revenue to 
 government, but only the occasion, or the channel, through 
 which government reaches the purchaser of the manu- 
 faciured commodity ; and that though the manufacture 
 were destroyed, the wonted ability of the purchaser is not 
 therefore destroyed. The truth is, that, by means of a 
 direct impost, government could draw from him the whole 
 price of the article in question, instead of a fraction of 
 that price by means of a tax on the article. It is neither 
 the sugar, nor the tea, nor the wine trade, which produ- 
 ces a revenue to government. These produce nothing 
 but sugar, tea, and wine ; and did the nation consent to 
 the sacrifice of these luxuries, government might receive 
 the whole price now given for them, instead of a propor- 
 tional part in the shape of duty. What else, but an un- 
 due sense of the virtue which resides in trade and manu- 
 factures, could have led Dr. Smith to assert,* that a com- 
 mercial country, like ours, could afford no more than a 
 hundredth part of its population for the business of war; 
 else its commerce, deemed by him the very source of 
 those finances by which war is supported, would go into 
 languishment and decay ; whereas, though the whole of 
 that immense commerce, which is busied in providing the 
 superfluities of life, were this instant to be annihilated, it 
 would still leave in the hands of the consumers the mainte- 
 nance of the whole disposable population, out of whom a 
 ten fold greater military strength might be made to arise, 
 than our illustrious economist dared to contemplate. And 
 how else can we explain the egregious error of Mr. Pitt, 
 
 * He at least states what the common estimate is, without quali- 
 fying or contradicting it. " Among the civilized nations of modern 
 Europe, it is commonly computed, that not more than one hundredth 
 part of the inhabitants of any country can be employed as soldiers, 
 without ruin to the country which pays the expense of their service." 
 Wealth of Nations J Book V, chap. I. 
 
188 EFFECT OF TAXES. 
 
 who confidently foretold the overthrow of France, because, 
 jn the ruin of her trade, he conceived that her means of 
 defence and of warfare were utterly exterminated ? The 
 truth is, that it was the wreck of her commerce which 
 creaied jier armies. Her disposable population, dis- 
 baiided from their former pacific employments, flocked in 
 myriads to the standard of independence, and at length 
 of aggression and conquest over all her enemies. Their 
 old emploj^ments failed them, but their maintenance did 
 not fail them. It remained in the hands of those who 
 wont to be their customers ; and when surrendered by 
 them, at the call of patriotism, or the bidding of an ener- 
 getic government for the necessities of the state, it was 
 made available for the support of the same population, 
 now transferred from the business of trade to the business 
 of war. This destruction of their trade, on which Pitt 
 founded his calculations of their downfal, was the very 
 things M'hich made them the scourge and terror of all 
 Europe. It transformed millions of artizans into soldiers ; 
 and in very proportion to their decay as a manufacturing, 
 was their extension and their growth as a military nation. , 
 Their fancied weakness turned out to be their real and 
 formidable strength ; and in that mighty reaction which 
 took place on the breaking up of the old system of their 
 affairs, have the principles which we now try to expound 
 received, from the finger of history, their most signal and 
 conclusive demonstration. ^ 
 
 9. We gather, from this argument, that there might be 
 a misplaced antipathy to taxation. We could understand 
 the sentiment, and would also share in it, should it be 
 made to appear of any tax, that it dries up the springs of 
 our economic prosperity, or trenches, in the slightest de- 
 gree, on the comforts of the poor man and the labourer. 
 But if, on unravelling the mechanism of human society, 
 it becomes evident that there is but the semblance of this 
 effect without the reality, it ought to mitigate our indig- 
 nation, and in certain cases, perhaps, to transfer our ge- 
 nerous and patriotic sensibilities to the opposite side. A 
 tax on the net rent of land is clearly of this description ; 
 abridging nothing, by its operation, but the luxuries of 
 
EFFECT OF TAXES. 189 
 
 the wealthier classes ; and appropriated, as its produce 
 may be, to the extension of the best interests of the com- 
 monwealth. The popular representation of the matter is, 
 that in virtue of our enormous taxes, the minions of go- 
 vernment are allowed to fatten on the spoils of the nation, 
 to the further hardship and oppression of its starving 
 multitudes. We believe the juster representation to be, 
 that, in virtue of a sweeping and blindfold retrenchment, 
 the affluent proprietor is enabled to live in greater splen- 
 dour and delicacy ; and that by a farther reduction on 
 the hard won earnings of those who are the public's most 
 useful and laborious servants. The monarchy is shorn 
 of its splendour ; the great offices of the state are stripped 
 of their graceful and becoming dignity; the system of 
 public instruction is stinted of its needful allowances ; the 
 requisite agency for the business of government is crip- 
 pled in all its departments ; our gallant warriors pine in 
 sordid destitution ; science, in the Gothic barbarity of 
 our times, is unfostered and unrewarded ; in a word, the 
 glory and substantial interests of the nation are sacrificed, 
 and all with no other effect, than so to ease the landed and 
 the funded aristocracy, that they may be more delicately 
 regaled, or more magnificently attired and attended. The 
 tax, we repeat, does not trench on the livelihood of the 
 poor, but on the luxuries of the rich; and statesmen, mis- 
 led by a false political economy, or looking only at the 
 surface of things, have made surrender, to a very phan- 
 tom, of tlie highest objects of patriotism. 
 
 10. We confess that, on this subject, we have no sym- 
 pathy with what has been called the spirit of the age. 
 The very worst effects are to be dreaded from it. Every 
 thing now is made a question of finance ; and science, 
 with all which can grace or dignify a nation, is vulgari- 
 zed and brought down to a common standard ; the stand- 
 ard of the market and of the counting house. It does 
 L .k menacing, to take one example out of the thousand 
 which may be specified, that it hinged on one solitary 
 vote,* whether the trigonometrical survey of our island 
 
 * It is but fair to say, however, that the majority of one for the con- 
 tinuance of the survey, was in the vote of a committee, which, though 
 
 17 
 
190 EFFECT OF TAXES. 
 
 should be permitted to go on ; a work which, like the 
 doomsday book of England, might, after the lapse of a 
 millennium, still survive, as a great national index lor the 
 guidance of our most distant posterity. It makes one 
 tremble for some ftrarful resurrection of the old Gothic 
 spirit amongst us, when one "huiks that we were within a 
 hair-breadth of this noble enterprise being quashed. And 
 this is the spirit of the age ! ^n age of unsparing retrench- 
 ment ; a regime of hard and hunger bitten economy, be- 
 fore whose remorseless pruning hook, lie wiihering and 
 dissevered from their stem, the noblest interests of the 
 commonwealth ; a vehement outrageous parsimony which, 
 under the guise of patriotism, so reigns and ravens over 
 the whole length and breadth of the land, and cares not 
 though both religion and philosophy should expire, if 
 but some wretched item of shred and of candle end should 
 be gained by the sacrifice ; this, though now the ascend- 
 ant policy of our nation, elevated into power by the de- 
 cisions of the legislature, and blown into popularity by 
 the hosannahs of the multitude, will be looked back upon 
 by posterity as an inglorious feature of the worst and 
 most inglorious period in the annals of Britain ; the be- 
 fitting policy for an age of little measures and little men. 
 11. We are aware of the sacrifices which are now be- 
 ing made at the shrine of popularity. A loud call for 
 economy, in all the branches of the public service, has 
 been met to the extent of a most hurtful reduction, both 
 in the number of our national functionaries, and in their 
 allowances; without, we venture to affirm, one particle of 
 addition to the cotuforts of the general population. In 
 as far as the taxation falls upon landlords, thi^n, it but 
 transfers the services of the people to other masters, with- 
 out effecting necessarily a diminution of their wages,; and 
 the remission of such taxation Vv'ill but commit them back 
 again to their old employers, and without the increase of 
 their wages. We therefore hold, that those politicians 
 and philanthropists are altogether on a wrong track, who 
 act as if this were the expedient by which aught like per- 
 il had been adverse, would still have been subject to correction in the 
 House of Commons. 
 
EFFECT OF TAXES. 191 
 
 manent relief is to be obtained for the working classes of 
 society. Let capital continue to press on the business of 
 the country as before, which it will do, so long as the 
 appetency for wealth preponderates over a taste either for 
 the luxuries which wealth can purchase, or the generosi- 
 ties which wealth enables us to exercise ; and let popula- 
 tion continue to press on the food of the country, which 
 it also will do, so long as the love of animal enjoyment 
 predominates over a taste for the comforts and decencies 
 which even humble life might attain to, and nothing 
 within the compass of human wisdom can be devised by 
 which to save either the distempers of our commerce, or 
 the destitution of our peasantrv. Government will have 
 the mortijScation to find, that, after having dismantled its 
 various establishments, to the great damage of great na- 
 tional interests, it will have still the same encounter to 
 maintain, (and that, too, in midst of the weakness and 
 helplessness to which itself has involuntarily descended,) 
 with as wretched, as dissatisfied a population as before. 
 
 12. But we have only reasoned^ hitherto, on the effect, 
 not of all taxation, but of a special taxation, even that on 
 the net rent of land. But the great majority of our ac- 
 tual taxes appear to fall on profit and wages ; and on the 
 incidence and efiect of these we reserve ourselves for the 
 following chapter. 
 
192 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ON THE SUPPOSED EFFECT OF TAXES IN AGGRAVATING 
 THE CONDITION OF THE LABOURING CLASSES, AVITH 
 THE CONVERSE EFFECT WHICH THE REMISSION OF 
 TAXES IS CONCEIVED TO HAVE ON THEIR RELIEF, 
 AND THE ENLARGEMENT OF THEIR COMFORTS. 
 
 II. On the taxes which seem to affect profit and wages, 
 
 1. When a tax is laid upon net rent, the landed pro- 
 prietor can obtain no indemnification for it, from the other 
 classes of society. There is not a sounder principle in 
 political economy, than that it is not the rent of land 
 which causes the high price of agricultural produce; but 
 that the high price of agricultural produce, brought 
 on by other influences, is the cause of rent. The landed 
 proprietor cannot indemnify himself for the tax, by put- 
 ting, at his own pleasure, a higher pecuniary value on 
 the products of the soil. It is not the will of the landlord 
 which determines their price. The price of corn fluctu- 
 ates, like that of every other commodity, with the pro- 
 portion which the quantity of it brought to market bears 
 to the demand. If, on the one hand, the population 
 choose to multiply, though with the surrender of a part 
 of their wonted comforts, this, by adding to the number 
 and competition of the buyers, will raise the price of corn j 
 without any will or exertion on the part of the landlords. 
 Or if, on the other hand, it be the collective will of the 
 population to forego the pleasure of early marriages, for 
 other and higher pleasures, this may so slacken the de- 
 mand for corn, that its price, relative to labour, may be- 
 come lower than before. It is not the landlord, who 
 either raises the price of grain in the one case, or lets it 
 down in the other. He is the mere recipient of a surpluSj 
 
EFFECT OF TAXES. 193 
 
 the amount of which is determined, by causes extrinsic 
 to himself, and independent of himself. He cannot aug- 
 ment this surplus at his pleasure, so as to indemnify him- 
 self for the share which government chooses to assume of 
 it. They take from him the maintenance of a certain 
 part of the disposable population ; and, along with this, 
 they take from him the services of that population. But 
 this change does not affect, either the number of the dis- 
 posable population, or their power of purchasing. These 
 remain unaltered ; and so the price of agricultural pro- 
 duce remains die same as before. Landlords, therefore, 
 have no way of making their escape from the impositions 
 of government ; or, of shifting the burden from themselves 
 to any other class of society. And, if it can be proved, 
 that, in this respect, they stand distinguished both from 
 capitalists and labourers ; if these find relief from the 
 taxes which are laid upon them, in the higher prices of 
 what they sell, or in the higher wages of what they work, 
 then, all taxes, however ostensibly laid, in the first in- 
 stance, will be found, ultimately, to land on the proprie- 
 tors of the soil. 
 
 2. Many are the instances in which it is quite palpa- 
 ble, that the first incidence, and the ultimate effect of a 
 tax, lie on different persons. Perhaps the most frequent 
 and familiar example of this is, when a tax on commodi- 
 ties falls at first upon the manufacturer or the dealer ; 
 but he indemnifies himself by raising the price, and so 
 transfers the burden of it to the purchaser. He shifts 
 the imposition away from himself to another ; and the 
 question is, whether there are not whole classes of men, 
 who, though they do pay taxes ostensibly, do not, in 
 fact, substantially and really, pay them at all. If a mer- 
 chant, in particular, can escape from the tax laid on the 
 commodity in which he deals, can he not equally escape 
 from all attempts to reach him by taxation in some other 
 way ? If, by raising the price of nis artiCie, ne can in- 
 demnify himself for a tax upon commodities, has he not 
 the same resource against a tax upon profits, or a tax 
 
 17* 
 
194 EFFECT OF TAXES* 
 
 on any of the objects of his expenditure?* Certain 
 enough it is, that a tax on profits cannot be carried to 
 the annihilation of all profit, or a tax on the expenses of 
 living to the annihilation of the livelihood of capitalists, 
 else trade and manufactures vi^ould altogether cease. On 
 the first blush of the matter, then, there do appear to be 
 certain compensatory processes, by which we are sure 
 that some taxes are made up for to the capitalists ; and 
 which, perhaps, have enough of power and efficacy in 
 them, to make up for all their taxes whatever. In like 
 manner, it seems conceded, that no tax, either upon the 
 person of the labourer, or upon his maintenance, can 
 trench so far upon his means as to leave him without the 
 power of supporting himself and family, in such away as 
 shall at least keep up the population of the land. In 
 this department of society too, then, it would appear, 
 that there is a compensatory process, by which the taxes 
 that bear on the subsistence and comforts of the labourer, 
 are either partially or entirely made up for ; and must 
 therefore be transferred to some other clasg who bear the 
 burden of them. If it can be proved, that all taxes, af- 
 fecting the status of the capitalists, are made up for to 
 them by higher prices; and that all taxes, aifecting the 
 status of the labourers, are made up for to them by 
 higher wages ; this would seem to conduct us to the old 
 doctrine of the French economists, though by a different 
 process from theirs, that all taxes fall ultimately on the 
 net rent of land. The common imagination is, that this 
 is a doctrine which has been long exploded. The rea- 
 soning may be exploded, but yet the doctrine may be 
 true notwithstanding, and may be established on the 
 foundation of other reasoning. 
 
 * Mr. T. Perronet Thomson, in commenting on the opinions of an 
 economist, who distinguishes between certain taxes which do fall 
 upon purchasers, and certain which do not, shrewdly, and, in my 
 opinion, soundly observes, " It would be curious to know how he 
 convinces himself, that this is true, when the tax is demanded from 
 the producer, under the title of a tax on his commodities, and would 
 not have been true, if the same sum had been demanded from him, 
 under the title of a tax on his profits." 
 
EFFECT OF TAXES. 195 
 
 3. There is one argument connected with this doctrine 
 which has been occasionally touched upon by economi- 
 cal writers ; and did we not hold ourselves in possession 
 of another argument on the same side, still more clear 
 and conclusive, we should have expatiated on it at great- 
 er length. Let us briefly advert to it before we proceed 
 to the main reason, on which we ground our general af- 
 firmation, that taxes are not paid either by capitalists or 
 labourers ; or, to state the principle in more unexcep- 
 tionable language, that they receive full compensation 
 for the taxes which they do pay ; the one in higher pro- 
 fits, and the other in higher wages, than without the taxes 
 they would have received. 
 
 4. This argument which, in point of strength and 
 obviousness, holds, in our estimation, but a collateral or 
 subsidiary rank, w^hen compared with the one on which 
 we should feel inclined to rest the cause, is still worthy 
 of being noticed, because it helps to explain the speed 
 wherewith a compensation arises to the capitalist and la- 
 bourer, for those taxes which ostensibly fall upon them. 
 The principle of the argument is, that whatever causes a 
 more rapid, or rather a more copious circulation of mo- 
 ney, without at the same time increasing the supply of 
 commodities, raises the money price of them. We can 
 thus conceive one w^ay in which a capitalist might obtain, 
 at least in as far as circulating capital is concerned, an 
 almost immediate compensation for a tax on profits. If, 
 previous to such a tax, there be an hundred millions an- 
 nually laid out, in bringing goods to market, which are 
 there sold for a hundred and ten millions, this capital is 
 replaced with a profit of ten millions to its owners. But 
 should a tax of ten per cent, be laid upon these profits, 
 this, in the first instance, affects not the ability of those who 
 purchased to the fextent of a hundred and ten millions, 
 seeing that the tax is laid upon the capitalists and not 
 upon their customers ; and, in the second instance, it en- 
 riches government to the extent of one million. Sup- 
 pose this million to be expended by government in the 
 purchase of commodities, then would the hundred mil- 
 lions of capital, after the tax of one million upon the 
 
196 EFFECT OF TAXES. 
 
 owners, be replaced by a hundred and eleven, instead of 
 a hundred and ten millions ; or, in other words, the tax 
 which they pay to government would reciprocate back 
 upon themselves, in a consequent rise of the money price 
 of the commodities wherein they deal. 
 
 5. And the same is still more palpably true of a tax 
 on the wages of labour. Should a hundred millions be 
 given annually in wages, and government lay an impost 
 of ten per cent, upon the labourers, the ability of the 
 original hirers to make offer of a hundred millions next 
 year for service, is not at all affected by such a tax. But 
 then the effect of it is, that it enables government to com- 
 pete with them effectually in the labour market, to the ex- 
 tent of an additional ten milHons ; or, in other words, a 
 hundred and ten millions may now be brought annually 
 forward for the purchase of labour, instead of a hundred 
 millions as before. But as there is no additional supply 
 of labour by this process, the money price of labour 
 would just rise to the full amount of the tax which has 
 been laid upon it. The labourers would obtain a full 
 indemnity for the tax, by the produce of it coming al- 
 most immediately back upon themselves. Insomuch, 
 that were a poll-tax of five pounds a year laid upon 
 each labourer, we hold, that an almost instant compensa- 
 tion would take place, by a rise to the same extent in 
 the money price of labour. He bears it ostensibly, but 
 not actually. In point of semblance, it is a tax upon 
 him ; but, in point of real incidence and effect, it is wholly 
 upon his employers. 
 
 6. Before we take leave of this argument, let us state 
 it in terms of greater generality. Let, on the one hand, 
 the quantity of capital and labour in the country remain 
 unchanged, and, on the other, the power of replacing the 
 capital, and remunerating the labour also remain un- 
 changed, and, however the latter power shall be broken 
 down or divided, profits will remain the same, and wages 
 the same. The effect of a tax on profit, or of a tax upon 
 wages, would just be to bring an additional quantity of 
 money, to the extent of the tax, into the market for 
 goods, or the market for labour j and, to that extent, 
 
EFFECT OF TAXES. 197 
 
 raise the money price of both. The effect, again, of a 
 tax upon net rent, would be, to diminish the purchasing 
 power of the landlords ; to the extent only, however, 
 that the purchasing power of the government was in- 
 creased ; and, without any increase of money price, pro- 
 fits and wages would continue in name, as well as in 
 substance, what they were before. The operation of a 
 tax on profits and wages would be nominally to raise the 
 income both of capitalists and labourers ; though, sub- 
 stantialljr, they would continue what they were. If the 
 tax were laid upon net rent, it would diminish the income 
 of landlords, without raising money prices ; and, there- 
 fore, without raising the income of the other two classes, 
 either nominally or substantially. After the imposition 
 of such a tax, the united expenditure of the landlords and 
 government would be equal to the entire expenditure of 
 the landlords before ; and, under the new system of an 
 expenditure undiminished hi its amount, and only 
 changed in its distribution, we should behold both capi- 
 talists and labourers in possession of the same monej^, as 
 v/eli as the same real income as formerly. 
 
 7. The same reasoning applies to every tax on those 
 commodities which enter into the maintenance, either of 
 capitalists or labourers ; so as to show, that they can 
 make as effectual escapes from the indirect as from the 
 direct taxes which are laid upon them. We are sensible, 
 at the same time, of the many evasions which might be 
 practised, to obscure, if not to frustrate this argument ; and 
 of the many adjustments which it were necessary to make, 
 ere we could fully meet all the difficulties th-^t might be 
 cast in its way. But we feel how superfluous it were to 
 take the more laborious, when there is a shorter and 
 easier path by which to arrive at our conclusion. We 
 think that the argument employed hitherto, serves well 
 to account for the very instant compensation which ac- 
 crues to capitalists and labourers, when taxes are laid, 
 either on their expenditure or their income. But whether 
 this argument shall be sustained or not, there is still 
 another, which proves irresistibly to our minds, that, in 
 point of ultimate and permanent effect, taxes do not fall 
 
198 EFFECT OF TAXES. 
 
 on either of these classes ; a position, which will be all 
 the more convincing, if we but attend to the fundamental 
 and efficient principles, by which both the rate of profit, 
 and the wages of labour are determined. 
 
 8. We shall, in the first instance, keep out of sight the 
 effect which taxation may have in contracting the agri- 
 culture of a country ; and that, for the purpose of bring- 
 ing out singly, and therefore more clearly, the main rea- 
 son why, ultimately, the income of neither capitalists nor 
 labourers can be trenched upon by taxation. We shall, 
 after establishing this, take the agriculture into account, 
 in order to complete our whole view of this subject. 
 
 9. If we but adverted to the dependence which profit 
 and wages have on a mental or moral cause, we should 
 at once perceive, of both these elements, how little either 
 of them can be affected by taxation. Of the first of 
 them, profit, we know that, other circumstances remaining 
 the same, it falls with every increase of capital, and rises 
 with every diminution of it. This circumstance will at 
 once let us see, that its rate depends on the taste and 
 choice of the capitalists themselves ; that is, on the pro- 
 portion which their inclination to save bears to their in- 
 clination to spend. If the whole amount of revenue aris- 
 ing from profit, be ten millions in the 3^ar, and it be 
 the collective will of the capitaHsts to spend that sum 
 annually, then profit undergoes no variation. If they 
 spend less than this, capital increases and profits fall. 
 If they spend more, capital decreases and profits rise. 
 With this element brought into the computation, it will 
 be perceived how a tax might be laid, in the first in- 
 stance, upon profit, and yet in effect not be paid by the 
 receivers of profit. They have only to persevere in their 
 wonted habits of expenditure and indulgence, and they 
 can throw the whole burden of the tax upon their custo- 
 mers. Let it but be their collective will, to spend on 
 their own gratification ten millions in the year, and the 
 imposition upon them of a tax to the extent of one mil- 
 lion, need not trench on their ability to maintain this ex- 
 penditure. If their capital of a hundred millions was, 
 previous to the tax, replaced by a hundred and ten ; then, 
 if after the tax they should continue to sp^nd the ten mil- 
 
EFFECT OF TAXES. 199 
 
 lions and to pay the one, this would reduce their capital 
 to ninety-nine millions ; when, in the consequent higher 
 prices of next year, they might have a full compensation 
 for the tax. Let the replacing power, notwithstanding 
 the tax, continue as before, at a hundred and ten mil- 
 lions ; this sura, given in return for the ninety and nine, 
 would raise the profit from ten to eleven millions, and so 
 meet the whole imposition that had been made on this 
 branch of the national revenue. The burden would thus 
 be effectually thrown off from the capitalists, and laid on 
 those who purchase their commodities. 
 
 10. And the same would be the result of a tax upon 
 wages. Other circumstances still being equal, they fall 
 with the increase, and rise with the decrease of the popu- 
 lation. The rate of wages, therefore, has a close depend- 
 ence on the proportion which the inclination of the peo- 
 ple for marriage bears to their inclination for the com- 
 forts and the decencies of life. In other words, it is ulti- 
 mately decided by a mental or a moral cause. Give the 
 people a high standard of enjoyment, and, rather than 
 sink beneath it, they will postpone matrimony for a sea- 
 son ; or, in other words, we should have later "marriages 
 and smaller families. Through the medium of popular 
 intelligence and virtue, this result will be permanently 
 arrived at, and through no other medium. The rate of 
 wages is fixed by the collective will of the people them- 
 selves. They are the arbiters of their own condition ; 
 having absolute control over that element on which there 
 hinges the amount of their remuneration for labour; and, 
 if th.ey choose not to exert that control, there is positively 
 no other expedient by which a commonwealth can be 
 saved from the oppression of an underpaid and degraded 
 peasantry. But if, on the one hand, no devices of phi- 
 lanthropy can save a population of sordid and grovelling 
 habits from that most over-mastering of all oppressions, 
 the oppression of their own numbers ; on the other hand, 
 no weight of imposts can permanently depress a moral 
 and educated people beneath that elevated position which 
 themselves have fixed upon, and which themselves are 
 abundantly able to maintain. This alliance between a 
 
200 EFFECT OF TAXES. 
 
 people's character and a people's comfort, is far the most 
 valuable lesson in political science, and is convertible to 
 the most precious applications which can be made of it. 
 We do not think that even the immediate effect, or at least 
 the effect beyond one year, of a tax on wages, is to lessen 
 the remuneration of the labourer; but even if i': had, it 
 could have no such effect permanently. It could not re- 
 duce the economic state or condition of men, who have 
 an absolute dictation over the proportion between the 
 demand for labour and the supply of it. They can 
 countervail the operation of such a tax by their habits ; 
 and, having unlimited command over the supply of la- 
 bour, they can, by a moral economic check on the mag- 
 nitude of this supply, sustain, in tiie midst of all adverse 
 elements, whether physical or political, in the attitude of 
 an erect and well conditioned peasantry. 
 
 11. A tax on profit leaves the capitalists at freedom to 
 embark less of capital on business than before ; and, fail- 
 ing an immediate rise on the price of their commodities, 
 if, on the average, they choose to keep up their wonted 
 personal and household expenditure, and the tax compel 
 them, for this purpose, to trench upon their capital, they 
 have at length, a full compensation in the increased 
 profits of trade. A tax on wages leaves the labourers at 
 liberty to marry later than before ; and, failing an im- 
 mediate rise on the money price of work, if, on the ave- 
 rage, they choose to postpone marriage, till they are en- 
 abled to enter ujDon it without any compromise of their 
 wonted enjoyments, they may at length, from a lessened 
 population, have an equally full compensation in the con- 
 sequent rise of the value of labour. A certain average 
 style of expenditure, resolutely adhered to by manufac- 
 turers and merchants, could, through the medium of a 
 diminished capital, act upon profit, so as to yield them 
 an indemnification for their tax ; and the same principle, 
 a certain average style of expenditure, resolutely adhered 
 to by labourers, could, through the medium of a dimi- 
 nished populaiion, act upon wages, so as to yield them 
 the same indemnification. Both classes, ultimately speak- 
 ing, are alike exonerated from the weight of taxation ; 
 
EFFECT OF TAXES. 201 
 
 and in the increased price, whether of commodities or 
 labour, the whole burden of it is transferred to the pro- 
 prietors of the soil. 
 
 12. These principles serve to demonstrate, that a tax 
 on cornniodities falls as little upon capitalists and labour- 
 ers, as either a tax on profits does upon the one, or as a 
 tax on wages does upon the other. It matters not, whether 
 the attempt to reduce their standard of enjoyment, be 
 made by a direct assessment on their income, or by an 
 impost on the articles which they use. Both attempts 
 can be alike resisted, by a resolute adherence on their 
 parts to their respective standards of enjoyment, and their 
 resistance can by each be carried into effect ; that of the 
 former class, through the medium of a retardation, or 
 even a diminution, effected on the capital, by means of 
 an expenditure which they will not consent to reduce ; 
 and that of the latter class, through the medium of a re- 
 tardation, or even a diminution, effected on the popula- 
 tion, by means of the moral preventive check, whose effect 
 is to sustain that st3de and habit of enjoyment among la- 
 bourers, which they will not consent to let down. It is 
 thus that their collective will can maintain for them the 
 level, whether it be a high or a low one, in which they 
 choose to acquiesce; and that this level it is in their 
 power to uphold, in opposition to all taxes, whether on 
 profits, on wages, or on commodities. They hold in 
 their hands, in fact, the two instruments of capital and 
 population, which they might regulate at pleasure ; and 
 thus it is, that every tax, which, without such command, 
 would depress their condition, may be effectually coun- 
 tervailed. 
 
 13. The general conception is, that dealers can ensure 
 their own escape from a tax upon their commodities, by 
 laying it through means of a higher price upon their cus- 
 tomers, when that tax is a partial one, or does not reach 
 to all commodities. And the way, it is imagined, in which 
 they do make their escape, is by withdrawing a portion 
 of capital from the trade which is taxed, to that which is 
 not taxed ; in which case, the price rises in the former 
 trade, and so tra^nsfers the burden of the taxation which 
 
 18 
 
202 EFFECT OF TAXES* 
 
 has been laid upon it, from the dealer to the consunief^ 
 But if this be the only way in which capitalists can es- 
 cape from taxation, every new tax on commodities, how- 
 ever partial, would be attended by a general fall of profits. 
 The transference of capital from a taxed to an untaxed 
 trade, will of course raise prices in the former, but will 
 depress them in the latter ; so as, after an equilibrium is 
 estabhshed, to depress somewhat the general rate of profit. 
 If the general rate of profit be ten per cent, and a tax of 
 ten per cent, be laid upon sugar, this would drive oiF so 
 much capital from the sugar trade, and so raise its price 
 to the consumer. But if there be no other outlet for the 
 withdrawn capital than other trades, then its investiture in 
 these will bring down their profits, till an equilibrium be 
 established among all the trades ; when, after this trans- 
 ference, the general profit on all commodities might be 
 imagined to fall down to nine per cent. But at this rate, 
 profit would be subject to successive deductions, with 
 every new tax laid upon commodities, till at length we 
 might imagine a general impost of ten per cent, carried 
 round the whole circle of commerce ; when, if there be 
 truth in the representation frequently given, all profit 
 would be annihilated, and so all trade come to a stand 
 from the want of inducement to continue it. But this is 
 so manifestly absurd, that there must be some other out- 
 let for the capital withdrawn from the trade that is taxed, 
 than that of vesting it as capital in other employments. 
 Now it can, and often does, find such an outlet, by being 
 turned to the purpose of a revenue, and thus absorbed in 
 the expenditure of capitalists. This is the way, then, in 
 which they have a control over profits, and a refuge from 
 the efiects of taxation. They can not only withdraw 
 capital from one business to another, but they can with- 
 draw it in part from all business ; and, by thus limiting 
 the extent of its application, they can counteract the 
 whole operation of a tax on their commodities, by such a 
 rise in their price as will shift the burden of it entirely 
 to the consumers. It will be allowed on all hands, that 
 if taxes can be made in any way to fall upon profit, ca- 
 pital will not accumulate so fast as it would otherwise have 
 
EFFECT OP TAXES. 203 
 
 done; and so future prices will be higher than they 
 would otherwise have been. And it is just as obvious, 
 that if, in virtue of taxes, capital is not at this moment ap- 
 plied so plentifully as it would otherwise have been, pre- 
 sent prices must be higher than they would otherwise 
 have been. All we need, then, for the establishment of 
 our position, is the postulatum, that taxation, which re- 
 strains the future accumulation of capital, will also, if the 
 holders of capital so choose, restrain the present applica- 
 tion of it. In virtue of the future increase of capital be- 
 ing restrained, prices will not be so low at some future 
 time as they otherwise would have been. In virtue of 
 its present application being restrained, prices are not so 
 low at the present time as they otherwise would have been. 
 In other words, as without the tax prices would have been 
 so much lower, with the tax they are as much higher; 
 and in these higher prices, the capitalist gets his full in- 
 demnification ; and the labourer can find his way at 
 length to the same immunity. Both have that state of 
 things within their reach, in which they can alike make 
 head, or stand their ground, against the imposts of gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 14. But though the principle we have now attempted 
 to unfold, is competent to achieve a full immunity for 
 these two classes from the burden of taxation, the effect 
 may be suspended for a time, in consequence of the in- 
 fluence which certain sorts of taxation have upon agricul- 
 ture. The most interesting conclusions may be gather- 
 ed from this part of the subject. We have often said of 
 the extreme limit of cultivation, that it, of all others, is 
 the place where the greatest lessons in economical science 
 are to be learned. It will serve to modify some of our 
 former positions, and lead to the establishment of new 
 ones, if we attend to the effect which the different species 
 of taxation produce upon this limit. 
 
 15. First, then, a tax on net rent would not restrain 
 cultivation. It might somewhat retard the progress of it ; 
 but, certainly, there is nothing in such a tax to prevent 
 the agriculture from being carried as far down among 
 the inferior soils as if the landlords had been subjected 
 
204 EFFECT OF TAXES. 
 
 to no such burden. We are quite aware of a retard atioo 
 that might be caused by a slower accumulation of capital 
 among the proprietors. But capital will arise, and has 
 arisen, in other quarters of society ; so that, in fact, its 
 tendency is to overflow beyond the possibility of its pro- 
 fitable investiture, whether in the business of husbandry, 
 or in any other business whatever. In these circumstan- 
 ces, the cultivation will soon be carried as far with a tax 
 upon net rent as without one. The land that is last en- 
 tered on, if it pay no rent, is subject to no burden from 
 the tax. The land immediately above it in the scale, 
 does pay rent ; and this rent is subject to a fractional de- 
 duction in consequence of the tax. But the recipient, the 
 landlord, will not now refuse to let out this land, because 
 he only gets half a crown instead of five shillings from the 
 acre of it. Previous to the tax, he does not stop the let- 
 ting of his land at the point, when it only yielded him half 
 a crown the acre ; and neither will he still. The truth 
 is, that in giving over a farm to cultivation, he commits 
 the whole soil of it, with all its varieties, to the manage- 
 ment of the tenant, who will cultivate every acre of it 
 that can yield him a profit; whether or not, over and 
 above this, it yields an excess, which goes in the shape of 
 rent to the landlord. Let this excess be shared as it may 
 between his landlord and the government, it afl'ects not 
 his operations ; and that, because it affects not the capa- 
 bility of the land last entered upon, to give him the return 
 of an adequate profit for the expenses of its cultivation. 
 What this profit shall be depends upon himself, or rather 
 upon the collective will of all the capitalists in the land ; 
 who, either by their accumulations can reduce the profit, 
 or by their expenditure can uphold, nay, augment it at 
 their pleasure. 
 
 16. Again, a tax upon luxuries, in as far as they are 
 used only by the landlord, would just, in point of econo- 
 mic efiect, be tantamount to a tax on the net rent. It 
 would not lie as a burden on the cultivation at all. The 
 domain of agriculture would remain as widely extended 
 as before. All the land lying fully within this domain^ 
 would still yield a rent to the landlord ; while that placed 
 
EFFECT OF TAXES. 205 
 
 along the margin, or the land last entered on, would re- 
 tain its capabilities for yielding a satisfactory profit to the 
 tenant, however the rent of the proprietor might be en- 
 croached upon by the demands of the government. 
 
 17. But, thirdly, a tax on profit, or even on the luxu- 
 ries used by those whose revenue lies in profit, has a 
 limiting effect on cultivation. We have already proved 
 how it is that capitalists can find their compensation, 
 either for a tax upon income, or upon the commodities 
 on which that income is expended. Should they choose 
 to maintain their wonted establishment, and pay all their 
 taxes to the bargain, this latter payment, by encroaching 
 on the capital, keeps up the profit ; and the tax is paid, 
 not out of their income, but out of the higher prices now 
 laid on the commodities in which they deal. This, in 
 the first instance, will operate a contraction on the agri- 
 culture, by adding to the price of the second necessaries 
 of life, and so adding to the expenses of farm management. 
 And besides, like all other capitalists, farmers will refuse 
 to embark more of capital on their business than what 
 they can obtain a satisfying return for ; or, in other words, 
 they will refuse to enter on the cultivation of land which 
 returns not a certain net profit to themselves ; or which 
 enlarges not that profit when its power is trenched upon, 
 of commanding for them their wonted enjoyments, by the 
 imposition of a tax on the articles which they use. This, 
 then, is the effect of a tax which goes to limit the income 
 of capitalists, or to limit the amount of their enjoyment 
 in the expenditure of that income. Farmers will not carry 
 their agriculture so far down as otherwise they would 
 have done. They will stop short at that better soil, out 
 of whose returns they can both pay the tax with the aug- 
 mented expenses, and remunerate themselves. The ag- 
 riculture is contracted ; or, the effect of such taxes is a 
 lessening of the country's subsistence, a lessening of the 
 country's population. 
 
 18. And, lastly, the same is still more palpably and 
 largely the effect of a tax, either on wages, or on any of 
 those commodities which enter into the maintenance of 
 labourers. The land last entered on must at least yield 
 
 18* 
 
206 EFFECT OF TAXES* 
 
 a produce, which can feed the agricultural labourers em- 
 ployed on it, and their secondaries. But by a tax, either 
 on the wages of labour, or on any of those commodities 
 which enter into the maintenance of labour, more than 
 this is exacted from the last cultivated land. It must not 
 only be able to feed the agricultural labourers and their 
 secondaries, but it must at least be able to feed as many 
 more as can be subsisted by the produce of the tax. If 
 a portion of such land require the labour of five agricul- 
 tural workmen, and they again require the labour of five 
 others to uphold them in the second necessaries of life, 
 that land must at least be able to feed the families of ten 
 workmen. But should the taxes, whether on wages or 
 necessaries, be equal to a fifth part of the labourers' in- 
 come, then no land can be entered upon without loss by 
 these five direct labourers, which is not able to feed at 
 least twelve labouring families. All such taxes, therefore, 
 operate to the contraction of the agriculture ; and so, 
 eventually, to the diminution of the numbers of the people. 
 And conversely, the remission of these taxes would, as if 
 by the removal of an obstruction, let out the agriculture 
 to poorer soils than have ever yet been attempted. It 
 would be followed by an increase of the means of sub- 
 sistence ; and, eventually, by an increase of the popu- 
 lation. 
 
 19. A tax then on profit, a tax on wages, or a tax on 
 any of the commodities which are used by capitalists or 
 labourers, will tell on the limit of cultivation. The im- 
 position of these taxes has the eifect of drawing in, and 
 the removal of them the effect of letting out, the agricul- 
 ture. The immediate effect then of the former measure, 
 were a fall of wages, because of a reduction in the quan- 
 tity of food, without a corresponding reduction all at 
 once in the numbers of the people; and also a fall o£ 
 profit from the reduction that would take place, not only 
 in the agriculture of the country, but in all the business 
 of providing for the necessaries and luxuries of a society 
 whose extent was commensurate to the agriculture ; and 
 so a reduction in the business of the country, without a 
 corresponding reduction all at once in its capital. Yet, 
 
EFFECT OP TAXES. 201 
 
 though the first effect of these taxes is to depress both 
 profit and wages, the ultimate efiect in which it settles 
 down, is to depress the revenue of the landlords. The 
 capital will gradually recover its rate of profit, in the 
 process of its own declension ; and the population will 
 gradually recover their rate of wages, in the process (we 
 admit a melancholy one) of their own decay. After these 
 processes are consummated, we see the whole of these 
 taxes virtually transferred to the proprietors of the soil. 
 They have, in the first instance, to pay a higher price for 
 the commodities which they use, and the labour which 
 they employ. They, in the second instance, pay, by its 
 being withheld from their rents, the whole addition which 
 taxation lays on the expenses of husbandry. These two 
 together, if there be truth in our argument, should make 
 up the whole revenue which accrues to government,* But 
 
 * The position, that all the revenue drawn by the State fi'om the 
 natural populatioriy is, in effect, taken from the landlords, is so much 
 the more startling, when one compares the accounts commonly given 
 of the landed rental of Great Britain, with the actual amount of the 
 public income. The rental is frequently estimated at beneath 60 
 millions annually, whereas the public revenue has at times exceeded 
 that sum; and it is a most natural question. How the doctrine of 
 our text can be made to harmonize with the arithmetical and expe- 
 rimental truth in this matter ? 
 
 The following statements may serve to explain this difficulty, and 
 to elucidate various of the positions which we have had occasion to 
 make in our reasonings upon the subject. 
 
 Let us assume 60 millions as the landed rental of the kingdom, 
 and that the public revenue is even as large as 60 millions also. The 
 question is, How, in these circumstances, can it be made out, that the 
 proprietors of the soil would not be losers, if a commutation were 
 made of all our present taxes, and the v/hole amount were laid on 
 the net rent of land ? How is it possible that this rent can bear the 
 burden of a transference, that would seem, prima facie, to annihilate 
 the whole wealth of the landlords ? 
 
 Though our reply to this be on hypothetical data, it will be quite 
 enough to prove what the elements are which serve for an explana- 
 tion of the difficulty. Let us therefore, still proceeding on assump- 
 tions, take the interest of the national debt at 30 millions ; and, con- 
 sidering the fund holders as mortgagees, or as co-proprietors of the 
 land, the whole taxable wealth may, in this view, be regarded as 90 
 millions. 
 
 Let us further imagine the expense of living on the part of the af' 
 fluent, to have been doubled by the actual system of taxation ; or, in 
 
208 EFFECT OF TAXES. 
 
 beside making up for the tax in this way, they have to 
 undergo a distinct and additional loss, in the limitation of 
 
 other words, that were there no imposts on commodities and other 
 objects, these proprietors of 90 millions income, could have command- 
 ed the same amount of comfort and enjoyment with an expenditure 
 of 45 millions. Then it is quite palpable that they would not suffer, 
 though all our present taxes were abolished, and replaced by an in- 
 come tax of 50 per cent, on land and fund holders. 
 
 But such a tax would only yield 45 milhons to government, and 
 there remain 15 millions to be accounted for. According to Mr. Col- 
 quhoun, whose estimate is understood to be a moderate one, the 
 number of cultivated acres in England and Wales alone, amounts to 
 upward, of ,30 millions. We have already seen how, by taxes on 
 commodities, the expenses of husbandry are raised. Let us imagine 
 them to be so raised ten shillings an acre. This makes a deduction 
 from the rent of 15 millions on the whole ; a sum therefore paid to 
 government by the landlords, because effecting a diminution to that 
 extent in their incomes. This completes the proof, that after taxation 
 has had its full effect on profit and wages, or when these recover their 
 ultimate compensation, they are the land and fund holders ; or gene- 
 ralizing the expression, by regarding the mortgagees as joint owners 
 of the territory, they are the proprietors of the soil who pay all taxes. 
 
 When asked then. How the landed proprietors, with only 60 mil- 
 lions a year of net rent, can be said to bear the whole expenses of the 
 State, even though these should amount to 60 millions in the year ? 
 our brief reply is — First, that in the additional expense which they 
 incur by taxation as at present constituted, they pay annually 
 
 30 millions. 
 That their mortgagees, the national creditors, do also, in 
 
 the same way, pay 15 millions. 
 
 And lastly, the landlords sustain a reduction of rent, from 
 the additional expenses which taxation brings on 
 husbandry, to the extent of - - - - 15 millions. 
 
 Making out of these items the whole revenue of govern- 
 ment, or 60 millions. 
 
 Suppose all present taxes abolished, this would be followed up by a 
 rise of rent to the landlords, to the amount of 15 millions ; making 
 their whole revenue 75 millions, which, added to the revenue of the 
 national creditors, would afford 105 millions for the whole taxable in- 
 come of the country. A tax of about 57 per cent, upon this sum, 
 would furnish an income to government as large as before. There 
 would, by this change, be a hardship to the fund holders, in that they 
 had to pay 57 per cent, on their income, in exchange for the relief of 
 only 50 per cent, in the expenses of their living. There would be a 
 proportional benefit to the landlords, who, in the increased rent of 
 their lands, would receive an addition of 25 per cent, to their income; 
 and, along with it, only an addition of 7 per cent, to the exactions of 
 government. This advantage over the fund holders, may, of itself, 
 
EFFECT OF TAXES. 2l09 
 
 the agriculture. The rent of those soils, which taxation 
 may have compelled the farmers to abandon, forms but a 
 
 supersede the necessity of any such adjustments, as we have suggest- 
 ed in Appendix G, between these tAvo classes, on the event of an abo- 
 lition of the corn laws. 
 
 But the advantage to the landlords does not terminate here. They 
 would receive a greater addition to their rent than ten shillings an 
 acre, or 15 millions from the whole of that land which is already in 
 cultivation. The rise of ten shillings an acre, would be afforded from 
 the land as at present cultivated. But the same relief from taxes, 
 which permits an additional rent of ten shillings an acre from this 
 land, would also let out the cultivation to inferior land, and allow a 
 more strenuous cultivation over the whole of the cultivated territory. 
 Over and above the 15 millions, which make up all the expenses that 
 taxation lays on the present husbandry, landlords would receive some- 
 thing in the shape of rent from an extended husbandry ; that is, both 
 from a new agriculture, which would reclaim a belt of inferior land, 
 and from a more intense agriculture, which may be said to reclaim a 
 stratum of the whole. We might imagine additional dozes of capital, 
 furnishing in succession, nine shillings, and eight shillings, and seven 
 shillings, down to one shilling an acre, in rental to the landlord, as 
 the product of that more intense culture, which, before the remission 
 of our present taxes, would have been unprofitable. The arithmeti- 
 cal mean of these numbers, or five shillings an acre, would furnish no 
 less than 7-i millions of additional rent to the landowners. And if 
 the belt of inferior land should furnish only half a million, then eight 
 millions of rent from the extended agriculture, must be added to the 
 15 millions of additional rent from the relieved agriculture, making 
 an addition in the whole of 23 millions to the rent of land, as the fruit 
 of that commutation of the taxes, the very cautious, but at length to- 
 tal adoption of which, we feel inclined to recommend.* 
 
 Let us conclude with a short recapitulation, to place, in one view 
 before the reader, the benefits which the landed interest would re- 
 ceive from this great change in the financial system of the country. 
 
 "We have supposed the present income of landlords to be 60 mil- 
 lions, and that the public income is of the same amount. 
 Of this the fundholders, though they should pay only 50 instead of 57 
 
 per cent, would contribute - - - - 15 millions. 
 And the landowners paying 50 per cent. also, or a rental 
 
 of 83 millions, - ----- 41^ millions. 
 
 Making an income to government (only 3| millions in- 
 ferior to what it was,) of - - - - 56^ millions. 
 Even though this sum of 31 millions, instead of being taken from 
 the fundholders, were taken by an additional territorial impost from 
 the landlords, they would still have 38 millions to expend, after the 
 charges of living had been reduced one half; which is tantamount to 
 
 * See Appendix H. On the gradual reform of our Financial System, 
 
210 EFFECT OF TAXES. 
 
 small part of this loss. For they are further compelled 
 by it, to abandon those extreme degrees of cultivation, 
 extending to the whole land that is under the plough, 
 which, before the tax, may have been profitable, but 
 which, after the tax, have ceased to be so. They are 
 thus forced to relinquish the difference between the pro- 
 ducts of the more and the less strenuous cultivation. By 
 drawing in the agriculture, they have not merely to give 
 up a belt of inferior land, lying, as it were, without the 
 limit of the cultivated domain, but they have to give up 
 a stratum of deeper cultivation within the limit, and co- 
 extensive with the whole length and breadth of the terri- 
 tory. So enormously do the landlords suffer from taxes, 
 
 76 millions in the present state of things. In other words, they would 
 have as much benefit by the proposed change, as if with the continu- 
 ance of the present prices, they were to receive an addition of 16 mil- 
 lions, or of more than 25 per cent, to their present incomes. 
 
 The following extract from Mr. Perronet Thomson's Essay, on the 
 True Theory of Rent, may still further illustrate our argument. 
 
 It is said by a writer of name in economical science, that, " the fact 
 that tithes, and other taxes on raw produce, do not form a deduction 
 from rent, but go to increase the price of produce, is obvious from this 
 circumstance, that the tithe of expensive crops, and which require a 
 great expenditure in their cultivation, frequently amounts to four or 
 3??;e times the rent of the land. The Rev. Mr. Harlett, by far the 
 ablest advocate of tithes, and whose authority cannot therefore be 
 questioned, informs us, that the tithes of an acre of. hops, raised on 
 land worth forty or fifty shillings an acre, is, after deduction of drying 
 and duty, generally worth from three to four pounds ; and he further 
 states, that he had known seven or eight pounds paid for the tithe of 
 an acre of carrot seed, where the land was not worth twenty shil- 
 lings ! In such cases, it is plainly as great an absurdity to affirm, 
 that tithes fall exclusively on the rent of the landlord, as it would be 
 to affirm, that a part is greater than a ivhole.^' 
 
 To which Mr. Thomson makes this distinct and decisive reply : 
 
 " The whole of this is a. confusion of ideas, arising from the two 
 meanings of the word rm^. 
 
 " When a tax or tithe is said to form a deduction from rent, this 
 manifestly means ^ from the rent as it would be without the deduction of 
 the tax, and not as it is after the deduction, 
 
 " Nobody ever said, that the eight pounds, which is the tithe of an 
 acre of carrot seed, is taken out of the twenty shillings, which is left 
 for the landlord afterward ; but that it is taken out of the nine pounds, 
 which is the residuum, after paying the expenses and necessary pro- 
 fits of cultivation, and that it is because eight pounds is taken' for 
 tithe, that only twenty shillings is left for the landlord," 
 
EFFECT OF TAXES. ^11 
 
 which, though ostensibly laid upon others, fall really, and 
 with accumulated pressure, upon themselves. So great 
 would be the advantage, though few or none of them per- 
 ceive it, if they would but commute all the taxes upon com- 
 modities into a territorial impost upon net rent. Capi- 
 talists and labourers are the temporary, but landlords are 
 the principal and the permanent sufferers, by the taxes in 
 question. They lose, in fact, a great deal more than the 
 government receives. They at length have not only to 
 pay, in advanced prices and the additional expenses of 
 husbandry together, the full amount of the taxes ; but, in 
 virtue of the straitened cultivation which has taken place 
 in consequence of them, they have to meet the charge 
 with a proportionally less income than they would otherwise 
 have had. Immediately, and ostensibly, these taxes bear 
 hard upon the other classes ; but they are truly the land- 
 lords, on whom the whole weight of them ultimately falls ; 
 and that, not merely with a permanent, but with an ag- 
 gravated pressure. 
 
 20. What disguises the truth upon this subject is, that 
 in the immediate or the apparent, we lose sight of ultimate 
 and abiding consequences. The tax upon wages, or 
 upon aught that enters into the maintenance of the receiv- 
 ers of wages, will be felt, (irrespective of its effect in li- 
 miting the agriculture of a country,) and is indeed a real 
 hardship on the payer of the tax for the first year of its 
 imposition. A part of what he has got, or would have 
 gotten that year, has been fairly taken from him ; and 
 that, before any compensation could have arisen from the 
 larger demand of the government for labour, or the larger 
 ability on their part to support it. But in a single year, 
 we believe, a compensation arising from this source would 
 be made good ; when the tax would only be paid by him 
 in appearance, while in reality, and through the medium 
 of his advanced wages, it would be paid by his employer. 
 Still the semblance has the same exasperating effect upon 
 his feelings, as if it had been the reality. And it is most 
 natural for him to conceive of government as his natural 
 enemy, and standing in the way of his comfort ; and more 
 especially, when the remission of the tax would operate as 
 
212 EFFECT OF TAXES. 
 
 substantial a relief to him /or one year, as he suffered of 
 substaatial hardship for one year at the first imposition 
 of it. This remission would prove a real boon to him 
 for one year, and an enlargement beside for a brief sea- 
 son longer, by letting out in some degree the agriculture; 
 when, first, by a fall in the money-price of labour, and 
 then by an increase of the population, he would soon 
 find, in spite of all that he promised to himself from the 
 abolition, that he was in circumstances of as great strait- 
 ness and penury as before. 
 
 21. And the same holds true of the profit on circu- 
 lating capital, where the investiture can be contracted 
 immediately, and in one year a full compensation can 
 be had for any tax which may have been laid upon it. 
 But a remission here too would be felt as a boon at the 
 first; and, in as far as it tended to let forth the agricul- 
 ture, would enlarge somewhat, and for a season, the 
 operations of trade. We are not to wonder, then, if the 
 appetency for immediate relief, and an enlargement 
 however short, since not seen to be so, should create as 
 intense a desire, on the part of merchants and manufac- 
 turers, for the abolition of the taxes which bear osten- 
 sibly upon them, as if this were to translate them into a 
 condition of sufficiency and ease which was to abide for 
 ever. It is no less the truth, however, that should this 
 remission take place, a larger application of capital at 
 first, and a rapid accumulation of it afterwards, would 
 speedily bring on as limited returns, after the abolition of 
 these taxes, as are experienced at present. It is not the 
 capitalists, but their customers, who pay all such taxes ; 
 and, in the long run, they are only the customers who 
 would feel the relief of their being done away. 
 
 22. But if the truth He concealed in the case of wages 
 and profit on circulating capital, it lies under deeper con- 
 cealment still in the case of fixed capital. When a tax 
 is laid on the profits of the latter, its investiture cannot 
 be contracted so suddenly, and therefore, the effects of 
 the tax cannot be recovered so suddenly, as in the other 
 instances. The cotton manufacturers cannot let down 
 the number of their cotton-mills with the same facility, 
 
EFFECT OF TAXES* 213 
 
 that certain other manufacturers, who operate with a 
 circulating, rather than a fixed cByital, could abstain 
 from hiring the wonted number of workmen. The tax, 
 therefore, is not so speedily countervailed in the case of 
 a fixed, as in that of a circulating capital. The com- 
 pensation is reached at length, and in a course of years 
 — not by this capital being withdrawn, but by its being 
 suffered to decay to a certain extent without being re- 
 placed. It may thus require some years before the pro- 
 prietors of fixed capital can be reinstated in their wonted 
 gains, when at length the whole burden, both of their 
 taxes and of all others, falls upon the rent of land; 
 whether that rent be given for the original powers of 
 the soil, or for those powers aided and extended by the 
 successive applications of a capital so fixed as now to be 
 immoveable, and which has realized a melioration on 
 the land that has been the growth of centuries, and 
 will never pass a^vay, 
 
 23.* Had the taxes at present under consideration, 
 had no effect in contracting the agriculture, we hold, 
 that sooner or later their whole effect on the clear in- 
 come of capitalists and workmen, would have been 
 countervailed by a rise in the money-price of commodi- 
 ties and the money-price of labour. But they do con- 
 tract the agriculture ; and the effect of this is, that both 
 these classes take a longer time of reaching their com- 
 pensation ; and that, by a gradual and intermediate pro- 
 cess of decay. We should at length be landed in a 
 smaller society, and a smaller capital for the conducting 
 of its business. But, with the same standard of enjoy- 
 ment as before, among our merchants and our peasantry, 
 we should behold as well paid labour, though now a 
 reduced population ; and as well rem.unerated, though 
 now a reduced capital, as before. 
 
 * It is surely unnecessary to dwell on the obvious effect of such a 
 commutation as we recommend, in augmenting the value of all fixed 
 money incomes ; and so far, in laying a burden without any equiva- 
 lent compensation upon the landlords. If the pecuniary allowances 
 to all public servants should remain the saniej it were tantamount to 
 an augmentation of their pay, and an augmentation, therefore, of the 
 burden upon the tax payers, 
 
 19 
 
214 EFFECT OF TAXE^. 
 
 24. We are not insensible to what has been alleged 
 as the likely effect of such a process. It very possibly 
 might give a shock to the standard of enjoyment in 
 both classes ; and permanently, or for the space of some 
 generations, degrade it. The taxes in question, by the 
 limitation which they impose on agriculture, do operate^ 
 just as a large encroachment of the sea would, or as a 
 blight on the quality of the soiL This bereavement of 
 territory, or this curse of barrenness, would, by a les- 
 sening of the country's food, lead, through a midway 
 passage of penury and distress, to a lessening both of 
 the capital and population. But the apprehension is^ 
 that the people, thus familiarized to privation, would 
 lose the ideas of comfort, the respectable taste and ha- 
 bits of the better state from which they had fallen. 
 They would undergo, it is feared, a moral change, so 
 that the moral check might, in efficacy and vigour^ fall 
 beneath the exigencies of the occasion. There is a cer- 
 tain recklessness, a desperation of character, that might 
 ensue from the more desperate condition in which they 
 shall have been placed * and, while it is admitted, that 
 any enlargement in their means may yield but a tempo- 
 rary augmentation to the comfort of families ; the re- 
 verse process of an encroachment on their means,, may^ 
 by an operation purely mental, permanently 8>nd irre- 
 coverably degrade them beneath the higher ground 
 which they now occupy. 
 
 25. But, practically, we are not called upon to stop 
 at this contemplation. The more cheering alternative 
 is within our reach. In the reform of our financial 
 system, the readiest and most convenient changes are 
 all in the opposite direction. Every commutation of a 
 tax from commodities in general use, to the rent of 
 land, lets forth the agriculture, instead of contracting 
 it. The people are translated into better circumstances j 
 and they may be taught, in the season of intermediate 
 abundance, to have a permanently higher demand for 
 the enjoyments of life than before. They may be 
 raised to a higher status; and of that status they may 
 be enabled to keep the permanent occupation, in virtue 
 
EFFECT OF TAXES. 215 
 
 ■of their higher standard of enjoyment. Were the 
 economic only followed by the moral enlargement, 
 then_, instead of a brief evanescent holiday for the peo- 
 ple of our land, the whole platform of humble life may 
 be elevated, and made to sustain an erect, and inde- 
 pendent, and prosperous commonalty, to the most dis- 
 tant ages. 
 
 26. But we have failed altogether in our general 
 argument, if we have not made good the position , that 
 the economic without the moral, will, in the long run, 
 achieve nothing for our families; affording us only a 
 larger society, but, along with this, a proportionally 
 larger mass of want and wretchedness than before. 
 The successive stretches which are made in respect of 
 room and of abundance will soon be overtaken; whether 
 these proceed from a gradual relaxation of the corn 
 laws, or a gradual remission of the taxes which bear on 
 the mercantile and industrious classes. The full effect 
 of these two measures, even were they perfected, would 
 not secure a greater addition to the food of the country, 
 than we have received during the last twenty years 
 from the natural progress of our agriculture. And 
 who will affirm, that, with our larger population to our 
 larger means of subsistence, we are not in circumstan- 
 ces of as great difficulty, and as closely beset all round 
 with the feeling of straitness and limitation as we ever 
 were ! There is no other specific, w^e repeat, for the 
 economic well-being of our land, than that of moral and 
 Christian education. One vain expedient after another 
 may become the object of the popular cry, and the 
 popular confidence: and they may yield, too, a momen- 
 tary ease. But on the great scale of national policy, and 
 with the view to an abiding and comprehensive benefit 
 which shall be felt throughout in society, and last for 
 generations, it will be found, that, without intelligence 
 arid virtue among the people themselves, they, one and 
 all of them, are but specious and delusive mockeries. 
 
 ;^7. Yet it ought never to be forgotten, that, power- 
 less and insignificant as all merely economic objects 
 .^e^ when there is a reckless and degraded populatioDj 
 
216 EFFECT OF TAXES. 
 
 they nevertheless form the great moving forces hy 
 which the changes that take place in the progress of 
 society are determined. It matters not to the men of 
 the existing generation, whether future generations 
 will have a benefit or not, from the measures they are 
 so clamorously and intensely set upon. The great 
 prevailing appetency with them, is for the present re- 
 lief, the present enlargement. Though a free corn 
 trade should only ease the commerce and population of 
 the country for a very few years; this is enough to en- 
 list all the energies, both of the multitude and of the 
 mercantile world in its favour. Though the remission 
 of the taxes which bear upon the maintenance or em- 
 ployment of the industrious, be but the momentary 
 loosening of a bondage, immediately followed up by a 
 growth, which will cause the pressure to be sensibly 
 and really as great as before; this does not make the 
 complaint less impetuous, or the demand for relief less 
 urgent or less influential. Though it be true, that oii 
 the removal of every artificial limit, there will be but 
 the felt enlargement of a very few years, and then as 
 close and besetting a confinement from the natural limit 
 as was ever before experienced; still the impatience 
 under the existing restraints is as loudly expressed by 
 the country, and will at length place government under 
 as strong a necessity for yielding to it. They are not 
 the evils of posterity, nor yet the evils which, in a 
 few little years, will come upon themselves, that prac- 
 tically afiect men. They are decided by the feelings 
 of the present, and not the anticipations of the future. 
 They, in fact, have no clear nor correct anticipations 
 upon the subject. The sure and present relief by which 
 all will be eased for a season, and many of them will 
 individually be enriched, is truly all that they care for; 
 and so the cry for emancipation, whether from taxes 
 or prohibition 3 or monopolies, is as loud and general, 
 as if an everlasting prosperity were to be the result, or 
 a millenniu?ii of abundance to all the classes of society. 
 28. There is a world of delusion in these anticipa- 
 tions. Yet it is quite the wisdom of our statesmen, in 
 
EFFECT OF TAXES, 217 
 
 this particular instance, to proceed in the current of 
 the general feeling. We are far from the opinion, 
 that vono populi, is ^ox Dei ; yet, on the present question, 
 it so happens, that the demand of the many, runs in the 
 direction which is best suited, both to their own interests 
 and the interests -of all. Never was there a more fortu- 
 nate conjunction of a popular with a sound policy, than 
 in the example before us. Government have it in their 
 power, by a series of commutations from taxes on com- 
 modities to taxes on income, at once to ingratiate themr- 
 selves with the community at lacge, and to augment 
 that territorial wealth which forms the source and the 
 sustenance of all other wealth in the country. Doubt- 
 less the hopes, the extravagant hopes of the manufac- 
 turing and commercial classes would be signally frus- 
 trated ; but so also would the extravagant fears of the 
 landed and agricultural classes. The proprietors of th© 
 soil would be the only class wjio should mdividually feel 
 ■richer in consequence of the change. The subsequent 
 .enlargement of wealth amongst the trading classes, 
 would soon be so overtaken by the increasing capital 
 and population, tliat, individually, there would be as great 
 •straitness amongst them as before. But then, they 
 could no longer charge their distresses upon government. 
 It would be palpable, that the overspeculation of capi^ 
 talists, or the over population of the community at large 
 were the real causes of every economic calamity that 
 came upon the land. The heart-burnings of political 
 rancour and disaffection, would no longer come to be as>? 
 sociated with the depression or the vicissitudes of trade. 
 .Government would be relieved from the burden of all 
 that odium which so endangers the cause of order and 
 authority in the commonwealth ; and thus nothing, we 
 ^re persuaded, would contribute more than the reign of 
 a sound political economy.^ to sweeten and harmonize 
 the politics of Britain. 
 
 29. And it were no small advantage if landlord^ 
 were rnade to bear the whole burdens of the state osten.- 
 :sibly, as they do really ; that the importance, the para-? 
 .mount importance, of landed wealth and of the landei 
 
 19* 
 
218 EFFECT OF TAXES^ 
 
 iaterest, would stand forth, nakedly and without dis- 
 guise, to the recognition of all men. So that it were 
 well for them, if compelled, even though against their 
 will, to pay all taxes. The men who hold in their hand 
 the necessaries oolite, have the obvious superiority over 
 the men who but minister the superfluities or the com- 
 forts. They have the natural ascendency ; and we 
 think it wholesome and befitting, that they should have 
 the political ascendency also. We hold it the most ex- 
 ceptionable feature in the modern scheme of representa- 
 tion, as being a violation of the rightful and natural 
 order, that the agricultural interest is not sufficiently 
 represented in parliament. We think, that, in parti- 
 tioning the matter between the landed and the commer- 
 cial, the supreme importance of the one, and the merely 
 subordinate or subservient character of the other, have 
 not been enough adverted to. But, perhaps, the very 
 violence thus done to the natural propriety of things, 
 may speed the manifestation of the truth upon this sub- 
 ject. The proprietors of the soil have been a vast deal 
 too tardy in learning the lessons -which relate both to 
 their own and their country's well being. It is better 
 that the repeal of the corn laws, and a reformed system 
 of finance, should both be forced upon them. They 
 will maintain their ground notwithstanding. They 
 may be overborne for a season ; but their indestructi- 
 ble wealth will at length appear manifest to all men, as 
 being that which constitutes the main strength and sup- 
 port of the nation. It will even make head against the 
 inequalities of our representative system, and secure for 
 them, in opposition to every device and every provision 
 ill the franiework of our constituency, the ascendency 
 in parliament—an ascendency which will the more 
 readily be deferred to, when it becomes clear as day, 
 that they indeed bear all the burdens of the common- 
 wealth. The lords of the soil, we repeat, are, naturally 
 and properly, the lords of the ascendant.* 
 
 * In Sir Henry Parnell's interesting work on Financial Reform, we 
 meet with much that we approve, but with much also that we should 
 feel inchned to modify. 
 
21& 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ON TITHES. 
 
 1. Among the questions which now engage us, there 
 is a most important distinction to be observed, between 
 the ultimate and the immediate effect of any given 
 
 In the first place, we cannot sympathize with his zeal for retrench- 
 ment, beheving as we do, that if taxes were rightly laid, and the pro- 
 duce of them rightly expended, they admit of being most beneficially 
 increased for the best interests of the nation ; and with no other sa- 
 crifice, than a sacrifice of luxury and splendour on the part of the land- 
 ed proprietors. 
 
 Again : we agree in the desire that the taxation should be lighten- 
 ed Avhich falls upon manufactured goods, whether at the earlier stage 
 of their preparation, on the raw materials, or at the later and ultimate 
 stage, on the finished articles. But it depends on what the species 
 of commodity is, whether we shall think the tax to be productive of 
 economic injury to the nation. Let the commodity in question be 
 one of the higher luxuries ; and, for the sake of greater distinctness to 
 our argument, let us conceive that it is consumed only by landlords, 
 who expend a million on the purchase of it. A tax of half a million 
 upon this commodity, whether drawn from the raw or the wrought 
 material, would just have the effect of limiting the enjoyment of the 
 customers to one half of what it was ; and, without lessening the 
 means or maintenance of the population at all, would only distribute 
 them differently from before, one half of those employed in this ma- 
 nufacture being transferred, but as well supported in the service o 
 the state. And conversely, relief from such a tax would doubtless 
 €xtend the manufacture ; yet in no way extend the comfort of la- 
 bourers, to whom the only change Avould be, a change of employment 
 back again from the service of government to that of individuals. In 
 the whole reasoning of the work upon this subject, we may observe 
 no obscure traces of the prevalent, the almost universal conception, 
 that a manufacture yields something more than its own products ; 
 and that it not only employs, but supports the people who are engaged 
 in it. 
 
 The only taxes productive of economic injury to the nation are, 
 those which make the maintenance, whether of labourers or ca- 
 pitalists, dearer than before. This, in the way we have often es:- 
 
22Q TITHES. 
 
 change in the circumstances of a society. We have 
 affirmed, that the remission of taxes on wages, or pro- 
 .iits, or the commodities used by capitalists and labour- 
 ers, would let out the agriculture among poorer soils 
 than had yet been entered on; and thus, the first effect 
 would be, a plenty and cheapness of the necessaries of 
 life; and an increase of business, not merely in agricul- 
 ture, but in trade and manufactures, from the larger sup- 
 plies that would then be required for the various wants 
 of ail increased population. There would be an inter- 
 mediate season of abundance and prosperity to the 
 poorer classes; and we are not to wonder, if the taxes 
 which obstruct the commencement of such a season, 
 should be regarded as a burden upon the labourers. 
 But without an elevation in the standard of enjoyment, 
 this season would be temporary. An increasing capital 
 would soon fill up the new fields which had been open- 
 ed for its profitable investiture, after which the gains of 
 the m/erchant might become just as limited and precari- 
 ous as before. An increasing population would soon 
 bear as hard as at present, on the augmented food of 
 the country; and thus the wages and comforts of the 
 
 ■plained already, must limit the agricuhure ; and will proportionally 
 limit the population, and the amount of industry in the land. On ' 
 this principle, we hold that the taxes on tea and sugar, which enter 
 largely into the maintenance of all classes, do more to lessen the 
 ■amount of British industry than any tax would on the raw material 
 of the silk manufacture, which would do little or nothing to abridge 
 the employment of labourers on the whole, however much it might 
 abridge the particular employment of silk weavers. 
 
 Further : though we cannot agree with the author of this import- 
 ant work in his views, either as to the additional capital that would 
 have heen in the country, but for the national debt ; or as to the need 
 of an extreme economy in peace, that we might be enabled to, meet 
 the expenses of a war ; yet we hail with cordial satisfaction all his 
 proposals and views on the subject of an income tax, into which, in 
 fact, all other taxes might be beneficially commuted, and which might, 
 in every case of great and expensive emergency, be carried to such an 
 extent as to supersede loans. It were well if a beginning could be 
 made now, though it were by an imposition so small as of one or tw© 
 per cent. ; that, in the first place, all pretext for discontent on the 
 part of the labouring classes might be done away; and, in the seconc^ 
 :an end be j)ut to our present system of ultra and unsparing economy^ 
 
TITHES. 221 
 
 peasantry be just as stinted as they are at this moment. 
 Every thing, in fact, short of a moral economic check 
 on the multiplication of the species, and that through 
 the medium of the people's education and improved 
 habits, will turn out but an ephemeral expedient for en- 
 larging their means of enjoyment, and raising their 
 status in the commonwealth. Without this, we shall 
 behold, after an interval of brief prosperity, the very 
 straitening in their circumstances, and hear the very 
 outcries of complaint, that we are now exposed to. 
 There will, in virtue of the change, be a larger, but not 
 necessarily a happier society, — more of absolute pro- 
 duce, both of land and labour, we allow, but a produce 
 shared among a number so much greater, that we shall 
 at least have the same proportion of individual distress, 
 as we have at this moment. Capitalists will have to 
 complain of as low and precarious profits as formerly, — 
 labourers, of as overstocked markets, and miserable 
 wages, and frequent visitations of commercial depres- 
 sion and distress, as formerly. Society would undergo 
 a speedy expansion, and a sort of hey-day prosperity- 
 be felt during the progress of it. Yet after the transi- 
 tion, and that a very quick one,* had been accomplish- 
 ed, might there in every way be as great a mass of 
 wretchedness, or rather one of larger and more unman- 
 ageable dimensions than before. We cannot, in these 
 circumstances, regard taxes so much in the light of a 
 burden upon the people, or the remission of taxes so 
 much in the light of a deliverance to the people. That 
 it would be followed up by a temporary enlargement 
 in their circumstances, we most willingly allow; but 
 the only class who would reap a permanent benefit, and 
 a benefit placed beyond the reach of chance and fluctua- 
 
 * The quickness of the transition would arise from the rapidity 
 wherewith the population advances, upon any augmentation that 
 takes place in the means of subsistence. Suppose that a given refornij 
 whether in tithes or taxes, opened the way for subsistence to an ad- 
 ditional million of population, the extreme shortness of the time 
 wherein this can be overtaken, may be inferred from the fact, that 
 from 1803 to 1812, upwards of a niillion was added to the population* 
 
222 TITHES. 
 
 tion, are the landlords. They would have the whole 
 advantage of the cheapness, induced both on the arti- 
 cles of private expenditure, and on the operations of 
 husbandry, by the abolition of the present taxes; inso- 
 much, that they would lose nothing, though govern- 
 ment should levy the whole amount of the taxes from 
 themselves. And besides, they would have a clear and 
 unincumbered gain from all the enlargement which had 
 taken place in husbandry. They would derive a new 
 rent from soils formerly beyond the pale of cultivation; 
 and what were of vastly more consequence, they would 
 derive an augmented rent from all their old soils, in 
 virtue of the now more strenuous cultivation, which, 
 with the lessening of farm expenses, could be profitably 
 expended on them. The change that we venture to 
 recommend, would spread an augmented richness and 
 value over the whole of their property. It were for 
 their incalculable benefit, could they only be made to 
 perceive it, that all taxes were commuted into a terri- 
 t-orial impost. They would then appear ostensibly 
 what they are really — the alone contributors to the pub- 
 lic revenue; the only class in the community out of 
 whose wealth the expenditure of government was de- 
 frayed. Every pretext, on the score of taxation at 
 least, for the discontent of the other classes in society 
 would be sw€pt away. The chief inflammatory topics, 
 by which it is that demagogues keep alive the fermen- 
 tation of prejudices and political antipathies in our land, 
 would be wholly done away; and the lords of the soil 
 would henceforth hold that undisputed sway in the 
 commonwealth, wherewith, by the very nature of their 
 property, they are; so rightfully invested. They would 
 prodigiously augment their wealth by the commutation 
 that we now recommend; and they would augment 
 t-enfold both their security and their influence, 
 
 2. But they are the urgencies of the present, and 
 not the anticipations of the future, which are the great 
 moving forces that operate in society. If the remis- 
 sion of taxes yield but an immediate relief, though only 
 £ov a short period^ to the existing generation^ this m 
 
TITHES. Qt2§ 
 
 enough to create an intense appetency and clamour for 
 the removal of taxes. It explains, and perhaps justifies, 
 the popular outcry against them. But it is a weighty 
 consideration for the legislature, that though, by un- 
 sparing retrenchment, they may silence for a little hour 
 the discontents of the nation, there is a gathering pres- 
 sure that will surely and speedily recur, when the 
 country will be again involved in the same difficulties, 
 and the government, stripped of its efficiency and its 
 means, will be less able than ever to withstand it 
 The champions of economy are not aware, we think, 
 of the very short-lived deliverance which all their ef- 
 forts will ever effectuate for the people of the land. It 
 is right that government should be relieved from the 
 odium of being their extortioners or their tyrants; but 
 this might be as well done by a commutation of our ex- 
 isting taxes, as by a simple abolition of them. With 
 every reduction of a tax upon commodities, were there 
 the substitution of a centage on the net rent of land- 
 lords, this, without any injury to them, would at once 
 conciliate the affections of the people, and preserve a re- 
 quisite agency for the service of government in all its 
 departments. It is the way to reconcile the necessary 
 support of government with the utmost demands of 
 liberalism; and, in these days of fearful conflict between 
 the two elements of order and liberty, we believe that 
 nothing would more effectually harmonize them than 
 this discharge of the general community from all the 
 burdens of the state, along with the distinct and total 
 imposition of them on the proprietors of the soil. We 
 want the whole weight of our taxation to lie upon them 
 visibly, even as we think that it lies upon them virtually 
 and substantially. They would be indemnified by the 
 cheapening of all commodities, consequent on the re- 
 moval of the present duties; and, more than indemni- 
 fied, they would be rewarded by the new rents yielded 
 to them from the enlargement of the agriculture. 
 
 3. Meanwhile, and under the continuance of the 
 present delusion, great public objects might be sacrific- 
 ed ; and that, too, under the guise of patriotism — and 
 
2M TtTttES. 
 
 not with the semblance only, but under the real repulse of 
 a generous philanthropy towards the poorer orders. 
 And certain it is, that the remission of taxes would 
 yield an immediate, although a briefly ephemeral relief 
 to them ; while the ultimate and permanent effect 
 would be to augment the luxuries of the higher classes. 
 The question, Shall we impair, or let down, the need- 
 ful establishments of the country, that we may ensure 
 the blessin,i,s of well-paid industrj^ to the families of 
 the land ] is altogether different from the question. 
 Shall we let down these establishments, that proprie- 
 tors may live in greater splendour, or be more delicious- 
 ly regaled than heretofore 1 Now, the former is only 
 a question for a moment ; and the benefit which it con«- 
 templates for manufacturers and workmen, will speedily 
 be snatched from them in the progress of capital and 
 population. The latter is the real state of the question; 
 and it is from it, and not from the other, that we w^ould 
 characterize the policy, and estimate the effect, of that 
 economical mania, which is now so prevalent, both 
 throughout the community, and in the councils of our 
 nation. It is certainly in its abiding, and not in its tem- 
 porary consequences, that we should be disposed to read 
 the character of any measure which might be proposed 
 to us ; and on this principle we hold, that, speaking 
 with a view to the permanent fruit of it, we cannot but 
 regard this work of retrenchment as carrying in it a sub- 
 stantial boon only to the landlords : while, to the 
 working classes of society, it may turn out but the 
 phantom and the mockery of a blessing. We hold it 
 unfortunate, that, on this question, all the seeming, and 
 all the sentiment, should be on the side of unsparing 
 retrenchment ; when, in substance and in very truth 
 there is nothing accomplished by it, but the sacrifice of 
 the most noble, or the most essential of public objects, 
 at the shrine of vanity — the permanent result of it 
 being, not that the poor shall live in greater comfort, 
 but that the wealthy shall luxuriate in greater splen- 
 dour and effeminacy than before. This will be the final 
 upshot of our present economical reforms ; and this the 
 
TITHES. '^25 
 
 t^onclitsion to the lying promises of our reformers— the 
 promises, we think, however, not of deceivers, but of de- 
 ceived. We object not to their immediate demand, but 
 rather desiderate, with them, a reduction, or a removal, 
 of our present ta.xes— only, however, if followed up by 
 the substitution, in their place, of a tax on the net rent 
 of land. Were it rightly perceived, between what two 
 things it was that the real opposition lay, we should feel 
 as if the cause of taxation might be advocated with a 
 more assured countenance, and a more intrepid voice ; 
 for then it would become palpable, that the support of 
 public objects might be called for, in the spirit of purest 
 benevolence and of loftiest patriotism ; not in opposi- 
 tion to, or with any encroachment on, the comforts of 
 the poor, but in opposition to, and only with partial en- 
 croachment on, the superfluities of the wealtliy. 
 
 4. Tithes, as at present levied, are in the very pr^ 
 dicament of those taxes which restrain the progress of 
 agriculture. Like them, they oppose a barrier to the 
 entrance of the cultivator on poorer soils than the last 
 which has, been occupied ; and like them, too, they 
 prevent the superior soils from having so deep and tho- 
 rough a cultivation as they otherwise should have had. 
 Under this system cultivation is not so extensive, because 
 prevented from going forth on so poor an out-field as it 
 might; and neither is it so intensive, because prevented 
 from doing its uttermost on the land already under pro- 
 cess of husbandry. Without the burden of tithes, fresh 
 land might be taken in, so long as it is able to feed its 
 ^agricultural labourers and their secondaries, and yield 
 to the tenant a remunerating profit. But, with this bur- 
 den, the land is required to do all this, not from its 
 whole produce, but from only nine-tenths of its produce. 
 And so the cultivation is sooner arrested, having now to 
 make an earlier stop, at land from which more is ex- 
 acted, and therefore at betterand. Cultivation makes 
 its last effort at the point where it ceases to be profitable ; 
 and this will be all the sooner, when required to do» 
 with nine-tenths of its produce, that which, in a natural 
 state of things, it would have been left to do with its 
 
 ^0 
 
226 ' TITHES* 
 
 whole produce. At this rate, the cultivation will stop 
 short at land at least a tenth better than that to which 
 it might otherwise have stretched itself. We cgie 
 offer no computation as to the extent of intermediate 
 soil, between the natural and the artificial limits, which 
 is thus left uncultivated -, but certain it is, that, in virtue 
 of tithes, the operations of husbandry must be confined 
 within narrower boundaries.* We are aware that the 
 system is not fully acted on. As far, however, as it is 
 carried, it is an incubus upon our argiculture. And so 
 the immediate eflfect of its abolition would be to enlarge 
 the domain of cultivation ; and, by an increase of food, 
 to diffuse for a time a greater plenty over the land. 
 
 5. Still the ultimate effect would be the same from 
 the abolition of tithes, as from the abolition of taxes on 
 the necessaries of life. It would lead to an enlargement 
 of the wealth of the landowners ; while to the popula- 
 tion, if their standard of enjoyment be not raised, it 
 would lead to no other enlargement than an enlarge- 
 ment of their numbers. We should have a more nu- 
 merous, but not a better conditioned peasantry than 
 before. Still it would yield a sensible and immediate, 
 though but a temporary relief to the working classes. 
 And it is this, perhaps, which forms one of the most 
 imminent dangers of the Church of England. Econo- 
 mists tell us, and in these days of extremity and pres- 
 sure, that tithes are a burden on the consumer, and add 
 to the price of the necessaries of life ; and certain it is, 
 that their doctrine would have the appearance of being 
 experimentally verified, in the first instance, by the speedy 
 reduction of price that would ensue on the abolition 
 of tithes. This is quite enough to give the men of the 
 present generation a pressing and a practical interest in 
 
 * The amount of the contraction suffered by agriculture in conse- 
 quence of tithes, is much greater than is often estimated. There 
 are calculators who reason on the supposition that we only lost a 
 belt, that is, the out-field and inferior land, which, but for tithes, 
 might have been brought under tillage. Now, in addition to the 
 belt, we lose a stratum ; or that additional produce which would be 
 raised over the whole territory from its more strenuous cultivation. 
 
TITHES. 227 
 
 the removal of tithes. Nor would it cool their appetency 
 after this reform, though told, that in a very few years, 
 we should behold a population in as great straits and 
 difficulties as before ; and should find, that, in point of 
 ultimate effect, the measure had operated exclusive- 
 ly and permanently to the enrichment of the landlords. 
 They, in the long-ran, would monopolize the whole 
 benefit of the proposed change. It is the immediate, 
 however, and not the distant effect, which tells on the 
 feelings and wishes of the public ; and, certainly, the 
 English church is placed in the awkward and unfortu- 
 nate predicament, that it stands in the way of an imme- 
 diate, though but a temporary, enlargement to all the 
 classes of society. This is enough to arouse a mortal 
 hostility against it ; and accordingly we find, among all 
 the other adverse influences, the strong expectation of a 
 great economic good in the downfal of that venerable 
 hierarchy ; helping still more to exasperate and alienate 
 the minds of a people, not only loosened of all attach- 
 ment to the church of their forefathers, but bent, we 
 fear, upon its overthrow. 
 
 6. And here we cannot but signify our regret, that 
 the doctrine of the economists, upon this question, 
 should be framed in the terms of the immediate and 
 temporary effect that would take place on the abolition 
 of tithes, and not in the terms of the ultimate and 
 abiding effect that would ensue from it. We doubt the 
 philosophy of such a procedure, and we are quite sure 
 of its mischievous tendency. It is true, that if tithes 
 were abohshed, then, on the instant, grain would be- 
 come lower ; and also, that at this instant of time, 
 grain is higher than it would have been, had tithes been 
 abolished a year ago. But the actual price of grain 
 Is not higher than it would have been, had there never 
 been tithes in the country, or had they been abolished a 
 century, or even but ten years ago. We should have had 
 a larger, but not a wealthier peasantry than now ; the 
 land yielding a greater produce, but the land, peopled 
 up to that produce ; and its labouring families, there- 
 forej ill the very condition, whether of penury or of 
 
228 TITHES. 
 
 comfort, in which we now behold them. The aboli- 
 tion of tithes would just do for England, what the 
 recess, to a certain extent, of the sea from its shores 
 would do for it, on supposition that the new land were 
 shared in proportional quantities among the existing 
 proprietors. The population would flow over on this 
 newly -formed territory, till the whole margin that had 
 been superadded to the island was taken into occupa- 
 tion. Capital would fiod a fresh field for its investi- 
 ture ; and a season of intermediate cheapness and 
 plenty would encourage^ for a time, the multiplication 
 of families. But who does not see that profit and 
 wages would speedily subside again to their wonted 
 level ; and that, after a bright interval of prosperity, we 
 should behold only a richer aristocracy, but a common- 
 ality as stinted in their means and maintenance as 
 before ] We think it all important to the question of 
 the real incidence of tithes, that the removal of them 
 would but temporarily ensure a higher wage to the la- 
 bourers ; whereas, it would permanently ensure a high- 
 er rent to the landlords. It is this which inclines us to 
 represent them, not as a burden on the people, but as a 
 burden on the proprietors of the soil. We dispute not the 
 force of the temptation, on the part even of the general 
 community, to be rid of them ; seeing, that to them also, 
 a brilliant though brief season of prosperity would ensue 
 from it. Yet, ultimately and everlastingly, the gain would 
 not be the people's but the landlord's ; and we therefore 
 cannot but lament, that science should, in this instance, 
 have lent itself to a popular delusion. That it has prac- 
 tised any unworthy reticence, is not to be imagined; but 
 certain it is, that the whole truth has not been told by it. 
 The consequence has been, the semblance of an unnatu- 
 ral coalition between the principles of philosophy and 
 the worst passions of the multitude ; and, if not a louder, 
 at least a more fornndable and effective outcry than ever,, 
 against the greatest and the best of our national insti- 
 tutes. 
 
 7. The error of the Ricardo system of political eco- 
 nomy on the subject of rent, has been well character- 
 
TITHES. 229 
 
 feed by Mr. T. Perronet Thomson, as the fallacy of in- 
 version. It confounds the effect with the cause. It is 
 not because of the existence of inferior soils, that the 
 superior pay a rent ; but it is because the superior pay a 
 rent, that the inferior are taken into occupation. There 
 does not occur to us any logical term, by which to de- 
 nominate the fallacy that is now under consideration. 
 But it is not less a fallacy notwithstanding. It con- 
 founds the temporary with the permanent; or rather, 
 gives that virtue and distinction to the former, which 
 belong only to the latter. In assigning the incidence of 
 tithes and taxes, the disciples of this school would re- 
 present them as a burden on that class, who can only 
 suffer from them for less than half a generation; instead 
 of being a burden on that class, who, after the lapse of 
 this ephemeral period, would have to bear their whole 
 weight, and that during the whole currency of their ex- 
 istence. And conversely, it is certain, that if these im- 
 positions were done away, the relief would be felt, in 
 the first instance, and for a few fleeting years, by the 
 labourers ; but the old pressure would gather upon them 
 speedily, when the relief would, wholly and for ever, be 
 felt only by the landlords. Science has, in this instance, 
 made a most unworthy descent, from that high ground 
 which she ought never to abandon. She has forsaken 
 the proper objects of her contemplation, which are per- 
 manent results, and not brief or fugitive accompani- 
 ments; nor does it extenuate, but rather gives a tenfold 
 aggravation to the charge, that, in so doing, she has 
 ministered new strength to the prejudices of the blindly 
 or wilfully disaffected ; and exasperated still more that 
 fierce and frenzied clamour, which nothing will appease^ 
 but the subversion of all authority and order in the 
 commonwealth. 
 
 8. It will be the subject of infinite regret to every en-» 
 lightened patriot, if, for the sake of what at best will 
 yield but temporary relief, and ease them of public cla- 
 mour and discontent for a moment, our legislature shall 
 barter away the best securities for a nation's safety and 
 perpetual well-being. It will be particularly grievous^ 
 
 20* 
 
230 TITHES. 
 
 if, to lighten a pressure on the community, that is sure 
 in a few years to recur Avith all the strength which ori- 
 ginally belonged to it, the best instrument for putting 
 into operation the only sound expedient for the melio- 
 ration of the people's circumstances, even that of Chris- 
 tian education, shall be stripped of its efficacy, or done 
 away altogether. All other expedients will be found to 
 terminate in mockery. They at best but enlarge the 
 bulk of society, without any reduction, save for a short- 
 h ved momentj of the individual or the family distress which 
 abounds in it. They may cause the limit to recede, and 
 to widen somewhat; but they restrain not the pressure 
 within that limit, which is the real cause of a general 
 penury among the poorer orders of the commonwealth* 
 A vessel might be made more capacious than before ; 
 but this will not alleviate the distension upon its sides, 
 if there have been no abatement of the elasticity from 
 within. Now the whole effect of the common expedi- 
 ents is, not to ease the distension of the vessel^ but only 
 to make it more capacious. Home colonization, for ex- 
 ample, will yield no indefinite harbourage ; and yield no 
 enduring relief to labourers. Neither will the devices, 
 however multiplied and ingenious, for finding them em- 
 ployment. Neither will any possible accumulation on 
 the part of capitalists — nor any conversion, we may add^ 
 of revenue into capital, as when government lavishes its 
 millions upon public works, for the occupation of the 
 people. Neither will all the openings of foreign trade, 
 though pushed to the uttermost of its practicable exten« 
 sion. Neither will the remission of taxes — and, lastly, 
 neither will the abolition of tithes. But what the abo- 
 lition of tithes, cannot do, that great institute, which is 
 now supported by tithes, may do. The one expedient 
 but widens the field of occupancy; and that to be speedi». 
 ly filled again, with the same pressure of inconveni- 
 ence as before. The other does not widen the field of 
 occupancy, but it may do better ; for, by the efficacy of 
 its moral lessons, it may lay wholesome restraint on the 
 .amount of occupation., And this, not with tyrannic 
 force, but by a mild and grateful influence, on the 
 
TITHES- 231 
 
 hearts and habits of the occupiers. Through the medi- 
 um of Christian instruction, a rightly organized church 
 will do more for the economic comfort of the families of 
 the land, than all the other schemes of philanthropy and 
 patriotism put together.* It will indeed be the egregi- 
 ous blunder of men, looking to the wrong quarter for the 
 permanent emancipation and enlargement of our people, 
 if, in grasping for a short respite from their ills, the hold 
 shall be irrecoverably lost of the only instrument by 
 which their comfort and their independence can be 
 ultimately secured. At a time when churches and 
 schools would need to be multiplied, when what may be 
 termed the educational apparatus of our land would need 
 to be greatly extended, instead of being mutilated and 
 curtailed, it bodes peculiarly ill for the future destinies 
 of the nation, that the authority of a reigning school has 
 lent itself to that menacing outcry, which, if carried 
 into effect, would annihilate an order of men, with 
 whose efforts in the cause of popular instruction stand 
 associated the best hopes and interests of England. 
 The difference between the one set of expedients and 
 the other, is this: The object of the former, is to make 
 room for a pressure which yet no expansion can alleviate; 
 the object of the latter, is to restrain and regulate the 
 pressure itself. Under the operation of the one, the peo^ 
 pie may still be pressing on the limit of the means of 
 subsistence. Under the operation of the other, the peo- 
 ple, in obedience to their own taste and sense of dignity, 
 will keep themselves a little way, and therefore com- 
 fortably, within this limit. The former alone will never 
 achieve the residt of a welUconditioned peasantry, let 
 the physical abundance be what it may. The latter 
 can make good the spectacle of thriving families, even 
 
 * We are sensible that we here assume the superior efficacy of 
 an established churchy for the rehgious education of the people. For 
 a fuller exposition of our views upon this subject, and of the reason- 
 ings by which we endeavour to support them, we refer to two former 
 works, the one entitled, " The Christian and Civic Economy of 
 Large Towns," the other, " On the Use and Abuse of Literary and 
 Ecclesiastical Endowments/' 
 
232 * TITHES. 
 
 in the mid^t of scantiest natural resources. It is thus 
 that we beiiold, in rugged and intractable Norway, a 
 flourishing population, while China, in spite of boundless 
 fertility, labours under the want and wretchedness of its 
 teeming millions. It is thus also that England, though 
 enlarged in the culture of its territory, if withal stinted 
 in the moral culture of its inhabitants, may grow in 
 population and penury together ; while, whether her 
 soil be liberated from the bondage of tithes or not, she, 
 in virtue of an efficient system of instruction, might 
 realize the blessings of abundance in all her parishes. 
 
 9. But we would do both. That is, we would both 
 maintain the church, and relieve the agriculture; and 
 so at once enlarge the room, and, through the medium 
 of religious instruction, keep up that wholesome influ- 
 ence on the habits of the peasantr}'^, which best serves 
 to mitigate the pressure arising from the recklessness 
 and brutality of a neglected population. The clergy, in 
 particular, should rejoice in the church being exonerated 
 from the odium that now lies upon it — should be the 
 first to hail and to help forward the consummation of a 
 measure, by which the hierarchy of England might be 
 extricated from a position so obnoxious, as that of even 
 appearing to stand in the way of the nation's wealth, 
 or the comfort of its families. • The reformation of the 
 present system were an incalculable blessing to the 
 church of England ; and that, not merely because it 
 would disarm the hostility of statesmen and economists, 
 but because it would do away the topic of a thousaHd 
 heart-burnings in every parish of the kingdom. And, 
 in like manner, as we have pled, not for the abolition, 
 but the commutation of taxes ; so would we plead, not 
 for the abolition, but the commutation of tithes. The 
 support of the clergyman would no longer operate as a 
 bar to agriculture, if given either in land, or in right pro- 
 portion, not to the produce, but to the net rent of land- 
 lords. At this rate, the existence of an established and 
 endowed priesthood, would no more obstruct the pro- 
 gress of cultivation, than would the existence of land- 
 owners, as a distinct orde.r in society. They would, hi 
 
TITHES. 233 
 
 fact, be joint proprietors along with them ; and, whether 
 restricted to their own separate estates, or sharing in the 
 rent of their parishes at large, they would stand com- 
 pletely innocent of all cumbrance upon the soil. It 
 were a relief to agriculture, but a far greater relief to 
 the church. It is only the extension of the one that is 
 hmited by the present system, but the very existence of 
 the other is threatened by it. 
 
 10. But it ought not to be overlooked, how much the 
 weahh and interest of the landlord would be augmented 
 by the proceeding, even though not only a fair, but 
 liberal commutation were granted to the clergyman. 
 He can well afford to negotiate the matter equitably, 
 for to him the enlargement would be incalculable. By 
 the consequent descent of the agriculture among infe- 
 rior soils, and, commensurate with this, a more intense 
 cultivation of all the superior ones, he would extract a 
 greater rent than heretofore, from every acre of his 
 property ; and thus, (after a full equivalent had been 
 rendered to the church for its tithes,) there would, over 
 and above, accrue much clear gain to himself. It were 
 hard, indeed, if the alleged prejudice of the church to 
 the other classes of society, were the cause of its over- 
 throw ; when, by a simple modification of its revenues, 
 the general community would receive all the enlarge- 
 ment which it can possibly look for, and the proprietors 
 of land be greatly enriched to the bargain. But should 
 the latter look and long for more than this, they are 
 seeking their own aggrandizement by means of an un- 
 principled spoliation. We have heard much of the ra- 
 pacity of a sanctimonious priesthood. But there is 
 danger, and that to the best interests of the state, from 
 another species of hypocrisy; lest the country should be 
 rifled of its moral and literary provision, and that too 
 under the guise of patriotism — a specious covering for 
 the dishonest selfishness of men, who, in the most em- 
 phatic sense of the term, would be the pests and plun- 
 derers of the commonwealth. 
 
 11. In point of principle and effect the analogy is 
 perfect, between the commutation of the tithes and the 
 
2S4 TITHES. 
 
 commutation of those taxes, which bearing either on 
 the operations of husbandry, or on the maintenance of 
 those who are eng-ag-ed in it, add to the expenses of 
 farm management. By the abohtion of all such taxes, 
 there is a fully tantamount addition made to the rent ; 
 so that the landlord could, without loss, bear the substitu- 
 tion, in their place, of an income tax upon himself. 
 By the abolition of tithes, there is a corresponding simi- 
 lar addition made to the rent ; and so that the landlord 
 could, also without loss, minister, in a direct way, as li- 
 beral support to the clergyman as before. In both cases, 
 then, an equivalent compensation is thus made out to 
 him. But in neither case does the 're -action in favour 
 of the landlord stop here. The removal, whether of the 
 taxes or of the tithes, gives scope both to a more ex- 
 tensive and a more intensive agriculture ; to a surplus 
 produce, both from a belt and from a stratum, neither 
 of which had been entered upon before. The land- 
 lord obtains not merely an equivalent, but an overplus : 
 first, in the new rent which accrues to him from the re- 
 claimed — and, secondly, in the additional rent which 
 accrues to him from the more improved, territor}^ 
 
 12. In the commutation of tithes, we behold a still 
 more beneficial adjustment to the peculiar circumstances 
 of Britain, than in the commutation of taxes on the 
 second necessaries of life. The latter commiitation 
 lowers, and that permanently, the money-price of la- 
 bour ; and so would make us still more an exporting 
 countr)^, and land us in a still larger excrescent popula- 
 tion than before. It is true, that it would also extend 
 the home agriculture, so that there might not be a larger 
 proportion of the excrescent population to the natural, 
 after this commutation than before it. But the like 
 advantage which there is in the commutation of tithes, 
 is not subject to this deduction. There is nothing in 
 this commutation that should permanently reduce the 
 money-price of labour ; so that from this quarter we 
 are not exposed to any increase of the excrescent popu- 
 lation. We should derive from it, however, a large in- 
 crease of agricultural produce, and so a large increase 
 
TITHES. 235 
 
 of the natural population ; which will therefore lessen 
 the proportion of the excrescent to the natural. By the 
 abolition of tithes, there will both be a larger expendi- 
 ture on the part of landlords than before ; and a larger 
 agricultural population, whose second necessaries, con- 
 sisting, in many things, of imports from abroad, as tea 
 and sugar, will require a larger exportation from this 
 country to pay for them. And so, many of those ex- 
 ports which w^ont to be met by agricultural produce in 
 return for them, may, after this change, be met by 
 luxuries and goods of another description. It is thus, 
 that, with every extension of our agriculture, there may 
 be an increase of British exports, without any increase 
 of our dependence on other lands for the first necessaries 
 of life. We may have a greater number of export ma- 
 nufacturers, and yet, in virtue of our extended agricul- 
 ture, they may be subsisted on home-produce, and so 
 fall into the natural population. The cause of our 
 having an excrescent population is, that, ere our foreign 
 markets are saturated with British exports, the ability 
 of our inland consumers to purchase the goods and the 
 luxuries which come in return for them, has been fully 
 overtaken. When the exports go beyond this point, no 
 other return-iiTiport can be beneficially disposed of, but 
 agricultural produce which goes to form and to subsist 
 an excrescent population. Now, every stretch given to 
 our agriculture does increase the ability of our in- 
 land consumers — whether they be the landed proprietors, 
 who, in consequence, have a larger revenue to spend ; 
 or a larger agricultural and secondary population, who 
 though furnished by an enlarged agriculture with the 
 first necessaries, will derive many of their second ne- 
 cessaries from abroad. In this way, the return of com- 
 modities for commodities is longer kept up, without 
 coming to the necessity of importing food from other 
 countries, in exchange for the manufactures of our 
 own. In virtue of the larger exportation that may 
 now be carried on without the return of agricultural 
 produce, it is possible that foreign markets may be satu- 
 rated with our goods ere they need to be paid for in 
 
^36 TITHES* 
 
 that produce. The enlarged agriculture may enable UB 
 to raise a sufficient quantity for ourselves. It is thus 
 that the removal of every let or hindrance, in the way 
 of our agriculture, lessens our dependence for food upon 
 other lands ; and that the abolition of tithes, in parti- 
 cular, may suffice to absorb our excrescent, either partial- 
 ly or altogether J into a natural population. 
 
 13. In virtue of our proposed commutation, the 
 church may be upheld without injury to any economic 
 interest ; and it is therefore all the more unfair, that 
 economists have lent the authority of their speculations, to 
 inflame still more the popular hostility against it. 
 Never was there a more unjust or misdirected indigna- 
 tion. The support of a priesthood has been set in op- 
 position to the general comfort of families. Its only 
 opposition is to the greater wealth and luxury of land- 
 lords* The men who do something are eyed with 
 jealousy, because in possession of an interest and a pro- 
 perty, which, if not theirs, would but serve to enlarge 
 the affluence and useless splendour of the men who do 
 nothing. Never were the feelings of generous and 
 high-minded patriotism more egregiously misplaced, or 
 the public good more in danger of being sacrificed to 
 the mere semblance of a principle. We often hear of 
 the omnipotence of truth; and that the prejudice of 
 many ages, the deep-laid institutions of many centuries, 
 must at length give way before it. If the ecclesiastical 
 establishments of our land shall be of the number 
 which are destined to fall, and that because the tem- 
 poralities which belong to them have been pronounced, 
 by the oracles of our day, as an oppression and a bur- 
 den on the general population, then, instead of truth 
 being their judge or their executioner, they shall have 
 fallen at the hand of cunning and deceitful witnesses. 
 they shall have perished in the midst of strong delusion, 
 at the mandate, and by the authority of a lie. 
 
 14. When power gets into the hands of the multi- 
 tude, the danger is, that it may be exercised, not for 
 guidance, but for destruction. They generally act by 
 impulse, and not by discernment ; and, if only possess- 
 
TlTHElS. iSl' 
 
 ecS. witli tlie idea, or rather with the watch-word, that 
 the church is an incubus on the prosperity of the 
 nation ; no voice of wisdom will arrest the determina- 
 tion of sweeping it utterly away. We hold that a 
 church establishment is the most effective of all machines 
 for the moral instruction of the people ; and that, if 
 once taken down, th^re is no other instrumentality by 
 which it can be adequately replaced. We are aware 
 that it may be feebly and even corruptly administered ; 
 but the way to rectify this, is, not to demolish the ap- 
 paratus, but to direct its movements. We should hall 
 the ascendancy of the popular will, if it proceeded on 
 this distinction-; and, instead of deprecating, should 
 rejoice in the liberalism of the present day, did it but 
 know hew to modify so as not to extinguish. It is be- 
 cause democracy, instead of a regulating power, is a 
 sweeping whirlwind, that we dread its encroachments. 
 It is hers, not with skilful fingers to frame and adapt 
 the machinery of our institutions ; but with the force of 
 -an uplifted arm, to inflict upon them the blow of exter- 
 mination. We are abundantly sensible, that the re-ac- 
 ^ion of this tremendous energy, is never called forth, 
 but when provoked by the doings of a corrupt and care- 
 less government ; and that, had our national churches 
 been virtuously patronized, and vigorously and well ad- 
 ministered in all former days, they had had nothing to 
 fear at this moment from lh€ hostile or vindictive feeh 
 ings of an alienated people. And yet it were surely 
 their more excellent way, if, instead of passing sentence 
 of annihilation on the church, or rifling it of its essential 
 support, they were simply, by the authorit}^ of their 
 opinion and will^ to influence the patronage. Never 
 had public sentiment a greater control over the proceed^ 
 dings of government, than at this moment. And it may 
 well make us despair of any good to society from its 
 merely political meliorations, if, at the very time when 
 the collective mind ©f the nation could, in virtue of its 
 rising strength, impress the most beneficial direction on 
 the most beneficial and best of our national institutes 
 —the first use it made of the acquisition^, was not wiselj 
 to regulate, but wantonly to destroy. 
 
 21 
 
238 TITHES. 
 
 15. We cannot afford to expatiate on the superior 
 efficacy of a church estabhshment — a lesson which we 
 have abundantly urged and expounded elsewhere.* 
 But never, without the peculiar facilities and resources 
 of such an institution, will there be a full supply of 
 Christian instruction in the land. A practical heathen- 
 ism will spread itself over the rural provinces ; and will 
 deepen and accumulate more and more in our cities. 
 When the people are thus left to themselves, and, in 
 great majority, have forgot and forsaken the decencies 
 of a Christian lend, all economic or external resources 
 will be of no effect on the comfort of families, given up, 
 by this time, to profligacy and utter recklessness. It is 
 vain to look for a well-conditioned peasantry, when, 
 brutalized into a state of moral and religious indiffe- 
 rence, they are wholly bent on animal indulgence, and, 
 in reference to all the higher sensibilities of our nature, 
 are in a state of hopeless and immoveable apathy. The 
 expense of a well-organized and purely administered 
 church, otherwise lavished, in unproductive consump- 
 tion, on the luxuries of the affluent and the idle, would 
 be repaid many times over, if we, in consequence, beheld 
 among the people a higher standard of character, which 
 never fails to be accompanied by a higher standard of 
 comfort in society. But when once the moral interest 
 is sacrificed, there is no enlargement of the economic 
 interests or capabilites which can possibly make up for 
 it. A church may be so conducted, as to secure and 
 perpetuate the one ; and it may be so provided for, as 
 not to trench, by the slightest iota, upon the other. In 
 these circumstances, its overthrow were a most grievous 
 perversion— an act of national madness, having its 
 rightful consummation, first, in the anarchy of the state, 
 and then, in the growing vice and wretchedness of the 
 people. 
 
 16. Whatever the coming changes in the state of our 
 society may be, there is none that would more fatally 
 
 * In a work, more especially, entitled, " On the Use and Abuse 
 of Church and College Endowments ;" beside a few chapters in the 
 *' Christian and Civic Economy of Large Towns." 
 
TITHES. 239 
 
 speed the disorganization and downfal of this great 
 kingdom, than if a hand of violence were put forth on 
 the rights and revenues of the church of England. 
 Even with the present distribution of her wealth, it will 
 be found, that the income of her higher, as well as 
 humbler clergy, has been vastly overrated ; and no- 
 thing, we believe, would contribute more to soften the 
 prejudices of the nation against this venerable hierarchy, 
 than a full exposure of all her temporalities, grounded 
 on the strictest and most minute inquiry. And certain 
 it is, that, with the best possible distribution of this 
 wealth, it will be found hardly commensurate to the 
 moral and spiritual wants of the now greatly increased 
 population. If all pluralities were abolished, and the 
 enormous overgrown towns and cities of the land were 
 adequately provided with churches, it would be found, 
 that the whole of the existing revenues would hardly 
 suffice for a requisite number even of merely working 
 ecclesiastics. We cannot imagine a policy more ruin- 
 ous, than that which would impair the maintenance of 
 a church that has long been illustrious for its learning, 
 and that promises now to be the dispenser of greater 
 blessings to the people, than at any former period of its 
 history, by the undoubted increase of its public virtue 
 M.nd its piety. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 OK THE DISTINCTION MADE BY ECONOMISTS BETWEEN" 
 PRODUCTIVE AND UNPRODUCTIVE LABOUR, 
 
 1. Such is the Influence of language upon thought, 
 that, to the practical effect of mere epithets, may be 
 traced some of the most mischievous delusions, by which ^ 
 the views and sentiments of men have ever been per- 
 verted. We hold the definition, by economists, of pro- 
 ductive and unproductive labour, to be an example of 
 this; and that it is not only unsound, when looked at 
 in strict relation to their own science, but pernieious, be- 
 cause of the opposition which it has suggested between 
 the moral and the economic good of society.. It has laid, 
 discouragement on certain employments most conducive^ 
 to the well-being, because, according to the established 
 nomenclature, not conducive, but, on the contrary, pre- 
 judicial to the wealth of the nation. And as wealth is 
 a term which stands associated^ in almost every imagi- 
 nation, with the power, and greatness, and security of 
 the state, as well as with the family and individual com- 
 fort of its members, we are not to wonder, if, in respect 
 to such high interests, it has been iiecommended, as the 
 best policy of a government, to abridge and economize 
 to the uttermost, in the maintenance of unproductive 
 labourers. To this class have been referred, the minis- 
 ters of religion ; and whose support, accordingly, has 
 been represented as a burden and a bane to the prospe- 
 rity of the commonwealth ; because a deduction from 
 those funds, which, instead of being lavished on unpro- 
 ductive, might have been expeaded on the maintenance 
 of productive industry. V^e hold it, therefore, a proper 
 appendix to our argument on the operation and effect of 
 tithes, that we ^ould bestow some thought upon a de- 
 
PRODUCTIVE AND UNPRODUCTIVE LABOUR. 241 
 
 linition, which has laid disparagement, not on ecclesias- 
 tics alone, but on many other orders of men, whose ser- 
 vices are indispensable, either to the public interests of 
 the state, or to the private and personal comfort of fa- 
 milies. 
 
 2, The wealth of a country has been defined to con- 
 sist in the produce, by which is meant, the material pro- 
 duce, of its land and labour; and they only are regarded 
 as productive labourers, who add to the amount of that 
 produce. He only is a productive labourer, by this de- 
 finition, who adds by his work, to the value of some tan- 
 gible, and therefore, some vendible conunodity; a com- 
 modity which might be laid up in a store-house, or ex- 
 posed for sale in a market. A clergyman is clearly 
 excluded by this definition, unless in so far as he shares 
 in the manufacture of that tangible commodity, a vo- 
 lume of sermons, from the class of productive labourers; 
 and so also is the school-master, and the physician, and 
 the lawyer, and the judge, and the soldier, and the 
 statesman. We may guess from this enumeration, what 
 those interests of the commonwealth are, at which many 
 of our economists are disposed to look suspiciously and 
 jhardly. But their proscription extends further than 
 this ; for menial servants, and musicians, and players, 
 and all in fact whose industry has not impressed some 
 marks of its operation, more or less durable, on some 
 marketable commodity, are ranked by them among the 
 unproductive labourers in society. Some of these are 
 certainly not the most useful and respectable of functiona- 
 ries; and, associated as they are with the former by the 
 common epithet of unproductive, we are not to wonder, 
 if certain of the professions have been viewed with a de- 
 gree of jealousy by our economic patriots, as creating an 
 obstacle in the way of some great and prosperous en- 
 largement, or as being a heavy deduction from that 
 maximum of good which the country might else have 
 realized. 
 
 3. And yet, to expose the utter futility of this dis- 
 tinction, let us think for a moment how much it amounts 
 to. One man's labour ministers to my enjoyment^ 
 
 21* 
 
2l4:2 productive and unproductive laeouk. 
 
 through the medium of a tangible commodity; another 
 man^s labour, ministers to my enjoyment without this- 
 inter medium. The confectioner, whose delicious mor- 
 sel I swallow, is a productive labourer : the musician, 
 whose delicious tune I listen to, is an unproductive 
 labourer. And yet, what economic injury is sustained, 
 thougli I should pay the one as much for his perform- 
 ance, as I pay the other for his preparation? The grati- 
 fication to me is equal, or rather greater in the music 
 than in the eatable, seeing that I preferred it. The 
 maintenance to him who administers the enjoyment is 
 the same, whetlier I have chosen to spend my custom 
 on the productive,, or the unproductive labourer. And 
 thus it makes no difference to the wealth of the country, 
 whethei* the consumers incline more to those gratifica- 
 tionsy which come througk the vehicle of a tangible 
 commodity ^v or to those which, without such intervention, 
 yield the same, and perhaps a superior enjoyment. 
 The labourers who are supported by the wealth, 
 are equally well supported on either supposition ; and 
 the proprietor who spends the wealth, by being left 
 to purchase that which he likes best, is only permitted 
 the exercise of a liberty, without which, wealth would 
 lose part of its value, and cease to be so desirable. 
 
 4- The end of all production is consumption. The 
 terminus ad quem of all labour, is the enjoyment of 
 those who buy its products ; whether these shall be 
 material or immaterial. This last difference is surely, 
 to all purposes of any worth or consideration, a futile 
 ©ne ; and it willlae found, that there is an equal futili- 
 ty in any other diffei^ence which can bs alleged betwixt 
 them. For example,, it has been said of unproductive 
 labour, that its effect is momentary, and that all the 
 good of it expires with the p erfoi-mance ; whereas, the 
 tangible thing that issues from the oiher, can be laid 
 up in a shop or storeroom, and be tliere appealed to 
 as a solid addition to the annual wealth of the country,, 
 or recorded among the items of a national inventory.. 
 Now it is very true, that when a tune is ended, there 
 semains no equivalent for its price. But the same is true 
 
PRODUCTIVE AND UNPRODUCTIVE LABOUR. 24S 
 
 of the coat after it has been worn, or of any vendible and 
 substantial commodity, after the consumption of it is 
 terminated. In process of time, there remains no ves- 
 tige, either of the productive or the unproductive labour; 
 and, to balance the consideration, that the effect of the 
 one is shorter-lived than the other, it sliould be remem- 
 bered that this might be made up by the perpetuity, or 
 frequency of the service. A suit of clothes may last 
 with me a year ; and, during the v^^hole of that time, I 
 have a use and an enjoyment in the wearing of them. 
 But, with their price, I may hire for a year, the attend- 
 ance of a menial servant ; and so experience, for the 
 same length of time, the daily benefit and convenience 
 of his labour. And besides, in point of endurance there 
 is often a vast superiority in the effects of the unproduct- 
 ive, over those of the productive labourer. To the 
 physician, I may owe the continued health of a life 
 time— to the lawyer, the preservation of my family es- 
 tate, along a line of successive generations — to the 
 soldier, the independence of my nation for centuries — to 
 the clergyman, the virtue ox the people, and the im^pe- 
 rishable good of their eternity. So that the effect of the 
 one species of labour, may be as lasting as that of the 
 other;, and there is really nothing in this particular 
 characteristic which at all justifies the distinction that, 
 has been made of them. 
 
 5. In the case of productive labour, there is often a 
 long interval of time between the exertion, and the ful- 
 filment of the object for which the exertion was madco. 
 The cloth may have been maoufactured many months 
 bsfoie it is w^orn — when, meanwhile, it occupies a place- 
 among the goods of a warehouse, and might, during that 
 period, be registered as one of the constituent parts in 
 tlie actual wealth of our nation. But surely there is 
 nothing in this delay, which intervenes, between the 
 performance of the industry, and the whole purpose for 
 which the industry was set agoing, that can at all attach 
 a preference to the labour which ministers enjoyment 
 through the medium of commodities, over that labour 
 which, without such a medium, still ministers enjoy- 
 ment. The gratification arising from music, comes im- 
 
244 PRODUCTIVE AND UNPRODUCTIVE LABOUR. 
 
 mediately on the back of its execution — the gratifica- 
 tion that lies in the use and consumption of a manufac- 
 tured article, might not commence for a great many 
 weeks after the completion of it. If there be any dif- 
 ference here, it should be in favour of that process, 
 where there is the least delay between the aim and the 
 accomplishment, or where the labour, and the thing la- 
 boured for, come the nearest together. When a pro- 
 cess of busy action is entered upon, which is to terminate 
 in the attainment of some object of desire, it is surely 
 better that we should have to wait a short rather than a 
 long time for it. The power of realizing any fulfilment 
 that our heart is set upon, is all the more valuable, the 
 more speedily that we are able to realize it. So that, 
 on this particular ground, there seems no superiority in 
 productive labour, according to the economic sense of 
 the term, over that which is unproductive. 
 
 6. It would be impossible to maintain this distinction 
 against the many examples which might be alleged in 
 opposition to it. A manufacturer of fire-arms, by the 
 definition in question, is a productive labourer. The 
 soldier who uses the fire-arms, and but for whose use of 
 them they would never have been fabricated, is an un- 
 productive one. The cook within doors is unproductive. 
 The confectioner out of doors, though the very same 
 work is done by him, would be recognized and honour^ 
 ed as a productive labourer. Yet both impress addition- 
 al value on a tangible commodity — only, in the for^ 
 mer instance, we want the shop; and, so in the 
 hands of the cook, it is not, as in the hands of the'con- 
 fectioner, a vendible commodity. A singer, or even 
 a performer on a musical instrument is unproduct- 
 ive. But the maker of the instrument is a produc- 
 tive labourer — and should it be an instrument that can 
 perform of itself, such as a musical automaton, then we 
 should have a clear addition to the wealth of the coun- 
 try, without the alloy or the deduction of any unpro- 
 ductive labourer having at all to do with it. It is thus 
 we should imagine, that a thousand manufacturers of 
 ^olian harps, must be regarded with all complacency 
 by our economists, as vmdoubted contributors to the 
 
PRODUCTIVE AND UNPRODUCTIVE LABOUR. 245^ 
 
 material produce, Avhich, by their definition, is tanta- 
 mount to the wealth of the nation. But should the de- 
 mand be changed from inanimate to living music, and 
 the thousand artificers be transformed, of consequence, 
 into so many vocal performers — we must suppose, that 
 at this transition, a reduction of wealth has taken place, 
 although all the labourers are as well maintained, and 
 all the employers are better pleased than before. We 
 have already stated, that a preacher of oral sermons is 
 unproductive — but that should he publish a volume of 
 written sermons, he forthwith stands out in the capacity 
 of a productive labourer. In short, without regard to 
 that which is nevertheless the real termmus ad quern of 
 all trade and manufactures, even the enjoyment of con- 
 sumers ; and, without regard to the reward or mainte- 
 nance of those who are engaged in them, for tB.e 
 maintenance is in every Avay as liberal whether they are 
 employed in the capacity of productive or unproductive 
 labourers — this definition proceeds on some mysterious 
 virtue which is figured as residing in the mere vehicle of 
 the enjoyment. Unless that vehicle be a piece of matter,, 
 wealth, and all the blessings of which the term is com- 
 prehensive, are conceived to be somehow impaired by it. 
 In a word, they cannot conceive how wealth should be 
 in any thing, unless it be a something which the hand 
 can handle. Without this all is unsubstantial in their 
 eyes. And though, by one mode of expenditure, 
 lieelth, and security, and virtue^ and education, and 
 justice, and science, are purchased for the community, 
 at the hands of so many unproductive labourers, yet if,, 
 by another mode of expenditure, other blessings, how- 
 ever inferior, but unlike to these, laid up in packages 
 or bales of merchandize, are purchased from the hands 
 of productive labourers — economists there are, both in 
 and out of parliament, whose whole philosophy would 
 enjoin them a contempt for the airy nothings, and a 
 longing appetency for the bales. 
 
 7. The principle, against which we contend, assumes 
 a different form, in the argument at least, if not in the 
 convictions of those who admit the value of a work}. 
 
2146 PRODUCTIVE AND UNPRODUCTIVE LABOUR. 
 
 even though done by unproductive labourers ; but who 
 desiderate more of that work for the same money, or, 
 in other words, that the work shall be done more 
 cheaply. With the principle of this demand we have 
 no quarrel. It applies equally to both kinds of labour. 
 It is just as desirable that the machine of a literary 
 or ecclesiastical establishment should, become more ef- 
 fective, as that a stocking-machine should become so; 
 and if, in virtue of this, either enough of literary and 
 religious instruction can be rendered, or enough of 
 stockings can be made for less money, than is now ex- 
 pended on these objects, the community would just 
 have the more to expend on other objects, and the en- 
 joyments of human life be multiplied of consequence. 
 We do not fear to bring either our church, or our schools 
 and colleges, under the examination of a tribunal, that 
 shall adopt this principle, and shall honestly proceed on 
 it. We believe the conclusion would be, that the edu- 
 cational apparatus of our island, whether in respect of 
 Christian or literary tuition, was defective both in extent 
 and provision ; and we should hail it as a subject of 
 patriotic congratulation, if, at the expense of an inroad 
 on that wealth which is now lavished on material ob- 
 jects of expenditure, more ample allowances were given 
 for the support of religion and learning, even though it 
 should lead to the multiplication of the unproductive 
 labourers in our land, 
 
 8. In this preference of the productive over the un- 
 productive labourer, there lies a subtle delusion, by 
 which the political economy, both of many a student 
 and of many a statesman, is pervaded. One distinc- 
 tion between the two species of industry is, that the 
 products of the former cannot, from their very nature, 
 be tangibly laid hold of, and in this shape be made the 
 subjects of any commercial transaction. Whereas the 
 products of the latter have generally an intermediate 
 stage to pass, between the labourer and the consumer, 
 during which they are exposed to sale in a shop, or 
 have to undergo, in some form or other, a process of 
 marketing. Now they are the shop and the market, 
 
PRODUCTIVE AND UNPRODUCTIVE LABOUR. ^41 
 
 which, in the eye of many a politician, are the great 
 symbols of national prosperity. A work done by a 
 cook within doors, is not so gratifying to their patriot- 
 ism, as that done by a dealer in pastry without ; be- 
 cause it deprives them of the agreeable spectacle of so 
 much trade. There would not be the same amount of 
 ostensible buying and selling under the one arrangement 
 as the other. It matters not their being told, that the 
 consumer may be better served at the hands of the 
 unproductive, than at the hands of the productive, or, 
 at least, served in the way he himself likes better ; and 
 that the labourers, under either system, are equally well 
 remunerated for their industry. In addition to these 
 two interests,, which appear to be the only essential in- 
 terests in the transaction, there is another, which we 
 should like our mercantile economist distinctly to define 
 but which, we are sure, he will find to be impossible — 
 because really it has no existence, save in his own 
 shadowy imagination. He cannot state any rational 
 diiierence to our national w^ealth, between what is 
 contributed by the well-paid manufacturer of a musical 
 instrument, and the equally well-paid performer on 
 that instrument ; or even though, without an instru- 
 ment, he should only perform with his ow^n voice. Un- 
 der either economy, the labourers are equally well paid ; 
 and, under the actual economy, the employer is better 
 pleased. It is a most unmeaning preference, that, un- 
 der liio one, there is an apparatus of counters and cus* 
 tomers, which is wanting in the other. There is a deep 
 laid imposition here, and by which the gravest of our 
 legislators have often been bewildered — when idolizing 
 trade, as if it w^ere the fountain-head of a wealth, to 
 which it owes its own dependent and subordinate exist- 
 ence ; and which, apart from its own commodities, or 
 rather, from the gratification which consumers have in 
 the use of these commodities, has not one earthly inter- 
 est belonging to it, that either patriot or philanthropist 
 ought to care for. 
 
 9. But more than this. The distinction, that we are 
 endeavouring to expose, stands associated with certain 
 
MB PRODUCTIVE AND UNPRODUCTIVE LABOUft* 
 
 notions on the subject of capital. Material products 
 are conceived to have this advantage over immaterial, 
 that they alone can be laid up as capital, and in that 
 capacity be made to subserve the object of future pro- 
 duction. This is not exactly true. The immaterial 
 products of security wrought out for us by our warriors, 
 or of health by our physicians, or of the people's equity 
 and sobriety by our clergymen, subserve industry and 
 the enjoyment of its fruits, just as any of those commo- 
 dities do, which may have been accumulated for the 
 i support of future labour. And besides, there is no ad- 
 ' vantage in the laying out of capital, if that capital is not 
 to be replaced, which it only is by the expenditure of 
 consumers. The outlay incurred in production by the 
 'one party, is ever regarded as wasteful and undesirable^ 
 unless it be met by an adequate return made in the ex- 
 penditure of the other party. Now it so happens, that 
 this expenditure may as effectually replace capital, in 
 the case of unproductive as in that of productive labour. 
 A master tailor may not have more capital, than the 
 master of an orchestra who heads a party of musicians^ 
 The capital by which the one is enabled to pay his jour*' 
 iieymen, and to uphold his very scanty implements of 
 labour, is often not so great, as the capital by which the 
 other is enabled to pay his performers and to uphold the 
 apparatus of an opera. So that the expenditure by at- 
 tendance on a place of entertainment may, in fact, sub- 
 serve the maintenance of a larger capital than the ex- 
 penditure incurred by the purchase of clothes. But the 
 short way of disposing of this consideration is, that it 
 serves no earthly interest or end, to accumulate capital 
 beyond the power or possibility, of its being advantage- 
 ously invested. Up to that point, there is no fear of 
 capital being maintained. This is a matter which 
 regulates itself. To give a preference for productive 
 over unproductive labour, that the products of the former 
 may be laid up in store for future production, is a pro- 
 cess which must soon run itself aground; and, alto- 
 gether, the interest in question is of vastly too secure 
 aad independent a character, to require that we shall 
 
t^aODUCTIVE AND UNPRODUCTIVE LABOUR. 249 
 
 proceed on any arbitrary definition whatever, for the 
 purpose of upholding it.* 
 
 10. Altogether, then, the distinction seems to be nu- 
 gatory in principle ; and withal, mischievous in appli- 
 cation. The agricultural class, or those who are em- 
 ployed in raising the first necessaries of life, are all of 
 ihem, in the sense of the definition, productive labourers. 
 The secondary are chiefly, though not exclusively so ; 
 there being a demand, even among our general popula- 
 lation, for education, both in Christian and in common 
 scholarship ; and which they frequently pay out of their 
 own wages. And who can deny, that, by this part of 
 their expenditure, even though it goes to the support of 
 unproductive labourers, they secure a blessing to the 
 land, which nothing could compensate, if their revenue 
 were wholly laid out on tangible commodities 1 And 
 then, as to the disposable population, it positively signifies 
 not to any economic interest which is worth the caring 
 for, according to what proportion they shall be divided, 
 into productive and unproductive labourers. It alto- 
 gether resolves itself into the taste and inclination of 
 their employers ; and to this, it should be altogether 
 left. It were a deduction to them, from the value of 
 their wealth, if not at liberty to spend it in the way they 
 like best. In as far as they have a preference for com- 
 modities prepared by our own countrymen, their de- 
 mand will go to sustain home manufacturers ; and we 
 shall behold so many of the disposable population en- 
 gaged in this species of industry. In as far as their 
 preference is for the luxuries of other climes, we shall 
 behold so many more of the disposable population en- 
 gaged in the business of shipping, or of export manufac- 
 tures, wherewith to purchase commodities from abroad. 
 And, in as far, again, as their preference is for a retinue 
 of servants, or for theatrical amusements, or for the edu- 
 cation of their families, or for enjoyments of any sort, 
 
 * The reader will perceive that the error involved in this defini- 
 tion, is connected with the error that capital admits of indefinite ac- 
 cumulation* 
 
 22 
 
250 PRODUCTIVE AND UNPRODUCTIVE LABOUit* 
 
 yielded directly and without the intervention of mate^ 
 rial products ; in so far will the disposable population 
 consist of those who are termed unproductive labourers. 
 What the proportion shall be is a matter of no significa- 
 tion whatever, to any one interest which should enter 
 into the computation of national prosperity or national 
 p-reatness. It will not affect the extent of the disposable 
 population. It will not affect the amount of comfort 
 or abundance diffused throughout the members of it. 
 It will neither affect the revenue of government, nor 
 its power to enlist what proportion it may, of the dis- 
 posable population, into the service of its own establish- 
 mentSo It will neither affect the prosperity nor the 
 numbers^it will only affect the employments of the 
 population. And in whatever way the expenditure of 
 consumers is apportioned, between productive and unpro- 
 ductive labourers, while to them a maximum of gratifi- 
 cation is secured by their being suffered to spend their 
 wealth as they will ; we shall behold, under all the pos- 
 sible varieties of their taste and demand? the state 
 equally powerful and flourishing, and comprising within 
 its limits as great a number of thriving famiUes. 
 
 11. We have entered at so much length into this ar- 
 gument, because we think the political economy of our 
 day bears a hard and hostile aspect towards an ecclesi- 
 astical establishment; and we have no doubt, that to 
 this, the hurtful definition of Smith has largely, though 
 perhaps insensibly, contributed. The services of a 
 church are mainly performed by unproductive labour- 
 ers; and, from this single circumstance, we can imagine 
 on the part of a deluded patriotism, many a secret wish 
 and aspiration for its overthow. It is therefore of all 
 the more importance, to expose the futility of the dis- 
 tinction, that has beeni made upon this subject ; and, 
 setting aside, as a frivolous and unmeaning accessary, 
 the presence or the want of a tangible intermedium, by 
 which the good of any service is conveyed to us ; we 
 would found the question between one distribution of 
 employment and another, wholly and exclusively, on the 
 nature and magnitude of the good itself. We should 
 
PRODUCTIVE AND UNPRODUCTIVE LABOUR. 251 
 
 not be afraid to rest upon this issue the cause of a re- 
 ligious establishment, even though the spoils, to be 
 gathered from its overthow, were capable of being dif- 
 fused, in the form of a secure and permanent increase 
 to the physical comforts of the population at large. 
 But we hold ourselves to have a far mightier argument 
 on our side, in that the result of such a catastrophe 
 were but the enrichment of our landed proprietors, and 
 that no appropriation of the wealth of the church can 
 prevent this from being the ultimate destination of it. 
 Even though allotted in the first instance to the ne- 
 cessities of the state, and followed up by the remission 
 of taxes, this, after affording scope for a season to the 
 increase of population and capital, would but pour 
 the wealth of our ecclesiastics into the bosom of the 
 landed aristocracy at the last. We have already ex- 
 plained how that scope might be afforded, and yet the 
 church be upholden in all her temporalities ; and after 
 this, on weighing the only real terms of the alternative, 
 a moral good to the community against a large acces- 
 sion to the splendour and luxury of our landlords, we 
 cannot hesitate for a moment on the question, whether 
 the exchange of the one for the other would prove a 
 bane or a blessing to our nation.* 
 
 12. After all then, the property of the church has 
 created but a division of wealth, and not a diminution 
 of it. The landed proprietor may still complain of its 
 
 * We gladly observe in the pages of M. Say, a recognition of im- 
 material products, as forming an addition to the wealth of a country. 
 The revenue of our landlords, in as far as it is spent by themselves, 
 is absorbed in unproductive consumption. The taxes and the tithes 
 which they pay go to the support of public functionaries, or are con- 
 sumed productively ; and, if on the one hand, the former be paid to a 
 well-administered government, and on the other hand, the latter be 
 commuted and paid to a well-administered church ; then taxes and 
 tithes, (the very reverse of what has been ascribed to them,) go to 
 enrich and not to impoverish a nation. The civil, and military, and 
 ecclesiastical labourers, give a return in their services for a revenue 
 that would otherwise have been expended without a return, and the 
 value of these services forms a clear addition to the amount of na- 
 tional wealth. 
 
252, PRODUCTIVE AND UNPRODUCTIVE LABOUK, 
 
 existence, but with no more reason, than the owner of 
 a thousand acres, has to complain of the contiguous but 
 separate estate of a hundred acres lying beside him, and 
 which he should have liked to be in his own possession, 
 rather than in that of another man. The clergyman 
 stands in the same relation to the landlord, that the 
 small proprietor does to his neighbouring large onej 
 but, with this mighty difference to the public good, 
 that his property involves in it an obligation of duty, 
 whereas the other is in a state of simple ownership. 
 There are some who hold that the property of the 
 island is not enough divided, and complain of the large 
 estates that are vested in single individuals or families. 
 The institution of a church, even apart from the service 
 which it renders to society, is, at least, a mitigation of 
 this alleged evil. But its main vindication is its use- 
 fulness. The clergyman is bound to do something for 
 his share in the soil. The proprietor to nothing. The 
 public would be gainers, if still more of the country's 
 wealth were placed in the condition, of having a duty 
 and a service attached to the possession of it ; or, in 
 other words, in opposition to the popular and prevailing 
 cry, we hold, that too little of the produce of the land 
 goes to the support of functionaries; and that, of course, 
 the mere proprietors, the * nati fruges consumere,' are 
 allowed to reserve too much of it. 
 
 13. The united expenditure of the clergy and the 
 landlords, gives as great an impulse to trade, and as 
 large a support to labourers, as would the entire expen- 
 diture of the landlords, had there been no clergy, and 
 our ecclesiastics been so many small proprietors. That 
 then is an interest clearly not affected by the institution 
 of an established church. Apart from such a provision, 
 its revenues would have yielded so much enjoyment to 
 possessors of land; but, in their present state, they yield 
 as much enjoyment to the holders of our ecclesiastical 
 benefices; so that, looking to the subject under this 
 view likewise, there is no loss incurred by the system 
 for which we are contending. But again, landlords are 
 under no positive or prescribed obligation^ of rendering 
 
PRODUCTIVE AND UNPRODUCTIVE LABOUR. 253 
 
 any service to the community for their share in the 
 produce of the soil. Clergymen are; and though they 
 should fall short of discharging their whole obligation, 
 yet should they discharge it in part, and so as that some 
 positive balance of good to society is done by them on 
 the whole, to that extent is society benefitted by the 
 church, and to that extent would society be a loser 
 should the church be overthrown. Theirs is not, to 
 use the language of some of our economists, unproduc- 
 tive consumption. That of the landlords is. Let im- 
 material products be included along with material, as 
 Say and others would, in the enumeration of a country's 
 wealth; and the institution of a church may serve, not 
 to impoverish, but to enrich a community. It is the 
 means of turning so much unproductive into productive 
 consumption. Without a church, the whole of our ec- 
 clesiastical wealth would have been in the hands of 
 those who give no return for it. With a church, we 
 have the returns of all its usefulness — its theological 
 learning — the protection which it affords against a de- 
 solating infidelity — the service which it renders to the 
 morality of the commonwealth — and, above all, to the 
 eternal well-being of the individual members who com- 
 pose it. These are not the less substantial, that they 
 enter not into the common definition of wealth, as con- 
 sisting in the tangible produce of land and labour. Let 
 tithes and taxes be but commuted as they ought ; and, 
 in the hands of a purer church and a purer government, 
 it will become quite obvious, that they do indeed aug- 
 ment the national wealth, in the best sense which can 
 be annexed to the term — turning that produce, which 
 would otherwise have been idly or unproductively con- 
 sumed, into an instrument of the highest benefits and 
 blessings to society. 
 
 22* 
 
254 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 ON THE LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. 
 
 1. Another of the vague imaginations for the relief 
 of the country, and for the diffusion of a greater comfort 
 and abundance through all its classes, is the more equal 
 diffusion of property. The expenditure of the landlords 
 seems by many to be regarded in the light of an ab- 
 straction from the maintenance of the other orders of 
 society — as if this very expenditure did not consist in 
 a transference to the industrious of sustenance and sup- 
 port for their services. In spite of this obvious consi- 
 deration, there does obtain the expectation of a great 
 enlargement, to ensue from the abolition of the law of 
 primogeniture. And, certain it is, that in the politics 
 of our day, there is a growing and gathering strength 
 of opposition to the system, which guarantees our land- 
 ed aristocracy in the possession of their ample and un- 
 broken domains from one generation to another. We 
 have already said, that the advocates of a more equal 
 partition of the land, should, on this ground at least, 
 befriend an established church, by which, at all events, 
 one species of partition is carried into effect. This, 
 however, is in no way our argument for such an insti- 
 tution — it being of far less importance in our view, that 
 property should be more equalized, than that property 
 should, if possible, be placed to a greater extent than 
 now in the state of having a public service and obliga- 
 tion attached to it; and that, consequently, less of it 
 should be left in the state of simple" and unconditional 
 ownership. We happen not to think, that a more equal 
 division of the land is in itself desirable; and far less, 
 that the indefinite subdivision of it would prove a bless- 
 ing to the country. Let us shortly contemplate the 
 
LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. 255 
 
 effects of such a process, in the train of which, if once 
 entered on, there would follow both political and eco- 
 nomical effects of the utmost magnitude. It is not only, 
 however, because of these that we invite attention, but 
 because we hold it to involve a question of professional 
 importance, as bearing on the subject of the incomes 
 allowed to ecclesiastics, as well as to all the other pub- 
 lic functionaries of our land. 
 
 2. The effect, then, of an indefinite subdivision of 
 the land, would be to lessen indefinitely, not ihe popu- 
 lation on the whole, but that class of them which goes 
 by the name of the disposable.* 
 
 3. The landed proprietor, in expending* that surplus 
 produce of his estate, which goes mider the name of 
 rent, must himself be upheld in the first and second ne- 
 cessaries of life ; and so far must he draw on the ser- 
 vices both of the agricultural and the secondary popu- 
 lation. But whatever he is able to expend over and 
 
 * We must not, however, ascribe to the largeness and integrity 
 of its landed estates alone, the very great proportion which the dis- 
 posable bears to the other two classes of labourers in Britain. Both 
 its more perfect system of leases, and the superiority of its methods 
 and machinery, whether in farm-work or in manufactures, contribute 
 to the same result. They cause that, by means of a much smaller 
 agricultural and secondary population, the same amount of food is 
 raised in Britain than perhaps in any country of Europe ; leaving a 
 greater surplus of hands for the service of the affluent in the pre- 
 paration of luxuries, or for the services of the state. This is the 
 real secret of a power and political greatness so much beyond the 
 absolute population of our island. It is not by its absolute, but by its 
 disposable population, that the strength of a nation is to be estimated. 
 We are much behind France in respect of the former, but not of the 
 latter comparison. 
 
 And as we have adverted to the varieties of land-letting, we would 
 only remark, that there is surely nothing in these which can at all 
 obscure a truth that so announces its own evidence, as the utter in- 
 capacity of land, which but feeds its agricultural and secondary 
 labourers, for yielding a rent in any shape. If, over and above this, 
 its cultivators can render personal services, or pay taxes, or afford 
 part of the produce to their superiors; these are not the same in kind 
 as the money rents of Britain ; but still they are varieties of rent, and 
 proceeding too from the same cause, from a surplus produce, or a 
 superior fertility in the soil, over that which could but remunerate 
 the expenses of its husbandry, 
 
256 LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. 
 
 above, he, by our definition, expends upon luxuries ; and 
 in so far he upholds a disposable population, who, by 
 our definition also, are employed in preparing them. 
 Let us imagine him able to expend the maintenance of 
 four such ; but that, in the next g-eneration his estate is 
 divided into two parts, each having a separate proprie- 
 tor. The surplus produce has now to maintain two 
 proprietors in the first and second necessaries of life, 
 instead of one. It was formerly divided between the 
 essential maintenance of one proprietor, and four la- 
 bourers of the disposable class — it will now be divided 
 between the essential maintenance of two proprietors, 
 and three labourers of the disposable class. At this 
 point one of the disposable population has been with- 
 drawn, and a proprietor has come in his room. At the 
 next descent, should the same rate of subdivision hold, 
 we shall have four proprietors on the land which origi- 
 nally belonged to one ; and, instead of four of a disposa- 
 ble population, attached by service to the property, there 
 will only remain one of that description. At the next 
 descent, the whole of the disposable population, former^ 
 ly attached to the owner of the property in question^ 
 behooved to disappear. The surplus produce would 
 not, in fact, be equal to their maintenance in the first 
 and second necessaries, or to what may be called their 
 essential maintenance-^— and their owners behooved to 
 help out their support by entering on that part of the 
 gross produce which is detained for the expenses of the 
 husbandry ; which they could only do, by sinking, 
 partly into the agricultural, or partly into the secondary 
 class of labourers themselves. The tendency of such a 
 system, then, is to extinguish the disposable population^ 
 in as far as their services are attached to the proprietors 
 of land, and to substitute a merely agrarian population 
 in their room ; each perhaps labouring at the husbandry 
 of his own scanty portion, and it to be frittered into 
 still smaller shreds and pendicles with the rising up of the 
 next generation. The disposable population would not 
 be annihilated, even with the farthest consummation of 
 such a process. There still behooved to be so many 
 
LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. 251 
 
 attached to the service of capitaUsts, who, in expending" 
 their profits, would be enabled, as at present, to pur- 
 chase the luxuries of life for themselves and for their 
 families. Mainly, however, our landed aristocracy 
 would disappear ; and, whether as it respects the state 
 of society, or the direction and distribution of employ- 
 ment among the people, we know not how a greater 
 revolution could be effected, on the internal economy of 
 our nation, than by the abolition of the law of primo- 
 geniture, and the enactment, in its place, of a law of 
 equal inheritance among the children of a family. 
 
 4. Now, assuming, what we surely need not prove, 
 that the agricultural produce of a country, in this com- 
 minuted state, is not, and cannot be greater, than when 
 the land is parcelled out into sizeable and well-stocked 
 farms ; it will be obvious that there is no security what- 
 ever for the better economic condition of an agrarian, 
 than of a disposable population. The moral prevent- 
 ive check might operate with equal efficacy in both ; 
 and, if this check be wanting, the distress of both is 
 equally unavoidable. The want or the well-being of 
 a nation, resolves itself exclusively into this ; and, apart 
 from this, there is no expedient which can be devised, 
 that will ultimately and permanently serve to elevate 
 the comfort of the poorer orders. We have indeed 
 many experimental symptoms within om* reach, of the 
 misery incidental to a mere agrarian population. In 
 Ireland, the degradation of the peasantry has been 
 ascribed to an indefinite subdivision in the occupancy of 
 the soil ; and the very same result may be looked for, 
 in the indefinite subdivision of its ownership. In those 
 country hamlets, the erection of which has been 
 encouraged by the attachment of a slip of land to each 
 of the tenements, what an amount of want and of 
 wretchedness is often realized ! A headlong deterio- 
 ration in the circumstances of the people, is just as pos- 
 sible and likely under this agrarian system, as any other. 
 Nothing, in fact, will save the community at large, from 
 the miseries of an oppressed and straitened condition, 
 but an elevation of the popular character and mind ; 
 
258 LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. 
 
 and more especially of this expedient of family equali- 
 zation may it be said, that while, ultimately, it cannot 
 restrain the people from descending to as low a grade as 
 they would have done under any other economy, it, at 
 the same time, weakens to an incalculable extent the ge- 
 neral interest of the state ; besides preventing the forma- 
 tion, or the increase, of certain other and subordinate 
 interests, which best serve to grace and to dignify a nation. 
 5. What we mean by the general interest of the state, 
 is the interest which lies in the amount of its public 
 revenue, and its consequent command over the services 
 of the population. It is quite evident, that all those 
 enlisted in the direct service of government, provided 
 that their whole time is given to it, must belong to 
 the disposable class ; as, with a given population 
 in the country ; and a given standard of enjoyment 
 among them, neither the agricultural nor the secondary 
 classes can possibly be trenched upon. It is out of the 
 disposable population, then, that a government draws 
 its soldiers, and sailors, and civil servants^ and all the 
 agency of its various establishments, on the supposition 
 of this public service being, not their occasional, but 
 their perpetual occupation. Even then, before we have 
 entered upon any financial consideration, it must be 
 obvious, that whatever limits the disposable population, 
 lessens the power of a state to extend its permanent 
 establishments. It may command the temporary ser^ 
 vice of all its citizens. It may compel each man to be 
 a soldier ; and thus enact a composition of professions 
 between the civil and the military. But it cannot, con- 
 sistently with the full benefit that lies in the separation, 
 of the professions, or in the division of employment, it 
 cannot have such numbers at its disposal; when, by 
 any cause, an abridgment has taken place on the dis- 
 posable population. The landed property, which has 
 four disposable labourers attached to it, can be so taxed, 
 as to place a greater quantity of labour under the control 
 of government, than when, by its first division, the 
 number of such labourers is reduced to three, and 
 still more, than when, by its second division, th© 
 
LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. ^59 
 
 number is reduced to one. Or, to exhibit the same 
 thing in money, if an estate be worth two hundred 
 pounds a year to its one proprietor, and fifty be allowed 
 for his essential maintenance; then, the sum of a hun- 
 dred and fifty pounds may be regarded as the taxable 
 fund that is yielded by the property. But, after it 
 comes into the hand of two proprietors, there must be 
 the deduction of a hundred pounds for their essential 
 maintenance, and the taxable fund is thereby reduced 
 from a hundred and fifty to a hundred. It is thus, 
 that, by every step in the process of subdivision, a re- 
 duction takes place in the amount of that produce 
 which government can reach by its taxations. A ter- 
 ritorial impost could not raise so much from a country 
 divided into small as into large properties, without a 
 far greater sense of depression and discomfort on the 
 part of its owners. And these may at length be so 
 multiplied, that, reduced to the necessaries of life, 
 they could pay no such imposts at all. It is thus, we 
 think, that the law of primogeniture stands essentially 
 connected with the strength and power of a nation ; 
 and that every government is sure to wax feeble, under 
 a system by which the land crumbles into fragments. 
 At every new subdivision, the disposable population is 
 lessened; and just because the surplus maintenance, 
 which went to uphold them is lessened — there being 
 always a greater and a greater proportion of it absorb- 
 ed by those agrarians, who are left to multiply with- 
 out limit, on a soil that will soon be unable to sustain 
 them. The people, individually, are not more com- 
 fortable; while, collectively, their strength and great- 
 ness must decline. France, under her present system, 
 and in spite of the convulsive efforts made by her in 
 seasons of great public excitement, has entered, we 
 believe, on a sure process of decay; and, without a 
 more comfortable peasantry than before, will she sink 
 in the long run, beneath the pre-eminence once held by 
 her among the nations. 
 
 6. We are aware that, generally, it is not by an in- 
 come tax, that the public revenues, in the different 
 
260 LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. 
 
 states of Europe, are raised. Still the argument holds^ 
 in as far as they are raised by a tax on the luxuries of 
 our landed proprietors. This is a source of income to 
 government, that is perpetually lessening, under the 
 system of territorial division. And its tendency is to 
 land the nation in that state, when nothing will remain 
 for taxation, but the profits of capital, and the wages of 
 labour, and such commodities as enter into the con- 
 sumption of capitalists and labourers. We have already 
 explained, how the effect of such taxation, is to limit 
 the agriculture, by causing it to stop all the sooner, in 
 its progress downward among the inferior soils ; the 
 last soil entered on, behooving to be of such capability, 
 as will not merely yield a satisfying remuneration to 
 the capitalists and labourers, but yield, over and above, 
 the payment of all the taxes to which the capitalists and 
 labourers are exposed.* One great recommendation 
 that we insisted on of a tax upon net rent, is, that it 
 lays no such impediment on the progress of cultivation; 
 insomuch, that if the whole of our national revenue 
 were drawn from the landlords, they would not only 
 have a full compensation in the cheapness of the com- 
 modities used by them; but, in addition, they would 
 have an enlargement of their income, by the agricul- 
 ture being relieved of its present obstructions, and let 
 out to the uttermost limit of which, apart from taxa- 
 tion, it is capable. There is thus a double infliction 
 attendant on an indefinite subdivision of the land. It 
 
 * So much do we hold this to be the truth, that, if there is sound- 
 ness in our principle, it is still the land which yields all the taxes, 
 even after it may have been so subdivided, as that all which bears 
 the semblance of rent shall be annihilated. The mere capitalist finds 
 a refiige from taxation in higher profits, and the mere labourer in 
 higher wages. It is the residuum of farm produce, over and above 
 that which defrays the natural expenses of farm management, that 
 pays all the public revenue ; and it is conceivable, that, in that 
 payment, it may be so wholly absorbed as to be lost sight of altogether. 
 That land should be able to sustain this burden, it must be of a 
 superior quality to that which forms the natural limit of the agri- 
 culture; or, in other words, the agriculture must stop at a higher 
 point of fertility than it otherwise would do. 
 
LAW OP PRIMOGENITURE. 261 
 
 riecessarily confines the taxes to such objects, that they 
 oppose the extension of the husbandry, and thus limit 
 the natural produce of the country; while it lessens 
 that proportion of it which can be made available to 
 public or national objects. In counterpart to this, 
 there is a double benefit in that system of larger pro- 
 perties, which would admit of the revenue of govern- 
 ment being wholly territorial. It would both enlarge 
 the national wealth, and enlarge that proportion of it, 
 which might be devoted, through the means of taxa- 
 tion, to any of the objects of patriotism. The nation 
 might become both individually richer, and collectively 
 stronger than before. 
 
 7. This double benefit speaks strongly in favour of 
 the law of primogeniture. Under this law, and with 
 the system of larger properties to which it gives rise, 
 there is room for a higher territorial impost, insomuch 
 that the whole public revenue might be raised by a tax 
 upon net rent. And were the method resorted to, of 
 making the centage of imposition higher as the income 
 was higher ; a much greater amount could be levied 
 for the public service, with less of individual hardship 
 to chose on whom the taxes had been laid. The pro- 
 prietor of ten thousand a year could not only part 
 with a larger sum annually, but with a larger propor- 
 tional sum, than the proprietor of a thousand a year. 
 But this is not the only advantage of the system for 
 which we are contending. Government can not only 
 obtain, in consequence of it, a greater fraction of the 
 country's wealth, but the wealth itself becomes abso- 
 lutely greater. Every other tax but one on net rent, 
 more especially if laid on articles of general consump- 
 tion, contracts the agriculture of the country; and^ 
 along with it, the dependent and subordinate interests 
 of the population, and the trade and the manufactures. 
 With the commutation of all general taxes into one on 
 net rent, every artificial limit to the extent of cultiva- 
 tion is done away, and the wealth of the country is 
 carried forward to the uttermost of its capabilities. 
 Government is not only enabled, first, to raise a larger 
 proportion J but^ secondly, to raise that larger proportion 
 
 23 
 
262 LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. 
 
 from a larger subject. This is the way by which to 
 draw the maximum of public revenue, for the benefit 
 of all public interests ; and that, by an imposition on 
 landlords alone, without even so much as the sem- 
 blance of hardship on the community at large ; a way, 
 by which taxation may be carried, if necessary, beyond 
 all former example, and without hurt or heart-burning 
 to the general population. 
 
 8. The topics of popular invective often cross each 
 other. The loudest against the burden of taxation, are 
 also the loudest against the law of primogeniture. Lit- 
 tle do they know, that this law might be the instrument 
 of a great and general immunity to the people; that, by 
 the help of it, taxation, though levied and expended 
 for the benefit of the whole, might be transferred in full 
 to the landlords — these objects of their fierce jealousy — 
 who yet would not be injured by the commutation, but 
 would only become ostensibly, what they are really, 
 the sole tributaries of the commonwealth. 
 
 9. We have before said, that, had no land yielded 
 more, in return for the labour bestowed on it, than 
 enough to feed the agricultural workmen and their 
 secondaries, the whole species behooved to be engrossed 
 with the cares of providing for a subsistence. There 
 could have been no leisure for higher and more dignified 
 occupations. It is interesting, thus to connect the fer- 
 tility of the soil with a disposable population, and with 
 all which that population renders for the pleasures of 
 human life, and the embellishment of human society. 
 It is the overplus produce of land, after that the agricul- 
 tural labours and their secondaries have been fed — it is 
 out of this, in fact, that law, and protection, and phi- 
 losophy, and the ministry of religion and art, and all that 
 goes to decorate and to dignify human life, are uphold- 
 en. It is because this overplus is possessed in quantities 
 large enough not only for the essential maintenance of 
 its owners, but for enabling them, by the maintenance of 
 others, to purchase a thousand gratifications both for the 
 mind and the person — it is because of i his, that the lux- 
 uries, whether of a more sensual or refined character, 
 so abound in society. We feel quite assured, that a 
 
LAW OP PRIMOGENITURE. 263 
 
 system which would fritter down this overplus into in- 
 definitely minute portions, must tend to vulojarize a 
 community, by absorbing, in the mere subsistence of 
 an ever-increasing multitude of owners, what is now 
 divided in subsistence for those who yield, in return 
 for it, a thousand elegances and enjoyments, that 
 would have been otherwise unknown. It is no ade- 
 quate reply to this that these enjoyments and elegances 
 are monopolized by a few; for, by the controlling 
 power of the state, the fund, out of which they are 
 purchased, can be drawn upon indefinitely, not for the 
 support of political interest alone, but for the support of 
 Christian education and a national literature, and other 
 benefits, of a high order, that are difi'used among the 
 many. Such a system of landed property, is not only 
 the best fitted to enrich and enable a government for 
 the support of liberal institutions and the efiective pa- 
 tronage of genius; but the system is, in itself, a guaran- 
 tee for the maintenance of enough of leisure, among a 
 class sufficiently numerous to form an extensive read- 
 ing public, and call forth the exhaustless varieties of an 
 authorship, that is ever keeping the mind of society in 
 vigorous play, and adorning it with the graces of taste 
 and cultivation. So that, altogether, with the size 
 and integrity of our landed estates, would we associ- 
 ate a greater amount of mental power and cultivation — 
 both the benefits and the beauties of a more intellectual 
 and polished commonwealth. 
 
 10. When it is alleged that, under the existing sys- 
 tem, the luxuries wrought up by the disposable popula- 
 lation, are monopolized by the few, the imagination is, 
 that were the system broken down, by the abolition of 
 the law of primogeniture, the same amount of luxury 
 would be diffused throughout a vastly greater multi- 
 tude. But the truth is, that, in virtue of the process 
 which would ensue, the disposable population would 
 constantly be lessening, and the luxuries they rendered 
 would every year be diminished in their amount. 
 The tendency is to an ultimate state, where, instead of 
 luxuries or elegances being divided among many land- 
 ed proprietors, these proprietors would be unable to af- 
 
264 LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. 
 
 ford any luxuries or elegances at all. Even for their 
 own comfort, it would have been as well that they had 
 been labouring in the ranks of the disposable popula- 
 tion — as labouring, each in sordidness and straitness, 
 on some little acre, from which the subsistence of a 
 family could hardly be extorted. The drudgery of an 
 artizan, in the manufacture of luxuries, is not worse 
 than the ignoble drudgery of an over-crowded agrarian 
 population. Under the system in question, the manu- 
 facture of second necessaries might be kept up in its 
 original extent; but the manufacture of luxuries would 
 be indefinitely diminished. There would thus be very 
 few, if any, of the landed proprietors that could com- 
 mand any of the higher enjoyments of life. There 
 would also be fewer or smaller capitalists in the land ; 
 and, instead of our present beautiful gradation, we 
 should behold a general levelling of all conditions, and 
 nearly the whole of human society reduced to one 
 common state of penury and toil. 
 
 11. And it is not true, that, in virtue of elegance, 
 and luxury, and leisuie, being the inheritance of a few, 
 there is not a blessing in the present system of things to 
 the whole mass of society. Under the opposite system, 
 there would be nearly one unbroken level, the whole of 
 which behooved, in time, to be as sunk and degraded, as 
 is the state of our present hibourers. Now, it is a level, 
 rising into frequent eminences, of greater or less height 
 and of radiance, more or less conspicuous. And what 
 we affirm is, that, from this higher galaxy of rank and 
 fortune, there are the droppings, as it were, of a bland 
 and benignant influence on the general platform of hu- 
 manity. There is one very palpable evidence of this 
 in the moral effect of a residing gentry ; and we might 
 also allege the consequent economic good of such a 
 distribution, seeing that the moral and the economic in 
 society are so intimately blended. The truth is, that 
 the very elevation of mind and manners, caught as if 
 by infection from the higher, forms our best security 
 against an extreme wretchedness in the lower orders. 
 If the people were once innoculated with a higher taste 
 for the comforts and decencies of life, the else difficult 
 
LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. 265 
 
 or rather, unresolvable problem, of a secure and perma- 
 nent sufficiency for all their wants, would receive its 
 most effectual accomplishment. And we appeal to 
 general observation, if the symptoms of such a taste are 
 not greatly more fiequent and conspicuous around the 
 habitations of our rural aristocracy. And, independ- 
 ently of its virtue in raising and refining the general 
 tone of the people, it is surely, reasoning on the capa- 
 bility of things, a vast accession to a community, when 
 there is in it a quantity of mind disengaged for general 
 speculation, and therefore, if under patriotic and enHght- 
 ened direction, in a state for devising the best institu- 
 tions and the best economy of things for the well-being 
 of a nation. Law, and education, and charity, and all 
 the collective interests of a state, are more Hkely to be 
 put on their best footing — not, we admit, where arbi- 
 trary and despotic power stands associated with great 
 property, but where regulated freedom and respectable 
 property are blended. We feel quite assured, of every 
 land of law and liberty, that, with an order of men 
 possessing large and independent affluence, there is 
 better security for the general comfort and virtue of the 
 whole, than when society presents an aspect of almost 
 unalleviated plebeianism. And it is of the utmost im- 
 portance to the argument, that the breaking down of 
 this affluence would ultimately do nothing for the 
 enlarged sufficiency of the lower orders. Whatever 
 beneficent effects, then, can with justice be ascribed to 
 the existence and secure establishment of such an afflu- 
 ence — these we have all to the bargain. They form so 
 much clear gain to the commonwealth ; and though, 
 at first sight, the whole good of it may appear to be 
 absorbed by the children of fortune, there is, beside this 
 absorption by them, a reflection on the commonwealth 
 at large — a secondary influence, that is felt throughout 
 the extent of society, and which goes down to the very 
 humblest of its members. 
 
 12. For the best construction of a social edifice, in 
 every large country like ours, we would have a king 
 upon the throne — not rising like a giant among the pig- 
 mies, or as an unsupported may-pole in the midst of a 
 
 23* 
 
266 LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. 
 
 level population ; but borne up by a splendid aristocracy, 
 and a gradation of ranks shelving downward to the 
 basement of society. We doubt if the other monarchy 
 could stand ; or if France, with its citizen king, amid a 
 mighty and ever increasing swarm of smaller and smaller 
 agrarians, can maintain its present economy for a single 
 generation. We think of our own political fabric, that 
 it not only affords a vastly greater number of noble and 
 graceful spectacles, in the minarets and the blazing pin- 
 nacles which crowd its elevation, but that, abstracting 
 from the degradation which has been caused by its ac- 
 cursed law of pauperism, it would have had a more ele- 
 vated basement in its well conditioned peasantry than 
 any other country or kingdom of the civilized world. 
 It is not for the sake of its ornaments and its chivalry 
 alone — it is not for the sake of these chiefly, that we 
 want the high rank and fortune of our aristocracy to be 
 upholden ; it is because we think there is a soul in 
 chivalry which, though nursed in the bosom of afflu- 
 ence, does not cloister there, but passes abroad from 
 mind to mind, and lights up a certain glow of inspiration 
 throughout the mass of a community. Let it only be a 
 land of intelligence and freedom, and we think, that 
 where there are nobles, the common people are not so 
 ignoble; and that, while the property of the rich, though 
 scattered, as by the law of France, into innumerable 
 fragments, would not add by a single iota to the average 
 comfort of our plebian families ; yet the presence of the 
 rich infuses a spirit that, by dignifying their characters, 
 enables them, through the medium of their own habits 
 and exertions, to dignify their condition also. It is thus, 
 we hold, that there are materials in Britain, for the com- 
 position, altogether, of a finer, and higher, and happier 
 society, than there are in America ; and that, without 
 one taint of the pusillanimous in the spirit of our people, 
 there might be a deference to rank, and withal a truer 
 greatness of soul and sentiment, than republicanism, with 
 all its coarse and boastful independence, can ever realize. 
 We would therefore, on the whole, leave the existing 
 frame work of our own community undisturbed ; and, 
 
LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. 267 
 
 instead of letting down the peerage of our realms to 
 the external condition of our peasantry, we should rather 
 go forth among the peasantry and do all that lies within 
 the compass of education, both to elevate their standard 
 of comfort, and to pour such a moral lustre over them 
 as might equalize them, either to peers or to princes, in 
 all the loftiest attributes of humanity. 
 
 13. We again recur to the absenteeism of Ireland, in 
 support of our argument. The crying evil of that land 
 is not that the wealth of its proprietors is withdrawn 
 from its shores. Even though detained and spent 
 amongst them, yet, did the people continue as reckless, 
 and of as degraded habits as now, then, through inter- 
 vention of the sure principle of population, we should 
 only behold a larger, but in every respect as wretched a 
 community. The benefit of a residing gentry lies, not 
 in the money which they spend, but in the moral and 
 humanizing effect of their presence. The peasantry, 
 under this influence, would soon cease to be so degraded ; 
 and, through the medium, not of external aid, but of 
 their own internal principles and tastes, would attain to a 
 more secure and respectable sufficiency. The popular 
 cry, and on sound economic grounds too, is for a re- 
 siding gentry; yet, with marvellous dissonance thereto, 
 there is another cry for the spoliation of the church, that 
 would, in fact, annihilate the best supplement for a re- 
 siding gentry, which Ireland at present enjoys ; we 
 niean a clergy bound, in a vast majority of instances, to 
 dwell and to officiate among the people. There is also a 
 well founded cry against the absence of proprietors. But 
 they are little aware that the cry for a system of pauper- 
 ism is a cry for that which will rivet this calamity, and 
 make it irrecoverable. We do not say, that a compul- 
 sory provision for indigence will banish its large landed 
 proprietors from Ireland, but it will annihilate the order 
 altogether. For the non-residence of the gentry, it will 
 bring on what is far more hopeless — the non-existence 
 of a gentry ; when the population, the victims of the 
 most insensate experiment that, in opposition to all the 
 lights both of observation and argument, was ever at- 
 
268 LAW OP PRIMOGENITURE. 
 
 tempted by statesmen, will remain in as great destitution, 
 and withal in greater helplessness than ever. 
 
 14. We know that there is a mighty force of senti- 
 ment and natural affection arrayed against the law of 
 primogeniture. But here is the way in which we would 
 appease these feelings, and make compensation for the 
 violence done to them. We would make no inroad on 
 the integrity of estates ; or, for the sake of a second bro- 
 ther, take off a portion, to the extent of a thousand a 
 year, from that domain of ten thousand a year, which 
 devolved by succession on the eldest son of the family. 
 We should think it vastly better, if by means of a liberal 
 provision in all the branches of the public service, a 
 place of a thousand a year lay open to the younger son, 
 whether in the law, or in the church, or in colleges, or 
 in the army, or in any other well appointed establish- 
 ment, kept up for the good and interest of the nation. 
 We would still have the state to support the younger 
 branches ; yet that not by the violation of its integrity, 
 but by a more severe taxation than our politicians of the 
 present day have the courage to impose. Under the 
 one system, the second brother would have his thousand 
 a year, but give no return for it in any kind of service. 
 Under the other system, he would also have his thou- 
 sand a year, and the public have the benefit of a duty 
 and a service from him to the bargain. Instead of a 
 rustic idler, we should behold him a public functionary; 
 and under this arrangement, therefore, we should com- 
 bine, with a provision for the younger branches of fami- 
 lies, a greater efficiency and amount of public service ; a 
 remedy against the destitution of younger children, and 
 withal, a better served nation. The one system only 
 proposes a single object — a provision for younger chil- 
 dren ; and this object, in the course of that indefinite 
 comminution which must take place upon the territory, 
 would at length be completely unattainable after a lapse 
 of generations. The other system proposes a double 
 object — a provision for younger children, along with a 
 fully equipped and full paid agency in all the depart- 
 ments of national usefulness. And this object could be 
 
LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. 269 
 
 permanently iipliolden. The integrity of estates is not 
 necessarily violated by a large taxation on the owners of 
 them. Through the organ of government, each estate 
 may be looked upon as loaded with jointures for the 
 sake of the younger members of families ; who, at the 
 same time, instead of simple receivers, have to labour, in 
 some vocation or other, for the community. And, be- 
 lieving as we do, that the real incidence of the taxes is 
 upon land, we would enlist all the forces of natural sen- 
 timent and affection on the side of a larger revenue to 
 government, and a larger allowance to public functiona- 
 ries of all orders. We would infinitely prefer, that these 
 feelings, generous and natural as they are, took a direc- 
 tion toward the increase of taxes, than toward the abo- 
 lition of the law of primogeniture. But it were well, in 
 the present delusion, if these taxes were laid directly 
 and ostensibly upon land. The whole work of retrench- 
 ment, that is now the favourite cry of patriots, both in 
 and out of parliament, proceeds, we think, on a short- 
 sighted view, or rather, a total misunderstanding of the 
 real interests involved in the question. A large taxa- 
 tion is just a right corollary to the law of primogeniture. 
 And the nibbling economy of those who would cut and 
 Curtail in all directions, is most perversely at variance 
 with the consistent and comprehensive policy of every 
 country where that law is in operation. 
 
 15. It will not for a moment be imagined, that, while 
 we would apportion a much larger amount of the nation's 
 wealth to the objects of public service, we contend for 
 any hereditary or family right to that portion, on the 
 part of the younger brothers of our aristocracy. It should 
 lie open to the competition of all the worth and talent 
 which may exist in any quarter of society. In the exer- 
 cise of a virtuous patronage, it should alw^ays be disposed 
 of to those who can give the largest return for it, in the 
 value of their services. It is because of the greater as- 
 cendancy which the public mind has over the counsels 
 and the doings of government, than at any former periods, 
 that we feel both the safety and the advantage of a more 
 largely provided and better paid agency in all the depart* 
 
270 LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. 
 
 merits of the state, and of far more generous allowances 
 to public and professional men. Now that the public 
 mind has become more influential, we should hke that 
 the part it took were to direct the machinery of our na- 
 tional institutes, rather than to impair or to destroy it. 
 This machinery the public will not grudge to see ex- 
 tended, after that, under a reformed system of finance, it 
 shall have become patent to general observation ; that, 
 with the law of primogeniture, the whole expense of sup- 
 porting it is really drawn from the eldest sons of our land- 
 ed families. And we contend for no more, in behalf of 
 the younger sons, than that they should be admitted on 
 equal terms to the competitions of this then larger and 
 wealthier preferment, along with men of the requisite in- 
 telligence and accomplishment from all other classes of 
 the community.* 
 
 16. It may be asked, if there is such a benefit in the 
 size of estates, how far ought that principle to be carried ; 
 and would it really be desirable that the territory of our 
 island were shared among a few large proprietors, each 
 having a domain equal to a princedom, and so with the 
 entire annihilation of such a gentry as compose the actual 
 landed aristocracy of Britain ? We admit, though the 
 subject be, from its nature, not very definable, that there 
 is an extreme in that direction too, against which, how- 
 ever, we have a sufficient practical security, in the exist- 
 ing order of things. But with the law of equal division 
 in families, there is no security against the rapid descent 
 of the nation into the opposite extreme. The land would 
 speedily be frittered into shreds ; and, under the load of 
 an agrarian population, ever augmenting and accumula- 
 ting, the best interests of the community would most cer- 
 tainly be overborne. Having these views, it is with us a 
 theme of gratulation, that there should be a law of pri- 
 mogeniture ; but we would earnestly contend, that this 
 law, and a liberal provision for all public functionaries, 
 
 * It is thus that taxation accomplishes what ought to be the popu- 
 lar object, of placing within the reach of general society a portion of 
 that wealth which would otherwise be restricted to hereditary pro-» 
 prietors. 
 
LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. 271 
 
 sbouM go hand in hand. This is the way of reconciling 
 the highest interests of the public with the rights of fami- 
 lies ; and that without injury to any of those economic 
 objects, against which all taxation, however imposed, has 
 been so unfairly set in opposition. We rejoice, more 
 particularly, to think, that a church may be upheld in all 
 its endowments, without being, in any right sense of the 
 word, an incubus upon the nation ; while it serves to miti- 
 gate the hardship which has been imputed to the law of 
 primogeniture. We are aware that this is not the precise 
 and proper argument for a religious establishment ; yet, 
 convinced, upon other grounds, of the vast utility of such 
 an institution, we cannot but regard it as one beneficent 
 consequence of the law in question, that it enlists on the 
 side of a church the warmest affections of nature, the sym- 
 pathies and feelings of domestic tenderness. W^e are 
 aware of the reckless and unprincipled patronage to which 
 this has given rise ; and that a provision for younger sons 
 has been viewed as the great, if not the only good of a 
 church, by many who hold the dispensation of its offices. 
 It is this which has alienated from the establishment so 
 large a portion of the community; and, if the abuse of 
 an institute were a sufficient argument for its destruction, 
 perhaps the church of England will be found to have seal- 
 ed its own doom, and to have brought upon itself the 
 sentence of its own overthrow. But we still hope the 
 impetuous spirit of the times may be tempered with dis- 
 crimination, and that it will be judged better to direct the 
 machinery than to destroy it. An apparatus, in its own 
 nature beneficial, may have been perverted to evil ; yet 
 the way is not to demolish or cast it aside, but to regulate 
 its movements. 
 

 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 ON EMIGRATION. 
 
 1. The felt necessity of emigration from a country is, 
 in itself, a practical evidence, that its resources are not 
 illipxiitable. We may be assured, that if other remedies 
 for the destitution of the people were at hand, they would 
 have the preference over this. Could home colonization, 
 or the invention of new employments, or the increase of 
 capital, or the openings of foreign trade, have furnished 
 ready and withal indefinite resources for our population, 
 we should never have witnessed to any great extent among 
 them, a disposition to renounce the scenes of their infancy, 
 with all the charms and associations of home, for the 
 chances or the perils of distant and unknown lands. We 
 have already endeavoured to prove how it is, that the 
 commutation of taxes and tithes must make room for a 
 larger population, though that room would soon be oc- 
 cupied to the full ; and after a brief season of general 
 prosperity among all the classes of society, there would 
 ensue the same straitness and difficulty as before. Proving, 
 that, in every direction, and on all sides, there are limits 
 at home which throw back, as it were, the tide of our in- 
 creasing numbers on the general community, and pro- 
 duce a feeling of pressure and discomfort there ; against 
 which, relief is sought by an efflux of population from a 
 land that is too narrow for them. We have now only to 
 estimate the strength and the efficacy of this expedient, 
 after which we shall enter, though briefly at this time, on 
 the question of public charity ; the last of all the expedi- 
 ents, which, if tried and found wanting, would seem to 
 land us in the conclusion, that, either, there is a helpless 
 and irremediable necessity for extreme and extensive want 
 in human society, from which, by no practicable device, 
 can society be protected; or, that, if there be a specific 
 
EMIGRATION. 273 
 
 against this overwhelming calamity, it must be different 
 from any of the expedients which shall have yet passed 
 under our review, 
 
 2. When the agriculture of a country arrives at its 
 limit, there is a pressure that would not be felt, but for 
 the tendency of the population to increase. But long be- 
 fore this limit is reached, is the pressure felt ; because the 
 tendency to an increase in the population exceeds the rate 
 of enlargement in the agriculture. The probability, then, 
 is, that even emigration will not remove, will not eventu- 
 ally alleviate tlie distresses of our land. The same cause 
 which outstrips the enlargement within, may also outstrip 
 the efHux abroad. Certain it is, that the colonies of 
 Britain, notwithstanding their perpetual draft on the 
 families of the mother country, (and many of them but 
 too powerful absorbents for our excess of population, 
 from the balefulness of their chmates,) have still left us in 
 a condition of difficulty ; scarcely, if at all lessened, by 
 the outlet which they afford every year to such a number 
 of adventurers. But this may be made a matter of com- 
 putation. The capability of increase in the population 
 may be estimated with tolerable accuracy ; and the ex- 
 tent of emigration requisite for lightening the pressure of 
 our redundancy, may be estimated along with it ; and 
 that, with an approximation to the truth, sufficiently near 
 for the purposes of practical argument. 
 
 3. Population, when permitted its full development, 
 by an unbounded supply of the means of subsistence, can 
 double itself in fifteen years ; and we proceed on a com- 
 putation greatly more moderate than this, when we affirm, 
 that for an emigration sufficient to allow an unchecked 
 multiplication of our species in the British islands, there 
 behooved to be at least half a million of human beings 
 transported annually from our shores. The expense of 
 so mighty a transportation, and the magnitude of that 
 immense flotilla, which would need to be upheld for the 
 business of these annual shipments, are of themselves suf- 
 ficiently startling ; and might well disabuse us of the idea, 
 that any very effectual relief can be ministered, by this 
 expedient, for the wants of our population. But we may 
 
 24 
 
274 EMIGRATION. 
 
 properly add the ever increasing difficulty of new settle- 
 ments abroad ; after that the most accessible and best 
 portions of territory had been occupied. It is no great 
 recommendation of a scheme, that the longer it is prose- 
 cuted, it is always becoming more impracticable ; inso- 
 much, that every successive year must witness another 
 augmentation both to the cost and the labour of it. 
 Neither can we admire, as a sound or lasting expedient, 
 for keeping right the overflowing population of one 
 country, a process that hastens onward every other coun- 
 try to the same consummation. We should greatly pre- 
 fer an expedient that would equally apply to all countries ; 
 and that would not lose its efficacy, even though the globe 
 should throughout be peopled up to its capabilities; and 
 the millennial era had arrived, at which time we beheld a 
 general fulness and prosperity in all lands. But the near, 
 the practical consideration is, that the relief afforded even 
 now, by all the emigration, which even the most sanguine 
 of its advocates can count upon, is but an insignificant 
 fraction of what a population, left to its own unchecked 
 spontaneity, would need ; and every future year, this re- 
 lief would become more insignificant. 
 
 4. Now here is the evil of every partial, and at the 
 same time, ostensible relief, against the effects of a mis- 
 chief that is brought on by the general recklessness of 
 the population. It adds to that recklessness ; and so may 
 aggravate the pressure on the one hand more than it al- 
 leviates that pressure upon the other. This we hold to 
 be the precise operation of a public charity, instituted for 
 the supplies of general indigence. The power of it is 
 overrated, greatly overrated beyond the product of it; 
 and so, it relaxes the economy and the providential habits 
 of the people, to such a degree, that it falls greatly short 
 of supplying the poverty which itself may be said to 
 have created. It is thus too, that, in a country, the sys- 
 tem of whose interests and affairs is much complicated by 
 the multiplication and variety of its resources, we should 
 look for a more oppressive redundancy of people than 
 in a country of simpler economy ; in Britain, for example, 
 where the people have commerce and colonies, and the 
 
EMIGRATION. 275 
 
 demands of various and lucrative professions to count 
 upon, than in Norway, where the necessary limit of po- 
 pulation is not so obscured by complexity ; and which 
 limit, therefore, in consequence of being more distinctly 
 seen, is more decisively acted upon. It is thus that the 
 growth and enlargement of towns, though powerful absorb- 
 ents for the population bred in country parishes, has not 
 relieved, has, we think, on the contrary, augmented the 
 pressure that is felt in the country ; and, it is thus also, 
 that the rise of colonies, the demand from both the Indies 
 for men from Britain, has excited, we do believe, a great- 
 er overflow of population, than it can possibly draw away 
 from us. And we have just as little faith in the virtue of 
 emigration. We dread, that any vacancies left behind it, 
 would not only be filled, and that immediately, but fill- 
 ed in a greater degree of compression than before. It 
 would form just another of those resources, which, by ad- 
 ding to the general delusion, might aggravate the gene- 
 ral distress. A very slight relaxation in the providen- 
 tial habits of the people ; and, more especially in their 
 habit of providential marriages, would suffice for this. 
 And though the spontaneous emigration of families should 
 be left to itself, we do fear, that a public, a proclaimed, a 
 national system of emigration, would but enhance the evil 
 it was devised to remedy. 
 
 5. Whenever emigration prevails, it is the evidence of 
 a country, where the population presses on the means of 
 subsistence, from which pressure it seeks to be relieved 
 by successive discharges. We believe that a regular 
 system of emigration would certainly bring on and per- 
 petuate such a state ; and surely, far more desirable, than 
 that a people should thus press on the limit of their own 
 home resources, were it, that they kept comfortably and 
 somewhat largely within the limit. The effect of emigra- 
 tion has been compared to that of a safety valve. But a 
 safety valve in the boiler, implies a great force of disten- 
 sion within ; and surely, it were better for every land, 
 that the distension were prevented, than that it were only 
 relieved, and kept down to a certain maximum, which 
 cannot be sustained, without a strongly felt violence and 
 
276 EMIGRATION. 
 
 discomfort within the borders of the territory. The al- 
 ternative may be stated within a short compass. It were 
 better that the population should not be carried up to the 
 extreme of what the country can bear, by the reckless- 
 ness of the people, than that it should be kept down to 
 that point by emigration. We may be sure that every 
 country is throughout in a suffering condition, which re- 
 quires to be disgorged, from year to year, of its redun- 
 dant families. There may be a few spirits, alive to the 
 charms and the romance of adventure, to whom emigra- 
 tion would prove a lure rather than a terror. But, ave- 
 ragely speaking, there must be a great experience of dis- 
 tress and destitution, to account for the voluntary exile of 
 thousands from the land of their forefathers. It must be 
 no light evil from which they are making their escape, 
 when, in the act of doing so, they forego all the recollec- 
 tions of their boyhood, the scene and the dwelling place 
 of their dearest intimacies. Now, in respect of the eco- 
 nomic condition of a people, it may be said with peculiar 
 justness, that if one member suffer, all the members suffer 
 along with it. The destitution which forces a certain 
 number, though it should be a proportionally small one, 
 from the land of their nativity, is the symptom of a ge- 
 neral destitution and distress through the country at large, 
 or at least in the profession to which they belong. And 
 rather, infinitely rather than a system of things, which 
 encourages a population up to the necessity of emigra- 
 ting, would we prefer, that, in virtue of smaller numbers, 
 the population fell somewhat beneath the employment 
 which remunerates, or the food that sustains them. 
 
 6. We believe it to be strictly demonstrable, that 
 wherever a sure and systematic, and withal, a permanent 
 and generally known provision is made for the excess of 
 labourers in a land, this, of itself, must depress the 
 condition and circumstances of the whole body. This 
 it does, through intervention of the principle of popula- 
 tion ; by which it sustains, in perpetual being, the very 
 overplus which it is its object to dispose of. For, mark 
 the effect on general wages of the mere existence of such 
 an overplus. We believe that no where can the provi' 
 
EMIGRATION. 2t7 
 
 sion in question be so comfortable, as would be a situa- 
 tion of well-paid industry in any of the regular trades 
 or employments. Ere the former, then, will be sought 
 after, there must be an excessive, and so a disappointed 
 or defeated •competition for the latter; a competition 
 which, though proceeding from a very small surplus of 
 labourers, must, by an infallible law, effect a very great 
 reduction in the price of labour. It is easy to present a 
 beautiful sketch of home colonization, and tell, for ex- 
 ample, of the thousands who in this way have found a 
 harbour and an establishment in Holland. But the real 
 question by which the policy of such an institution is 
 determined is, whether it has operated any sensible relief 
 on the mass of society, or does not rather tend to bring 
 down tens and hundreds of thousands to that minimum 
 state in which they are hardly detained at their own oc- 
 cupation ; and that by but a hairbreadth of preference 
 over the state of a pauper agriculturist. In like man- 
 ner, the system of English charity has encouraged an 
 overflow of population, who fill up the asylum provided 
 for them in their numerous poor-houses; but not with- 
 out first inflicting a sore degradation on the price of la- 
 bour, and, what is worse, continuing to overhang, as by 
 a perpetual load, the labour market ; thus depressing, 
 and that permanently, the comfort and sufficiency of the 
 whole body of labourers. And the very same, we pre- 
 dict, would be the consequence of a regular and exten- 
 sive plan of emigration. It would at all times encou- 
 rage into being a certain fractional excess of people, 
 beyond the number who can be accommodated in decent 
 sufiiciency within the borders of their own land. And 
 so the alternative would need to be entertained, whether 
 they will prefer an exile abroad, or the pittance of a 
 scanty remuneration for their industry at home. But it 
 is an alternative not confined to them. There are not 
 two rates of wages ; one for the overplus, whom, indeed, 
 it were impossible specifically and individually to single 
 out ; and another for the general mass of the operatives 
 in society. All are brought down equally ; and, as in 
 the other instances, this attempt regularly and systema- 
 
 24* 
 
278 EMIGRATION. 
 
 tically to provide for a small aliquot part, ends in the 
 infliction of a universal calamity. So utterly powerless, 
 or rather so positively mischievous, is every expedient 
 for the amelioration of the people, that but adds, through 
 the medium of their own improvidence, to {he excess of 
 their numbers. The high road to their collective com- 
 fort and independence, and there is no other, is their 
 collective virtue, and intelligence, and worth. Ofi' from 
 this, both they and the patriots, or philanthropists who 
 care for them, will find themselves alike helpless and be- 
 wildered. They may institute a thousand devices, 
 schemes of benignant promise, smiling charities of good- 
 ly pretension and gracious aspect. They will all termi- 
 nate in nothing, or worse than nothing. They smile but 
 to betray. - 
 
 7. We feel quite assured then, that the country is in a 
 distempered condition, which is in the state of a vessel 
 constantly running over. Rather than this, it should be 
 in a state somewhat short of fulness. That policy must 
 be very questionable which provides an egress, but at 
 the same time encourages an ingress, that will certainly 
 equal, and even tends to overpass it. In other words, 
 emigration is any thing rather than a specific for the 
 wants of a country; and just because it stimulates popu- 
 lation. The abstracting process will yield no relief, if 
 the replacing process be more than proportionally ex- 
 cited thereby. And amid the general impotency of this 
 and all the former expedients, for the permanent com- 
 fort and well being of the population, we feel shut up 
 as to our only specific, to the operation of that moral 
 check which regulates and restrains the increase of our 
 species. 
 
 8. Yet though emigration, absolutely and of itself, 
 can do no permanent good, but the contrary, there are, 
 however, certain transition states in the history of a na- 
 tion, and certain processes of domestic and economical 
 reform, which, perhaps, it may subserve as a temporary 
 expedient. Certain it is, that no scheme of emigration 
 holds out such an incentive to population as does the 
 scheme of public charity which obtains in England ; and 
 
EMIGRATION. 279 
 
 we have sometimes thought, that if the more innocent 
 of the two schemes could, for a time, be rendered subsi- 
 diary to the abolition of the more hurtful one, it might 
 be the fit subject of a great national experiment.* Emi- 
 gration, though futile and ineffective of itself, may still, 
 as subsidiary to other schemes, be worthy of all the 
 attention of government. It is well to discriminate be- 
 tween those purposes to which it is utterly incompetent, 
 and those to which it may at least act as an important 
 auxiliary. When advocated on the former ground, it 
 lies open to a precipitate rejection ; while, if viewed on 
 the latter ground, it may recommend itself even to our 
 soundest economists, as a great and beneficent scheme of 
 national policy. When considered separately, and as a 
 mere expedient for taking off an excess of population, 
 we deem it to be utterly insignificant and useless. But 
 not so, when conjoined with other schemes of internal 
 or domestic economy ; and rightly adjusted, not to the 
 impracticable object of clearing away the excess of our 
 people by yearly abstractions, but to the higher and 
 more hopeful object of preventing that excess. 
 
 9. It is thus that it might be brought to bear, in 
 England, on the reformation of their pauperism. There 
 can be no doubt, that the provision held out by this sys- 
 tem of charity, has slackened the operation of the pre- 
 ventive check all over the country. It has multiplied 
 and precipitated marriages in every part of the land. It 
 has superseded the prudence and economy of the people; 
 and such is the relaxation of these habits, that a fearful 
 burden, both of vice and wretchedness, now lies upon 
 the commonwealth, with little prospect indeed of any al- 
 leviation. The legislature, as if hopeless of all remedy, 
 seems afraid to look at it. The spreading and deepen- 
 
 * We are sensible that, by this allusion to pauperism, we an- 
 ticipate the regular progress of our subjects; but we feel that it 
 might be done without violence, seeing that the majority of our read- 
 ers must be already enough occupied with the evils of the system. 
 Furthermore, our remarks on pauperism, in the next chapter, will be 
 but succinct and general, it being atopic on which we have suffi- 
 ciently dilated in former publications. 
 
280 EMIGRATION. 
 
 irig- Still further of a great popular corruption, is the 
 inevitable result of letting it alone ; and yet the attempt 
 to meddle with it appears to carry along with it the tre- 
 mendous hazard of a great popular violence. 
 
 10. We think that the pauperism of England, even in 
 its mildest, and some contend, its original form, has done 
 great mischief. To have vested with a legal claim of 
 relief, even the impotent and the aged, must have had its 
 ejffect in creating a more reckless and improvident pea- 
 santry, and so speeding unnaturally onward the rate of 
 population. But the more recently admitted claim of 
 the able bodied to relief, has had a still more direct and 
 obvious tendency the same vv^ay. It, in truth, acts as an 
 immediate bounty upon marriage. It is no restraint 
 upon the parties, in this step, that they are without 
 wages. In many of the English counties, they have 
 recourse upon the poor rates, and obtain an allowance 
 from it for each member of the household. In these cir- 
 cumstances, we are not to wonder at the immense num- 
 ber of juvenile marriages in England. The merest strip- 
 lings have been known to enter into this alliance. They 
 even threaten the parish vestries, that, if not more liberal 
 in their dispensations of relief, they will marry, and bring 
 upon them the additional burden of their wives and fami- 
 lies. In some instances, the vestries have felt themselves 
 obliged to rent, and even to furnish houses, for the re- 
 ception of the newly married couple. Who can ques- 
 tion the effects of such a system ? The whole of En- 
 glish pauperism may be regarded as a system of artifi- 
 cial incentives to population. But that part of it, more 
 especially, which consists in the maintenance of able 
 bodied labourers without employment, and which, there- 
 fore, acts as an encouragement to the guilt of both sexes 
 in the land, suppHes the most direct and powerful of 
 these incentives. 
 
 11. For ourselves, we do not approve of the late par- 
 tial attempts which have been made for the reformation 
 of English pauperism, by separating the question of a 
 legal relief for the able bodied, from the question of a 
 legal relief for the impotent poor ; since we hold that 
 
EMIGRATION. 281 
 
 there is a practicable method for gradually getting rid of 
 the whole. In either way, however, emigration might 
 be of powerful avail as an auxiliary ; and may, in par- 
 ticular, be adapted in a way peculiarly beneficial to the 
 case of those able bodied poor who make application to 
 the vestry, either because they are without employment, 
 or because they receive for it inadequate wages. It were 
 well could the alternative of emigration be offered to all 
 such applicants ; in which case, the legislature might be 
 less scrupulous in repealing, even instanfer, the applica- 
 tion of the poor's fund to the relief of able bodied la- 
 bourers. Or, if they choose to go more gradually to 
 work, it were still an important enactment, that all new 
 applicants from among the able bodied, all who made 
 application for the first time, should be thus dealt with, 
 that is, should be refused parish relief, but should, at the 
 same time, be met by the offer of certain facilities for 
 emigration. 
 
 12. When a scheme of emigration is thus tacked, as it 
 were, to a scheme for the reformation of pauperism, it 
 chano;es ahogether its character and tendency. It, by 
 itself, would stimulate population even beyond the relief 
 which it could effectuate. But, when thus conjoined, it 
 might help to restore the preventive check to its proper 
 force ; and do a great deal more, by its salutary influence 
 on the habits of our people at home, than by all its suc- 
 cessive shipments of the redundant families abroad. Even 
 the latter service, however, is important in this view, that 
 by it are chiefly carried off the breeders of the future ge- 
 neration ; the parents of incipient families, who at present 
 make application because of their increasing numbers ; or 
 the young men, who meditate, and even menace the parish 
 vestries with an impending marriage, that they might 
 make good a larger claim upon the poor's rate. Every 
 cargo of these effectuates not only a certain present, but a 
 great prospective relief to the land ; a relief which can 
 only be neutralized by a still further relaxation in the pru- 
 dential habits of those who are left behind, even that re- 
 laxation for which the system of pauperism is so deeply 
 responsible, but which every encroachment upon the 
 system must at least serve to diminishj if not to do away. 
 
282 EMIG^RATION. • 
 
 13. It is, therefore, to its wholesome reaction on the 
 prevalent and popular habit in regard to matrimony, that 
 we should look for the chief benefit of any such compound 
 arrangement as is now contemplated. Emigrations, se- 
 parately, would cause no such reaction ; but emigration, 
 coupled with the abolition of all right or claim to parish 
 relief at home, would operate, and that instantly, as a 
 check to those juvenile marriages which are now so fre- 
 quent in England. A young couple often will marry, 
 though altogether without means of their own, on the 
 prospect of immediate accommodation, however scanty, 
 being provided for them by the parish at home. But it 
 is utterly a mistake to imagine, that there is aught half so 
 alluring to their eyes, in the prospect of a fearful ocean 
 and an unknown wilderness beyond it. Of the ten who 
 would marry, in the certainty of its being followed up by 
 a parish allowance, we feel confident that there are nine 
 who would not do the same thing, with no other prospect 
 than that of having to renounce for ever the land of their 
 childhood. They would pause, and cast about, and wait 
 the means of their own independent maintenance, ere they 
 should throw themselves upon a necessity so revolting to 
 nature. In other words, they would feel compelled to a 
 postponement of the matrimonial alliance, or to that 
 measure which, after all, is the great, nay, the only step, 
 by which to resolve the problem of relief for the miseries 
 of an over peopled land. The refusal of parochial aid to 
 the able bodied, might safely be coupled with the alter- 
 native offer of assistance for their emigration; for, in the 
 vast majority of instances, the alternative would not be 
 taken : and so the people, committed to their own expe- 
 dients, and their own capabilities, would simply be resto- 
 red to that state, in which we behold the workmen and 
 the peasantry of every other country in Europe. The 
 labour market of England, freed from the disturbing force 
 of its present artificial pauperism, would henceforth be 
 left to the operation of natural principles ; and, in a few 
 years, not by the drainage without of emigration, but by 
 resurrection within of prudential habits, it would cease to 
 fee so oppressed and over laden by the number of labour- 
 
EMIGRATION. 283 
 
 ers. It is when thus adjusted to other, and greater 
 schemes of reform in our domestic economy, that the 
 scheme of emigration becomes really hopeful. While 
 viewed barely as an expedient for taking off the redun- 
 dant families of uur lanu, we fear that it can only be look- 
 ed upon with distrust; and that all those who are most 
 enlightened in the philosophy of public and political af- 
 fairs, can have no value for it. But it instantly acquires 
 a character of worth and of importance, when adapted to 
 the object of beneficial legislation upon so high an inter- 
 est as the pauperism of England ; and it should serve 
 to reconcile both parliament and the public to such enact- 
 ments as would mitigate, if not do away, the evils of a 
 system that has proved so hurtful to the comfort and the 
 moral habits of the population. However slight our es- 
 timate maybe of the absolute relief which emigration can 
 afford, yet, regarded as subsidiary to the amendment of 
 English pauperism, we should be sorry if the scheme were 
 to be altogether lost sight of; it being possessed of those 
 capabilities, and susceptible of those bearings, which make 
 it altogether worthy of being entertained as a great and 
 comprehensive scheme of national policy. 
 
 14. Yor, first, however desirable the enactment may 
 be, which should abolish the application of the poor's fund 
 to the able bodied, yet there is an apparent harshness or 
 inhumanity in the proceeding, fitted to revolt both a ge- 
 nerous public and a generous parliament. Now, emigra- 
 tion is fitted to remove this moral barrier in the way of a 
 most salutary reform. The men who are thus discarded 
 from their wonted resource, are not thrown into a state of 
 absolute helplessness. They have emigration between 
 them and entire want. There is something given, or 
 rather, something offered, for that which is taken away. 
 It is not by a deprivation, but by a compromise, that they 
 are dealt with. There are many of our legislators who 
 would never have consented to the deprivation, yet may, 
 perhaps, agree to the compromise. And this scheme of 
 emigration will have effected a high service, if it shall but 
 speed onward a right and a wise legislation, in a matter 
 that ranks among the very highest of our national ques- 
 
284 ' EMIGRATION. 
 
 tions, and than which there is none wherein the strength 
 and prosperity of the kingdom are more vitally interested. 
 
 15. And, secondly^ there is nothing which should very 
 much startle us, in this scheme, on the score of its expense. 
 We believe that the number who will emigrate is greatly 
 overrated. We are not to form our estimate upon this 
 subject by the number of those who have enlisted them- 
 selves as the members of Emigration Societies. Many 
 even of these, however zealous and active now in their 
 applications to government, would feel the preponderant 
 attraction of home, when the outfit, and the voyage, and 
 the everlasting leave of their native land, all looked at 
 them in good earnest. It is true, that necessity will force 
 men to any sacrifice ; and we can scarcely imagine a bet- 
 ter test of such necessity, than this offer of emigration. 
 It will be found, then, we predict, that a great many of 
 those who are now most clamorous for this relief, will not 
 avail themselves of it ; and that the vast majority of those 
 able bodied in England, who, at this moment are receiv- 
 ing parish allowances, would discover some other method 
 of finding for themselves, rather than encounter the peril 
 of an untried enterprise, and the pain of an eternal sepa- 
 ration from the country which gave them birth. On 
 these accounts, government might, with all safety, meet 
 the expense of such a scheme ; and it is an expense that 
 every 3^ear would lessen. For the colonies abroad, in 
 proportion as their richer and more accessible territory 
 was occupied, will hold out continually weaker allure- 
 ments to emigration ; and the country at home, in pro- 
 portion as it was lightened of its surplus families, (not by 
 abstraction, however, but by non-production, as we have 
 already explained,) will have stronger attractions, in the 
 ameliorated state of the people, for detaining them within 
 its own shores. It is thus that the number of applications, 
 so great, perhaps, at the first, as to appear quite formi- 
 dable, would perpetually decline ; and it would be found 
 that all the expense incurred, if indeed subservient to the 
 proposed amendment in the system of pauperism, were the 
 cheap purchase of so mighty a reformation. 
 
 16. But, thirdly^ the expense might not be defrayed 
 
EMIGRATION. 2S5 
 
 by government at all. It might be advanced by govern- 
 ment on the security of the land, and repaid, after a pe- 
 riod of years, by the emigrants themselves. Or it might 
 be paid by the parishes from which the families do emi- 
 grate ; and turn out, after all, a cheap substitute for the 
 far heavier expense of supporting these families at home. 
 Still, however, we hold the chief recommendation of the 
 scheme to lie, not in any primary or absolute virtue which 
 it possesses of itself, but in the important function which 
 belongs to it, as the auxiliary of another scheme for rid- 
 ding the country of its greatest moral and political nui- 
 sance. We think, that, if only adapted to this object, the 
 government might refrain from all that awkward legisla- 
 tion by which it is proposed to save the country from the 
 recurrence of that excessive population under which it 
 labours. There is no doubt, that, so long as pauperism 
 holds out an artificial encouragement to marriage, the 
 gap which any emigration, however large, may leave be- 
 hind it, will speedily be filled, and followed up, by as 
 great an overflow as before. But the way to correct this, 
 is not to lay restraint on the erection of cottages ; not to 
 neutralize the artificial encouragement by an artificial 
 prohibition ; not to counteract the violent or unnatural 
 legislation in one direction, by the opposing force of a 
 legislation as violent and as unnatural in another direc- 
 tion. The way to get rid of this whole complication is, 
 to abolish the one, and refrain from the others. By 
 simply doing away the application of the poor's fund to 
 the support of able bodied labourers, you restore the pre- 
 ventive check to its own proper and original energy; 
 after which the case may fearlessly be confided to the 
 workings of liberty and nature. 
 
 25 
 
28^ 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 ON A COMPULSORY PROVISION FOR THE INDIGENT.* 
 
 1. The last topic which we propose to -discuss, in 
 this catalogue of expedieots for the removal of want 
 from the human family, and the secure establishment 
 of a general prosperity and abundance in its place — is 
 a legal and compulsory provision for the poor. It 
 stands distinguished from all the former expedients, in 
 one important particular. Its object is, not the crea- 
 tion, but the division, of wealth. Its proposal, unless 
 in so far as it seeks employment for the poor, is, not 
 to create additional produce, but to share the existent 
 produce of the land more equally. It opens up no new 
 resources ; neither does it stimulate nor impart greater 
 fertility to the old ones. It proceeds, not in the way 
 of production, but in the way of partition ; and, with- 
 out enlarging the country's stock, would part it dif- 
 ferently from before. We have tried to demonstrate the 
 futility of all the other schemes, Avhen taken by them- 
 selves, for the economic melioration of the species — on 
 
 * In excuse for the very rapid survey of pauperism here, we beg to 
 state, that, elsewhere the subject has been treated by us at much 
 greater length and detail. The following are the titles of the various 
 publications — " The Christian and Civic Economy of Large Towns" 
 — ■" Speech before the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, 
 explanatory of the measures which have been successfully prosecuted 
 in St. John's Parish Glasgow, for the extinction of its compulsory 
 Pauperism" — " Evidence given, by us, before the Select Committee 
 of the House of Commons in 1830, on th^ State of the Poor in Ire- 
 land" — " Influence of Bible Societies on theTemporal Necessities 
 of the Poor." But, perhaps, the most complete view of our princi- 
 ples and methods in regard to the management of the poor, and with 
 the least expense of time or labour on the part of the reader, may be 
 had in a pamphlet entitled, " Statement in regard to the Pauperism 
 of Glasgow, from the Experience of Eight Years." 
 
COMPULSORY PROVISION FOR THE POOR. 287 
 
 che ground that, without the moral check by which to 
 restraia the nuaibers of mankiad, the addition made 
 to human subsistence woukl speedily be overtaken, or 
 swallowed up in the tide of an advancing population. 
 But, in the scheme now under review, we behold no 
 addition made to the stock of subsistence ; and it may 
 well discharge us from the obligation of an instant 
 faith in its efficacy, when we, moreover, think that, of 
 all the expedients, it is the most fitted to destroy the 
 moral check, and so to call forth an augmented popula- 
 tion, without the benefit of any augmented produce, by 
 which to meet the new demands itself had created. 
 
 2. It is evident, that every levy upon property for the 
 support of the indigent, trenches on the means of its 
 owners for the employment and maintenance of the dis- 
 posable population. There is no new provision created 
 under such an economy. A part of the old provision 
 is simply transferred, or withdrawn, from the sustenance 
 of one class to the sustenance of another class. Every 
 additional impost that is laid upon me in the shape of 
 poor's rate, lessens my abiUty to support those industri- 
 ous who are remunerated for their services by my ex- 
 penditure. Supplies are provided for the destitute in 
 one quarter of society, at the expense, not of my enjoy- 
 ments alone, but of privations to those who minister 
 these enjoyments in another quarter of society. And, 
 accordingly, it has been well observed, that for all the 
 visible relief effected by a poor's tax, there is as much 
 of real though unseen poverty created among those, 
 who have not yet entered within the territory of pau- 
 perism, but stand, a countless and untold multitude, 
 around the very margin of it. The distress is not 
 swept off from the face of the community. It is only 
 shifted to another, and generally a far more deserving 
 jelass of sufferers — to a mass of respectable families on 
 the verge of destitution ; struggling against the hard 
 necessity of descending amongst the throng of sturdy 
 appUcants for a legalized charity; and all the more 
 hopeless of relief, that the springs of gratuitous bene- 
 volence have beeii weU nigh dried up, by the heavy im- 
 
288 COMPULSORY PROVISION FOR THE POOR. 
 
 positions which the artificial or compulsory system ha^ 
 laid on the upper classes of society. It is thus, that, 
 by a sort of festering and spreading operation, the 
 sphere of destitution is constantly widening in every 
 parish, where the benevolence of love has been super- 
 seded by the benevolence of law. Generally speaking, 
 every year, or at least every decade of years, the pau- 
 perism, like a moral leprosy, makes a wider sweep 
 among the families than before. 
 
 3. We are not to wonder at such an effect, when we 
 advert to the mighty stimulus which this system of 
 public charity gives to population. It releases the 
 people from all care or concern about the coasequences 
 of their precipitate matrimony. This step is not delay- 
 ed, as in other countries, till the necessary outfit and 
 preparation for a family establishment shall have been 
 completed. All restraint is taken ofi", in the way of 
 early marriages; and the people, abandoned to improvi- 
 dence, multiply without limit, and beyond the capacity 
 of the parish to find them in profitable employment. 
 And the principle, on which a small excess in the num- 
 ber of labourers works a great reduction in the price of 
 labour, then comes into sure operation. It is the same 
 principle with that on which the price of necessaries 
 fluctuates more largely, with minuter variations in their 
 supply, than the price of luxuries. A man can more 
 easily give up a fraction of his wonted allowance in the 
 latter, than in the former. He can more easily slacken 
 his demand for the one, upon any short-coming in the 
 supply, and so prevent an inordinate rise of price. 
 But he cannot so well slacken his demand for the other j 
 and so, in virtue of the more intense competition, there 
 will be a disproportional rise in the price of the more 
 important, because essential commodities. The price 
 of bread will rise greatly more than a tenth, perhaps a 
 third, though the crops should be deficient only by a 
 tenth. And thus it is, though in a reverse way, that 
 the price of labour falls greatly beyond any increase 
 which may have taken place in the number of labour- 
 ers. The demand for employment^ when like to h% 
 
COMPULSORY PKOVISION FOR THE POOR. 289 
 
 deficient, is just as intense as is the demand for necessa- 
 ries, when these are like to be deficient. Employment, 
 in fact, is the great vehicle through which the people 
 arrive at the necessaries of life; and when, by the su- 
 perabundant supply of labour, there is a relative defi- 
 ciency of employment, its wages will oscillate as large- 
 ly in consequence, as does the price of the first neces- 
 saries of existence. A very slight overplus of work- 
 men, will create a very sensible and general reduction 
 in the price paid for their work; and thus by the con- 
 nexion which obtains between a system of pauperism, 
 and an increase, even though it should be small, in the 
 numbers of the people, is pauperism responsible for a 
 very sore depression in the condition and circumstances 
 of the whole body.* 
 
 4. There is no such efiect to be apprehended fi'om 
 the ministrations of spontaneous and individual bene- 
 volence; injudicious, though it occasionally be, in its 
 objects and its doings. There is no such system or 
 certainty in its operations, as would lead to the same 
 general dependence that is now felt in England, on the 
 allowances of a legal charity. Individual charity can 
 withdraw itself at pleasure, and will naturally decline 
 the protection and encouragement of the worthless. 
 But worthlessness, and that too of the grossest descrip- 
 tion, can compel, in its own behalf, the dispensations 
 of the legal charity, and cast upon it the burden of all 
 its own extravagance and folly. We have no such 
 consequence to fear, from the fortuitous and free gratui- 
 ties of the philanthropist, as from the regulated minis- 
 trations of the parish vestry, which are conducted irre- 
 spective of character, and require no other qualification 
 than the actual indigence of the applicant. In the con- 
 
 * And as a small increase in the numbers of the people might ope- 
 rate a large depression in their circumstances, so might a small re- 
 eduction in their numbers operate a large relief. An improvement in 
 their moral and prudential habits, -would very speedily effect an im« 
 provement in their economic condition ; when, with not much fewer 
 people than before, we should behold this change in the distribtttioa 
 lof tkem — ^a larger secondary, and a smaller disposable class @f 
 labourers. 
 
290 COMPULSORY PROVISION FOR THE POOR/ 
 
 cerns of private benevolence, there is a delicacy felt 
 on the one side, and a discrimination exercised upon 
 the other; which, confined withal to incidental caseSj 
 form effectual guarantees against any general relaxation 
 of moral or providential habits, as the fruit of its libe- 
 ralities. But the benevolence of law holds out a whole- 
 sale bounty and temptation to improvidence. It has 
 changed the timid supplications of want, into so many 
 stout and resolute demands for justice. The cry of the 
 distressed few for pity, has been strangely transformed 
 by it, into the cry of a whole population for the redress 
 and rectification of their grievances. All the tender- 
 ness of charity on the one hand, and all its delicacy on 
 the other, have been put to flight, by this metamorpho- 
 sis of a matter of love, into a matter of angry litigation; 
 and we now behold the formidable array of a multitude, 
 fired with a sense of oppression against the upper class- 
 es of society, when, in fact, it is the oppression of their 
 own numbers that has sunk them into a state of abject 
 prostration, from which, while the present system con- 
 tinues, no wisdom and no benevolence of man can save 
 them. 
 
 5. This system of legal charity is replete with all 
 sorts of miscliief. In the first place, by a direct tend- 
 ency to multiply its objects, there is more of unprovid- 
 ed want in every region it lights upon, than there 
 would havG been without its ministrations. Beyond 
 the margin of its operations, there is a far greater mass 
 of unreached and unrelieved misery, than we should 
 have had in toio, had no such system been instituted. 
 In other words, public charity, so far from narrowing 
 the territory of human wretchedness, has widened and 
 extended it; and thus left a greater field than it at first 
 entered on, for the exercise of that private charity, 
 which it has at the same time weakened, both in its 
 means and in its motives. It has deadened, as is pa-, 
 tent to all observation, the charit}^ of relatives, the 
 charity of immediate neighbours, the charity of the af- 
 fluent. It has therefore wrought a double mischief, 
 ^creating a greater amount of indigence than before; and 
 
COMiPULSORY PROVISION FOR THE POOR. 291 
 
 ^•ongealing the sources, whence, in a natural and undis- 
 turbed state of things, this indigence would have looked 
 for its relief, and not been disappointed. By every 
 step it moves in advance, instead of approaching its 
 primary and professed object, which was to curtail the 
 sufferings of the poor, and if possible overtake them, it 
 recedes to a greater and more hopeless distance away 
 from it. In its economic design, which was to lessen 
 or altogether remove the wants of the population, it has 
 been foiled, and that most signally — so much, that, in 
 very proportion to the largeness of its dispensationvS, 
 do we behold a more straitened and distressed, and 
 withal, a greatly more dissatisfied peasantry. 
 
 6. But if it have deviated from the true economic 
 interest, it has more widely deviated from a still higher 
 object of patriotism, even the moral interest of society. 
 So intimately blended, indeed, are these two elements, 
 that in every step of that degenerating process^ which 
 a compulsory provision for the poor never fails to ori- 
 ginate, the economic and the moral deterioration go 
 hand in hand. For how is it that indigence has been 
 so multiplied under this system ? Not alone by the 
 imprudence which it has generated; as may be seen in 
 the reckless marriages, and in the relaxed industry and 
 economy of the people. But also in the vice which it 
 has generated; the low and loathsome dissipation; the 
 profligacy of both sexes; with all the mischief which 
 proceeds from idleness, and through which the pauper- 
 ism of England has become so deeply responsible for 
 its immoralities and its crimes. And how is it, again, 
 that charity has waxed cold ? Because law has endea- 
 voured, however unsuccessfully, to cut off the occasions 
 and the calls which nature had provided for its exer- 
 cise. Hence the abandonment of children by their pa- 
 rents, and the desertion of parents by their children 
 back again. Hence the frequent spectacle, in every 
 parish, of run-away husbands, and of nearest relatives 
 alienated in affection, because released from the obliga- 
 tions of duty to each other. And not only have the ties 
 of relationship been broken, but the ties and sympathies 
 
292 COMPULSORY PROVISION FOR THE POOR. 
 
 of neighbourhood. The charity of law has superseded 
 the charities both of home and neighbourhood. By ab- 
 solving the people from all mutual care, it has well nigh 
 stifled within them all the feelings of mutual kindness. 
 *' Am I my brother's keeper ?" is the question practical- 
 ly put by those whom nature designed to be the guar- 
 dians and the helps of each other; it being; a question 
 prompted by the lying promises of the system under 
 which they live, and which has undertaken, though it 
 never can fulfil, the guardianship of them all. And it 
 has not only weakened the cement which binds toge- 
 ther the contiguous parts of the social edifice, but it has 
 effected a menacing disruption or rent between the 
 higher and the lower divisions of it. There is in En- 
 gland a gulf of separation between the rich and the poor, 
 exemplified, we believe, in no other land; where the 
 parties regard each other as natural enemies — the one 
 challenging what they feel to be their rightful allow- 
 ances; the other resisting what they fear to be inter- 
 minable, and at length ruinous demands. The barriers 
 of property have given way before the tide of an unre- 
 strained population ; and there is now a close and fierce 
 conflict, between a sense of rightful possession on the 
 one side, and the unappeased urgencies and wants of an 
 ever-increasing multitude upon the other. The poor 
 look to the rich as hard-hearted oppressors, detaining 
 with stern gripe what nature and humanity pronounce 
 to be theirs; the rich look to the poor as so many poach- 
 ers on their domain. Compassion on the one side, and 
 gratitude on the other, are alike unknown. The golden 
 line of life, reaching from the apex of society to its 
 basement, is dissevered ; nor can we imagine, in conse- 
 quence, a state of greater precariousness than that into 
 which this system of public charity has brought us; or 
 one that bodes more fearfully for the good order, or rather 
 the stability of the commonwealth. It has, in fact, 
 vitiated and distempered the whole breath of society in 
 England. There now sits an unnatural scowl on the 
 aspect of the population, a resolved sturdiness in their 
 attitude and gait; and, whether we look to the profane 
 
COMPULSORY PROVISION FOR THE POOR. 29S 
 
 recklcvssness of their habits, or to the deep and settled 
 hatred that rankles in their liearts, we cannot but read, 
 in these moral characteristics of this land, the omens of 
 some great and impending overthrow. 
 
 7. And it adds to our hopelessness; that the growing 
 disposition on the part of rulers, is not to retrace this 
 sore evil, but rather to rivet and extend it. In the 
 face of all the English experience, Ireland, we fear, is 
 about to welcome the footsteps of this most baleful 
 pestilence; the worst visitor, in the midst of all her 
 grievances and wrongs, that ever lighted on her shores. 
 It is in those counties of England where public charity 
 has done its uttermost, that distress lifts the most ap- 
 palling outcry ; and yet is this the Very specific, which, 
 with their eyes opened, our statesrrien are on the eve 
 of administering, as their infallible remedy for the 
 distress of Ireland. What has led to outrages of 
 greatest atrocity in the one land, is to be transferred, 
 and that with the design of quelling and allaying for 
 ever, all outrage and discontent in the other land. 
 The mightiest known stimulant of population, is now 
 being brought to bear on the most over-peopled country 
 in Europe. And to organize a nation yet in the wild- 
 ness of its infancy, that system is to be introduced, 
 which is evidently breakinii; up the frame- work of a 
 society, where law, and civilization, and order, have 
 had their abode for centuries. It is often by impulse, 
 and not by reason, that public sentiment is drifted 
 along ; causing a tide in the aifairs of men, which no 
 wisdom, no experience can stem. There seems, at 
 tiraes, a blind and headlong necessity even in the moral 
 world, which can no more be withstood than the 
 currents of the ocean ; transitions in the history of 
 nations, during which, man, as if struck by impotency, 
 stands in passive and trembling abeyance, till the hur- 
 ricane have blown over him ; till the sweeping anarchy, 
 resistless as the onset of the elements, have spent its 
 violence, and the high ordinations of Providence are 
 fulfilled. 
 
 8. In the treatment of this controversy, romance and 
 
294 COMPULSORY PROVISION FOR THE POOR 
 
 reality have been confounded together; and the lessons 
 of sober experience have been as little regarded, as if 
 they were the reveries of unsubstantial imagination. 
 What truth, for example, of firmer and homelier cast, 
 01 more remote from the visions of fairy land, than the 
 strength of the parental and relative affections ] Or 
 what admits of being more familiarly verified, than the 
 promptitude of that mutual sympathy and aid, which 
 obtain in every neighbourhood, when some signal visita- 
 tion of distress has come upon any of the families 1 It 
 is by stifling the exercise of these principles, and laying 
 arrest on these undoubted and universal processes, that 
 a public and legalized provision for the poor, has 
 wrought one of its deadliest inflictions on the cause 
 of humanity, by closing far kindlier and more effectual 
 sources of relief Uian itself has opened. Yet this plain 
 statement, capable though it most decisively be, both 
 of arithmetical and observational proof, is ridiculed and 
 resisted, just as if it were a fond or high-coloured illu- 
 sion, drawn from some fictitious region of Arcadia. 
 Bhall we refrain, it is asked, from a tax on the Irish 
 absentees, that scope and opportunity might be left for 
 some rare or romantic elevation of virtue among the 
 Irish peasantry 1 Now, the virtue for which we con- 
 tend, in our opposition to a poor's law, is neither rare 
 nor romantic. We object not to any amount of taxation 
 on the landed absentees of Ireland, if the produce of it 
 shall be usefully, or even innocently applied. But, if 
 applied in a legal and public way to the relief of indi- 
 gence, we aflfirm, on the known laws of human nature, 
 and on the grounds of a manifold experience, that — - 
 inultiplying, with the one hand, the objects of destitu- 
 tion, and intercepting, with the other, those numerous, 
 though unseen supplies, which circulate, at the bidding 
 of nature, among the households, and throughout all 
 the vicinities of the land — it will act, by a sort of two- 
 edged malignity, in aggravating the individual distress, 
 and along with it, the moral and political distempers of 
 Jreland. 
 
 9. Moreover, the influence of a poor's law on the 
 gtate of geneial comfort in a land, is complicated with 
 
COMPULSORY PROVISION FOR THE POOR. 295 
 
 many other influences ; and this has thickened still more 
 the difficulties of the question. The common people of 
 England stand palpably higher in the scale of enjoyment 
 than those of Ireland; and this is enough for an impatient 
 or immediate decision, with minds which have only room 
 or comprehension for but one idea. It is forgotten that, 
 irrespective either of the want or presence of a poor's 
 law, the people of England and Ireland admit as little 
 of being compared together, and differ as widely in their 
 circumstances, as the peasantry of Norway do from the 
 strangling hordes of Kamschatka. The law, the com- 
 merce, the industry, the Protestantism, the advanced ci- 
 vilization of England, have elevated the habits and state 
 of the general community there; and would have done 
 so still higher, had it not been for the depressing and 
 counteracting influence of their poor's laws. The 
 misgovernment, the yet untutored rudeness, the want 
 of humanizing intercourse between the higher and 
 lower classes, the dark and degrading Popery, which 
 obtain in Ireland — have kept down the tastes and com- 
 forts of the general community there ; and these would 
 have sunk still lower, had a poor's law been superadded 
 to the other causes of a people's degradation. The 
 way to escape from the bewildering influence of this 
 complexity, is to look to England singly, and compare 
 the different parts of it ; or to Ireland singly, and compare 
 the different parts of it. In the one country, a poor's 
 rate is universal; and where do we find the most dis- 
 tressed and dissatisfied peasantry ? Just in the southern 
 counties, where the levies and the expenditure of public 
 charity are the largest — proving^, that the genuine effect 
 of the system is to depress, and not to elevate. In the 
 other country, the want of a poor's rate, is universal ; 
 and where, again, do we find the least distress and the 
 lightest burden of mendicity ? Just in those northern 
 counties, where a Protestant education, and Protestant 
 habits, are to be found — proving on the other hand, the 
 omnipotence of moral causes, and that, after all, the 
 true sources of a nation's well-being lie deeply seated 
 in the mind and character of the population. 
 
 10. Could one divest himself of all philanthropy and 
 
^96 COMPULSORY PROVISION FOR THE POOR. 
 
 patriotism, and place every human feeling in abeyance, 
 save a mere philosophical interest in the question — he 
 might hail the experiment of a poor's law in Ireland. 
 But there were a cruelty in this ; like that of the cold- 
 blooded physiologist, who in his experiments on ani- 
 mated nature, could inflict every species of torture for the 
 verification of a doctrine. We believe the attempt, 
 whenever it is made, will be a most instructive one— but 
 at the fearful expense of greatly augmented distress, 
 and, at length, of entire and uncontrollable anarchy to 
 the land. With the consequent insecurity and fall of 
 property, one of the greatest holds of social order will be 
 broken ; and in the scramble which must ensue, we can 
 perceive no other result, than the confusion and the 
 conflicts, and withal, the growing penury and strait- 
 iiess which attach to a state of unlimited agrarianism. 
 There will be a rapid equalization of fortunes — terminat- 
 ing, if not anticipated by some great political explosion, 
 in the equality of a common and overwhelming wretch- 
 edness. Had England, in this goodly endeavour to 
 assimilate Ireland to herself, but laboured to impart of 
 her real and substantial blessings, and given to her sis- 
 ter island the light, and the liberty, and the industrious 
 habits, of her own population — this had been some 
 atonement for the misrule of centuries. But, instead of 
 this, she presents her with the virus of that moral gan- 
 grene wherewith herself is infected ; she deposits the 
 seeds of that disease under which she is now ebbing 
 onward to dissolution ; and, in the dotage of her own 
 expiring weakness, holds out, to the willing acceptance 
 of a deceived people, that which, under the semblance 
 of a benefit and a boon, is laden with the misery of 
 future generations.* 
 
 * Some have assimilated an endowment for the relief of indi- 
 gence, to an endowment for the support of literary or Christian 
 instruction. The two cases, so far from being at all like in principle, 
 stand in direct and diametric opposition to each other. We desi- 
 derate the latter endowment, because of the languor of the intellectual 
 or spiritual appetency ; insomuch that men, left to themselves, sel- 
 dom, or never, originate a movement towards learning. We de- 
 precate the former endowment, because, in the strength of the 
 
tOMlPULSORY PROVISION FOR THE POOR. ^91' 
 
 11. But to return from this digression. So long as 
 ^ compulsory provision for the poor is the established 
 system of any country, the great, the only specific for its 
 economic well-being is kept completely at abeyance. 
 It is the sure and rapid advance of population which 
 gives such powerlessness, or leaves such a short-lived 
 efficacy to every other expedient. No augmentation of 
 resources from without, can keep head against the 
 stimulated over-growth of this all-devouring energy 
 from within. There may be perpetual accessions to the 
 bulk, but none whatever to the comfort of society. A 
 more unfortunate device could not have been imagined, 
 hy which to neutralize the good of all possible enlarge- 
 ments, from whatever quarter they may be afforded to 
 us. No enriching process, whether by agriculture, or 
 by home and foreign trade, or by the removal of exist- 
 ing burdens, will countervail that process, by which, 
 under the system of a bounty for the multiplication of 
 the species, one and all of them must be so speedily 
 overtaken. The pressure may, for a time, be slackened; 
 or a few short respites of felt ease and enlargement may 
 mark our successive advancements, towards the state 
 of a greater community than before. But the tide of 
 population, and more especially when urged forward by 
 pauperism, that arch-destroyer of all prudence and 
 principle among the families, will keep us permanently 
 sure of at least one unchanged and unchangeable ele- 
 ment—and that is, as wretched a community as before. 
 If, in virtue of a moral restraint, consequent on the 
 
 physical appetency, we have the surest guarantee that men will do 
 their uttermost for food ; and a public charity, having this for its 
 object, by lessening the industry and forethought that would have 
 been otherwise put forth in the cause, both adds to the wants, and 
 detracts from the real worth and virtue of the species. And, besides, 
 there is no such strength of compassion for the safFerings of the 
 moral or spiritual, that there is for those of physical destitution. An 
 endowment for education maybe necessary to supplement the one, 
 while an endowment for charity may do the greatest moral and 
 economic mischief, by superseding the other. Relatives and neigh- 
 bours could bear to see a man ignorant, or even vicious. They could 
 not bear to see him starve. 
 
 26 
 
298 COMPULSORY PROVISION FOR THE POOii. 
 
 growing taste and education of our people, their num- 
 bers could be kept sufficiently within the limit of their 
 means ; this, of itself, would be the unfailing guaianlee 
 of a general and wide-spread abundance, whether with, 
 or without, any external augmentation. But, with the 
 litter recklessness engendered by a poor's law, all such 
 hopes must be given to the wind. And, whatever re- 
 forms may take place, whether in the political or econo- 
 mical systems of our land, let all taxes, and tithes, and 
 monopolies, and inequalities of right or privilege, be 
 done away, with the continuance of this single law, 
 the power and promise of all these expedients will 
 utterly come to nought ; and we shall have no other 
 prospect before us, than one of helpless and ever-increas- 
 ing deterioration. 
 
 12. But the full effects of such a system will be anti- 
 cipated by its own violent overthrow. From its very 
 nature it cannot last; containing, as it does, within it- 
 self, the sure seeds of dissolution. The radical error of 
 a poor's law consists, in its assigning the same treatment 
 to an indeterminate, which is proper only to a determi- 
 nate virtue. The virtue of humanity ought never to 
 have been legalized, but left to the spontaneous work- 
 ings of iman's own willing and compassionate nature. 
 Justice, with its precise boundary and well-defined 
 rights, is the fit subject for the enactments of the statute- 
 book; but nothing can be more hurtful and heterogene- 
 ous, than thus to bring the terms, or the ministrations 
 of benevolence, under the bidding of authority. This 
 fatal mistake involves in it a great deal more than a 
 mere scholastic incongruity; or, but the commission of 
 violence on an abstract principle. So nicely adapted is 
 the mechanism of human society, to the axioms of the 
 most deeply, if but soundly philosophical jurisprudence, 
 that any law which contravenes these, will soon betray 
 tke flaw in its principle, by the palpable mischief which 
 it works on the face of the commonwealth. The claims 
 of justice are definite and precise, and withal, strictly 
 accordant to the natural sense of morality; so that the 
 law which enforces these, while it compels the observ- 
 
COMPULSORY PROVISION FOR THE POOR. 299 
 
 ance of certain intelligible limits and lines of demarca- 
 tion, is acquiesced in by the general mind of society. 
 But the law which would enforce charity can fix no 
 limits, either to the ever-increasing wants of a poverty 
 which itself hath created, or to the insatiable desires and 
 demands of a population, whom itself hath corrupted 
 and led astray. Under this system, all is lax, and pre- 
 carious, and indefinite. The holders of property can see 
 no end to the exactions of pauperism. And the nurs- 
 lings of pauperism, with their constantly-increasing 
 number and necessities, will overpass every limit in their 
 aggressions upon property. The growing alarm on the 
 one side, the growing distress upon the other, form the 
 sure elements of an interminable warfare, which, if not 
 prevented by timely reformation, must at length effer- 
 vesce into an anarchy, that will alike sweep off all the 
 good and evil of present institutions, a^d make room 
 on the desolated void for the foundations of a new-mo- 
 delled commonwealth. 
 
 13. We should most gladly abjure this whole argu- 
 ment, could we think that the charity of law at all less- 
 ened the amount of human suffering, or that distress 
 was not far more effectually, as well as kindly met by 
 the charity of spontaneous nature. Could the ministra- 
 tions of relief have been provided for by law and justice, 
 then compassion may have been dispensed with as a su^ 
 perfluous part of the human constitution; whereas the 
 very insertion of such a feeling or tendency within us, 
 is proof in itself, of a something separate and additional 
 for it to do ; of a distinct province in human affairs, 
 within which this fine sensibility of the heart met with 
 its appropriate objects, and, by its right acquittal of 
 them, fulfilled the design which nature had in so endow- 
 ing us. But by this unfortunate transmutation, this 
 metamorphosis of a thing of love into a thing of law, this 
 invasion by justice beyond its own proper domain on the 
 field of humanity — -nature has been traversed in her ar- 
 rangements, and the office of one human faculty has 
 been awkwardly and mischievously transferred to ano- 
 ther. And the effect is just what might be always an- 
 
300 COMPULSORY PROVISION FOR THE POOR* 
 
 ticipated, when the laws and adaptations of divine wis- 
 dom are contravened by the short-sighted pohcy of 
 man. Justice should have been left to do the things of 
 justice f and humanity to do the things of humanity. 
 But by the aggression of the one upon the other, this 
 beautiful and beneficent order has been thwarted, and 
 the consequence has been a very sore aggravation to the 
 ills of society. By the interference of law with the 
 business of charity, a two-fold mischief has been wrought. 
 Human distress has been multiplied, and human com- 
 passion, its natural protector, has been weakened and 
 paralyzed. And by the truly unfortunate meeting of 
 these two consequences, there has been left, as the 
 compound and aggravated result of both, a ten-fold 
 burden of unrelieved suffering upon the community. 
 We say not, that the charity of compassion would have 
 overtaken all the distress. But we say, that the charity 
 of compulsion has fallen many times short of it, beside 
 the bitterness and the poison which it infuses into the 
 morale of society; lighting up a thousand jealousies and 
 heart-burnings between the poor and the richj and con- 
 verting an interchange of good-will on the one side, and 
 gratitude on the other, into a conflict of fierce and ran- 
 corous antipathies between these two great parties in 
 the commonwealth. 
 
 14. It forms no exception to our principle, but is 
 rather its legitimate consequence, that, while we depre- 
 cate a legal and compulsory provision for indigencCj 
 there is a certain species of public charity that we advo- 
 cate to the uttermost. There are certain distresses in- 
 cidental to humanity, the inflictions of necessity and 
 nature, which cannot be too openly or too liberally pro- 
 vided for. There is all the difference that can be ima- 
 gined^ in point both of p)rinciple and effect, between an 
 institution for the relief of want, and an institution for 
 the relief of disease. The one multiplies its objects. 
 Not so the other. The one enlists the human will on 
 its side. The other will ever remain the object of pain- 
 ful reluctance and revolt to all the feelings of our sen- 
 tient nature. Open a door of admission for the iudigent^ 
 
COMPULSORY PROVISION FOR THE POOR. 301 
 
 and we shall behold a crowd of applicants increasing 
 every year, because lured thitherward by the inviting 
 path of indolence or dissipation. Open a door for the 
 admission of the diseased, and we shall only have a de- 
 finite number of applicants. Men will become volunta- 
 rily poor, but they will not become voluntarily blind or 
 deaf, or maimed or lunatic. It is thus, that while an 
 asylum for want creates more objects than it can satisfy; 
 an asylum for disease creates none, but may meet all 
 and satisfy all. Public charity has been profuse where 
 it ought not, and it has also been niggardly where it 
 ought not. It is a disgrace to our philanthropic age^ 
 if infirmaries, or dispensaries, or asylums, whether for 
 the cure of mental and bodily disease, or for the keeping 
 of that which is incurable, are left to languish from want 
 of support, or compelled to stop short, ere the necessity 
 for which they were instituted has been fully and finally 
 overtaken. 
 
 26* 
 
So^ 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 ON THE CHRISTIAN EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 1. We are now drawing towards that great conclu- 
 sion, for the sake of which we have described the very 
 lengthened course of our by- gone argument. We have 
 laboured to demonstrate the futility of every expedient, 
 which a mere political economy can suggest for the per- 
 manent well-being of a community. At best, they but 
 tend to enlarge the absolute wealth of a country, with- 
 out enlarging the relative comfort of the people who live 
 in it. They may conduct to a larger, but not, on that 
 account, to a happier society. They may tell on the 
 condition of families, during those brief and evanescent 
 seasons, when the population is somewhat in rear of the 
 wealth; but, on the moment that this distance is over- 
 taken, there will be the same straitness and discomfort 
 as before. In new countries, there might be a career of 
 sensible advancement for centuries to come. But in 
 old countries, if we count only on external resources, or 
 the increase of means for the support of a population, 
 leaving their numbers to proceed as they may, there is 
 positively nothing which can save us from the habitual 
 state of felt insufficiency and narrowness. There may 
 be gleams of prosperity during the fluctuations, or the 
 few short and successive stretches of enlargement which 
 are yet in reserve for us. But all around, and in every 
 possible direction, there is a besetting limit, which the 
 mighty tide of an advancing population tends to over-^ 
 pass, and which, being impassible, throws the tide back 
 again upon general society; charged, as it were, with a 
 distress and a disorder that are extensively felt through-, 
 out the old countries of the civilized world. The only 
 question remains then, Is there no way by which the 
 
EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 303 
 
 tide can be arrestedj before it comes into contact and 
 collision with the barrier that repels it 1 Or, can the re* 
 dundancy be prevented by a moral and pacific influence, 
 rather than checked by the evils of extreme poverty, or 
 that destroying turbulence which so often results from 
 the distress and destitution of an over-peopled land 1 
 
 2. The high road, then, to a stable sufficiency and 
 comfort among the people, is through the medium of 
 their character ; and this effectuated by other lessons 
 altogether than those of political economy. We object 
 not to the utmost possible illumination of the popular 
 mind; nor do we share in the antipathies of those who 
 would refuse science to the multitude. It is not, how- 
 ever, by the instructions of the economic, but by those 
 of a higher school, that the best economic condition of 
 society will at length be reahzed. It is possible for men 
 to bear an essential part in the workings of a mechan- 
 ism, of whose principles and whose theory they are alto- 
 gether unconscious- — ^just as the planetary masses are 
 unconscious of the magnificent regularity to which their 
 own movements have given rise. The moving force, 
 that is to advance the general multitude to a better and 
 higher condition than they now occupy, will not be 
 brought to bear upon them by the demonstrations, how- 
 ever just, of any theory; and, in fact, the right impulse, 
 and the right habit, have often been exemplified, and by 
 large classes of peasantry, before the theory of popula- 
 tion was ev^r heard of. It is so in Norway; and, most 
 assuredly, without any innoculation of principle from 
 the school of Malthus. It was so in Scotland, long 
 before the promulgation of his doctrines. In both 
 countries, they realized, in practice, what, in system and 
 philosophy, they did not understand. A moral and in- 
 telligent peasantry, imbued with a taste for the respec- 
 tabilities of life, mixing prudence and foresight with 
 every great practical step in the history of their doings, 
 holding it discreditable to enter upon marriage without 
 the likelihood of provision for a family — such a peasant- 
 ry have more than once been exhibited in the annals of 
 ike world, and may be made to re-appear. If, by any 
 
304 EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 means, the elements of such a character can again be 
 put together, and made general in society, we should 
 behold the exemplification of the Malthusian doctrine, 
 with or without the comprehension of its principles. It 
 is not, most assuredly, the study of these principles that 
 will germinate the character ; and it is from another 
 quarter altogether, than the demonstrations of political 
 economy, that we are to obtain the fulfilment of those 
 blessings to society, which the science can only point 
 out, without being able to realize. 
 
 3. On no other subject does Christianity more evince 
 its immense importance to the well-being of society. 
 In the first place, it is quite palpable that they are its 
 earnest and devoted teachers, who have the greatest 
 power in drawing the multitude to their lessons, and esta- 
 blishing for themselves that most secure and deeply- 
 seated of all popularity, which is grounded on the sacred- 
 ness of their office, and on the subserviency of its faith- 
 ful ministrations to the comfort, and the virtue, and the 
 dearest interests of families. The mere disciples of a 
 general literature or politics, little reflect on the pro- 
 digious force of that moral ascendancy which is pos- 
 sessed by a parish clergyman, who superadds, to the at- 
 traction of his pulpit, the charm and the efficacy of 
 his household services ; and who, by the countless at- 
 tentions of an unwearied Christian benevolence, has 
 ingratiated both his person and his cause with the 
 hearts of those among whom he expatiates. His di- 
 rect aim is neither to purchase a reputation for him- 
 self, nor even to advance the temporal comfort of his 
 people. It is to prepare them for immortality | yet, in 
 the single-hearted prosecution of this object, he be- 
 comes the all-powerful, though, perhaps, the unconscious 
 instrument of those secondary, those subordinate bless- 
 ings, which form the only ones that a mere worldly 
 philanthropist cares for. The truth is, that the lessons 
 of the gospel which he teaches, are all on the side of 
 reflection, and sobriety, and that loftiness of character 
 which consists in the predominance of the moral over 
 the animal nature of man. A disciple of the New 
 
EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 305 
 
 Testament, whose views are sublimed by its doctrines 
 and its hopes, has gotten a superiority over the passions ; 
 a certain nobility of soul ; a reach of perspective to dis- 
 tant consequences, whether on this, or the other side 
 of the grave ; an ascendancy of sentiment over sense ; 
 and, withal, a refinement and elevation of taste, which 
 though caught at first from converse with spiritual and 
 eternal things, still adheres to him, even when busied 
 with the interests and concerns of the present life : and 
 these, altogether, form the best guarantees against that 
 impetuous appetency, which first leads to early mar- 
 riages, and afterwards lands in squalid destitution, the 
 teeming families that spring from them. And, besides, 
 in that book there are so many pointed admonitions, 
 that each should provide for himself, and for his own 
 household ; such a preference for the single state, 
 when the married endangers a man's Christianity, or 
 his performante of its duties ; such great examples, as 
 well as precepts of independence — especially by Paul 
 who says, that " if a man will not work, neither should 
 he eat," and who himself laboured, with his own 
 hands, for the supply of his own necessities, rather than 
 be burdensome ; that, as the undoubted effect upon the 
 whole, the honest and frequent perusal of Scripture by 
 a Christian people, does associate, in their minds, both 
 the present and the prospective cares of a family with 
 the solemn duties of rekigion. This is not a picture, 
 but a reality, often exemplified in the abode of a cot- 
 tage patriarch — where, along with his Christianity, we 
 may witness a suflOiciency, and a cast of elevation, not 
 to be found in the houses of the irreligious and the un- 
 holy. The very librar}^ of old and favourite authors 
 upon his shelves, is but in keeping with the general 
 fulness of a tenement, usually better stocked and pro- 
 vided than that of any of his fellows. The Christianity 
 of the man has engendered a wisdom, and a consist- 
 ency, and a self-command, that led him to begin well 
 in his entrance upon a family ; and so to build up a 
 respectable suflSciency, which, with a reckless and pre* 
 dpitate commencement, he could never have attained. 
 
306 EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 An individual Christian is generally in better comfort 
 and condition than other men. A whole parish of 
 Christians would be a parish of well-conditioned fami- 
 lies. 
 
 4. But here it is of importance to remark, that, for 
 the production of a general economic effect, we have 
 not to wait the production of a general Christianity. 
 When expatiating on the connexion between these two 
 elements, we have often to encounter a certain shrewd 
 incredulity, as if an expectation of a more elevated 
 state for the majority hung on the fulfilment of a prior 
 expectation, which is in itself Utopian — even that the 
 majority shall be converted. The imagination is, that 
 for the purpose of any great or sensible effect in this 
 way, the religious character must be of co-extensive 
 magnitude with the economic improvement ; whereas 
 there is no truth, of which the most faithful and experi- 
 enced of our clergymen have a firmer, though it be a 
 melancholy assurance, than the exceeding rarity of con- 
 version — there being many streets in our cities, many 
 parishes in our land, where, in the high sense and sig- 
 nificancy of the term, the number of real Christians 
 might not reach to one in fifty. And the question there- 
 fore is, How can we anticipate either a general econo- 
 mic, or a general moral effect, through the medium of a 
 Christianity, which, in respect of its saving and spiritual 
 influence, makes such little way among the families 1 
 But here it is not adverted to — and we admit it is indis- 
 pensable to the force of our argument — that the secon- 
 dary influence of Christianity goes a great way farther 
 than its primary or direct influence. For every indi- 
 vidual whom it converts, it may, by its reflex operation, 
 civilize a hundred. We have the palpable exemplifica- 
 tion of this in Sabbath-schools, where, in a few weeks 
 from their commencement, we may perceive a decency, 
 and a docihty, and an improved habit of cleanliness and 
 order, long before there is ground for the assurance, that 
 even so much as one of the pupils has yet been Chris- 
 tianized. And what is true of children in a school, is 
 alike true of grown-up people in a parish — where the 
 
EDUCATION OP THE PEOPLE. 30? 
 
 regularities of Sabbath observation, and the humanizing 
 influence of ministerial attentions, and the general re- 
 cognition of what is right, and reputable, and seemly, 
 have all been in force, perhaps a century ago, and been 
 handed down, with increasing effect, from generation 
 to generation. It is of the utmost argumentative value 
 upon this subject, that one man of decided piety, in a 
 little vicinage, will impress, if not his own piety, at 
 least the respectability of his habits and appearance, on 
 the greater number of its families. They can admire, 
 and even imitate, the graces of his character; they can 
 aspire after, and even realize, the decencies of his 
 condition ; without so much as comprehending, or far 
 less sharing, the unseen principle which has germinated 
 them all. It is thus that Christianity has elevated the 
 general standard of morals ; and so spread a bene- 
 ficent influence, far and wide, among the many, be» 
 yond the limit of its own proper and peculiar influence, 
 upon the few. It is this which gives it the property of 
 a purifying and preserving salt in every community of 
 human beings ; and that, not merely in respect of those 
 virtues which enter into the moral character, but also 
 in respect of those virtues which are essential to the 
 economic well-being of a people. Ten righteous men 
 among the thousands of Sodom would have saved that 
 city from destruction ; and a like proportion would, 
 in our modern day, save the thousands of general soci- 
 ety from that utter debasement of profligacy and 
 wretchedness, into which, without the presence of Chris- 
 tianity in the midst of them, they will inevitabl}^ fall.* 
 
 * We are aware of no country which presents a more interesting 
 field for observation than Holland — because none, perhaps, so close 
 upon the extreme limit of its natural resources ; and, therefore none 
 so dependent on the moral habits of its population for their economic 
 well-being. We have great value for a recent communication from 
 that part of the world, which appeared in the Sunday-School 
 Teacher's Magazine ; and from which we present a few extracts : — 
 
 " I have spent five months, since last September, in Holland ; 
 living, for the most part, in an inland town, whence I could extend 
 my walks into the rural and fishing villages around me ; seeing 
 much of the outward manifestations of character among the people. 
 
S08 EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 5. But we must here remark, that, for the purpose 
 of a general economic improvement, to be brought 
 
 But in Holland, such is the public provision for the instruction of the 
 lower orders, that every child is within reach of a good day-school, 
 ©f which few do not actually enjoy the advantage. These schools, 
 moreover, though themselves rather of a general, than purely reli- 
 gious nature, are not meant to supersede, but to harmonize and co- 
 operate with the catechetical instructions of the churches throughout 
 the provinces. Thus, religious knowledge is widely diffused; 
 though, in respect to it, much, of course, depends on the compara- 
 tive purity of doctrine and discipline, as well as on the compara- 
 tive degrees of vital godliness, which are found in the different 
 comnmnions and congregations to which the parents may belong. 
 Not only so, but although the public day-schools have had far more 
 attention paid to them of late years than at any former period, still 
 education has, for a long time, been so common and so cheap, that 
 almost all old pei^sons are found able to read. 
 
 " Thus, what your readers and their friends are striving to effect 
 for their dear mother-country, our Dutch neighbours have already, 
 through the good providence of God, actually accomplished for 
 what they call their hoXo^edi father-land. Surely, then, it must be 
 interesting to the former, to know what, if nothing more, are the 
 eutward and obvious results of such a measure of success in their 
 own favourite enterprise — and enterprise so intimately affecting the 
 character and happiness of the millions that now people Great Britain 
 and Ireland." 
 
 " The first feature, in the lower ranks, which strikes a Briton, 
 on coming amongst the Hollanders, is the almost universal decency 
 of manners and dress which prevails amongst them ; and that in 
 spite of the extent of poverty which is found in these once flourish- 
 ing, but now much-decayed provinces. Your readers vdll ask, why 
 there should be so much poverty % the reply to which is easily 
 furnished out of history." — " We must not therefore impute it to 
 education, that there are many thousands of poor families and indi- 
 viduals in Holland ; but ought rather to investigate what the effects 
 of that peculiarity have been, on a people among whom this grievous 
 extent of poverty has been the inevitable result of quite different 
 circumstances. 
 
 " I am now referring to the external manners and appearance of 
 the lower ranks in Holland. It is remarkable, that persons, travel- 
 ling there about sixty years ago, represent the lower classes as very 
 boorish in their manners, and as intemperate in the use of ardent 
 spirits. But I found them invariably respectful, and willing to 
 oblige me; while, as to intemperance, if it was to be found at all, it 
 must have been very much hid from public notice, for I could not 
 perceive either drunkards or brawlers in any quarter, either in town 
 or country, during my whole residence among them. That they 
 are universally sober, I dare not affirm; strong liquors, of various 
 
EDUCATION OP THE PEOPLE. SOP 
 
 ^bout by the means of Christian education, a gradual 
 abolition of the compulsory provision for indigence) 
 which now obtains in England, and hangs menacingly 
 t)ver Ireland, seems to us indispensable. We can anti- 
 cipate no rise of wages, no elevation in the state and 
 
 kinds, were very common, and very cheap ; the damp nature of 
 their climate, and the seafaring habits of many of the people, 
 present a kind of apology for drinking ; yet, in spite of all this, I 
 must again affirm, that they are very far superior, at present, to the 
 British in this respect. 
 
 " But to what are we to ascribe this change for the better, in the 
 course of the last sixty years ] Not certainly," &c.— " May we 
 not rather cite the following causes 1 First, The extension and 
 improvement of daily schools, which began just about sixty years 
 ago, and which have been continued, under all the changes of 
 government, up to the present day. Secondly, To the awakening 
 effects of public calamities and the humbling influence of foreign 
 domination on the members of the Presbyterian, and other Protest- 
 ant churches, to which about two-thirds of the people are professedly 
 attached. The Dutch, like the Israelites of old, were the children 
 of many prayers, and the heirs of many privileges; but they, also, 
 in the pride of their hearts, forgot God : he, therefore, in mercy, 
 visited them with the rod of his chastisement. They were brought 
 low, and were, many of them, led to cry unto the Lord in their 
 distresses ; and the Lord has had pity on them, and made his own 
 work revive in the midst of them. 
 
 " The outward decency, I might rather say, the respectability of 
 the lower ranks, included a very remarkable observance of the 
 Lord's day ; such indeed, as I did not expect to find on any part of 
 the continent of Europe," &c. 
 
 " I cannot conclude without remarking, that the absence of the 
 poor's laws seems to be one of the chief blessings of Holland. By 
 having no compulsory assessments, the virtues of liberality and 
 active benevolence are called out far more abundantly; and, by 
 constant exercise, acquire a far higher degree of real practical vigour, 
 than they could otherwise do amongst the rich ; whilst the poor are 
 grateful, frugal, and industrious. In short, all the lovely fruits of mu- 
 tual Christian love and respect seem thus to be fostered, which might 
 otherwise be injured or destroyed. I was particularly pleased with 
 the mild and contented looks of many of the aged poor, and with 
 the care and good housewifery shown in the apparel both of adults 
 and children belonging to that class. I need not add, that in their 
 food they are equally simple and contented. 
 
 "" Such, then, are the remarks I find myself compelled to make, 
 with respect to perhaps the best educated poor in Europe," &c. 
 
 27 
 
310 EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE* 
 
 sufficiency of the working classes, from any efforts to 
 instruct and Christianize them, however strenuous, if 
 the pauperism and the education are to go on contem- 
 poraneously. We, in the first place, feel quite assured, 
 from the moral influences of this public charity, that it 
 operates as a dead weight on the ministrations of the 
 clergymen, and stands most grievously in the way of 
 their success. But, in the second place, however vigor- 
 ous and effective his exertions may be, at the most, and 
 while the present system of poor's laws continues, we 
 shall have two distinct populations, each marked by op- 
 posite extremes of character. The clergyman, on the 
 one hand, may reclaim hundreds to principle and sobriety 
 who shall form a wholesome and better class of peasant- 
 ry. But the parish vestry, on the other, remains an 
 attractive nucleus, around which there will gather and 
 settle, in every little district of the land, a depraved and 
 improvident class, whom the temptation of this legal 
 charity has c.alled into being, and who will bid invete- 
 rate defiance to all the moral energy which might be 
 brought to bear upon them. The very presence of such a 
 class even though but a fraction of the community, will, 
 with their reckless habits, depress and overbear the 
 general condition of labourers. A very few supernu- 
 meraries, we have seen, will suffice for this effect. So 
 that whether the temptation to improvidence operates 
 on all the people, or only on part of them, still that 
 redundancy is generated which tells so adversely on the 
 general rate of wages, and so on the comfort and cir- 
 cumstances of the population at large. Education will 
 make head against mendicity. It will make head 
 against poverty in any other form than that of being 
 fixed and legalized, and invested with the power of 
 challenging, as its right at the bar of justice, that relief 
 which should have been left to the willing sympathies 
 of nature. But shielded and encouraged as it is in the 
 parishes of England, it will stand its ground, against 
 every attempt to dislodge it from those innumerable 
 fastnesses which it now occupies; and in spite of every 
 
EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 311 
 
 counteractive, whether by the Christian or Uterary edu- 
 cation of the people, will it remain an incubus on the 
 prosperity and comfort of the lower orders.* 
 
 6. And we have farther to remark, that as we look 
 for no sensible improvement in the condition of the 
 lower orders in England, while their present system of 
 pauperism remains ; we as little look for any sensible or 
 general improvement in their character, by the means 
 of education, if that is merely to be the education of let- 
 ters, and not the education of principle. It is not scho- 
 
 * The following' is an extract from my evidence before a Com- 
 mittee of the House of Commons on the subject of Irish Poor's 
 Laws, 
 
 "It is a most important question for Ireland, whether you will 
 submit for a time to its mendicity, or exchange that mendicity for a 
 regular and compulsory pauperism. Now, on many accounts, I 
 would prefer the former to the latter alternative ; and one of my 
 reasons is, that education will at length quell the one, but not the 
 Other. It may be difficult to furnish the Committee with a satisfac- 
 tory analysis of this matter. I feel assured that so it is, however 
 much I may fail in expounding how it is. One thing is abundantly 
 obvious, that the act of becoming a mendicant is one of unmixed 
 degradation, and the self-respect inspired by education stands 
 directly and diametrically opposed to it. It is not so with the act 
 of becoming a pauper ; a state sanctioned by law, and in entering 
 upon which, the consciousness of right, and the resolute assertion of 
 it, awaken feelings that serve to temper the humiliations of charity. 
 1 think that this admits of historical illustration. The mendicity 
 of Scotland gave way in a few years to its education. The pauper- 
 Ism and education of England have for many years advanced 
 contemporaneously. I do not believe that the most efficient system 
 of education which can be possibly devised, will ever make head 
 against the pauperism of England ; at the very most, it would but 
 give rise to two populations, distinguished from each other by 
 opposite extremes of character. I should therefore be exceedingly 
 sorry, if Irish mendicity were exchanged for English pauperism. I 
 think that the floating mendicity of Ireland will fall, under the 
 operation of those moral causes v>^hich might be brought to bear 
 upon it ; but if in order to escape from this, you establish a law of 
 pauperism, you will in fact establish so many parochial fixtures, or 
 a nucleus in every parish, around which your worst population will 
 gather, and from which you will find it impossible to dislodge them. 
 I should exceedingly regret, if under the influence of an impatience 
 to be delivered from this evil of mendicity, you should, in get- 
 ting quit of that which is conquerable by education, precipitate 
 yourselves into that which is unconquerable by education." 
 
312 EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 larship alone, but scholarship impregnated with religiaDi 
 that tells on the great mass of society. We have no 
 faith in the efficacy of mechanic institutes, or even of 
 primary and elementary schools, for building up a vir- 
 tuous and well-conditioned peasantry, so long as they 
 stand dissevered from the lessons of Christian piety. 
 There is a charm ascribed to the scholastic system of 
 Scotland; and the sanguine imagination is, that by im- 
 porting its machinery into England and Ireland, it will 
 work the same marvellous transformation there, on the 
 character of their people, that was experienced amongst 
 ourselves. But it is forgotten that a warm and earnest 
 Christianity, was the animating spirit of all our peculiar 
 institutions, for generations after they were framed; and 
 that, wanting this, they can no more perform the function 
 of moralizing the people, than skeletons can perform the 
 functions, or put forth the faculties of living men. The 
 scholastic is incorporated with the ecclesiastical system 
 of Scotland; and that, not for the purposes of intole- 
 rance and exclusion, but for the purpose of sanctifying 
 education, and plying the boyhood of our land with the 
 lessons of the Bible. The scholarship of mere letters, 
 might, to a certain extent have diffused intelligence 
 amongst the people ; but, it is mainly to the presence and 
 power of the religious ingredient, that the moral great- 
 ness of our peasantry is owing. 
 
 7. A common-place politician is mainly ignorant of 
 the connexion which obtains, between the religion of a 
 people, and the various civil and economical blessings 
 which follow in its train. This single lesson, if but 
 prized and proceeded on as it ought, were to him the 
 greatest enlargement of political wisdom; and numer- 
 ous are the practical corollaries which flow from it. 
 More especially, would it lead him to uphold an eccle-- 
 siastical establishment ; but on very different grounds 
 from those on which, in the spirit either of high state 
 toryism, or of high church intolerances it is so often 
 contended for. There is with a class of thinkers^ 
 whom we have now in our eye, the vague imagination 
 of a certain security derived from the connexion be-» 
 
EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 313 
 
 tween church and state ; insomuch, that, if this connex- 
 ion were dissolved, they would apprehend the immediate 
 downfal of all our social institutions. And we have 
 no doubt, that, if any of the church establishments in 
 our empire is to be exterminated, it will be in the spirit 
 of a general undirected frenzy, that will not be satiated 
 on any terms short of a wasteful and wide-spread over- 
 throw. They will share in a common fate, because the 
 objects of a common hostility. But this still leaves un- 
 explained, the precise connexion, in the way of cause 
 and consequence, between the existence of a religious 
 establishment, and the stability of the general order of 
 things. It is not because, through the lordly dispensa- 
 tion of its patronage, the higher orders are conciliated ; 
 or because, through the hereditary veneration of which 
 it is the object, the lower orders are conciKated. These 
 will be found but frail securities, on a day of wild and 
 lawless innovation ; and, without the revival of a diffusa 
 ed Christianity in our land, that day will speedily over- 
 take us. It is thus that a religions establishment is of 
 no value, but as an instrument of Christian good ; and 
 it is this, and this alone, which should recommend it, 
 either to the politician or the patriot. It is simply, as the 
 best machine for the extensive Christianization of the 
 families of a land, that it is at all worthy of being up, 
 holden ; and, it is obvious, that, to this effect, a reckless 
 unprincipled, and unholy patronage, makes it altogether 
 useless, perliaps worse than useless. It is our conscien<p 
 tious belief, that an establishment is an indispensable 
 safeguard against a desolating flood of irreligion, but 
 only in as far as that establishment is virtuously 
 patronized. In other words, without the demolition of 
 our existing machinery, but through its means, and 
 provided that right and efficient men be appointed to 
 work it, we hold that the country may still be saved. 
 And, humanly speaking, its Christian instructors will be 
 its only saviours. These reformers of our national mo- 
 rality will be the only reformers that will do us good, 
 This is the great specific for the people's well-being; aiidj 
 however derided by the liberalism of our age, or under© 
 
 07* 
 
314 EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 valued in the estimation of a merely secular politics J 
 still, it is with the Christianity of our towns and parishes 
 that the country is to stand or fall. 
 
 8, Our ecclesiastics are too little versant, and have 
 therefore too little respect for the importance of politi- 
 cal economy. And our economists stand at fully as 
 wide a distance from things ecclesiastical. Both seem 
 alike unconscious of the strong intermediate link that 
 is between them, seeing that the chief objects of the 
 one can only be accomplished through the successful 
 exertions of the other. It was for the economists to 
 have discovered the connexion between a virtuous 
 peasantry, and, through the consequent effect on popu- 
 lation and wages, the greater sufficiency of their means 
 and their higher status in the commonwealth. But, 
 while it was for them to perceive and point out this 
 connexion ; it is for the practical educationists alone, 
 and, pre-eminently for the Chiistian educationists, to 
 make it good. The one may demonstrate what the 
 essential condition is, on which the economic well- 
 being of the common people turns; but it is for the 
 others, and for them only, to realize the condition. It 
 is for them principally, or rather for them exclusively, 
 to supply that element, wanting which, there is an 
 uttei impotency and failure in all the doings and all the 
 devisings of our politicians, either to bring about or to 
 uphold a prosperous society. No enlargement in the 
 means of subsistence can be of any possible avail, if so 
 rapidly followed up as heretofore, and still more if 
 exceeded by the irrepressible advances of the popula- 
 tion. At this rate, a larger community would be but a 
 larger mass of wretchedness, a wider field of heartless 
 and sickening contemplation to every lover of the 
 species. What he longs to rest and regale his eye 
 upon, is the joyous spectacle, not of overcrowded, but, 
 through the medium of cheerful because well-paid in- 
 dustry, of comfortable families, substantially fed, res- 
 pectably attired, and as respectably lodged in their 
 snug and decent habitations. There is room, and there 
 are resources in the country, not for an indefinite, but 
 
EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 315 
 
 for a certain, and that a very large, yea, for a constantly 
 though not a quickly increasing number of such fami- 
 lies. Beyond this number, we have no taste for mere 
 multitude, for a swarm of human creatures, for a reck- 
 less and ragamuffin crew, overborne by that most 
 grievous of all oppressions, the oppression of their own 
 redundancy. If such be the general morale of the 
 working classes, it is vain to look either for peace or 
 plenty within our borders. The object will bid defi- 
 ance to all agriculture and all commerce. At most, 
 these can but stretch out the wealth of a country, but, 
 without any sensible enlargement, if there be a stretch- 
 ing out of the population proportionably thereto. 
 Each successive expansion will, in this case, be but a 
 temporary shift, a brief postponement of the evil day, 
 the support or suspension, for a moment, by some 
 frail tenicle, ere the nation is precipitated into a gulf 
 of wretchedness or anarchy. It would seem to argue 
 a growing sense of desperation among our public men, 
 that their schemes of patriotism and philanthropy are 
 so thickening of late upon us; while^ but a semblance 
 of relief, or, at the best, a short-lived respite will be 
 all the result of them. It is by the efficacy of moral 
 means, working a moral transformation, and by that 
 alone, that our deliverance will be effected ; and little 
 do the mere advocates of retrenchment, and coloniza- 
 tion, and public works, and poor-laws, and other 
 merely political expedients for the melioration of the 
 people — little do they know, how utterly powerless all 
 these enterprises are, while the Christianity of the 
 land is unprovided for, and its Christian institutions 
 are left inoperative, from the want of zealous and ener- 
 getic labourers to fill them. 
 
 9. And perhaps this indifference or incredulity, on 
 the part of politicians and political economists, lies much 
 deeper than we have yet ventured to say. It may be 
 something still more hopeless than ignorance. We 
 fear, that with many of them, it may be distaste and 
 antipathy. There is a certain style of Christianity, a 
 lifeless, inert, and meagre style of it, which is tolerated 
 
316 EDUCATION OP THE PEOPLE. 
 
 in general society. But when it comes to be Christi- 
 anity in earnest, the Christianity that speaketh urgently 
 and importunately to the consciences of men, the un- 
 compromising Christianity that enjoins the holiness of 
 the New Testament in all its spirituality and extent, 
 and asserts the doctrine of the New Testament in all 
 its depth and all its peculiarity; such a Christianity 
 has been very generally denounced as fanaticism ; and 
 its faithful evangelical expounders have very generally 
 had a stigma affixed to them, and been outcasts from 
 the patronage of the state. And yet this is the only 
 Christianity that will either attract or moralize the 
 population; and that, not because of its deceitful adap- 
 tation to vulgar prejudices, but, because of its truly 
 divine adaptation to the actual workings of the human 
 mind, and the felt necessities of human nature. 
 While this enmity to the truth as it is in Jesus operates 
 in the hearts of our rulers, it is perhaps a vain expecta- 
 tion, that the civil and political importance of its being 
 sounded forth from the pulpits of our land shall come 
 to be recognised by them. On this subject, they may 
 have been struck with judicial blindness ; and ere 
 Christianity shall manifest its power to regenerate our 
 social condition, and overspread the land with prosper- 
 ous and contented families ; perhaps it will first vindi- 
 cate itself on our ungodly nation, in the utter dissolu- 
 tion of an economy which disowns it, in the vengeance 
 of some fearful overthrow. 
 
 10. But however blind our mere earthly politicians 
 may be to the rationale of that process, by which man 
 is regenerated into a new moral character, they clearly 
 apprehend the connexion, between the existence of 
 such a character, and the economic well-being either of 
 the country or of the individual who possesses it. Grant 
 but the general ascendancy of principle— and, along 
 with this, you will have a prudence, and a prospective 
 caution, and a superiority to mere animal or constitu- 
 tional impulses, which must necessarily ensure the 
 habit of later marriages, and so, of smaller families. 
 And then, of itself, by a law of political economy, which 
 
EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. Sl7 
 
 can no more be contfavened than a law of nature, the 
 state of the common people will necessarily be raised* 
 There are only two ways in which to augment the price 
 of labour— either by a diminution of the supply, or by 
 an increase of the effective demand for it. But the 
 whole of our preceding argument goes to prove, that 
 this demand for labour cannot be carried beyond a cer- 
 tain limit. There is a necessary limit to agricultural 
 produce, or, in other words, to the maintenance of 
 labour, without which there can be no effective demand 
 for it. Consequent to this, or rather almost identical 
 with this, there is a hmit to that employment, for the 
 produce of which, there might be obtained in return the 
 subsistence of the labourers. There is a limit to the 
 extension of that capital, the accumulation of which 
 has been regarded by many as the grand specific for 
 the indefinite employment and maintenance of the la- 
 bouring classes. There is a limit to the extension of 
 foreign trade, which has been imagined to afford a field 
 for the profitable industry of our workmen, as unbound- 
 ed as are the resources and magnitude of the globe. 
 There is a limit to any brief or temporary enlargement, 
 which might ensue on the commutation of taxes and 
 tithes. We would not say that there is a limit to the 
 enlargement, for we hold, that no enlargement whatever 
 of the means of subsistence would accrue to the com- 
 munity, from the abolition of the law of primogeniture. 
 So that we should hold it utterly hopeless to obtain a 
 secure and permanent elevation in the state of the 
 working classes^ by a mere increase in one term of the 
 proportion ; that is, in the effective demand for their 
 labour. The proportion will remain as unfavourable to 
 them as before, should there be a like contemporaneous 
 increase in the other term of it— that is, in the supply of 
 labour, or in the number of labourers. It is because the 
 rate of advancing population may outstrip the rate of en« 
 largement in any one of the resources now specified, or 
 in all of them put together—that in every stage of the^ 
 progress of society, there might be felt a continued pres« 
 mve on. the means of subsistence, But it is in the hU^f 
 
Si 8 EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 
 
 stages, it is in old countries, where all the barriers recede 
 most slowly, because nearest to the place of their ex- 
 treme and ultimate attainment, and where, at the same 
 tinie, the power and tendency of increase on the part of 
 the population are as great as ever— it is there where 
 the pressure is felt most strongly; more in Britain than 
 in America, for example ; more in the Netherlands or 
 in France than in Russia. It is this increase in the sup- 
 ply of labour, up to, and often beyond the increase in 
 its demand ; it is this rapid occupation, or rather over- 
 flow by the one of every enlargement that is made in 
 the other ; it is this w^hich sustains, under every possi- 
 ble advancement in the resources of the land, the pres- 
 sure of the population on the food, and makes the 
 problem of their secure and permanent comfort so very 
 baffling, and as yet, so very hopeless. 
 
 11. In the futility of every attempt permanently to 
 relieve the wants, or to raise the comforts of the people, 
 by means of an increase on one term of the proportion — 
 the effective demand for labour — we are shut up, as our 
 only refuge, to a diminution of the other term — that is, 
 the supply of labour. The only expedient which we 
 have yet considered, and which proceeds by an opera- 
 tion on this second term, is that of emigration. We 
 have tried to demonstrate, how impotent and ineffectual 
 this expedient is ; and how utterly unable we are, by all 
 the successive drafts or transformations of families that 
 we shall ever make, to prevent the fulness, even to a 
 distension, of people in the land. We feel assured, that 
 it is not by drawing off the redundancy of the population, 
 after it is formed, that we can uphold a well-conditioned 
 state of society— but by preventing the formation of that 
 redundancy. In the whole round of expedients, we are 
 persuaded that this is the only one which, however ob- 
 noxious to sentimentalists, can avail for the solution of 
 a problem otherwise irreducible. It has been the theme, 
 sometimes of ridicule, and sometimes even of a virtuous, 
 though, surely, a misplaced indignation; its distinctive 
 excellence being, that it harmonizes the moral and 
 economic interests of a community, andj indeed, can 
 
EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 319 
 
 only take effect in proportion to the worth and wisdom 
 of oLir people. 
 
 12. In the political economy of Dr. Smith, society is 
 prosperous only when in progress. He confines his 
 view only to one term— an increase in the demand for 
 labour, or in the means of its support. He adverts not to 
 the general prosperity that might ensue by a mere ope« 
 ration on the other term, or by a moderation in the supply 
 of labour. He looks only to the augmentation of physi- 
 cal means; and perceives not, that, when these are 
 stationary, it is still in the power of moral causes to up- 
 hold, what he terms, a hearty state of the commonwealth. 
 It was not otherwise to be expected ; for his work, great 
 and enlightened though it be, was long prior to the clear 
 and convincing expositions of Malthus on the subject of 
 population. And, accordingly, he makes the condition 
 of the labourer to depend entirely on the state of society, 
 in regard to the progress which it is making in wealth — 
 that if this be on the increase, the condition is prosper- 
 ous ; if stationary, dull ; if declining, miserable. Ac- 
 cording to him, the wages of labour must be higher in 
 an advancing, than in an advanced state of society; in- 
 somuch that, after the wealth of a country has attained 
 to its maximum, its industrious classes, comprising the 
 large mass of the population, are worse off than when 
 the country was only proceeding to the maximum. Now, 
 this were necessarily and universally true, if wages de- 
 pended only on one element — that is, the extent of the 
 effective demand for it. When the means for the main- 
 tenance of labour increase, and so, for the time being, 
 are somewhat ahead of the population, the competition 
 is in favour of the workmen — who receive larger offers, 
 and a larger maintenance, in this state of relative plenty. 
 But should the population be encouraged by this state 
 of things, the absolute plenty may remain, but the rela- 
 tive plenty is at an end; so that, with a population again 
 pressing on the means of subsistence, the competition is 
 against the workmen — each glad to find employment, 
 though with but an inferior and scanty remuneration. 
 This process has been repeatedly exemplified in the 
 
320 EDUCATION OF THE PEoPLE. 
 
 history of states ; and it would seem to warrant the ap^ 
 prehension of some stern and mysterious necessity for the 
 hopeless, the irrecoverable degradation of the lower or- 
 ders ; whose prosperity would thus appear to be in the 
 inverse proportion of the country's abundance ; insomuch, 
 that to reach the extreme wealth of a land, might be to 
 reach the extreme of depression and despondency for the 
 great bulk of its inhabitants : as in China, the teeming 
 productiveness of whose soil forms no guarantee against 
 the constant want and wretchedness of its common people, 
 or even the periodical starvation of millions. 
 
 13. Such instances speak strongly for the utter ineffi- 
 cacy, in the long run, of all those expedients which go 
 but to enlarge the maintenance of labour, and so, the ef- 
 fective demand for it. That there have been many such 
 successive enlargements, and that there are more still in 
 reserve, even for the oldest and most civilized countries 
 of the world, may be most readily admitted. Yet they 
 form no security against either a continuous pressure all 
 along, or a severe ultimate pressure, augmenting, per- 
 haps, and becoming more intense and intolerable, with 
 every approach that is made to the extreme limit of the 
 country's resources. There is not yet a state in the world, 
 where the actual capabilities, for the maintenance of a 
 population do not fall short of the potential capabilities ; 
 and, with every new advance of the former upon the lat- 
 ter, there will, of course, be a slackening, as it were, of 
 the pressure — a certain relief from that feeling of strait- 
 ness, to which, in almost every stage of its progress, the 
 population of a country is exposed. Yet this may be just 
 a putting off of the evil day ; and it does afford but a 
 gloomy perspective to the lover of his species, when, as 
 he looks forward on the economic advancement of society, 
 he perceives an ultimate barrier, beyond which there can 
 be no enlargement, and no possibility of mitigation. We 
 confess that our anticipations are greatly more cheering ; 
 believing as we do, that, even in regard to earthly pros- 
 pects, and earthly prosperity, a much brighter destination 
 is in reserve for humanity. We admit, that there is a 
 necessary and impassable limit to the extension of the 
 
EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE. 321 
 
 physical resources of the globe ; so that if the enlargement 
 of these were our only confidence, as it seems the confi- 
 dence of most of our economists, we should give up, in 
 despair, a permanent amelioration in the state and cir- 
 cumstances of our general population. Our confidence, 
 then, is not in the enlargement of those physical resources, 
 from whence we are to count on an increase in the effec- 
 tive demand for labour ; it is chiefly, I might almost say, 
 exclusively, in the efficacy of a moral cause, from whence 
 we are to look for moderation in the supply of it. When 
 this is brought into operation, we shall find, that the 
 wages of labour do not necessarily sink with the cessa- 
 tion of a country's advancement in wealth ; that, even 
 through the latest stages of this advancement, wages may 
 indefinitely rise; and, after the stationary ultimatum shall 
 have been reached in all the countries of the earth, still 
 there will remain a way by which the industrious classes 
 might be upheld in higher prosperit^^ and comfort, than 
 at any by gone period of the world's history they had 
 ever realized. 
 
 14. The two expedients then, of pauperism and edu- 
 cation, stand very broadly and discernibly contrasted with 
 each other, in the influence they respectively have on that 
 proportion which we have now dwelt upon. By the one, 
 the proportion is turned against, and by the other on the 
 side of, the population. The one increases, the other 
 lessens, the ratio of the numbers to the food. There is 
 no withstanding of this operation ; and there is no with- 
 standing of its consequence. And the adoption of both 
 expedients together were most grievous impolicy. The 
 one would neutralize, or, rather, the one, like the rod of 
 Aaron, would swallow up, would absorb the other ; and 
 be itself of paramount influence, at least on the econo- 
 mic state of the lower orders. The pauperism which en- 
 listed all the sordid and sensual appetencies of our nature 
 on the side of improvidence, would prevail in the strug- 
 gle, over all the moral counteractives of any system of 
 education, however wise, and however energetic. The 
 contest between a good and an evil principle, should no 
 more be sanctioned or set agoing, by the reigning power 
 
 28 
 
322 EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE, 
 
 of the state, than it is by the reigning power of the uni- 
 verse. In Scotland, they ordained education for the 
 people ; and in all those parishes which stand sufficiently 
 aloof froni the contagious neighbourhood of England, do 
 we behold a peasantry sustained in comparative comfort 
 and virtuous independence. In England, they ordained 
 a poor law; and the cry of distress and discontent is just 
 the louder, in proportion to the lavishness of its ministra- 
 tions. In Ireland, they propose to ordain both education 
 and a poor law. This were the manicheism of human 
 government, and a frightful disorder will be the result of 
 it. Did the evil barely neutralize the good, so as to 
 make on the whole an innocent composition of the two 
 ingredients, it might be viewed with less alarm. But it 
 will be found not to be an innocent, but a mischievous 
 composition. Burke had the sagacity shrewdly and in- 
 stantly to perceive this. His was the wisdom of intuition, 
 so that, without formal development, or the aid of any 
 logical process, he often, by a single glance, made the 
 discovery of a great principle ; and, by a single word, 
 memorably and felicitously expressed it. That education 
 is the cheap defence of nations, is one of the weightiest of 
 those sentences, or oracular sayings, which have ever 
 fallen from any of the seers or sages of our land. And 
 he characterized, with no less force and justness, the other 
 expedient for the amelioration of his country, when he 
 pronounced, of a legal charity for the relief of indigence, 
 bearing on its forehead the smile and promise of a bene- 
 volence which is never realized ; that it was downright 
 fraud. 
 
323 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 1. Political economy has had great influence on 
 the politics of the world. The two are distinct from 
 each other in themselves ; nevertheless, in practice, they 
 are so intimately blended, that if the former were but well 
 understood and consistently acted upon, the results in the 
 latter department would be quite invaluable. 
 
 2. One palpable example of this, is the effect of an en- 
 lightened political economy, in doing away the commer- 
 cial jealousy of nations. The objects of that jealousy 
 were, in the general, altogether meaningless ; the preser- 
 vation of a monopoly, or of a colonial dependence, or of 
 some exclusive privilege, which, when wrested from the 
 state, that had lavished in their defence an enormous 
 amount both of blood and treasure, was found after all to 
 have been of no real or intrinsic worth to the country that 
 possessed them. It is thus that empires and states have 
 entered fiercely into contest for interests which were alto- 
 gether illusory. We do not happen to think that the 
 system of ft-ee trade will lead to any sensible enlargement 
 of wealth in almost any land ; and that they who calcula- 
 ted upon this, did not advert to the existence, or at least 
 to the proximity of a natural limit, lying a very little way 
 beyond the artificial one, and by which all commerce, as 
 well as all agriculture, is bounded. Nevertheless, and 
 however disappointed and defeated in their sanguine an- 
 ticipations many may have been as to the economical ef- 
 fects of the system, its moral effects, in that it cancels a 
 topic of ever recurring controversy, and by which the 
 peace and brotherhood of nations were kept in perpetual 
 hazard, give an importance and a value to the policy of 
 the free trade system which are beyond all computation. 
 
324 CONCLUSION. 
 
 3. Now, what is true of foreign, is alike true of home 
 politics. An enlightened political economy would not 
 only do away much of the jealousy which springs up 
 among different nations, but would do away much of 
 the jealousy and hostile feelings which are still so preva- 
 lent between the different orders of a state. For ex- 
 ample, if the real incidence of the taxes be upon land, 
 what a world of misconception and of malignant passion 
 would be saved, were taxes laid ostensibly as well as vir- 
 tually upon the landlords. Or, if not prepared to act on 
 a conclusion still so remote from all the ordinary notions 
 upon the subject, what a practical reconciliation it would 
 effect between the wealthier and the poorer classes, were 
 taxes universally removed from the necessaries of life, 
 and universally laid on income or on unquestionable luxu- 
 ries. We believe, that though the whole of our public 
 revenue were raised by means of a territorial impost, it 
 would ultiuiately add nothing to the burden which now 
 lies on the proprietors of the land; and ihat they, when 
 fighting against such a commutation, are fighting in de- 
 fence of an imaginary interest. We believe that the same 
 observation applies to the abolition of the corn laws ; and 
 that, if both the commercial and the financial reforms were 
 gradually, but at length completely and conclusively ef- 
 fected, the lords of the soil would find their wealth unim- 
 paired, and their influence prodigiously raised b}' it. 
 When once divested altogether of the character of mono- 
 polists, and, still more, when declaredly and obviously 
 the only tax payers in the kingdom ; we can scarcely 
 imagine the vast moral ascendancy which they would 
 henceforth acquire in all the affairs and deliberations of 
 the commonwealth. Such would be their substantial gain, 
 and we honestly think without the deduction of one far- 
 thing from their revenues, though they should both quit 
 the monopoly, and take upon themselves the whole bur- 
 den of the taxes. And what a death blow would be thus 
 inflicted on the vocation of demagogues ! What a sweet- 
 ening influence it would have on British society, after the 
 false medium was dissipated, through which the high and 
 the low now look on each other as natural enemies i 
 
CONCLUSION. 325 
 
 Such a political economy as this, had it preceded, would 
 also have superseded all those tempestuous politics which 
 are now in agitation. Parliamentary reform, left with- 
 out any ulterior object, would have been felt as if uncalled 
 for ; or at least the rancour, the exasperation, and bitter- 
 ness, now connected with the prosecution of it, would 
 have been completely done away. 
 
 4. Tlie landed aristocracy have partly brought this 
 upon themselves, by their blind resistance to all innova- 
 tion, and by their tenacious adherence to what they ima- 
 gine to be their own indispensable interest. Had they 
 paid all taxes, and left all trade unfettered, there would 
 have no political sacrifice been required of them ; and they 
 would have remained in the undisturbed possession of 
 their natural, their rightful inheritance, as lords of the 
 commonwealth. But the democracy of England, fired 
 by a sense of injury, have now made head against them ; 
 and may, perhaps, wrest from them, by force, that which 
 ought to have been freely and willingly conceded in the 
 spirit of an enlightened policy. We should rejoice in 
 such a compromise between the two parties, as that both 
 a full commutation of the taxes, and the full establishment 
 of commercial liberty, unshackled by impositions or re- 
 straints of any sort, were at length effected, but effected 
 gradually. What we fear in the present spirit of reform, 
 is its impetuosity, and that it may not only, without the 
 necessary delay, precipitate right changes, but, without 
 the necessary discrimination, may hurry a new legislature 
 into wrong changes. There lies a noble field of improve- 
 ment before them, in rightly shifting the burden of taxes; 
 in emancipating trade, and that without reserve or limi- 
 tation ; above all, in providing, amply and liberally pro- 
 viding, both for the christian and literary education of 
 the people. But there is a waywardness of innovation 
 which might carry ruin and overthrow in its train, and of 
 this they will have to beware. They should meddle not 
 with the national debt, save in an equitable adjustment of 
 the taxes ; else they will pass a sentence of confiscation on 
 one set of proprietors to the enrichment of another set of 
 proprietors, and these are exclusively the proprietors of 
 
 28* 
 
326 CONCLUSION. 
 
 the land. They should meddle not with the church, save 
 to commute its tithes, and virtuously to control its patro- 
 nage ; else they will inflict an irreparable blow on the 
 moral and literary wealth of the nation ; and that to the 
 relief and enlargement of no one class, but still of the 
 landed proprietors. They should meddle not with the 
 law of primogeniture ; else they will institute a process^ 
 mider which the state must wax feeble, and even our com- 
 mercial greatness must disappear ; our towns dwindling 
 away, both in prosperity and in magnitude, and a nume- 
 rous, but finally a wretched agrarian population rising 
 up in their room. Lastly, they should meddle not either 
 with the monarchy or the peerage ; for both a vigorous 
 executive, and a certain vis inerfice of hereditary preju- 
 dice, are as indispensable to a right politics, as both the 
 helm and ballast of a vessel are indispensable to a right 
 navigation. In a word, instead of demolishing the frame- 
 work of any of our existent machinery, we would have 
 them but to guide and to animate its movements. And 
 it is precisely because we stand in dread, lest, through 
 the stages of our future history, the sail should predomi- 
 nate over the ballast, so as to make the vessel of the state 
 veer and vacillate with every wind of speculation, that 
 we feel as if the national security were bound up in our 
 having more of an agrarian, and less of a mercantile par- 
 liament. 
 
 5. Still it is all important to remark, that the internal 
 changes which we have ventured to point out, will no 
 more open up an indefinite career of economic enlarge- 
 ment and prosperity, than free trade can. They will af- 
 ford a certain stretch for a somewhat larger population, 
 but they will do no more ; when we shall at length find 
 a natural limit far more hopeless and impracticable than 
 the artificial one, there being no reserve beyond it. In 
 these circumstances, that is, when the means cannot be 
 made larger for the population, it becomes abundantly 
 obvious that nothing can save us from the miseries of a 
 straitened condition but a population small enough for 
 the means. The highway to this is education. And this 
 is a precious use of the enlargements which are still be- 
 
CONCLUSION. 327 
 
 fore us, and by which the families of the land are trans- 
 lated for a time from extreme misery, into a state of com- 
 parative ease. They then become fitter subjects for edu- 
 cation than when sunk in the distress and desperation of 
 abject poverty. When viewed in the light of absolute or 
 ultimate resources, we have no great value, either for the 
 removal of prohibitions from the corn trade, or for the 
 removal of tithes and taxes from agriculture, or finally 
 for emigration. But when these expedients are viewed 
 in the relation of subserviency to the education of the 
 people, (because they afibrd a temporary lightening of 
 the pressure that is now upon their families ; and along 
 with this, a spirit, and a leisure, and a means for their 
 moral and literary culture,) in this light they may prove 
 of incalculable service to the good of humanity. But 
 still the position remains, that it is education, and that 
 only, wherein the whole positive efiiciency lies for a per- 
 manent amelioration in the state of the lower orders. 
 Education is the specific ; and the other expedients are 
 at best but the circumstances for a more fit and powerful 
 ministration of it. But the whole efiect of these expedi- 
 ents, when once put into operation, will speedily be ex- 
 hausted. The favourable opportunities which they af- 
 ford, last but for a season only. They are opportunities 
 which cannot be recalled ; and if not improved for the 
 purposes of a general education, they will leave the state 
 of the population more irrecoverable than before. 
 
 6. We cannot bid adieu to our argument without 
 making the strenuous avowal, that all our wishes, and 
 all our partialities, are on the side of the common people. 
 We should rejoice in a larger secondary, and a smaller 
 disposable population ; or, which is tantamount to this, 
 in higher wages to the labourers, and lower rents to the 
 landlords. But this cannot be efiected, save by the people 
 themselves ; and that, not with violence on their part, or 
 by any assertion, however successful, of apolitical equali- 
 ty with the other orders of the state. There is no other 
 way of achieving for them a better economical condition, 
 than by means of a more advantageous proportion be- 
 tween the food of the country and the number of its in- 
 
328 CONCLUSION. 
 
 habitants ; and no other way of securing this proportion, 
 than by the growth of prudence and principle among them- 
 selves. It will be the aggregate effect of a higher taste, 
 a higher intelligence, and, above all, a wide spread Chris- 
 tianity, throughout tlie mass of the population ; and thus, 
 the most efficient ministers of that gospel which opens to 
 them the door of heaven, will be also the most efficient 
 ministers of their temporal comfort and prosperity upon 
 earth. Next to the salvation of their souls, one of our 
 fondest aspirations in behalf of the general peasantry is, 
 that they shall be admitted to a larger share of this world^s 
 abundance than now falls to their lot. But we feel as- 
 sured that there is no method by which this can be wrest- 
 ed from the hands of the wealthier classes. It can only 
 be won from them by the insensible growth of their own 
 virtue. The triumph will be a glorious, but, to be ef- 
 fectual and enduring, it must be a pacific one ; achieved, 
 not on the field of blood, or amid the uproar of a furious 
 and discordant politics. It will be a sure, but a silent 
 victory ; the fruit of a moral warfare, whose weapons are 
 not carnal, but spiritual ; and which shall at length come 
 to a prosperous termination, not in strife, and anarchy, 
 and commotion, but in showers of grace from on high 
 upon the prayers and labours of the good. Each seve- 
 ral clergyman, who labours piously and conscientiously 
 in the home walk of his own parish, helps forward this 
 great consummation, till, by means of a universal blessing, 
 peace and plenty will become alike universal throughout 
 the families of a regenerated world. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 (A. page 36.) — On the rent of Land. 
 
 It is a signal error in a recent theory of rent, that the 
 difference of quality in soils is the efficient cause of it. 
 The difference between the produce returned for the 
 same labour fruni a superior soil, and from the one last 
 entered upon, is but the measure, and not the cause of 
 rent. Had there been no gradation of soils, but had all 
 been of the same uniform fertility with any given land 
 which now affords rent, that land would have afforded 
 rent still, and the same rent which it does at present. 
 That land may yield rent, all which is necessary is, that, 
 with the price obtained for its produce, the occupier can 
 more than pay the wages of the labour and the profits of 
 the capital bestowed upon it. It is the overplus which 
 constitutes the rent of this land ; and which would have 
 been paid though there had been no land inferior to itself 
 in existence. In affirming that it is the existence of 
 this inferior land which originates the rent, there is a 
 total misapprehension of what may be termed the real 
 dynamics of the sabject. 
 
 The process is this : — On land of a given quality, and 
 anterior to its being rented, the produce, or its price, is 
 shared between the workmen who laboured it, and the 
 capitalist by whom it is occupied. But there are two 
 reasons why this state of things might not be stationar^j 
 
330 APPENDIX. 
 
 the one connected with the taste and choice of the work- 
 men ; the other, with the taste and choice of the capi- 
 talist. The workmen may be willing, rather than forego 
 the pleasures of matrimony, to part with some other of 
 their personal enjoyments, by entering soon upon this 
 alliance ; even though it should be so soon as that, 
 through the medium of an increased population, they 
 shall have at length to work for less wages than they 
 might have otherwise preserved. And the capitalists 
 may be willing, rather than forego the pleasures of ac- 
 cumulation, to part with some of their personal enjoy- 
 ments, by sparing what they might have spent, and vest- 
 ing the produce of their parsimony in business, even 
 though, through the medium of an increased capital, they 
 shall have to trade for less profit than they might otherwise 
 have been able to sustain. Thus, the increase of capital, 
 and the increase of population, are the real impellent cau- 
 ses, why the wages and profit, which wont to absorb the 
 whole produce of land of a given quality, do not now ab- 
 sorb it. The competition between the labourers, now in 
 greater number, on the one hand, and the more nume- 
 rous or greater capitalists, on the other, is such, that less 
 than the whole produce is now shared between them, and 
 the difference, wherever land is appropriated, goes to 
 rent. Farmers, in the existing state of profit, and wages, 
 and cultivation, are willing to pay this rent, for leave to 
 settle on a land which formerly paid none ; and should 
 it so happen, that tliere exists inferior land beside that 
 which is rented, and whose produce is just less than that 
 of the other by the difference of the rent, farmers will be 
 equally wiUing to settle on this inferior land, paying no 
 rent at all. But, most assuredly, it was not the exist- 
 ence of the inferior, which originated a rent for the su- 
 perior soil. It is not because farmers bad descended to 
 a worse land, that they are willing to pay rent for a bet- 
 ter, but because they were willing to pay rent for the 
 better, if they could have got it, they descended to the 
 vv^orse. The existence of the worse land, so far from 
 originating a rent upon the better, prevented it from 
 rising so rapidly as it would have done, because it af- 
 
RENT OP LAND. 331 
 
 forded an outlet for the excess of population and capital ; 
 and thus slackened, for a time, their competition on the 
 better land. The real cause of the rent, is this more 
 strenuous competition of labourers and capitalists, now 
 more numerous than before ; and this cause, assigned 
 by Dr. Smith, ought not to be superseded, as if it were 
 a distinct and different cause, by that which, in fact, is 
 but a consequence from itself. This inversion of the 
 truth has led to vicious conclusions in political econo- 
 my ; and, as is the effect of every false principle, it has 
 mystified the science. 
 
 Rent is not a creation by the will of the landlords, but 
 a creation by the collective will of the capitalists and la- 
 bourers. Wherever there is property in land, it is the 
 unavoidable result of the one class choosing to multiply, 
 and the other choosing to accumulate, beyond the capa- 
 city of the higher soils to sustain them. It can only be 
 done away with by the abolition of that propert}^ ; or, 
 in other words, by turning the country into a large com- 
 mon, and dissociating all the activities of individual in- 
 terest and hope from the business of cultivation. Labour 
 would cease to attach itself to any given portion of the 
 territory, if there were no fence of property by which 
 the fruits of this labour might be guarded. This pro- 
 perty has been termed monopoly, and all the odium 
 which attaches to monopoly has been cast upon its hold- 
 ers. But the truth is, that the landlords are altogether 
 innocent of the rent, which has flowed in upon them ah 
 extra, not at their own bidding, but at the bidding of 
 those who complain of its oppressiveness. The employer 
 of labour would have had his workmen at a higher wage; 
 but another stepped forward and implored to be taken in 
 at a lower wage, who, if refused, would have been in fact 
 the more aggrieved sufferer, or at least the more help- 
 less outcast of the two. The owner of the land would 
 have let his farm at a lower rent ; but, in the importuni- 
 ty of capitalists, higher rents were offered ; and he, by 
 refusing these, would in fact have disappointed the most 
 eager among the competitors. The landlord is passive 
 under this operation. He is the subject, and not the 
 
33^ APPENDIX. 
 
 agent in it. The primary and the moving forces He 
 with the labourers on the one hand, and with the capi- 
 talists on the other; the former, through the medium of 
 an increased population, having brought on a lower wage 
 th:in otherwise, by a necessity as irreversible as any law 
 of nature; and the latter, through the medium of an in- 
 creased capital, having by the same necessity brought on 
 a lower proiSt than otherwise. The difference goes to 
 rent. The cornplainers of it are themselves the makers 
 of it. That the origination of rent should be rightly 
 understood, is a thing of far mightier interest to the com- 
 monwealth than the mere intellectual comprehension of 
 a process. It is an incalculable loss to the working 
 classes, when the real cause of their sufferings is miscon- 
 ceived. It bewilders the friends of humanity from the 
 path of amelioration. And, besides, it provokes a thou- 
 sand undeserved antipathies, being the fruitful cause of 
 those many heart burnings and jealousies by which so- 
 ciety is so grievously distempered. 
 
 Rent is inseparable from property in land, and can 
 only be abohshed by all the fences and landmarks of 
 property being swept away from our borders. The ef- 
 fect would be as instant as inevitable. The cultivation 
 of the fields would be abandoned. The population 
 would be broken up into straggling bands, each prowl- 
 ing in quest of a share in the remaining subsistence for 
 themselves; and, in the mutual contests of rapacity, they 
 would anticipate, by deaths of violence, those still cruel- 
 ler deaths that would ensue in the fearful destitution 
 which awaited them. Yet many would be left whom the 
 sword had spared, but whom famine would not spare-^ 
 that overwhelming calamity under which a whole nation 
 might ultimately disappear. But a few miserable survi- 
 vors would dispute the spontaneous fruits of the earth 
 with the beasts of the field, who now multiplied and 
 overran that land which had been desolated of its peo- 
 ple. And so by a series, every step of which was marked 
 with increasing wretchedness, the transition would at 
 length be made to a thinly scattered tribe of hunters, on 
 what before had been a peopled territory of industrious 
 
RENT OF LAND. 333 
 
 and cultivated men. Thus, on the abolition of this 
 single law, the fairest and most civilized region of the 
 globe, which at present sustains its millions of families, 
 out of a fertility that now waves over its cultivated, be- 
 cause its appropriated acres, would, on the simple tie of 
 appropiiation being broken, lapse in a very few years 
 into a frightful solitude, or, if not bereft of humanity al- 
 together, would at last become as desolate and dreary as 
 a North American wilderness. 
 
 We may here advert to a distinction between the pro- 
 duce of agriculture, and that of manufactures ; or, as 
 some would say, of all other manufactures than the manu- 
 facture of food. We think that it will go far to explain 
 the peculiarity of rent, and repel at once the imputations 
 which have been grounded thereupon, both against land 
 and against landlords. 
 
 To assimilate the two, and confound all distinction 
 between them, it is said that land is a? much n machine, 
 and the preparation of food as much a manufacture, as 
 are the machines and the preparations of any other com- 
 modity. Now, without ohjecdng to this, as being a 
 thing of mere nomenclature, there re^iains one important 
 reality by which to distinguish tb-m. Food is the first 
 necessary ; other commodities a»t3 but second necessaries, 
 or the luxuries of life. The -'ncrease of food will surely 
 be followed up by an increase of population. The in- 
 crease of luxuries m- evf^i of second necessaries, will not 
 always, will not necess'^nly be so followed up. Should corn 
 become permanenth more abundant than before, it would, 
 in the first instanc-? fall in price ; and a fall in such a large 
 and essential Kanch of family expenditure would, by 
 translating paen so much sooner into circumstances of 
 ease and pienty, multiply and hasten on the marriages of 
 labourers. A fall in the price of mere luxuries, such as 
 carpets, or pictures, or expensive wines, would have no 
 such effect : and even a fall in the price of second neces- 
 saries, as of stockings for example, would have scarcely 
 any effect, excepting through the medium of agriculture, 
 and by its influence on cultivation in the way that we 
 
 29 
 
S34 APPENDIX. 
 
 have already explained.* This is the reason why food 
 cannot permanently remain as a drug in the market. It 
 in fact creates a market for itself, which other manufac- 
 tures do not. The peculiarity of the former commodity 
 lies here, thoup-h its supply may be overdone for a year 
 or two, it cannot be overdone permanently, because 
 there is a virtue in the commodity to extend, and that in- 
 definitety, the demand for itself; so that, let the supply 
 be kept up and aug-mented as it may, there will, in the 
 necessity of things, spring up an equivalent demand by 
 which to uphold its price in the market. The same 
 thing cannot be said of other manufactured commodities, 
 not even of second necessaries. The supply of shoes 
 may be overdone year after year, greatly beyond the 
 number of feet that wear them ; because there is almost 
 nothing in the mere production of these shoes to multi- 
 ply the feet. But the supply of loaves cannot be so over- 
 done year after year, because greatly beyond the num- 
 ber of moutks to eat them ; for there is every thing in 
 the production ^nd increase of these loaves to multiply 
 the mouths. It h true, that on that event the feet will 
 be multiplied too ; and with the increase of demand for 
 food, there will also bo an increase of demand for other 
 things, or the products of other manufactures. But 
 these manufactures have to wait the progress of agricul- 
 ture, which itself has to wait f^r nothing but the develop- 
 ment of its own energies and laeans. Agriculture has 
 the command of both the terms Waich enter into the de- 
 termination of price — immediately ^f the supply, and 
 mediately, while rapidly, of the demand. Manufactures 
 have but the command of one term ; ar^ they, by out- 
 doing its progress, are exposed to the perpe+ual check of 
 gluts, and bankruptcies, and losing speculations. 
 
 Now the rent of land is ascribed by Ricardo and 
 others, to a blemish, whereof air and water are altoge- 
 ther free, and which, in consequence, yield no rent. In 
 land there is a descending gradation in the quality of its 
 soils ; and the last of these which has been reclaimed, 
 
 Chap. I. Sect. 9. 
 
RENT OF LAND. 335 
 
 and which is the least fitted for the production of food, 
 is alleged to be the cause of rent upon all the rest. But 
 there is no such descending gradation in the quality of 
 air ; no difference, for example, in the strength of its at- 
 mospherical pressure at diiferent places, if on the same 
 level, so as to make it more powerful at one place 
 than another for giving impulse to machinery. And 
 hence, according to the advocates of the new theory, there 
 is no air rent. But the great, and indeed only efficient 
 principle of rent is here overlooked. It is very true, that 
 if, within the limits of some square miles on the earth's 
 surface, there were air of ten fold property and power, 
 then, all circumstances being equal, it would afford rent 
 to the proprietors of such a small and favoured territorj^ ; 
 and just because all the manufactured commodities that 
 could be produced within limits so narrow, did not satis- 
 fy the actual demand for them. But grant a certain de- 
 finite number of these square miles, along with a right 
 local disposition of them, and rent would cease altoge- 
 ther, whatever the descending; gradation was in the quali- 
 ties of the remaining atmosphere. The truth is, that 
 the demand for such commodities as are wrought off 
 through the instrumentality of steam engines, is limited 
 by the actual numbers of mankind; and, by means of a 
 very few square miles of the requisite atmospherical 
 pressure, the world could be supersaturated with these 
 commodities ; so that all the air over and above this, 
 whether of equal or inferior quality to the former, would 
 lie a useless drug in the hands of those who should seek 
 a rent for the use of it. Whereas, not onl}^ is the de- 
 mand for those commodities which are produced by 
 farms, or land machines, enlarged with every eventual 
 increase in the numbers of mankind, but every addition 
 to these commodities creates an addition to the numbers. 
 The existence of a land, and the nonexistence of an air 
 rent, cannot, with propriety, be referred to any difference 
 between the two elements in respect of the gradation of 
 their qualities. The difference is altogether resolvable 
 into the nature or virtue of their respective products : 
 the one of Iin)ited demand, being straitened within boun- 
 
336 APPENDIX. 
 
 daries which itself cannot enlarge ; the other widening' 
 the boundaries of its demand, and in the very proportion 
 too of every new addition which is made to its own quan- 
 tity. The simple cause of a land rent is, that the best 
 farms, or the best machines for the manufacture of food, 
 work off an excess of this commodity, over and above 
 that share which the capitalists and labourers employed 
 about it choose to put up with for themselves. That they 
 should so choose, is owing to the competition of other 
 capitalists and other labourers, whom the agriculture it- 
 self may be said to have brought into existence, and all 
 of whom would be willing to occupy the best machines 
 for the same share, leaving the excess to go in shape of 
 rent to their proprietors And they of course would be 
 equally willing to be put into occupation of the inferior 
 machines at inferior rents, or of the worst machine that 
 can be wrought with a profit at no rent at all. Rent is 
 not owing to a blemish, but to a superiority in land ma- 
 chines over all others. They, in the first instance, can 
 do what the others cannot ; not only satisfy the actual 
 demand of present customers for their produce, but, by 
 every addition to this produce, can proportionally add 
 to the number of their customers. And the vast majority 
 of them can do what the other species of machines do 
 not — they can work off a greater amount of their own 
 appropriate commodity than will remunerate capital and 
 labour bestowed upon them ; and thus leave a surplus^ 
 by which the industry is upheld that works off a thou» 
 sand blessings to society. 
 
 It would remove the blemish ascribed to the great in- 
 strument for the preparation of food by our mercantile 
 economists, (who have overlooked altogether the distinc- 
 tion, in point of virtue and effect, between the products 
 of agriculture and those of manufactures,) could the 
 business of the two, so unlike in their products, be 
 likened in their processes. It is conceivable, that mate- 
 rials for the sustenance of human life could have been 
 extracted, without let or limitation, by chemical manu- 
 facture, as by some treatment of decomposition and re- 
 composition, for example, on the air which we breathe | 
 
RENT OF LAND. 337 
 
 and that the food of a differently constituted species 
 could have been manufactured this way, in such abun- 
 dance, that it would more than suffice for the alimenting 
 of as many creatures as the earth could accommodate 
 with room to stand upon. This were an economy of 
 things more suited to the taste of those who have cast 
 reproach upon land, because of its limited capacities ; 
 and it were curious to trace the effects of it. The whole 
 of the accessible atmosphere would comCj in the course 
 of population, to be engrossed; and then, if the air were 
 appropriated, though with no gradation in its qualities, 
 all that would be necessary for an air rent, were, that 
 the food produced more than sustained the producers, 
 and so afforded an excess that would go in the shape of 
 revenue to its owners, and be expended by them on a 
 disposable class of labourers. There would still be an 
 air rent as at present. In this respect there would be 
 no change ; but there would be another and very impor- 
 tant change, were the supposition realized of an iodefi- 
 nite capability in human art, for the support of an inde- 
 finite population. Should it be absolutely and altoge- 
 ther without limits, the effect, however undeniable, is so 
 very extraordinary, that we are almost afraid to mention 
 it. There is a certain point, beyond whic^ if human 
 beings were multiplied, a serious inconve-fiience must be 
 felt, from the mere crowding and cc^^-^P^ession of their 
 excessive numbers. This is obv^^tis enough, should it 
 take place within the limits of «ny separate locality ; but 
 it would be as surely and severely felt, if, in virtue of a 
 production of food ad UHtum, it did take place over the 
 whole surface of the ^lobe. The human species would 
 then become as so-<lid and miserable, as those maggots 
 appear to be wh^ swarm on some mass of hideous putre- 
 faction. The* herrings that accumulate and condense in 
 the westerp bays of our island, are said to push the out- 
 skirts of their shoal upon the beach. And better surely 
 that there should be such a limitation in the powers of 
 the land, and such an utter impotency in human art to 
 multiply beyond a certain point the means of subsistence, 
 than that the great human shoal should be protruded at 
 
 29* 
 
338 APPENDIX. 
 
 its extreme margin into the sea, and serve for food to 
 the fishes there waiting to devour them. Rather than 
 that this goodly earth of ours should be turned into a 
 human ant-hill, is it better for man that he should have 
 uncumbered fields — that he should have open and spa- 
 cious solitudes to which he might make occasional es- 
 cape from its more crowded receptacles, and might, on 
 the ample domain of nature, company with nature's ele- 
 ments, and inhale their freshness. It is no interest, and 
 ought to be no care of his, that the terrestrial space on 
 which he walks, should be so over peopled ; or that, for 
 the mere sake of numbers, human beings should multiply 
 to suffocation. The number of His derived and depen- 
 dent family, is the care of Him who sitteth on high — 
 and most nobly hath He provided for it. _ He who hath 
 the command of infinity, hath enriched its mighty tracts 
 with innumerable worlds; and, without overburdening 
 the one we occupy, He finds accommodation and space 
 for the innumerable myriads of creation. Better far, 
 than that, from the vomitories of human mechanism, 
 there should go forth indefinite subsistence for indefinite 
 multitudes — better far, that this should have its fixed 
 and impassable limits ; and that men, with the glorious 
 arch of heaven above their heads, and with an ample 
 platform benea^Ji them, should walk forth in largeness 
 and hberty, the privileged denizens of nature. 
 
 There is an optimibin in the actual constitution of the 
 land, as in every thing eV.e that has proceeded from the 
 hand of the Almighty. Had its fertility been limited to 
 the maintenance of agrarian and secondary labourers, we 
 shoold have had no disposable population ; and neither 
 science nor civilization would have arisen, to bless and to 
 adorn the <'ompanionships of men. Had its fertility been 
 unlimited, or could the powers of human ait have extract- 
 ed, without measure, the necessaries of life froto any quar- 
 ter of nature, the species w^ould have lived in greater sor- 
 didness and misery still, on an earth laden by its wretch- 
 ed, because its over crowded generations. 
 
MACHINERY. 339 
 
 (B. page 59.) — On Machinery. 
 
 The impression against machinery has in it somewhat 
 of the same subtile delusion which we have attempted to 
 expose in the text. There is blended with it the imagi- 
 nation, that employment is creative of something else be- 
 side its own products. For the apprehension of many, 
 and that not confined to the immediate sufferers is, that, 
 with the introduction of every new method for abridging 
 or superseding labour, there is the disappearance, not for 
 a time only, but the permanent disappearance of a re- 
 source to the labouring classes. The idea of their main- 
 tenance is strongly bound up with their occupation; and 
 that, however remote, as in the case of buckle makers, 
 the product of their industry is from the materials of their 
 food, just as if, because buckles were to be no longer fab- 
 ricated, the bread, that wont to sustain the fabricators, 
 was to be no longer forthcoming ; or as if the effect of 
 such transitions was any other than merely to change the 
 direction of industry, without impairing, in the least, 
 those stores of human aliment, by which as great a num- 
 ber of industrious was sure to be upheld in circumstances 
 of as great sufficiency as ever. 
 
 We dispute not the evils, though but the temporary 
 evils, that result from those transitions of employment 
 which are caused by machinery. They form a strong 
 claim on the aid and tenderness of the benevolent, when 
 families, in large masses, are, for a period, thrown out of 
 employment; and what were still more healthful, they 
 form a strong call on the manufacturing class of labour- 
 ers more particularly, to cultivate those providential 
 habits, by which, in virtue of their accumulations, they 
 might be enabled to weather the seasons of suspension 
 and change, to which every people of mechanic and high- 
 ly artificial industry are so peculiarly exposed. Nothing 
 is more to be deprecated among a people so peculiarly 
 circumstanced, than those institutions 'Which discharge 
 them from the care of themselves, and from all prospec- 
 tive regard to their own necessities ; the consequence of 
 
340 APPENDIX. 
 
 which is, that they are perpetually kept on the brink of 
 destitution ; and so are landed, in total helplessness, on 
 those occasions when, either by a depression in trade, or 
 by an abandonment of old methods of industry, thousands 
 are reduced to a state of temporary idleness. 
 
 The vindication of machinery from the charge of its 
 adverse influence on the comforts of the poor, has been 
 made to rest upon diflerent grounds. It is not the true 
 vindication, that the making of the machines opens so 
 great a source of employment, that the making and work- 
 ing of them together, take up as many hands as did the 
 making of the commodities without the machines ; for, 
 in this case, there would be no abridgment of labour, and 
 no advantage to master manufacturers in setting up the 
 machinery. And it is not a sufficient vindication, that, 
 when an article is cheapened by machinery, the demand 
 for it is so much enlarged as still, in spite of the abridg- 
 ment in labour, to require as many, if not more, labourers 
 for its preparation as before;* for this, though true of 
 many, perhaps of most trades, is not true of all The ul- 
 timate and substantial vindication is, that, however the 
 demand may vary or be lessened for particular kinds of 
 work, the fund, out of which the wages come, is left un- 
 impaired. The maintenance abides with us, whether the 
 counterpart employment abides with us or not ; and we 
 may be very sure, that this maintenance will continue to 
 be discharged on labourers, if not for the very work, at 
 least for some kind of work or other. The distress and 
 inconvenience of the change are evils ; but they are the 
 only evils. 
 
 Machinery does not impair the fund out of which in- 
 dustry is supported ; neither does it lessen the amount of 
 industry, but only alters the distribution of it, and makes 
 it more productive than before. In manufactures, the 
 same quantity of a given article is furnished with less la- 
 bour ; but I continue to employ and support the same la- 
 bour as before, either by extending my use of that article, 
 
 * This is the chief argument, very strikingly illustrated, of an ad- 
 mirable little treatise which has appeared lately, entitled, " The 
 Working Man's Companion." 
 
MACHINERY. 341 
 
 or by allotting the sum which its now greater cheapness 
 has left in my hands to the purchase of some other accom- 
 modations. The war against machinery is a war against 
 human enjoyments. 
 
 In agriculture, it is also the effect of machinery to have 
 the same work accomplished with fewer hands. And 
 this, as before, does not diminish the population, but only 
 changes the distribution of them. It may transfer so many 
 from the agricultural to the disposable class. If fewer 
 farm labourers are required than before, proportionally 
 to this, a larger surplus produce will go to the landlord 
 than before ; for, just as the consumpt or expense on the 
 farm is lessened, rent will be increased These two effects 
 meet and correspond ; the augmentation of rent, with 
 the augmentation in the number of the third class of la- 
 bourers. One of the most important effects of agricultu- 
 ral improvement is, that it enlarges the disposable popu- 
 lation. 
 
 But machinery, both in agriculture and manufactures, 
 is attended with another effect of a still more vital charac- 
 ter, and one on which most essentially depend the gene- 
 ral comfort and sufficiency of our existing generation of 
 labourers. We have already demonstrated that the limit 
 of cultivation is pushed forward by every invention which 
 makes the labour of workmen, either in the ag;ricultural 
 or secondary classes, more effective than before. If, in 
 virtue of certain machinery, all that enters into the main- 
 tenance of an ordinary labourer, can be prepared by 
 fewer hands than formerly, this opens the way to a de- 
 scent among poorer soils than formerly : and the more 
 perfect such machinery is, the greater is the length to 
 which agriculture is extended. Now, to that extreme 
 limit the population have multiplied ; andXrom that limit 
 must the agriculture again recede, if such machinery shall 
 be forcibly put down. It will affect the general supply of 
 the population with food, just as a permanent visitation 
 of blight or barrenness would ; so that the vindication of 
 machinery stands on much higher ground than merely 
 its subservience to the enjoyments of the wealthy, It 
 will react most calamitously on the very classes who ar§ 
 
342 APPENDIX. 
 
 most outrageous in this cause — it will stint the supply 
 of first necessaries, — if, in terror or subjection to the 
 tyranny of the multitude, either our farming or manu- 
 facturing capitalists shall be forced to discontinue 
 their machines and implements of labour.* 
 
 And the reflection here occurs, that in proportion to 
 the high and artificial state of improvement which any 
 country has reached, will the distress be; should law, 
 and securit}^, and social order, in that country, from 
 whatever cause, whether by invasion from without or 
 by anarchy from within, come to be suspended. With 
 every step in the progress of such improvement, has 
 there been an onward step in the cultivation of the 
 soil ; till, corresponding to its high-wrought and ex- 
 treme husbandry, the land has been filled with an 
 extreme population. But without the utmost protection 
 and deference to the rights of property, and confidence 
 in distant returns on the outlays of capital, and safety 
 from that violence which never comes in a shape so 
 formidableto the resources ofthe nation, as when directed 
 against the apparatus of our farms — such a high style 
 of husbandry cannot possibly be upholden. The effect 
 will be most tremendous ; and far more severe than 
 in a land of coarser husbandry, which in its days of 
 peace has not been elaborated forward to its extreme 
 resources, and so, in its days of warfare or misrule, 
 will not be thrown backward upon that extreme neces- 
 sity, to which every territory that is at once fully culti- 
 vated an I fully peopled, would, in these circumstances, 
 be most certainly exposed. This consideration should 
 operate powerfully at present, in the fearful conflict 
 that is now at work between the two elements of liberty 
 and order. Were there to be a season of insurrectionary 
 violence in these islands, we believe, on the principle 
 which we have just stated, that England would suffer 
 
 * The thrashing machine, beside helping down the agriculture to 
 inferior soils, has a still more direct influence on the supply of food, 
 by the more entire separation which it effects of the grain from the 
 straw. 
 
HOME COLONIZATION. 34S 
 
 more than Ireland; and that, in point of intense and 
 intolerable wretchedness throughout its families, it 
 might then be said, '' There has been no such distress 
 in any land, or such wrath upon any people." Amid 
 the contests of partizanship, the high and great principle 
 should never be lost sight of on either side; that, in 
 the preservation of justice, and authority, and good 
 government, no country in the world has so mighty a 
 stake as our own; and that, even by the partial relaxa- 
 tion, but still more by the subversion of these, will the 
 comfort of no other, people, and the prosperity of no 
 other land, experience so calamitous an overthrow. 
 
 (C. pages 104, 112.) — On Home Colonization, 
 
 There are very few countries which do not present 
 large tracts of land, on which the experiment of home 
 colonization may be tried. The question then is. Why 
 are they at present unoccupied ? There can be no 
 doubt, that in such a country of law, and security, and 
 enterprise as our own, they would have been cultivated, 
 could they, at the existing rate of profit, have remune- 
 rated the farmers. This is an object which may, with 
 all safety, be left to the guidance of personal interest, 
 and to the sharp-sighted intelligence of men calculating 
 and scheming for their own individual advantage. It 
 is not the want of capital which accounts for the non- 
 cultivation of land in any country teeming with capital 
 like our own; but an apprehension, either on the part 
 of occupiers or of money-lenders, that if capital were 
 embarked on the cultivation, it would not be returned 
 with an adequate profit, and perhaps even be lost par- 
 tially or altogether. And if individuals would find it 
 a losing speculation, we have no reason to believe that 
 corporations, still less the largest corporation of all, the 
 government, would find it a safe one. We may rest 
 
S44 APPENDIX. 
 
 assured, that, down to such land as will barely remu- 
 nerate the outlay and expenses of its cultivation, the 
 capital in the hands of individuals has not only reached 
 this limit, but is pressing upon it closely, and is even 
 wasting itself on vain attempts to pass beyond it. And 
 so we may safely assume, that in any old country, 
 which has lon^ been in favourable circumstances of 
 peace, and civilization, and order, for the development 
 of its natural resources, if land hitherto uncultivated 
 has been pitched upon for the purpose of home coloni- 
 zation, it is land of a lower fertility than what can re- 
 pay the expenses of its own husbandry with a fair 
 profit to the cultivator. 
 
 But passing over the element of profit, which forms 
 but an inconsiderable fraction of the whole return, it 
 may be said of the soil wiiich is entered by home colo- 
 nization, that it is not able to feed its agricultural labour- 
 ers with their secondaries ; and that, therefore, a full 
 complement of labourers cannot be applied to such land, 
 without a lessening of the disposable population. Not 
 but that, in country parishes, a sufficient, an overflow- 
 ing number of agrarian workmen might be had for the 
 enterprise; but, supported as it must be by a tax, the 
 produce of which formerly went to the purchase of luxu- 
 ries, there of consequence must eventually be so many 
 of the disposable population thrown out of emplo5''ment. 
 Still, in spite of this circumstance, there would be a re- 
 lief afforded upon the whole by such a measure, to the 
 general press'ire under which the community laboured 
 from the excess of its own numbers. For the disposable 
 labourers thrown out of employment would form but a 
 fraction, and in the first instance it might be a small 
 fraction, of the whole number enlisted in the under- 
 taking. If the land they began with, 5delded subsist- 
 ence for nine-tenths of the essential labourers connect- 
 ed with it; then, on the supposition of a hundred men 
 being employed, only ten would need to be transferred 
 from the disposable class to the agricultural or second- 
 ary ; and the return yielded, would form a clear addi- 
 tion, in the food of ninety labourers, to the previous 
 
HOME COLONIZATION. 345 
 
 means of subsistence in the land. This number of idlers 
 would be translated, not into what can rightly be termed 
 profitable employment, but into employment, that, with 
 the help of a tax providing for one-tenth of their main- 
 tenance, enables them to make out and complete the 
 whole of it. The advantage of such a scheme over 
 that of all other charity-work, is quite obvious. The 
 forcing of a manufacture beyond its natural limit, pro- 
 duces no food; and by edging in, as it were, to a share 
 of the pre-existent food, so many of the superfluous 
 population, it but condemns the whole population, each 
 to a >^cai)tier portion than before. The forcing of agri" 
 culture beyond its natural limit, does create a clear ad- 
 dition to the food of the country; and if carried to a 
 great ext* nt, it may for a season, and before the popu- 
 lation have had time to overtake it, yield, in the cheap- 
 ening of the first necessaries of life, a sensible relief to 
 the community at large. 
 
 This holds forth an inviting outset for the scheme ; 
 but it is well to mark its progress, and, if indefinitely 
 carried forward, the final result of it. Once the natural 
 limit is broken, and the deficient soils are entered on, the 
 cultivation cannot proceed downwards, but by an in- 
 creasing tax on the wealthy, and larger and larger 
 drafts on the disposable population. At each successive 
 descent, a temporary relief may be experienced ; but 
 with the same recklessness and relaxation of habit on 
 the part of labourers, the pressure of a redundancy in 
 our numbers will ever and anon recur with the same in- 
 tensity and feeling of straitness as before. We should 
 at length touch on the ultimate and impassable boun- 
 dary of such a process, when, for the purpose of with- 
 holding it, the wealthy had to be taxed till they were 
 reduced to the necessaries of life, and the last man of 
 the disposable population to be withdrawn, in order to 
 make out the requisite labour on the last, and therefore 
 most deficient soils which had been entered on. We 
 should then be landed in a more populous nation, yet 
 not have a single disposable individual within its con- 
 fines* Each would labour for his own essential mainte* 
 
 30 
 
346 APPENDIX. 
 
 nance ; and all the interest or enjoyment connected witk 
 the services of a disposable population, behooved to be 
 abandoned. This is what may be termed the extreme 
 possibility of the system ; but it would never be realized. 
 It would surely break up, and that long anterior to such 
 a consummation. Landlords, subject to an indefinite 
 and ever-growing taxation, would at length cease to feel 
 an interest in the administration of their own property. 
 They would not continue to be the receivers of rents, 
 when this was so nearly tantamount to being the mere 
 organs of transmission, through whom the surplus pro- 
 duce of the superior, found its way to the deficient soils, 
 and was there absorbed in the expenses of a profitless 
 and ungrateful cultivation. It is fearful to contemplate 
 the issues, after that property had thus been undermined, 
 and the ancient ties had been dissevered which connect- 
 ed the soil with its original possessors. The occupiers 
 of the barren, might then turn in fierceness to the occu- 
 piers of the fertile land, on the wonted channel of con- 
 veyance in the person of the landlord having at length 
 given way. A lax sense, or an imperfect arrangement 
 of property, in a country yet but thinly inhabited, and 
 of unbroken capabilities, is still so prolific of disorder, as 
 to verify the maxim, that a state of nature is a state of 
 war ; but this disorder must be thickened and aggravated 
 tenfold, should the same dissolution take place in a 
 country of teeming population, and whose very deserts 
 now swarmed with a host of colonized paupers that had 
 overflown the natural Hmits of the agriculture. In the 
 scramble that ensues, we shall perhaps have to witness 
 another of those dread calamities which may be awaiting 
 us, and which we fear nothing will avert, but a timely 
 moral and Christian education of the people, along 
 with the gradual abandonment of certain inveterate 
 errors which have been suffered to distemper the social 
 economy of our land. 
 
 Such being the natural out-goings of the system of 
 home colonization, this alternative should be carefully 
 weighed at the commencement of it — ^Whether it is 
 better that the people should, by a right preventive check 
 
HOME COLONIZATION. 347 
 
 on their own number, have room and sufficiency within 
 the natural limit of the agriculture, or should be en- 
 couraged to multiply beyond that limit by a scheme, the 
 proposal of which has met with great acceptance from 
 many patriots and philanthropists in our day 1 It is ut- 
 terly a vain hope, that we shall ever, by means of such 
 settlements, escape from the pressure of a redundant 
 population ; and a momentary slackening of the pressure 
 is the most that we can expect from it. And this de- 
 scent among the deficient soils to make room for a sur- 
 plus population, is sure to be accompanied by a descent 
 in the circumstances of the general population. The 
 very circumstance of the soils being deficient, implies 
 the necessity of a charitable intervention, in order to 
 complete the maintenance of those who are there colo- 
 nized. But, generally speaking, when the hand of 
 charity is stretched forth, and more especially in behalf 
 of a whole multitude, it is not for the purpose of up- 
 holding them in that state of average sufficiency which 
 obtains among labourers, but only for the purpose of 
 saving them from starvation ; not to keep them in com- 
 fort, but to keep them in existence. These home colo- 
 nists, if the system be carried to any sensible extent, will 
 not be on the footing of independent labourers earning a 
 respectable wage, but on the footing rather of paupers, 
 or the dependants of a vestry, who have their supplemen- 
 tary allowances 4oled out to them, with that niggardly 
 reluctance which usually marks the proceedings of an 
 organized system of relief Here then we have a popu- 
 lation encouraged and virtually called into being, who 
 are constrained by their situation to live beneath the 
 par of human comfort and subsistence, and whose very 
 presence in the land will act as an incubus with over- 
 hanging pressure on the general condition of our peasant- 
 ry. They form a body of reserve, from whom masters 
 may indefinitely draw, in every question of wages be- 
 tween themselves and their servants ; and by means of 
 whom, therefore, they can, as in a market overstocked 
 with labour, bring down indefinitely its remuneration, 
 We hold then, in addition to every other evil of the sys^ 
 
348 APPENDIX. 
 
 tern, that, once it is entered on and continues to be ex- 
 tended, the working classes will be sealed thereby to 
 irrecoverable degradation. It is at its outset, then, that 
 every enlightened philanthropist should take his stand ; 
 and at once proclaim, that nothing will serve the ex- 
 igencies of a land brought to such extremity as this, but 
 a vigorous application of moral causes. We hold it as 
 being of inestimable benefit to all the classes of society, 
 that cultivation should stop with the last land which 
 yields a profit to the farmer, after having fed both its 
 direct and secondary labourers. The momentous ques- 
 tion is, Shall we step beyond this limit, or keep within iti 
 By the former, we enter on a headlong process of degra- 
 dation, through which we obtain, no doubt, a larger^ 
 but withal a more wretched peasantry. By the latter,, 
 we restrict ourselves to a smaller produce, and a smaller 
 population, keeping the disposable class entire ; but 
 leaving it possible, by indefinite moral and literary culti- 
 vation, indefinitely to r,aise the comfort and condition o| 
 all the classes. There is a beautiful harmony here, b( 
 tween the interest of the landed proprietors and the h 
 terest of the general community. Landlords, on tbi 
 one hand, would be left in full possession of their rents, 
 and in full command of the disposable population. The 
 general population, on the other, would be retained 
 within the boundaries of a soil, fully able, even at its 
 worst extreme, to maintain the families who laboured it. 
 It is a big alternative ; and the most opposite results are 
 suspended on it. Either the population would be re- 
 strained within the natural limits of the agriculture, and 
 might be raised by moral culture into higher and higher 
 states of sufficiency; in which case the rent of landlords 
 would be kept up, or if encroached on at all, (and we 
 should rejoice in such an encroachment,) it would be by 
 the higher wage of a now improved and independent 
 peasantry. Or this rent would be wrested from them by 
 the necessities of a pauper peasantry ; in which case 
 there would, along with a letting down of the revenue 
 of the landlords, be a letting forth of the population on 
 deficient soils; and so, a landing both of the higher and 
 lower classes of society in one common degradation. 
 
HOME COLONIZATION. 349 
 
 This process is as good as already entered upon in 
 England. The pauperism of that country may be re- 
 garded, in certain of its modifications, as a method of 
 home colonization in disguise. In as far as the wages 
 are paid out of the poor's rate, in so far may the farmer 
 be induced to bring down his agriculture among soils 
 that cannot repay the natural expenses of their hus- 
 bandry. Of course, he cannot afford to do this with- 
 out paying a less rent to the landlord than he could 
 have otherwise afforded ; and, indeed, in many districts 
 of England where the redundancy of people has been 
 most severely felt, there has been a partial remission of 
 the rent, for the express purpose of enabling the farmer 
 to take the parochial applicants into employment. The 
 work of his farm may by this time have been fully en- 
 grossed up to the limit of that agriculture which can 
 remunerate itself. But better it is to have a partial 
 return from the labour of these supernumeraries, than 
 no return at all. Better keep them in employment, 
 though it should yield but a fraction of their mainten- 
 ance, than keep them in total idleness. Now this is the 
 virtual commencement of a scheme of home coloniza- 
 tion, and offers indeed a distinct exemplification of its 
 several parts and consequences. The people who are 
 thus admitted to country labour, can only find occupancy 
 among those extremes of cultivation; where the addi- 
 tional produce is unable to maintain the additional men 
 who have forced themselves into service. They cannot 
 raise enough for their own support, to complete which, 
 rents are encroached upon ; or, in other words, an agra- 
 rian population is multiplied and upheld at the expense 
 of the fund for the support of the disposable population. 
 From this quarter then, from towns where employ- 
 ment will languish, may we expect an additional 
 invasion on the already over-peopled land; and there- 
 fore upon that part of it which lies beyond the natu- 
 ral limit of cultivation. It is fearful to contemplate the 
 result, if the present system of England shall be longer 
 persevered in. There is nothing more likely to bring 
 on a crisis, than this unnatural accumulation of peoi 
 
 30* 
 
350 APPENDIX^ 
 
 and nothing more certain to aggravate its miseries aisd 
 horrors, when it shall come to be reaUzed. If, dming 
 a period of turbulence and disorder, the agriculture 
 shall be at all relaxed, (and what more likely from the 
 loosened and lessened interest of the administrators of 
 landed property, in estates that become every year less 
 valuable and more vexatious to them *?) or if, during the 
 same period, the now artificial economy of parish ma-« 
 nagement shall be suspended, so that either the produce 
 shall be diminished, or the existing distribution of it 
 shall be deranged — we cannot imagine a more fearful 
 perspective than the famine, and the mutual ferocity, 
 and all the evils of anarchy, which will then be let 
 loose upon our suffering families. There are clearly 
 elements at work towards such a consummation ; and 
 far more imperative therefore, than the necessity for a 
 reform in the politics, is the urgent necessity for a reform 
 in the economics of England. The one opens a much 
 higher walk than the other for the wisdom and benevo- 
 lence of true patriotism. In younger countries there 
 i^^-yj by an enlargement of means to the population, be 
 a comparative ease and tranquillity for centuries to come. 
 In a country, brought as ours near to the uttermost 
 verge of its resources, the only effectual and lasting 
 remedy is to check the advances of the population upon 
 the means. And nothing, we repeat, is competent to 
 such an effect, but a gradual abolition of the poor's laws, 
 along with the instant and vigorous application of moral 
 causes. Village schools, and well-served churches, and 
 zealous parish ministrations, and a universal system of 
 popular education, into which the lessons of the gospel 
 of Jesus Christ largely and pervadingly enter, — these 
 form the main elements or means of our nation's peace, 
 and our nation's greatness. 
 
NATIONAL DEBT. 351 
 
 (D. page 98) — On the National Debt. 
 
 There is one conclusion from the argument in the 
 text, which appears to us inevitable ; and which, para- 
 doxical as it may appear, we hold to be amply borne out 
 both by reason and experience.* We can perceive no 
 flaw in the deduction, should it only be granted that the 
 capital displaced from business by loans is repaired, not 
 by the parsimony of capitalists, but by the privation of 
 customers — an inference that comes direct from the 
 most elementary principles in political economy ; and 
 which is abundantly countenanced by the phenomena, 
 both of the high profit that takes place in seasons of 
 borrowing, as indicated by the low price of stocks, and 
 by the obvious resuscitation of the withdrawn capital 
 which must take place every year, as indicated by the 
 unimpaired sufficiency of capital for all mercantile and 
 agricultural concerns. 
 
 The views, then, presented in the text, on the subject 
 of capital, have suggested to us the following important 
 practical inference, in regard to the pohcy of the fund- 
 ing system. 
 
 The sum borrowed by government is withdrawn from 
 commerce and manufactures, and must, to the extent of 
 its power in producing commodities, and bringing them 
 to market, lessen the supply of these commodities. 
 
 The price of these commodities rises in consequence, 
 and to such a degree, too, that the sura will be replaced; 
 so that, in the course of a little time, the capital, restored 
 to what it was by the operation of the now higher profit 
 will be as fully commensurate to the business of the 
 
 * We subjoined the greater part of this argument some years ago 
 to a former work, entitled, " The Christian and Civic Economy of 
 Large Towns ;" but the extraordinary nature of the conclusion, and 
 its immense practical importance, if true, as being decisive, we 
 would not only say of the vital impolicy, but of the prodigious in- 
 fatuation, nay, insanity, of the funding system, have led us to insert 
 ' ' in this place. 
 
352 APPENDIX. 
 
 country as before, when profits will again sink to their 
 wonted level. 
 
 But, should the same sum be borrowed next year, 
 the same deficiency of capital will occasion another year 
 of deficient supply, and of those consequent higher 
 prices and .profits which are the unavoidable result of it. 
 The deficiency will again be filled up as before ; and it 
 will not be for the want of a capital to borrow from, that 
 government shall be arrested in this career, however 
 jnuch it may feel itself arrested by the insufficiency of 
 the taxes necessary to defray the interest of the increas- 
 ing debt. 
 
 There might, however, be successive yearly borrow- 
 ings for a considerable time ; and in this way govern* 
 ment has provided itself with means, over and above its 
 annual revenue, for defraying the expense of our length- 
 ened wars. If there be truth in our reasoning on the 
 subject of capital, this will continue to act upon prices 
 and profits just as long as the practice of borrowing 
 lasts. There will be as great a sum replaced every year, 
 as shall both uphold the capital that is actually vested in 
 business, and, over and above this, shall afford to go^ 
 yernment a loan, equal to that of the preceding year. 
 But should the loan not be wanted, should the sum that 
 government wont to absorb in this way not find its usual 
 investiture, it will seek an investiture in trade. It 
 will, in fact, restore the trading and manufacturing 
 capital to the state in which it would have been, had 
 government not made these yearly abstractions from it; 
 and, with the now larger capital, there will be a fall 
 of prices and profits. 
 
 The important deduction to be made from this argu- 
 ment is, that when government defra,ys any of its ex- 
 penses by borrowing, it does so by a method which is 
 doubly more burdensome to the country, than when it 
 defrays the expense by taxes raised within the year. 
 
 Should government borrow twenty millions for the exi- 
 gencies of the current year, there are, in that year, 
 twenty millions' worth less of commodities brought to 
 the general market than there would otherwise have 
 
NATIONAL DEBT. 353 
 
 been. But there is nothing in this transaction between 
 government and so many of the capitalists of the nation, 
 that can affect either the power or the inchnation of 
 buyers to purchase. There is as effective a demand as 
 before, but a diminished supply — the same expenditure 
 on the part of customers, but, on the whole, twenty 
 millions' worth less of enjoyment in return for it. 
 
 Had government, instead of borrowing, raised the 
 twenty millions by additional taxes, the community, no 
 doubt j would have had twenty millions less to spend ; but 
 they would not have had the high prices to encounter, 
 which are consequent on those abstractions of capital 
 produced by government-loans. It is quite the same 
 thing, whether the community shall go to market with 
 the usual amount of money for purchases, but with 
 prices raised to the extent of twenty millions ; or shall 
 go to market with twenty millions, less of money, but 
 with the usual prices. In either way, it suffers the loss 
 of twenty millions' worth of enjoyment ; or, in other 
 words, it suffers no greater loss by being taxed to th© 
 extent of twenty millions, than it does by this sum 
 being borrowed from the money-holders or capitalists 
 of the land. 
 
 Under the borrowing system, the public are subjected 
 through the medium of higher prices, to the expense 
 of repairing deficiencies, occasioned by government- 
 loans, in the capital of the nation. The public could as 
 easily, through the medium of higher taxes, have yield* 
 ed, direct to government, the whole amount of the 
 sums borrov/ed. The ability, on the part of the nation^ 
 to keep up the capital, in spite of the repeated drafts 
 made upon it by borrowing, indicates the same abihty to 
 withstand equal drafts, if made upon it by immediate 
 taxation. The whole sum borrowed for any year, 
 though primarily and ostensibly raised from the money- 
 holders, is in fact, raised from the public-— and raised, 
 too, within the year. The burden could have been as 
 easily borne, if the whole sura borrowed had been 
 raised within the year by a direct levy. It makes UQ 
 
354 APPENDIX. 
 
 real diflference, whether bereft of a given amount of en- 
 joyment by means of higher prices or higher taxes. 
 
 It is thus that the national debt has all been vir- 
 tually paid once, and yet remains to be paid over again 
 — paid, in the first instance, as it was contracted, by 
 the high prices conseqvient on a deficient capital ; and 
 to be paid, in the second instance, to the actual credit- 
 ors, either by a liquidation of the principal, or by a 
 perpetual interest. 
 
 The hardship on the nation would not have been 
 greater, though all the money borrowed had been raised 
 by taxation, than the hardship actually borne at the time 
 when the loans were contracted. And there is not a 
 period of our by-gone history, even though the years 
 of profusest expenditure should be fixed upon, in which 
 we were not just as able to render, in additional taxes, 
 all the sums that were raised by borrowing, as we were 
 able to support the augmented prices consequent upon 
 the loans ; and by which, in fact, the whole amount of 
 these locins was drawn ft'om the community, to repair 
 the abstractions which had been made upon the capital. 
 
 The difference, then, between the system of raising- 
 money by loans, and that of providing for all the ex- 
 penses by taxation, is that, while in both ways the same 
 pressure is made at the time on the comfort of families, 
 in the former way there is the formation and growth 
 of a great national mortgage, which remains to oppress 
 and enfeeble the country. In either way, the state may 
 obtain exactly the same supplies ; but, in the former 
 way, it obtains them at a double expense to the nation. 
 The present burden is just as heavy in the one way as 
 in the other ; over and above which, there is a prospec- 
 tive burden equal to the present, which the system of 
 borrowing leaves behind it. 
 
 Notwithstanding, however, loans are more popular 
 than taxes, and just because their double mischief is 
 disguised. The people do not feel that government are 
 taking the money out of their pockets by borrowing, 
 tliough this is virtually done, and at the time too, in 
 
NATIONAL DEBT. 253 
 
 the shape of higher prices, if not in the shape of 
 higher taxes. They think that a loan only entails a 
 distant calamity, although the full weight of it is felt 
 in a present calamity. But this is not perceived, and 
 blindness reconciles them to a sore infatuation. 
 
 To conclude, then ; the whole sum wanted for the ser- 
 vice of the year should be raised by taxation, and the 
 expedient of a loan should never be resorted to. Be- 
 sides the economic argument for this policy, which ap- 
 pears to us irresistible, we hold the very unpopularity of 
 it to be an additional recommendation. It would re- 
 strain the public appetite for war. Government would 
 not enter so readily upon any rash or wanton under- 
 taking, if the whole expense of it were not only actual- 
 ly felt, but conscio^isly felt in taxes palpably imposed 
 for the purpose of defraying it. A more cautious and 
 pacific spirit would thenceforth actuate the councils of 
 the nation. 
 
 Mr. Tooke, in his able disquisition upon high and low 
 prices, seems not to have fully adverted to the distinc* 
 tion in point of effect, between a war expenditure that 
 is defrayed wholly by taxes, and a war expenditure that 
 is defrayed partly by loans. He is right in asserting, that 
 the money which is in the hands of capitalists, is as 
 much spent as would be the same money in the hands 
 of government ; and that, therefore, when transferred 
 from the one to the other, there is no greater demand 
 thereby created to bear on the general market, |and so 
 to raise prices. But it should be considered, that 
 though such a transference gives rise to no greater de- 
 mand, it gives rise to a less supply ; and that this will 
 raise prices just as effectually. The twenty millions 
 borrowed by government from so many of our capital- 
 ists, might all have been spent by the latter, within the 
 year, in the outlays of their business ; and so have told 
 as effectually on general prices, as the same sum spent 
 by government. But the borrowing has caused a cessa- 
 tion of this business, insomuch that there are twenty 
 millions' worth less of commodities brought to market, 
 for the supply of the families of the land. Meanwhile, 
 
356 APPENDIX. 
 
 their demand for these commodities is the same, and the 
 money which they bring to purchase them is the same ; 
 and so the price rises to such a degree, that they must 
 be satisfied with twenty millions' worth less of com- 
 forts than they would have had, had no such borrowing 
 taken place. It would have been no greater hard- 
 ship on the community, if, taxed to the extent of the 
 whole loan, they had gone with twenty millions less 
 of money to market, when the prices were not exposed 
 to the influence of the borrowing system in raising 
 them. 
 
 That profits are raised by the government loans, 
 seems palpably enough indicated by the effect of these 
 loans on the price of stocks. It is not any apprehension 
 for the security of government, that can account for the 
 whole depression of the funds, at the period of large 
 and frequent loans to meet the exigencies of a war. It 
 arises in great part from the drafts which are made on 
 the capital of the nation, and from the necessary efiect 
 which the consequent diminished supply has upon pri- 
 ces and profits. The descent from 90 to 50 in the 3 
 per cent, consols, during a great part of the French 
 wars, argues a high rate of profit throughout the 
 whole of that period. So long as it lasted, the com- 
 munity were exposed to all the higher prices for the 
 various articles of comfort; and we have no doubt, that, 
 by this difierence of price alone, the whole sums bor- 
 rowed, enormous as they were, actually passed from 
 their hands to replace the deficiencies of the capital* 
 The sum of five hundred millions, then added to our 
 national debt, was paid away by the people in higher 
 prices; and better far it would have been, if, instead of 
 this, it had been paid away by them in higher taxes. 
 It was actually paid, yet still remains an incubus upon 
 the nation. 
 
 And the conclusion is not essentially different, al- 
 though the supplies of government should be raised, in 
 the first instance, by the pure operation of credit, 
 rather than by actual borrowing. Suppose, for exam- 
 ple, that a sum so large as twenty millions should be 
 
NATIONAL DEBT. SST 
 
 Raised within the year, in the shape of exchequer bills* 
 There is, in this case, no abstraction of monied capital 
 from any department of business, and therefore no rais- 
 ing of general prices from this cause. But there is an 
 increase of prices, and to the same extent of twenty 
 millions too, by another cause; that is, if not by a 
 diminution of the money that formerly went to the 
 side of production, at least by an increase of the money 
 that now goes to the side of demand. The truth 
 is, that, by the device in question, no less than an ad- 
 ditional twenty millions are brought to bear on all ag- 
 gregate produce of the same pecuniary cost as before., 
 Through the currency and reception of these bills, a 
 given cost of produce meets with twenty millions more 
 in the market than it otherwise would have done, and 
 average or general prices rise to that amount. Govern- 
 ment brings the whole force of this extra competition 
 to raise the price of that which cost but the same as 
 formerly; and the effect of this extravagance on its part, 
 is precisely the same with that of a similar extravagance 
 on the part of landlords, who may be conceived to spend 
 collectively, in one year, twenty millions more than 
 their income. There is a consequent rise of prices to 
 this amount, which goes to enrich merchants and man- 
 ufacturers, and to constitute them either the creditors 
 of government, who, in the act of funding their bills, 
 bring a permanent mortgage upon the nation — 'Or the 
 creditors of landed proprietors, whose expenditure in 
 like manner brings a mortgage upon their estates. In 
 either case, the whole effect is a rise of prices; and not 
 a reduction, but a rotation of property. 
 
 There is still a third way in which this matter can 
 proceed; and it is worthy of being noticed, because of 
 the important explanation on another subject to w^hich 
 it is subservient. The monied capital vested in the ac- 
 tual business of the country, might be rated, as before, 
 at a hundred millions; and be returned, in ordinary 
 times, by the sum of a hundred and ten millions. If 
 reduced to eighty millions b}'' a government loan, we 
 have already seen, how, in one revolution of the eco- 
 
 31 
 
3SB APPENDIX. 
 
 nomic cycle, it might be fully restored by the opera- 
 tion of a diminished supply upon prices. But the like- 
 lihood is, that the remaining capitalists of eighty mil- 
 lions may not confine their operations to what thay can 
 barely do with their own proper capital. They may 
 superadd the power of credit to that of capital, which, 
 in the circumstances supposed, they can do with all the 
 greater safety, because of the large return of a hundred 
 and ten millions to eighty millions that is now awaiting 
 them. Let us imagine, then, that in virtue of being 
 trusted to the extent of ten millions, they can lay out 
 ninety instead of eighty millions on the extension of 
 their business. This would reduce their profits for 
 that year, from thirty to twenty millions; makings 
 therefore, the reparation of the capital a slower process 
 than it might otherwise have been. The sum of ten 
 millions, by which their profits would have been aug- 
 mented, has passed from them, and taken some other 
 direction, which remains to be inquired into. 
 
 It seems obvious enough, then, that as by this device 
 of credit they have brought ninety instead of eighty 
 millions to bear on the outlays of their business, the 
 money price of all which they had to purchase must 
 have risen in this proportion. The chief of these 
 purchases must be raw materials and labour. Confining 
 ourselves to the latter, it may be stated as a general 
 position — That when the operations of trade are extend- 
 ed by credit, the money price of labour rises. In the 
 particular instance before us, it will do so unquestiona- 
 bly. The mere loan of twenty millions to government, 
 will have no effect in this way ; for though they are 
 thereby vested with an additional command to that 
 extent over the labour market, which they will of 
 course make use of in adding to their naval and military 
 establishments, yet the power of the capitalists from 
 whom they have borrowed this sum is as much dimi- 
 nished ; so that still, after the transaction, the joint 
 demand of the two parties for the ser slices of men, 
 may be measured by the same sum, as the entire de- 
 mand of the capitalists before that the borrowing took 
 
NATIONAL DEBT. 359 
 
 place. But should these capitalists, by means of credit, 
 bring ninety millions instead of eighty to bear upon the 
 market; then, with the help of the twenty millions 
 now in the hands of government, a hundred and ten 
 millions, in the place of a hundred, will go to the 
 purchase of service and materials together, and so 
 raise in that proportion the money price of both of 
 them. And should government, by such a measure as 
 the issuing of exchequer bills, add to the effect of these 
 doings the operation of a pure credit on their side — ■ 
 there may, between the parties, be a hundred and 
 twenty, or a hundred and thirty millions, instead of a 
 hundred expended within the year, and that chiefly in 
 hiring the services of men. A war, whose expenses 
 were defrayed by taxation within the year, might 
 have no such effect ; Imt the various expedients so 
 much resorted to, of loan and anticipation, have all of 
 them the obvious and certain effect of advancing, for 
 the time, the money price of labour. 
 
 Now this advance in the money price of labour, 
 must, we think, tell directly on the money price of all 
 that is purchased by labourers. More especially will 
 it have the effect of raising the money price of grain — 
 that being a first necessary of life. Not that it will 
 necessarily give them a greater command over this 
 prime article of subsistence — for, with only a given 
 quantity of corn in the market, a mere advance of 
 nominal wages can have no effect in sharing it out 
 more liberally to the population. Still, however, it 
 will have effect on the nominal or money price of corn. 
 If all the buyers of an article have more to give for it 
 than usual, that more will be given. There may not, 
 in consequence, be the acquisition of a greater share by 
 each ; but there will, at least, be an endeavour after it, 
 which is quite enough for raising the money price to 
 all. Mr. Tooke, the able and distinguished author of 
 the '' Essay on High and Low Prices," has, we think, 
 succeeded in showing, that the frequent scarcities of 
 that season, go far to account for the high price of corn 
 during the time of the French war. But we have no 
 
360 APPENDIX. 
 
 doubt that the war itself had a share in it. The greatef 
 waste and consumption of provisions in the shape of 
 government stores for a navy or army, than by the 
 same number of men in the pacific walks of life, would 
 of itself be an item of no inconsiderable influence- 
 particularly, as a very slight increase of demand tells 
 more powerfully on the price of an article of main 
 necessity, than it does in the case of all other commodi- 
 ties. But the chief effect of war, we apprehend, in 
 raising the money price of agricultural produce, stands 
 connected with the explanation which we have just 
 given — an explanation into which we should not have 
 entered, but for the light which it seems to cast on 
 another interesting phenomenon that we shall now 
 advert to with all brevity. 
 
 The question is, How comes it, that during a season 
 of high money prices, there should always a stretch 
 take place in the cultivation of land? This was re- 
 markably exemplified during the last war with France^ 
 at which time many a before out-field territory was 
 reclaimed ; and, generally speaking, a more thorough 
 cultivation spread itself over the island at large. Now 
 it appears to have all the certainty of an axiom, that 
 no land can be entered on agriculturally, unless the 
 produce yielded in return can feed the agricultural po- 
 pulation and their secondaries; beside yielding a profit 
 to the farmer. But we have every reason to believe, 
 that profit was higher throughout that whole season of 
 large borrowings and low prices of stocks, than at or- 
 dinary periods ; and, in as far as this element is con- 
 cerned, the cultivation should have been straitened, 
 rather than enlarged ; whereas it was the opposite 
 process which took place, and which calls for explana- 
 tion. 
 
 Certain it is, that a higher money-price for corn can 
 have no efiect on what may be called the natural barrier 
 of cultivation. It cannot make the land that is beyond, 
 more fertile or less difficult to labour than before. It 
 cannot impart to it the capacity of feeding more than 
 its own agricultural workmen and their secondaries, if it 
 
NATIONAL DEBT. 361 
 
 wanted this capacity in times past; and, if it remain 
 short of this, it is short of the possibility of being 
 cultivated with a profit. Under all conceivable 
 changes in the value of our denominations and our 
 coins, there is still the stubborn necessity for the direct 
 and indirect labourers on any given territory being, at 
 the very least, fed from the produce of it. One can 
 imagine a fall of substantial wages, in which case the 
 men would either be worse fed, or be willing to put up 
 with fewer of the second necessaries than before. This 
 would admit a stretch in the cultivation. But it is 
 doubtful whether, on the whole, labourers were worse 
 off during the war than in ordinary times. With the 
 higher prices, there were also higher money wages; 
 and it was, in fact, a rise in the money price of labour 
 which, partly at least, effected, arise in the money price 
 of food. So that, with both the higher profits and the 
 higher wages of that period — which, of themselves, 
 ought to have contracted the agriculture, it is extraor- 
 dinary, and requires explanation, that still the agricul- 
 ture should have been extended. 
 
 We do not see how a high money price of corn should 
 extend cultivation, if all the expenses of the husbandry, 
 as estimated in money, rose in the same proportion. If 
 the profit of agriculture kept as high, and, still more, if 
 it rose higher than usual; and if the direct and indirect 
 labourers obtained the same share of the produce as food 
 to themselves — then, but for one circumstance, there 
 does not appear the possibility of cultivation being ex- 
 tended, merely because money prices have risen. That 
 one circumstance, which apphes more to Britain than 
 any other country, is taxation — and a taxation affecting, 
 in a material degree, the expense of agricultural opera- 
 tions. The truth is, that, in virtue of such taxation, 
 the last land has more to do than merely to feed the di- 
 rect and secondary labourers, beside yielding a profit to 
 the farmer. Over and above these, the produce which 
 is drawn from it goes to feed an additional population in 
 the employ and service of government. It is taxation, 
 as at present conducted, which forces this destinatioi| 
 
 31^ 
 
362 APPENDIX. 
 
 upon it. There are still taxes on many of the second 
 necessaries of life; and taxes which make the imple- 
 ments and whole apparatus of farm labour more expen- 
 sive than otherwise. But a high money price of corn 
 does not add to the pecuniary amount of these taxes; 
 and this alone will suffice to account for the additional 
 scope and outlet which that price allows to husbandry. 
 For the sake of illustration, let us conceive, that, when 
 grain is at the average price, a hundred pounds worth, 
 raised from the last land, is divided in this proportion — 
 that sixty pounds defray the natural expenses of the 
 husbandry, and thirty pounds more the taxes; leaving a 
 profit of ten pounds to the farmer. Then let the money 
 price rise from a hundred to a hundred and fifty pounds, 
 and even though the natural expenses should rise in the 
 same proportion, yet, with the taxes, as estimated in 
 mone)^, being stationary, there would ample encourage- 
 ment be afforded for the extension of the culture among 
 the inferior soils. For, on the supposition now made, 
 the natural expenses would rise to ninety pounds, which, 
 with the taxes still at thirty, would leave no less than a 
 profit of thirty pounds — or a three times greater profit 
 to the farmer than usual. But he could afford to culti- 
 vate at a profit much inferior to this; and therefore can 
 aflford, and will feel encouraged, to enter on the cultiva- 
 tion of inferior soils. 
 
 And we may now see how it is, that, in the time of 
 war, in as far as its expenses are defrayed, not by taxes, 
 but by loans, there should often be such a general hey- 
 day feeling of prosperity throughout the land. The 
 truth is, that a mere increase in his money receipts, will 
 give one a certain sense of prosperity, or of getting on in 
 the world- — though, in virtue of a proportional rise in 
 money prices, he ma}^ have no greater command than 
 before over the enjoyments of life. A general rise in 
 money rents and wages, and withal, in profits, will beget 
 the fancy, and even the sensation of prosperity, among 
 the three great classes of society — the feverish exhilara- 
 tion of high health, without the sound or entire posses- 
 sion of it. Meanwhile, and contemporaneously with 
 
NATIONAL DEBT. 363 
 
 this great nominal and apparent increase in the means 
 of the general community, there must, in counterpart to 
 the higher prices and profits of such a season, fall a real 
 weight of suffering, without disguise and without palha- 
 tion, somewhere. And it is by the mere money annui- 
 tants of all classes, that the pressure is chiefly felt — who 
 draw their stated income, and, with the same nominal 
 revenue as before, have to encounter that excess of 
 prices which we ascribe to the operation of the funding 
 system ; and by which we hold that its immense levies 
 are drawn, even at the time, or within the year, in the 
 shape of higher prices, from the pockets of the popula- 
 tion — as well as laid, in the shape of a permanent mort- 
 gage, on the country. 
 
 If our reasoning be valid on the effects that take place 
 during the contraction of the national debt, it will 
 further serve to establish the converse effects that would 
 take place during its repayment. By the one process, 
 capital was turned into expenditure ; and there instantly 
 ensued high profits and prices to repair the deficiency. 
 By the other process, expenditure would be turned into 
 capital ; and there would as instantly ensue low profits, 
 or rather prices beneath prime cost, and consequent 
 losing speculations to absorb the superfluity. If, when 
 twenty millions were borrowed, the public had to pay 
 these twenty millions in higher prices; then should 
 these twenty millions be repaid by a tax, that tax would 
 be again paid back to the public in lower prices. 
 Should government establish a property tax, and apply 
 its produce wholly to the liquidation of the national debt, 
 it would bear far more lightly on tbe community than 
 they are at all aware of. To them it might bear the 
 semblance, but not the reality of distress. The great 
 distress would be among merchants and manufacturers, 
 from the glut of capital. As by the one process, a 
 monied interest was formed, tantamount to the whole 
 value of the national debt ; so, by the opposite process, 
 the whole of this immense interest would be swept 
 away. It would afford the most impressive exemphfi- 
 cation possible to all our views on the subject of capital. 
 
264 APPENDIX. 
 
 Losses and bankruptcies innumerable, would follow in 
 the train of this great regurgitation. The newly-created 
 capital would seek every where, but in vain, for a pro- 
 fitable investiture. It would force its way into Ireland 
 and more distant places; and might be the means of a tem- 
 porary relief from the pressure of our excessive popula- 
 tion, both by its reflux on our agriculture at home, and 
 by the impulse it would give to schemes and undertak- 
 ings of emigration abroad. Our landlords, the ultimate 
 payers of taxes, are not aware of the easy terms on 
 which they might get quit of the mortgage which op- 
 presses them. It comes upon them as a burden at the 
 fir&t, after they had already borne it in high prices. 
 They might cast off the burden at their pleasure; and 
 that, not by a dishonest cancelment of the debt, but 
 by the literal, honest, and full repayment of it. The 
 heavy taxation, while it lasted, would be compensated 
 by the low prices; and permanent relief from the inte- 
 rest of the national debt would be obtained, without the 
 expense of a sacrifice. 
 
 There is only one qualification that we can think of, 
 in any way affecting these conclusions on the subject of 
 the national debt. In as far as the money is lent by 
 foreigners, there is no abstraction of capital from the 
 business of the country, and no consequent raising of 
 prices. In as far as it is repaid to foreigners, there is 
 no addition made to the capital within the country, and 
 no consequent lowering of prices. And the same may 
 be said of all those repayments which, instead of being 
 vested either in the home or in the return foreign trade, 
 are carried forth of the land on any enterprise of colo- 
 nization. Bating these, there would be a mighty lowr 
 ering in the price of all those articles, on the production 
 of which there was so much more of capital, and in the 
 purchase of which there was so much less of expendi- 
 ture than before — such a lowering, in fact, as would 
 very nearly, if not fully, compensate for the extraordi- 
 nary taxation, by means of which the liquidation of the 
 debt is effected. 
 
ON PROFIT. 365 
 
 (E. page 129.)— On Profit. 
 
 tn a recent theory of profit, the native and immedi^ 
 ate forces by which it is determined have been lost 
 sight of, so as to carry a mysticism into the science, in 
 all those places of it where profit enters as an element 
 into its reasonings. 
 
 On this subject. Dr. Smith's principle is the right 
 one, and should have been adhered to. All other cir- 
 cumstances remaining the same, profit is lowered by 
 the increase of capital, and raised by the diminution of 
 it. It is equal to the difierence between the cost and 
 the price of commodities; between the sum laid out by 
 One party on the production, and the sum laid out by 
 another party in the purchase of them; between the 
 amount of capital employed, and the amount of its re- 
 turns. Let the latter be stationary, and it is quite evi- 
 dent that profit will vary with the former, but in an 
 inverse order — the profit being large when the capital 
 is small, and small when the capital is large; or even 
 being extinguished, nay, converted into loss, which is 
 a possible and frequently realized thing, when the capi- 
 tal is so large as either to equal or to exceed the return^ 
 which it meets with. 
 
 It had been well that both the language and reasoning 
 of Dr. Smith had been retained upon this subject. The 
 proper and immediate cause of a fall in profits, while 
 the efiective demand for commodities remains unalter» 
 ed, is an increase of capital without a corresponding in-^ 
 crease in the returns that are made for it. It is deter- 
 mined by the state of competition between capitalists, 
 or rather between the capitals which they hold. If 
 these increase either in number or in magnitude, with- 
 out a proportional increase in the returning power, by 
 the opening up of new lands, and the consequent increase 
 of population; then profits must decline with the prO^ 
 Igress of accumulated wealth in society. 
 
366 APPENDIX. 
 
 Consequent on this accumulation of capital, and ah* 
 tecedent to this fall of profit, there must have been an 
 extension of the business of the country, in all the 
 various branches of its trade and manufactures. And 
 this extension will take place in the business of agri- 
 culture, as well as in any other. The same circum- 
 stances which lead men to extend their transactions in 
 commerce, though with the prospect of a less return 
 than before, will lead them to extend their transactions 
 in agriculture, with the prospect of a less return than 
 before. In other words, land of inferior fertility and 
 produce will, by the operation of this cause, be taken 
 into cultivation. This concern, like every other, will 
 fluctuate with the fluctuations of profit and interest in 
 society. Should there be a fall of interest, and a con- 
 sequent facility of borrowing, in any particular year, 
 or period of years, farmers will be induced to attempt 
 soils that had not been previously entered. So soon as 
 men are satisfied with a less return, they will carry the 
 plough to a poorer territory than before. This is one 
 of the many phenomena that must ensue from an aug- 
 mented capital, and a reduced rate of profit; and not 
 peculiar t© the affairs of husbandry, but exemplified in 
 every other walk of enterprise and speculation. 
 
 Yet this phenomenon, but the subordinate result of a 
 law, having a distinct principle of its own, has itself 
 been magnified into the principle; and a controlling 
 fQr<5e has been ascribed to that which is only the deter- 
 minate consequence of a prior force, determining the 
 rate of profit. The effect has been mistaken for the 
 efficient. The produce of the land, that is said to yield 
 no rent, is conceived of as representing the aggregate 
 of wages and profit. At most it is but the measure, and 
 not the determinator, of the sum of these two. The 
 wages of labour are not low, nor is profit either, be- 
 cause land of an extremely poor quality has been taken 
 into cultivation ; bat this land has been taken into culti- 
 vation, because wages and profits are low. If wages be 
 low, it is because labour, or the number of labourers, 
 
ON PROFIT. 36t 
 
 is in excess. If profit be low, it is because capital is in 
 excess. But competition, the moving force in both in- 
 stances, has been well nigh lost sight of. The land 
 last cultivated has furnished some of our later econo- 
 mists with the materials of a formula — where the three 
 elements of rent, and profit, and wages, have been 
 made to enter, as symbols do into an equation, by- 
 means of a few transpositions upon which, the whole 
 doctrine and philosophy of the subject have been newly 
 cast, and are held to have been infallibly expounded. 
 
 And it is curious to observe the proceeds of this new 
 mode of reasoning, through which, by a certain dexter- 
 ous algebraic play, results are elicited the most unex- 
 pected, and certainly the most opposite to all experience. 
 One specimen may suffice. When once the produce of 
 the last cultivated land enters as a sort of fixed quantity 
 into an argument; then, representing, as it does, the 
 sum of wages and profit, it will follow of course, that 
 when wages rise, it can only be at the expense of profit, 
 and when profit rises, it can only be at the expense of 
 wages— the one being high when the other is low, and 
 conversely- The strange conclusion educed from this 
 is, that by increasing the wages of labour^ we are on 
 the high road to the underselling of our neighbours in 
 foreign markets; because that the dearer the labour 
 expended on the preparation of export articles, the 
 cheaper can it be afibrded when presented for sale. 
 And the reason of this is, that profit being just as much 
 lower as wages are higher, we make a saving on the 
 cost of the article, with every new transfer in the 
 course of its sales or stages of preparation, till the ulti- 
 mate price may, in fact;, be very much reduced by the 
 repetition of this efiect at each of the successive centa- 
 ges. And hence the paradox in question, advanced too 
 with a sort of axiomatic certainty. It is a striking ex- 
 ample of the extravagance into which men are sure to 
 fall, when, forsaking the obvious and real principles 
 of a subject, they give the precedency, over all sense 
 and all experience, to the categories of a school. 
 
 We shall be saved from all such devious conclusions, 
 
368 APPENDIX. 
 
 if we only keep in sight the proper and immediate caused 
 by which both wages and profit are determined. There 
 js a greater identity of principle between them than is 
 commonly adverted to. The one depends on the propor- 
 tion which the quantity of labour bears to the effective de- 
 mand for its products ; and the other, also, on the pro- 
 portion which the quantity of capital bears to the effec- 
 tive demand for its products. Or, just recurring to the 
 old language and style of conception upon this subject, 
 we should say, that the one varies with the intensity of 
 the competition among labourers for employment, and 
 that the other varies with the intensity of the competition 
 among capitalists for business. Should there then be a 
 high standard of enjoyment among labourers, they will 
 not marry so as to overstock the country with popula- 
 tion ; and so, just because their taste is high, their wages 
 would be high; thus landing us in the important and de- 
 lightful conclusion, that the people, collectively speaking, 
 have their circumstances in their own hands ; it being at 
 the bidding of their collective will, whether the remune- 
 ration for their work shall be a scanty or a sufficient one. 
 The same principle has not been extended to profit, 
 though it be as strictly applicable to the one element as 
 to the other. It is for each capitalist to determine how 
 much of his profits he shall expend on personal or 
 family indulgences, or how much of them he shall re- 
 serve for additional outlays upon his business. Should 
 there be a general and voluntary descent among capi- 
 talists in respect of expenditure, this of itself, by add- 
 ing to the investitures in trade, would produce a gene- 
 ral fall of profit. Whereas, by means of expenditure in 
 this class of society, profits might be sustained at any 
 given level ; a level as much determined by the standard 
 of enjoyment, or collective will of capitalists, as wages 
 are by the collective will of labourers. However simple 
 and obvious this consideration may be, yet the most im- 
 portant, and as yet unnoticed conclusions are deducible 
 therefrom. Our only inference at present is, that there 
 ig no headlong necessity in any state of society, for either 
 
PROFIT. 369 
 
 a wretchedly low wages or a ruinously low profit. Both, 
 in fact, are dependent on moral causes. There is a moral 
 preventive check, which, if put in steady operation 
 throughout the labouring classes, would keep wages high. 
 And, however little adverted to,* there is an analogous 
 cheeky which, operating among capitalists, would keep 
 profit high. Instead of wages bein^ necessarily low when 
 profits are high, or conversely, both may rise contempo- 
 raneously, or fall contemporaneously. In other words, 
 there is still a highway open to us, both for a well con- 
 ditioned peasantry, and a prosperous order of merchants 
 and master manufacturers in the land. There is no ir- 
 reversible fatality in that march of agriculture among the 
 poorer soils, which has been represented as bearing down 
 profit and wages. Instead of this, profit and wages may 
 each, in any point of the progress, make their own reso- 
 lute stand, and arrest the march of agriculture. Let la- 
 bourers, on the one hand, make a stand for higher wages, 
 (and this they can only do effectively, by refraining from 
 over population :) and then, so far from their condition 
 being overruled by the state of the husbandry, they may 
 jointly overrule that state ; and, just by the position which 
 they might voluntarily unite in keeping up, may they both 
 lower the rent of land, and somewhat limit its cultivation. 
 Instead of being borne down by the tide, they could with- 
 stand and stem it ; and instead of lying prostrate before 
 the absorbing rent of the landlords, the}^ might prescribe 
 their own bounds to the wealth of the proprietors of the 
 soil, which it could not overpass. 
 
 This is the only effectual, but withal peaceful and legi- 
 timate way, in which the other two classes of society can 
 make head against the landlords. Rent, profit, and 
 wages, have been denominated the three ingredients of 
 value. We confess that, though at the expense of, and 
 by an encroachment on the first, we should like the two 
 last admitted to a larger relative share than they have at 
 present; or, in other words, that the standard of enjoy- 
 
 * It is but justice to state, that this principle has been distinctly 
 adverted to, and ingeniously illustrated, by Mr. Thos. Perronet 
 Thomson. 
 
 32 
 
370 APPENDIX. 
 
 ment both among capitalists and labourers were highefy 
 though, as a necessary consequence, the proprietors of the 
 soil behooved to live less luxuriously, or less splendidly 
 than before. This consummatiovi is not to be arrived at 
 through the medium of a contentious politics, or by the 
 triumph of what has been called popular rights. It will 
 be altogether a moral victory, which can only be gained 
 and perpetuated by dint of popular intelligence and worth. 
 Let workmen, having a proper control over their appe- 
 tite for present enjoyment, abate of their reckless impro- 
 vidence ; and capitalists, having a proper control over 
 their appetite for gain, abate of their reckless and exces- 
 sive speculation ; and we should soon witness both a 
 higher wage and a higher profit. Instead of the action 
 and reaction being only between these two elements, so 
 that when the one rises, the other must necessarily fall, 
 the action and reaction are shared among three elements, 
 even profit, wages, and rent ; so that the two first may 
 draw indefinitely upon the last ; and, with the fall of rent, 
 profit and wages may rise, and that contemporaneously. 
 We are aware, that, on this taking place, there might be 
 a contraction of the agriculture ; the lowest land having 
 to yield a larger produce for the now increased remune- 
 ration of the farmer and labourers than before. But our 
 decided preference is for a happier and more prosperous, 
 even though it should be a somewhat more limited society. 
 
 (F. page 144.) — On Free Trade* 
 
 There is an artificial limit to the extension of trade, 
 created by monopoly; and it is a very general concep- 
 tion, that, after its abolition, all let or limitation is thence- 
 forth done away. But there is also a natural limit, which 
 is felt, when the power to produce on the one hand is 
 put forth to a greater extent than can be met by the pow- 
 er to purchase on the other. There is palpable intima- 
 
FREE TRADE. 371 
 
 tion given of this, in those glutted markets, which are the 
 result of over trading. Even Dr. Smith does not seem to 
 be sufficiently aware how closely placed the natural bar- 
 rier is to the artificial one, though somewhat exterior to 
 it. He was too intent on the destruction of the one, to 
 have adverted much either to the existence or nearness 
 of the other. And, accordingly, the idea most commonly 
 suggested by the perusal of his work is, that if the wall 
 of monopoly were only taken down, there would, thence- 
 forth, be room for an advancement altogether indefinite, 
 in prosperity and opulence. Hence the brilliant but un- 
 fulfilled anticipations of Canning, and Robinson, and 
 Hiiskisson, on the opening up of new markets, and the 
 removal of old fetters from the enterprise of British mer- 
 chants. Hence, too, the mania communicated, as if by 
 infection, from their speeches, and which spread itself, in 
 a spirit of wild and ruinous adventure, over the land. 
 The secret of that deep and general delusion which exists 
 in the minds of men, as if the capabilities of foreign trade 
 were perfectly inexhaustible, was fully let out, when, on 
 the artificial check of monopoly or legal prohibition being 
 done away, they, with an utter disregard to so much as 
 the existence of a natural check, launched forth into all 
 the varieties of unbridled speculation. The consequence 
 was inevitable. On the taking down of the interior wall, 
 they entered as if now on an indefinite career ; but soon 
 ran their heads against the exterior wall, which was situ- 
 ated at but a very small distance on the other side of the 
 first. The consequent check and revulsion were felt 
 throughout the whole commercial world. There may 
 have ultimately taken place, a slight, but scarcely a sen- 
 sible enlargement. Certain it is, that the sanguine hope 
 of this enlargement was soon followed up by a disap- 
 pointed feeling of straitness and difficulty. And the gluts 
 which took place, both on the abolition of the East India 
 monopoly, and on the more general adoption of the libe- 
 ral system, gave palpable evidence how closely, though 
 somewhat on the outside of the artificial barrier, com- 
 merce is beset with a natural barrier, beyond which she 
 cannot overpass. 
 
372 APPENDIX. 
 
 We are not, therefore, of the number of those who rate 
 very high the economic advantages of the system of free 
 trade. It will not much, if at all, enlarge that wealth 
 which is in the hand of merchants, though, by its means, 
 we may perhaps obtain a greater abundance of foreign 
 commodities at the same cost, or obtain them cheaper than 
 before. There will thus be a certain, though, we appre- 
 hend, a small addition to the enjoyment of consumers; 
 which, in spite of the constant preference given by mer- 
 cantile economists to the means over the end, to the be- 
 nefit of producers over the benefit of customers, is really, 
 after all, the great and only end of commerce. We can 
 even imagine a slight extension given by means of free 
 trade, to agriculture ; in as far as we may possibly, 
 through it, obtain at a cheaper rate, either some of the 
 materials of husbandry, or some of those articles which 
 enter into the maintenance of husbandmen. Yet notwith- 
 standing this our humble estimate of the advantages of 
 free trade, in an economical point of view, there are cer- 
 tain attendant moral benefits, if we may so term them, 
 which render the adoption of the system one of the best 
 and wisest achievements of an enlightened national policy. 
 In the first place, it cancels a thousand heart burnings at 
 home. The admission of one class to a particular trade, 
 with the exclusion of all others, is felt by the community 
 at large to be an injustice and a wrong ; and it is wefl 
 when this, and every other rankling topic of disaffection, 
 are, as much as possible, done away. Government in- 
 curs a prodigious waste of popularity, whenever its policy 
 stands associated, in the public imagination, with the fail- 
 ures and fluctuations of trade. And were it for nothing 
 else than to free itself from the burden of this unneces- 
 sary odium, it were far better that it stood palpably dis- 
 severed from the affairs of commerce altogether; or at 
 least that it never interfered with them, save for the pur- 
 poses of a revenue, and for the maintenance of the inte- 
 rests of justice. But the system is not more favourable 
 to domestic than to foreign tranquillity. The govern- 
 ment which upholds it, not only stands forth in a fair and 
 conciliatory aspect to its own subjects, but also to other 
 
FREE TRADE. 373 
 
 nations. The abolition of the restrictive system in com- 
 merce, is, in fact, the abolition of the sorest exasperations 
 and jealousies which have taken place among the states 
 of the civilized world. There is, therefore, a very high 
 philanthropic interest involved in the maintenance of the 
 opposite system. It is on the side both of internal and 
 external peace. It would quiet many a discontent within 
 our own territory, and dry up the teeming fountain of 
 most of our modern wars. 
 
 Yet we are not without our fears, that the system of 
 free trade may retrograde, instead of advancing towad 
 its secure and lasting establishment, throughout the 
 coming periods of our history. A liberal politics forms 
 no guarantee, but, we doubt, the opposite, for a liberal 
 political economy.* This is a subject on which the po- 
 
 * On this subject I am happy to find that I can appeal to the high 
 authority of Mr. Senior, whose lucubrations on political economy en- 
 title him to a distinguished place among the original and enlightened 
 thinkers of our day. 
 
 I refer to the following extracts from his work on " the Mercantile 
 Theory of Wealth:" 
 
 " If the unhappy prejudices that now exist on this subject should 
 continue, and if the extension of representative governments should 
 increase the power of public opinion over the policy of nations, I fear 
 that commerce may not long be enabled to retain even that degree of 
 freedom that she now enjoys." " I have perfect rehance on the 
 knowledge and good intentions of our present ministers ; but very 
 little on the knowledge possessed by the country at large. And if mi- 
 nisters are unsupported by the country at large ; if each class, in turn, 
 is to be permitted a complete or a partial monopoly, and, bribed by 
 this sacrifice of the general and permanent interest of the public to 
 its own partial and immediate advantage, to allow others to clamour 
 for the power to exercise a similar oppression ; if ministers are not 
 aided by the public voice in their struggles against individual rapaci- 
 ty, we shall tread backward, and with greater rapidity, the few steps 
 which we have so laboriously gained. Slowly and reluctantly, and 
 as if parting from our dearest friend, we have begun to withdraw 
 from the restrictive system. If once we begin to reapproach it, I am 
 justified by all experience in the fear, that, in our retrograde motion, 
 we shall not stop at the point at which we originally set out. It will 
 have been an unsuccessful rebellion against popular prejudice; and, 
 like all unsuccessful rebelhons, strengthen and consolidate the ruling 
 power." 
 
 " In a representative government, where each individual may pro- 
 claim, in their utmost exaggeration, his sufferings and his fears, 
 
 32* 
 
374 APPENDIX. 
 
 pular and the philosophical mind are not at all in harmo- 
 ny ; and the very admission into parliament of so large 
 an influence from the will of the humbler classes, may, 
 after all, endanger the cause of sound legislation, on 
 every topic where the seeming and the substantial inte- 
 rests of the community are at variance. We are not 
 afraid of any monopoly in favour of the few, to the exclu- 
 sion, from certain trades, of the many in our own land; 
 as the will of the many, when rendered elSectual in conse- 
 quence of a freer and fuller representation, will complete- 
 ly overbear any partiality of this sort. But we do fear, 
 that prejudice and partiality may again have the ascend- 
 ant in the regulation of our commercial policy with the 
 people of other lands ; and that, in an assembly of mer- 
 cantile legislators, there may, by mutual connivance, be 
 a protection awarded to each of the separate trading in- 
 terests, however paltry or local it may be, against the ri- 
 valship of foreigners. We can even imagine, that, in 
 virtue of a more democratic government, there might be 
 a more headlong propensity to war ; and, certain it is, 
 that the popular mind, more especially when inflamed by 
 the cupidity and sensitive alarm of the trading classes, is 
 not alwa^'s on the side of a pacific policy. It seems all 
 the more imperative in these circumstances, that, with 
 every stretch of the elective franchise, there should be a 
 corresponding stretch of education, and of larger intelli- 
 gence among the people; lest, in the scramble of perso- 
 nal or provincial interests, that calm and comprehensive 
 wisdom should be lost sight of, which ought to characte- 
 rize the legislation of every great empire. 
 
 where the power arbitrarily to do good is chained by the same fetters 
 Avhich restrain the power arbitrarily to do evil ; where, in short, public 
 opinion is omnipotent, and is, on these subjects, so ill informed, and 
 therefore so easily misdirected, there appears, at first sight, no limit 
 to the extent to which individual interest, popular prejudice, and na- 
 tional jealousy, might not carry the system of exclusion." 
 
CORN LAWS. 375 
 
 (G. page 173.) — On Corn Laws, 
 
 For the sake of its moral benefit, we know of no 
 achievement more urgently desirable than that of a free 
 corn trade. There is not a more fertile topic of cla- 
 mour and burning discontent all over the land ; and, 
 were it but effectually set at rest, we are aware of nothing 
 which might serve more to sweeten the breath of British 
 society. The interest of cheaper food, is not the only 
 one concerned in the abolition of all those restraints 
 which have been laid upon its importation. There is, 
 beside this, a special interest felt by that numerous 
 class who are engaged in the business of export manu- 
 factures, or export merchandise. The limit of our im- 
 ports determines the limit of our exports ; so that when 
 the one trade comes to its ne plus ultra, the other must 
 also be brought to a dead stand. They mutually limit 
 and determine each other. So that the advantage to 
 our export commerce, from a further enlargement of our 
 imports, opening, as it would, a fuller and freer expor- 
 tation, and telling most favourably for this great branch 
 of trade upon the foreign exchanges, is really one of the 
 most urgent forces that is now operating on the side of 
 an unrestricted corn trade. We shall therefore attempt 
 a brief exposition of what we hold to be the leading 
 principles, and the likely results of such a measure. 
 
 First, then, though there should, on the event of an in- 
 stant and total abolition of the corn laws, be such a re- 
 duction of price, as would translate the population into 
 circumstances of larger comfort and sufficiency — we can- 
 not imagine that this would be more than temporary. 
 The proportion of the food to the population might be 
 increased at the commencement ; but, reasoning on hu- 
 man nature, and on all experience, this would soon be 
 followed up by the old proportion of the population to 
 the food. Such a regress of the ocean from our shores, 
 as left behind it a million of rich arable acres, would 
 cause an instant and large descent in the price of grain. 
 But no one thinks that a permanent cheapness would be 
 
376 APPENDIX. 
 
 the result of it. The difference between one census and 
 another, though only at the distance of ten years, may 
 well convince us how speedily the former balance be- 
 tween demand and supply, and so the former prices of 
 food, would be restored. Yet even still, however fre- 
 quent and famihar the topic is with economical writers, 
 the great majority of our land holders seem blind to the 
 peculiar and characteristic excellence of that commodity 
 in which their wealth lies. It is a commodity which 
 never can be so multiplied as permanently to glut the 
 market. By the stimulus which its abundance gives to 
 population, it is very sure, in the long run, to create a 
 commensurate market for itself. Unlike to other com- 
 modities, it has the virtue of increasing the demand for 
 itself, just as the supply is increased. This single cir- 
 cumstance should help, and perhaps, above all others, to 
 tranquillize the fears of our landlords, and to give them 
 a feeling of conscious strength and superiority over all 
 the fluctuations to which commerce, in every other of 
 her departments, is hable. They are the holders of the 
 necessaries of life ; and, in virtue of being so, theirs is 
 an upper and secure region, where they enjoy, without 
 the possibility of dethronement, an entire and essential 
 command over the services of men. They misunder- 
 -Stand their own situation, when they participate in the 
 tremulous anxiety of merchants. Their wealth is as in- 
 destructible as are the laws and elements of nature ; 
 having in it that character of permanency, which belongs 
 to the processes both of the physical and the moral 
 world — based as it is on the capabilities of the soil, and 
 the constitution of humanity. 
 
 But let us attempt a closer treatment of the question. 
 We would, in the second place, remark, that there seems 
 nothing in the freest importation of corn, which, of itself, 
 should permanently contract the agriculture of our own 
 land. The reason why the poorest of our cultivated soils 
 has been entered on is, that still it had enough of capa- 
 bility for feeding its agricultural labourers and their se- 
 condaries, beside yielding a surplus to remunerate the 
 farmer. This reason is not at all affected by the admis- 
 
CORN LAWS. 377 
 
 sion of foreign grain from abroad. The capability which 
 had brought down the agriculture so far, would still re^ 
 main after the abolition of all corn laws. We are aware 
 of a possible cheapening of the article at the first, which, 
 by translating the people into better circumstances, might 
 raise, for a time, the quality both of their food and their 
 secondary accommodations. While this lasted, the poor- 
 est soil which cultivation had formerly reached, might 
 not be able to yield the now higher remuneration for la- 
 bour ; and there might, for some very brief season of 
 years, be a receding of the home agriculture, from the 
 extreme limit to which it had been carried. But without 
 a permanent rise in the popular standard of enjoyment, 
 this could only be temporary. The people would again 
 multiply to the now more abundant food ; and this they 
 would just continue to do, till agriculture should recover 
 the very limit from which it had, for a short interval, re- 
 tired. When the wages, estimated in grain, had become 
 as low as formerly, the agriculture of our own country 
 would then become as large as formerly. Throughout 
 the gradation of soils, the same differences in respect of 
 produce would obtain between the superior land, and 
 that which is said to yield no rent. Or, in other words, 
 the rent of all land, estimated in produce, the corn rent 
 of all land would, in spite of foreign competition, be 
 just what it wont. 
 
 But it follows not, that, though rent in kind would, 
 after a season of disturbance, settle at the same point 
 w^hich it did formerly, rent in money would therefore 
 do the same. And this, in the peculiar circumstances 
 of Britain, may most severely affect the substantial in- 
 come of landlords. The thing apprehended is, that, 
 on the opening of our ports for the free admission of 
 corn from abroad, there would be a fall in money 
 prices — and so, a fall in money rents. It would matter 
 not to the real interest of our proprietors, if this fall ia 
 money prices extended, and in like proportion, to 
 every other article of enjoyment. There would then, 
 in spite of the declension in nominal income, be the 
 same real command as before over all the comforts and 
 
378 APPENDIX. 
 
 conveniences of life. Were labour, and the products 
 of labour, to become as much cheaper as corn had, then 
 the same corn rent would purchase as great an amount 
 as before of all that entered into the use and mainten- 
 ance of families. But there is a special cause, in our 
 own country, to prevent this. Though every other 
 ingredient in the price of commodities should fall as 
 much as corn, there is an ingredient which remains, 
 and must remain, in a great measure stationary. There 
 can be no proportional remission of taxes to compen- 
 sate this fall of money prices. There might, had 
 government nothing else to do with a revenue, than 
 meet the outgoings of its present expenditure ; for then 
 it might proportionally lessen the allowance of its va- 
 rious functionaries ; and, with a money expenditure 
 reduced in all its branches, maintain the public service 
 in as great strength and effectiveness as before. But 
 along with its current and actual expenses, which 
 might fall with the price of all other things, the revenue 
 is also charged with the permanent interest of an old 
 and heavy debt, which no retrenchment can alleviate, 
 save the retrenchm.ent of a partial bankruptcy. This 
 is the capital reason, why, though the money price of 
 grain falls, the money taxes cannot be made to fall 
 proportionally: and it is this, chiefly, which gives to 
 landed proprietors a real and substantive interest in high 
 money rents. The great national mortgage of our 
 public debt has the same effect generally, that private 
 mortgages have on the holders of individual estates, 
 personally and particularly. They become substantially, 
 as well as nominally richer, by the augmentation of 
 their money income; because then the interest of their 
 debts forms a smaller proportion than before of their 
 whole revenue. And the converse effect takes place on 
 a fall of money income. In other words, it is the 
 existence of our national debt which gives to the pos- 
 sessors of the soil their only rational interest in the 
 corn laws; and the likeliest method by which to har- 
 monize the discordant views and feelings of all parties 
 upon this subject, were an adjustment between the land 
 and the fund holders. 
 
CORN LAWS. 379 
 
 We hold it impossible to effect any right adjustment 
 between these two classes, but by means of taxation — 
 the topic of one of our subsequent arguments; ere we 
 have overtaken w^hich, we can attempt no complete 
 solution of the difficulty in question. But, meanwhile, 
 we can state what appears to us the likelihoods in re- 
 gard to the future money price of corn, on the event 
 of the abolition of the corn laws. It can be treated, 
 we think, in no other way then as a speculation of 
 likelihoods; the certainties of the subject being, from 
 the very nature of the case, unattainable, but through 
 the medium of experience. Beforehand, we can only 
 oflfer hypothetical results — or the results that would 
 ensue on certain given suppositions, which, anterior to 
 an actual trial, we have really no means of verifying. 
 
 We have already stated, that, with every addition to 
 our excrescent population, there behooved to be a fresh 
 and extended draft of corn from abroad; which, by 
 each enlargement of the importation, would become 
 dearer than before. There ensues a very speedy aug- 
 mentation of difficulty, and so of expense, in the 
 transport of grain, when, in consequence of the need 
 for increased supplies, it must be fetched by inland 
 carriage, even for small distances, from such places as 
 are inaccessible to navigation. With every enlarge- 
 ment of these distances, corn would be landed dearer 
 in our own country ; and one can imagine, that, from 
 this cause alone, the dearness, in an unrestricted state 
 of things, may at length be equal to that dearness 
 which is the effect of our present prohibitions. There 
 would, on the event of a total, and, at the same time, 
 instant abolition of our corn laws, be a desultorj^ fall 
 of price, to the utmost consternation of the landed 
 proprietors. But with this abolition of the present 
 restraint on importation, there were the abolition of a 
 present restraint on population also — the excrescent 
 portion of which would, from the comm.encement of 
 this new era of liberty, grow to a magnitude, that, 
 owing to the number and uncertainty of the elements 
 concerned in the process, is at this moment undefinable. 
 
380 AP1PENDI3C* 
 
 Certain it is, therefore, that there would be a recovery^ 
 to a certain extent, from the first cheapness, occasioned 
 by an immediate abolition, if that, instead of the far 
 wiser step of a gradual abolition, were actually resolved 
 upon. But we hold it beyond the reach of all human 
 anticipation, to say how far this recovery would pro- 
 ceed — or whether it would fully restore the money 
 price of grain, so as to work out a full compensation to 
 our landlords, for the loss of that protection which 
 they at present enjoy. 
 
 For, who can compute the situation of that point, at 
 which, in a state of perfect liberty, the undersellirig 
 power of Britain wil) be exactly balanced, by the 
 expense of its farthest and heaviest importation ? The 
 equipoise would at length be gained j but there are too 
 many influences beyond the reach of precise calculation, 
 for our being able to say when Every augmentation, 
 on the one hand, of our foreign manufactures, may 
 either lessen their price in foreign markets, or add to 
 the expense of their transit, when their superabundance 
 is forwarded from nearer to more distant places of sale; 
 and every consequent augmentation, on the other 
 hand, of our imported food, enhances the dearness of 
 it: so that the tendency, from the very first, is towards 
 a limit, however impossible to foretell where this limit 
 is to be, or after what increase of our excrescent popu- 
 lation it will proceed no farther. We do not know 
 how far, or how long, the iadustry and ingenuity of 
 our own countrymen are to keep ahead of the industry 
 and ingenuity of the people in other lands. We can- 
 not answer for the number or extent of those rciiions 
 abroad, where there shall be a constant preference of 
 British goods to their own home manufactures, even 
 though returns must be made for them in agricultural 
 produce. We cannot tell the degree in which the en- 
 couragement of the industry, and the consequent 
 increase of the numbers, of their own people, will 
 absorb their agricultural produce, and make it an article 
 of scarcer and dearer exportation. There is no fore- 
 seeing what the new materials, and what the new 
 
<?ORN LAWS. 381 
 
 processes of industry may be, which shall spring up in 
 other parts of the world ; so that many of our present 
 customers may be led to seek nearer to their own doors 
 for those articles of taste and of enjoyment, which 
 they now fetch from our far distant island. We cannot 
 anticipate with certainty on either side of this question, 
 neither how far the perpetual additions to British indus- 
 try and skill shall extend our superiority, nor in how 
 far the rivalship of other nations shall at length deduct 
 from it. There are a thousand possibilities concerned 
 in this matter, through which we can no more see our 
 way, than we can through the contingencies of the 
 weather. They are like the unassignable quantities of 
 an indeterminate equation, which lead but to a depend- 
 ent or conditional result. We cannot decide before- 
 hand the proportion which, when things are left to 
 their free course, our extrinsic shall bear to our natural 
 population. It lies undisclosed in the womb of futu- 
 rity ; and both the resulting population and the result- 
 ing price, that would ensue from a free state of things, 
 must be left to the verification of experience. 
 
 Yet, in the face of all this uncertainty, we feel no 
 hesitation in affirming, both the expediency and the 
 rightness of a free trade in corn. That it would land 
 us in a larger excrescent population than we have at 
 this moment, is little to be doubted. How much larger, 
 we have not the means of calculating. Our own im- 
 pression is, that it would not be nearly so much larger 
 as is commonly anticipated. We should not be surprised, 
 if, in a free race of improvement among the nations, 
 the excrescent population of Britain did not, eventually 
 and ultimately, amount to one-tenth of its naturaL 
 There are certain physical inequalities, which might 
 maintain for us a permanent superiority over other 
 lands, even after all the moral inequalities had subsided. 
 Still we cannot imagine, that, with every advantage 
 we have for commerce, our trade should overlap our 
 agriculture, so far as to extend our population beyond 
 a small fraction of the number maintained by the 
 produce of our own territory. And even though it 
 
 33 
 
382 APPENDIX. 
 
 should be a large, instead of a small fraction, we would 
 still advocate the cause of freedom. The evils appre- 
 hended from this are two. There might first be a 
 considerable reduction in the money price of food, to 
 an extent which, if not provided against, would depress 
 the substantial, as well as the nominal income of our 
 landlords. And, second, there might be a precarious 
 dependence on supplies from abroad, which might sub- 
 ject us, at times, to an aggravated suffering, on the 
 event of a general scarcity. Yet we would incur both 
 these hazards, rather than we would the certain and 
 urgent evil of a dissatisfied population; who feel, and 
 perhaps with justice too, as if defrauded of their rights, 
 by the compulsory restraints of the legislature on the 
 importation of food. We hold, that an immunity 
 from this sore heart-burning were cheaply purchased, 
 even with the risk of every evil which may have been 
 felt or foretold as the probable consequence of liberty. 
 It were right that it should be a gradual, but, ultimately, 
 a complete emancipation. 
 
 It is remarkable, that the first of the apprehended 
 evils, that is, the injury done to the landlords, would 
 become lighter, just as the second, or the dependence 
 of our country on foreign supplies, ever increasing 
 with the increase of our extrinsic population, became 
 more aggravated. It is obvious, that the greater this 
 population became, the heavier would be the expense 
 at which we had to fetch agricultural produce from 
 abroad, so that the money price of corn would rise in 
 this country ; and there is no saying how nearly this 
 might effect a full compensation to the proprietors of 
 the soil. But though it should fall short of this, the 
 real injury to the landlords, by a fall in the money 
 price of corn, stands chiefly connected, as we have al- 
 ready remarked, with the inequality to which it would 
 give rise between them and the fund-holders. And 
 should this inequality be adjusted, the injury would be 
 in a great measure repaired. Now, we can perceive 
 how this might be brought about by a rule of condi- 
 tional taxation. For the sake of example, let us 
 
CORN LAWS 383 
 
 imagine that ail assessed taxes, and all those taxes on 
 commodities which bore on the general enjoyments of 
 the people, were abandoned ; and that there was sub- 
 stituted, in their place, an income tax of 20 per cent, 
 on land and fund holders, to be exacted equally from 
 both classes, when the average price of wheat for the 
 preceding year had been sixty shillings a quarter. A 
 scale of variations in the tax could be made to quadrate 
 with a scale of variations in the price. When wheat 
 fell beneath sixty shillings by successive differences, 
 there might be a series of corresponding diminutions 
 on the income tax of land-holders, and of increase on 
 the income tax of fund-holders. And the converse of 
 this could be made to take place, when wheat rose 
 above sixty shillings. We should thus, with all the 
 various conceivable changes in the price of wheat, have 
 the land-holders paying 19, or 18, or 17 per cent, and 
 so downward in the scale in cheap years, and in dear, 
 21, or 22, or 23, and so upward in the scale ; while 
 the charges on the fund-holders would stand on the op- 
 posite side of par. The same rule of equity might be 
 extended, even to private mortgagees upon land. We 
 enter into no further details or modifications upon this 
 plan. It is offered merely as a suggestion, and as being 
 precisely of that character that is adapted to a measure 
 of which the issues are uncertain. The conditional 
 nature of the scheme meets, and is accommodated to, 
 the uncertainty ; and if it serve no other purpose, it 
 may at least demonstrate, that an adjustment which 
 shall harmonize the main interests of this complicated 
 question, is not impracticable. 
 
 The second apprehended evil we hold to be far more 
 serious, than most of the advocates for a free corn trade 
 seem disposed to allow. The dependence of a country, 
 to any great extent, for the subsistence of its popula- 
 tion, on other and distant lands, we hold to be a fearful 
 element of insecurity and weakness. It is this which 
 accounts for the ephemeral duration of many of those 
 commercial states, that have figured their brief and 
 |>rilUant hour in the history of the world. When their 
 
884 APPENDIX* 
 
 commerce abandoned them, the stamina, not of their 
 greatness alone, but often of their very being abandon- 
 ed them. Or, if they do abide, theirs, like Venice>^ 
 has been a shrunk and shrivelled existence; and that, 
 just in proportion as their now extinct commerce did 
 atone time overlap their agriculture. Our comfort, in 
 reference to Britain, is, that though this may take 
 place to a certain extent, it will not do it far. An ex- 
 crescence will be formed, but such as may at any time 
 be thrown off without impairing the substantial wealth 
 or greatness of our nation. This accretion to our trade, 
 consequent on the abolition of the monopoly in corn, 
 which so many look to with triumphant anticipation, 
 we should look to with alarm, did we conceive that it 
 would effect a mighty proportional addition to our 
 commerce — and only look to with toleration, because 
 of its believed and hoped-for insignificance. It is vain 
 to affirm that Britain, when thus extended, would rest 
 as firmly on the motley foundation of home and foreign 
 agriculture, as she would if, within her natural limits, 
 she rested exclusively on her own proper basis. The 
 advocates for freedom reason badly on this subject, 
 when they speak of the dependence between us and 
 other countries being reciprocal — or that they depended 
 as much on our manufactures, as we on their food. 
 The distinction is overlooked here, (and this is a cause 
 of error in many other departments of politiral econo-« 
 my,) between the necessaries and conveniences, or, 
 still more, between the necessaries and luxuries of life. 
 They can want our handiwork, but we, with a large 
 surplus population, could not want their food. Our 
 comfort is, that it will not be large. If it were, we 
 should at times be exposed to visitations of fearful cala- 
 mity — a calamity that might be alleviated, but would 
 not be averted, by the stored and accumulated grain of 
 former years, of which the adv{)cates on the side of 
 liberty conceive that it might ever be in readiness for 
 such an emergency. 
 
 Any apprehension we have from a repeal of the corn 
 laws, is for the country at large, and not for the land- 
 
CORN LAWS. 385 
 
 lords. There might be immediate loss to them, from 
 a change in the power of money; but even this could 
 be made up by an adjusted taxation. After which we 
 see nothing else but their increasing wealth and im- 
 portance, in every new addition made to the excrescent 
 commerce and population of the land. Their estates 
 would rise in value, just as the contiguous land of a 
 great city does, with every enlargement in the number 
 of its houses and families. And every season of uni- 
 versal scarcity, while the cause of severest suffering to 
 the British community, would prove a harvest to the 
 British landlords. They would have a fearful command 
 over the services of the disposable population. The 
 high prices of such a period, enhanced by such an ac^ 
 cumulation of human beings upon our territory, would 
 mightily enlarge their fortunes, or clear away the debts 
 of their former extravagance. It may be recollected 
 how the famines of 1799 and 1800 redounded to the 
 sudden prosperity of agriculturists. We should antici- 
 pate, under the reformed system, a still more frequent 
 recurrence of like fits and intervals of prosperity. The 
 holders of the necessaries of life, therefore, may well 
 give all their apprehensions to the wind. With the 
 certainty that the population will increase just as their 
 commodity increases, from whatever quarter it may be 
 brought, they have nothing ultimately to fear in the 
 consequences of an unexeepted freedom. They, at all 
 times, and amid all changes, will be lords of the ascend- 
 ant. They alone stand on firm vantage-ground, an4 
 should of all men be exempted from those mercantile 
 jealousies, by unworthily acting upon which, they have 
 dissevered, both from their persons and their interests^ 
 the affections of the people. 
 
 But the most important consideration of all, or, at 
 least, that which harmonizes most with the general ob- 
 ject of our work, is, that however great the immediate 
 relief of a free corn trade may be, it would at best be 
 temporary, and, at the end of some brief period, would 
 at length cease to be the minister of a greater abund- 
 ance to each of the families of the land, than the^ at 
 
 33* 
 
386 APPENDIX. 
 
 present enjoy. The produce of our home agriculture 
 is mightily increased within the last thirty years. Yet 
 who will affirm that this has secured ought like a per- 
 manent sufficiency and comfort to the people? It has 
 given Us a larger, but not a more prosperous common- 
 alty than before. And, without a change in the taste 
 and moral habitude of the working classes, this will in- 
 fallibly be the result of all the additional supplies that 
 we shall ever obtain from foreign agriculture. The in- 
 crease of their numbers will follow close on the en- 
 largement of their food; so that at the end of the pro- 
 cess, nay, even throughout the process, there will 
 scarcely be the sense and perception of any greater suf- 
 ficiency than before. By all means let the -boon be 
 granted. Let the freedom of this trade be restored 
 perfectly, though progressively — that government may 
 withdraw itself from the obnoxious attitude of appear- 
 ing to stand in the way of the people's subsistence. 
 Let this semblance of hostility between the governors 
 and the governed be for ever obliterated; for, however 
 insignificant the material, the moral benefit that would 
 ensue is incalculable. The material enlargement from 
 this, as from every other source that we have hitherto 
 attended to, would be but temporary in its duration, 
 and limited in its amount; and, after it had reached its 
 maximum,, we should only behold a larger, but in^every 
 way as straitened a population, as we do at.present, or 
 as we have done in the past stages of our history. 
 Like all the other external capabilities of our state, it 
 will soon be overtaken. The only sure remedy is an 
 internal one. The people cannot, by any possibility, 
 indefinitely provide from without, for their growing 
 numbers. But by the moral operation of prudence and 
 principle from within, they can accommodate their num- 
 bers to their provision. However wide the limit may 
 be, yet, if they inconveniently press upon it, there can 
 be no feeling of largeness. However narrow the limi-t 
 may be, yet, if they keep sufficiently within it, this, of 
 itself, as among the peasants of sterile Norway, will 
 give the feeling of largeness. In a word, this whole 
 
FINANCIAL SYSTEM. 387 
 
 argument on foreign trade, and more especially on the 
 foreign trade in corn, but leads to one repetition more 
 of the oft-repeated lesson — that it is not by the force of 
 material resources, but by the force of moral restraints, 
 we shall at length realize the spectacle of a general 
 comfort among thriving and well-conditioned families. 
 In other words, there is no other power than that of 
 Christian education, which can chase away the econo- 
 mic or political distempers of our land; which can either 
 conduct us at the first, or keep us permanently after- 
 wards, in the state of a peaceful, and contented, and 
 flourishing society. 
 
 (H. page 209) — On the gradual Reform of ottr 
 Financial System. 
 
 Practical men, with their contempt for theory, which 
 almost always is a contempt for generalized truth, re- 
 ceive with incredulity every affirmation which relates to 
 a state of things that greatly differs from the present 
 state, with whose details and familiarities they are often 
 so minutely conversant. It greatly concerns, there- 
 fore, the advocates of every change from one state to 
 another, that the transition which they recommend 
 should be made out in a way as gradual and safely 
 progressive as may be ; and that, not merely for the 
 purpose of avoiding those substantial inconveniences, 
 which all sudden and desultory movements are sure to 
 bring along with them, but for the purpose also, if pos- 
 sible of reconciling those alarmists, whose resistance to 
 innovation forms the great barrier in the way of all im- 
 provements. 
 
 It is the dictate of true wisdom, that nothing, save 
 where principle or urgent necessity is involved, should 
 be done j^er saltwn — but that every thing, when possi- 
 Me, should be done by a process, or without violence to 
 
388 APPENDIX. 
 
 that great law, both of nature and of sound poHtics, 
 the law of continuity. It follows not, because we re- 
 commend a complete change or a complete abolition^ 
 that we therefore want the instant change or the in- 
 stant abolition of any thing. However firm our convic- 
 tion of the expediency of certain measures, yet we 
 should desire, in the act of carrying them into accom- 
 plishment, never to forget the deference which is due to 
 existing interests, or even to existing prejudices. 
 
 On this principle we should deprecate an immediate, 
 although we are friendly to a total abolition of the pre^ 
 sent corn laws. This should be made to take place by a 
 gradual relaxation in fractional instalments, as of a 
 tenth annually, whereby they might be wholly done 
 away in ten years ; at which rate, we feel confident 
 that, before the termination of the process, all parties 
 would be experimentally convinced, how much they 
 had been influenced by the veriest bugbear, in their op- 
 position to a free corn trade. 
 
 Yet there is one vestige of these restrictions, which 
 we should feel inclined to retain — not as a relict of the 
 old system certainly, nor yet as a protection to British 
 landlords ; but for the sake of a small addition to the 
 public revenue, which it were most rightful and legiti- 
 mate to raise from this particular source. The truth is, 
 that these importations of grain, although exaggerated 
 by the fancy of many, in respect to their future and 
 eventual magnitude, will land us in a somewhat in- 
 creased population, and perhaps place us in a somewhat 
 more precarious state than we might otherwise have 
 been. A somewhat larger establishment, both civil and 
 military, may be required by this extension of our num- 
 bers ; and it is but fair, that the excrescent population 
 should, in some way or other, be made to defray the ad- 
 ditional expense which their own residence amongst us 
 shall have created. We have already stated our reasons 
 for thinking why taxation should be shifted away from 
 commodities altogether, and more especially from those 
 which are in general use, whether among capitalists or 
 labourers. But we confess, that, for the purpose of 
 
FINANCIAL SYSTEM. 389 
 
 reaciiing the excrescent population, we should not ob- 
 ject to a slight duty, as of five shillings a quarter on im^' 
 ported corn— to be remitted only in years of scarcity. 
 So far from this being in contravention to any doctrine 
 of ours, we hold, that not only would it be consonant 
 with strict principle, but that the theoretic perfection of 
 our scheme would rather be completed than impaired 
 by it. 
 
 But neither should the general commutation of all 
 taxes into a territorial impost be adopted immediately. 
 It should be done by a series of particular commutations^ 
 each of which would lighten the community of some 
 distinct hurden, till the whole was, in the course of 
 years, transferred by successive centages on the income 
 of our landed and funded proprietors^ The work of 
 reform should begin with those taxes which bear on the 
 essential maintenance of labourers, till every vestige of 
 an imposition on any of their comforts was completely 
 done away. It might then proceed to a similar relief 
 from house, and window, and all assessed taxes. If 
 one third of these were taken off annually, and com- 
 muted, we should be wholly delivered from them in 
 three years. The reform might thus be made to move 
 onward from one commodity, or object, of taxation, to 
 another — rwhile, at each step, the administration would 
 gather new popularity, and earn, at every distinct act, 
 a fresh sentiment of gratulation and gratitude froin the 
 country at large. Long before tiie process was ;€Gnsum-. 
 mated, the landlords, however alarmed for the system at 
 the first, would have the experimental conviction of its 
 perfect innocence, nay, of its great positive benefit to 
 themselves. At all events, did their fears turn out to 
 be very obstinate, or even incurable, the process might 
 be arrested at any given point ; when, instead of a 
 large income tax to cover all our present duties, they 
 might be saddled with a very moderate one, in lieu of 
 the most obnoxious of our present burdens. It is thuSj 
 that without endangering their own prosperity in the 
 least, but we think, most materially advancing it, they 
 hg,ve it in their power, jby succes^iye peace^offeiirigs, ta 
 
390 APPENDIX. 
 
 mollify the turbulent spirit of the age, and establish 
 their own influence and security on a firm basis for 
 many generations. We know not a more effectual 
 method of charming away a rancorous politics from 
 our nation — or a method by which the discordant ele- 
 ments that are now so busily at work in the midst of 
 British society, could be more readily and fully har- 
 monized. 
 
 But it may be long before the doctrine is admitted, 
 that all taxes fall ultimately on land, and still longer, 
 before it is proceeded on in the business of legislation. 
 The conviction that it were expedient to commute 
 many of our most irritating taxes into a general income 
 tax, may take the precedency, for many years, of the 
 conviction that it were fair and equitable to commute 
 all taxes whatever into a territorial impost. And we 
 should be thankful, if the former conviction were pro" 
 ceeded on till the latter was fully established. It were 
 infinitely better than the present universal system of 
 taxation upon commodities, that there should be an in^ 
 come tax, although it did include the mercantile along 
 with the landed classes. We believe the 'atter would 
 pay all ; but, leaving this question to be y-3ttled after- 
 wards between these two classes, there is another ques-, 
 tion more urgent still, and demanding an immediate 
 settlement ; we mean the question between the higher 
 and the humbler classes in society. An income tax on 
 the former, to the ostensible relief of the latter, would 
 wrest their most formidable weapon from the hand of 
 demagogues. It were the grand specific, we believe, 
 for appeasing the outcries of popular discontent, and so 
 of warding off from the cause of public order and tran- 
 quillity, the principal danger to which, in these perilous 
 times, it is exposed. And it were a cheap purchase of 
 security to the payers, for it would just be making them 
 pay openly, what, though in disguise, they now pay 
 substantially and really. 
 
 And we would not only concede, for a time, a part of 
 our theory, to the demand of those who prefer a gene« 
 ?al to a territorial income tax ; we can even admit, that 
 
f-lNANClAL SYSTEM* 391 
 
 the main objects of financial reform might be achievedj 
 although the commutation from commodities to income 
 were not universal. There are certain establishments, 
 as the post-office for example, which might be upheld, 
 and continue to yield a revenue to government, though 
 without the penalties and restraints by which it is at 
 present guarded as a monopoly. There are even certain 
 articles of enjoyment, as the higher wines and other 
 undoubted luxuries, which may be taxed to any extent, 
 without affecting the comfort of the lower classes. But 
 sugar and tea enter far too largely into the system of 
 their maintenance to be thus classified ; insomuch, that 
 the aboUtion of the tax upon these would lead, at no 
 great distance of time, to the cheapening of labour, 
 and so to the extension of agriculture. This tax, there- 
 fore, should be wholly commuted ; and, in short, if 
 ought but an income tax is to be retained, it should stand 
 exclusively associated with the enjoyments and expendi* 
 ture of the wealthy, so as not to leave even the'semblance 
 or the shadow of any hardship on the working classes 
 of society.* 
 
 With such views, we cannot share in the patriotic en- 
 thusiasm which is felt on the subject of retrenchment. 
 Our patriotism and philanthropy incline us the other 
 way. In common estimation, the demands of the pub- 
 lic service are regarded as so many encroachments on 
 the general comfort of society. In our estimation^ they 
 are but encroachments on the luxury of one class ; and 
 that is, the landed proprietors ; and we cannot regard 
 with complacency the abridgments which are made^ 
 either in the number or the support of national function- 
 aries, when we believe that the only effect will be to 
 enlarge the means of tlie aristocracy, and enable them to 
 live in greater splendour or delicacy than before. So far 
 from taxation having been carried to its extreme limit, 
 we believe it was never at a greater distance from the 
 
 * It would more fully accomplish this desirable object, if the in- 
 come or property tax, instead of being levied by a centage on the 
 whole income, were levied by a centage on the excess of that income 
 over a certain fixed income, beneath which taxation should not be 
 carried. 
 
S91 APPENDIX. 
 
 limit, than at this moment ; and, to substantiate the pb* 
 sition, we make our confident appeal to the growing 
 number of those families in the country, who are elevated 
 above the condition of labourers, to the increased pro- 
 fusion of their tables, and the increased magnificence 
 of their houses, and furniture, and equipage. In other 
 words, there is still, with all the outcry of our being an 
 overburdened people— there is still a larger fund for the 
 additional imposts of government, than at any former 
 period in Britisli history ; or, which is the same thing, a 
 larger disposable population, who, with but the surrender 
 of luxury on the part of private individuals, can be 
 spared for enlarging the civil, and the military, and the 
 educational, and all the useful or respectable estabhsh- 
 ments of the nation. When told, as we often are, that 
 no trade can bear to be taxed any further; our reply is 
 that it is not the trade which furnishes the tax. Trade 
 is but the channel, and not the fountain-head of all the 
 supplies which come into the treasury. It is not com- 
 merce, but its customers, who pay all taxes ; and these 
 are, mainly, the holders of the maintenance of labour. 
 They can bear to be further taxed, so long as they in- 
 dulge in articles of enjoyment which might be dispensed 
 with ; and, in giving up these, they might abridge or 
 annihilate many a trade, yet without destroying the 
 sustenance either of its capitalists or labourers, which 
 instead of being destroyed, is but transferred into the 
 coffers of government. By this process, we but ex- 
 change the products of commerce and manufactures 
 for public benefits ; and we repeat, that, instead of stint- 
 ing any goodly or desirable objects of patriotism, never 
 was there a time when they might be more freely and 
 bounteously extended. Having such views on the real 
 efTects and rationale of taxation, we cannot give our 
 admiration or approval to the scurvy economics of the 
 day. To our e)^e, they have the characteristics of self- 
 ishness and sordidness; and we can see nothing in these 
 paltry savings of government, but a surrender of great 
 public interests, that the ignoble gratifications of sense 
 or of vanity, may be left unimpaired. 
 One great benefit of our proposed commutation were, 
 
FINANCIAL SYSTEM. 393 
 
 lliat it would break up the association which now ob- 
 tains between lofty and high»minded patriotism on the 
 one hand, and this wretched penuriousness on the other. 
 It might perhaps break up too, that low arithmetical 
 politics which has had too long the ascendancy in the 
 councils of the nation. It would bring the real sides of 
 the alternativCj clearly and undisguisedly, into view; 
 making it quite palpable, that the maintenance of the 
 general population was in no way affected by taxes; 
 so that after this element had been discharged from the 
 reasoning, it would become manifest as day, that taxa- 
 tion and the public service might be indefinitely extend- 
 ed, witliout one earthly interest but that of the land- 
 lord's being made to suffer from it. 
 
 There is one obvious effect that would ensue from this 
 great change in the financial system of the country. 
 It would lower the money price of manufacturing 
 labour ; and so, by cheapening, it would enlarge our 
 exports. The taxes at present do not neutralize ; but 
 they so far countervail the natural advantages of British 
 industry, as to bring us sooner than otherwise to the 
 limit of our exportation. By enlarging this limit, and 
 so extending our foreign markets, we should certainly 
 export a greater amount of manufactures than we do at 
 present ; and this would seem to land us in what we 
 certainly do not hold to be a desirable object, the increase 
 of our excrescent population. It should be recollected, 
 however, that the same remission of taxes which would 
 cheapen manufacturing, would also cheapen agricultural 
 labour ; and so, would both let forth the agriculture 
 upon inferior soils, and spread a more strenuous cultiva- 
 tion over the whole territory. There would, along then 
 with the extension of our commerce, be an extension 
 of our agriculture ; so that the one might possibly not 
 overlap tbe other to a greater extent than before. The 
 return imports for the additional exports, need not con- 
 sist of additional agricultural produce, to feed the then 
 larger excrescent population. They may consist of 
 additional foreign luxuries, to be purchased by the 
 landed proprietors, whose then larger revenues, from 
 
 34 
 
S04 APPENDIX, 
 
 the extension of the agricultare, sliould enable them Co 
 live more sumptuously than before. Or they may con- 
 sist of additional second necessaries, so named, because 
 though imported from abroad, they do, in fact, form ob- 
 jects of demand, and so enter into the maintenance of the 
 general population. We have already adverted, and 
 with feelings of gratulation, to the dissimilarity between 
 Britain and those smaller states, whose importance and 
 glory departed when tkeir commerce abandoned them. 
 The difference lies in the amplitude of our agricultural 
 basis, so that although commerce should forsake our 
 shores, we should find a resource and a harbourage for 
 almost all the population who are now employed in it. 
 Now, whatever adds to the agricultural basis, augments 
 this security; and the remission of all taxes which bear 
 on the maintenance of labour, has clearly this effects 
 It is tantamount to making the country a larger one 
 than before; and the likelihood is, that with all the fa- 
 cilities given by this financial reform to manufacturing 
 labour, yet, with the commensvirate facihties given at 
 the same time to agricultural labour, the excrescent 
 population might not have a greater proportion to th© 
 natural, after the change than before it. 
 
 Synoptical View of the Political Economy of this 
 
 Volume.'^ 
 
 It has not been our object to deliver a regular sys- 
 tem of political economy. It has been to establish the 
 following specific proposition — That no economic en- 
 largements in the wealth and resources of a country, 
 can ensure ought like a permanent comfort or sufficien- 
 
 * The foot-note references to books in this article, are to former 
 publications of the Author ; wherein some of the principles of the pre- 
 sent work have been stated and defended. 
 
SYNOPTICAL VIEW. MS 
 
 ^J to the families of the land. Followed up as these 
 enlargements are, by a commensurate, or generally by 
 an overpassing increase of the population — the country, 
 while becoming richer in the aggregate, may continue 
 to teem with as great, perhaps a greater, amount of in- 
 dividual distress and penury, than in the humbler and 
 earlier days of her history. In these circumstances^ 
 the highway to our secure and stable prosperity is, not 
 so much to enlarge the limit of our external means, as 
 so to restrain the numbers of the population, that they 
 shall not press too hard upon that limit. But the only 
 way of rightly accomplishing this, is through the me- 
 dium of a higher self-respect, and higher taste for the 
 comforts and decencies of life among the people them- 
 selves. It is only a moral and voluntary restraint that 
 should be aimed at, or that can be at all effectual; the 
 fruit, not of any external or authoritative compulsion, 
 but of their own spontaneous and collective will. This 
 is evidently not the achievement of a day, but the slow 
 product of education, working insensibly, yet withal 
 steadily and surely, oii the habits and inclinations of 
 the common people; begetting a higher cast of charac- 
 ter, and, as the unfailing consequence of this, a higher 
 standard of enjoyment; the effect of which will be, 
 more provident, and hence, both later and fewer mar^ 
 riages. Without this expedient, no possible enlarge- 
 ment of the general wealth can enlarge the individual 
 comfort of families; but, as in China, we shall behold 
 a general want and wretchedness throughout the mass 
 of society. With this expedient, no limitation in the 
 way of further increase to our wealth will depress the 
 condition, though it will restrain the number of our 
 families; but, as in Norway, we shall behold the cheer- 
 ful spectacle of a thriving, independent, and respectable 
 peasantry . 
 
 But though our main object has been to exhibit such 
 proofs and illustrations as may have occurred to us for 
 the establishment of this position; and though we do 
 not profess to have unfolded, in our volume, political 
 economy, according to the forms, and in the nomencla- 
 
396 APPENDIX. 
 
 ture of a science; yet a political economy, such as it is^ 
 may be gathered out of it. We may not have accom- 
 plished the regular construction of a system, be it right 
 or wrong, but we have at least furnished the materials 
 of one; and we conclude with a brief exposition of its 
 leading principles and peculiarities. 
 
 1. The division of the labouring population into the 
 agricultural, the secondary, and the disposable. It 
 presents many new and important relations in the sci- 
 ence of political economy. No ground will be culti- 
 vated, (unless by the interference of some artificial and 
 compulsory legislation,) that is not at least able to feed 
 the agricultural population employed on it, and their 
 secondaries. Hence the higher the standard of enjoy-, 
 ment is among the people at large, the greater will be 
 the secondary, and the less will be the disposable class; 
 or, corresponding to this, che greater will be the wages, 
 and the less will be the rent, while, at the same time, 
 the more limited will be the cultivation, because of the 
 larger produce that will be required from the soil last 
 entered on, to feed the larger number of secondaries.* 
 
 2. That the great aim of every enlightened philan- 
 thropist and patriot, is to raise the standard of enjoy- 
 ment; even though it should somewhat lessen the renty 
 and somewhat limit the cultivation. That there must 
 be less food raised in virtue of this narrower cultiva- 
 tion; and hence, a somewhat narrower society. But 
 that this, with general comfort among the families, is 
 vastly preferable to a mere numerous society, with all 
 the consequent miseries of an over-peopled land. 
 
 3. That there is no other method by which wages 
 can be kept permanently high, than by the operation 
 of the moral preventive check among the working 
 classes of society; and that this can only be secured by 
 elevating their standard of enjoyment, through the 
 means both of common and Christian education.! 
 
 4. That however menacing an aspect the policy, 
 whose object is to raise the condition of the working; 
 
 * " Extent and Stability of National Resources." 
 f" Christian and Civic Economy of Large Towns." 
 
SYNOPTICAL VIEW. 397 
 
 classes, may have on the interest of the landlords, by 
 encroaching on the rent of land — yet they have every 
 security for a great and growing revenue notwithstand- 
 ing. Such, in the first place, is the strength of the prin^ 
 ciple of population, that there is no danger but wages 
 will be kept sufficiently low, and cultivation be carried 
 down among the inferior soils sufficiently far. And be- 
 sides, every improvement in the methods of husbandry, 
 by lessening the agricultural population needed for the 
 work of farms — and every improvement in the powers 
 of manufacturing industry, by lessening the population 
 needed for preparing the second necessaries of life, — will 
 serve to' increase the disposable population who are at 
 the service of the landlords, and, along with this, the 
 rent out of which this third class of labourers is main^ 
 tained. The improvements wdiich are ever taking place 
 in the powers of labour, will greatly more than counter- 
 vail any diminution, effected by the moral check, on the 
 number of labouiers. Or, in other words, the standard 
 of enjoyment may rise, and yet the income of land^ 
 lords rise along with it. Human industry, aided by 
 human skill, is ever becoming more productive ; and, 
 from this cause, if workmen will only assert and make 
 good their own proper share of the increased produce, 
 there are abundant means for the comforts both of the 
 proprietors and of the general population being enlarged 
 contemporaneously.* 
 
 5. That high wages are not necessarily confined to 
 the period when the wealth of society is in a state of 
 progressive increase ; and neither does it follow, that, 
 when this wealth has attained its maximum, and be- 
 come stationary, the wages of labour must be low. 
 That it remains in the collective power of labourers to 
 sustain their wages at as high a level in the ultimate, 
 as in the progressive stages of the wealth of a country, 
 That the moral preventive check on population can 
 achieve and perpetuate this result ; but that nothing else 
 will do it. 
 
 * ** Christiai^ ancl Civic Economy of Large Towns,'* 
 
 34* 
 
3&8 APPENDIX. 
 
 6. That in every countrj^, where the laws are effi- 
 cient and equitable, and, the people are industrious, 
 the cultivation of the soil will, under the guidance of 
 personal interest and enterprise, be carried to the extreme 
 limit of its being profitable. That, in these circum- 
 stances, to enter on a scheme of home colonization, is 
 to extend the agriculture beyond this limit; or, in other 
 wordsj, to enter upon soils which will not repay the ex- 
 penses of their cultivation. That such a process can 
 only be upheld by taxation, or by turning so many of 
 the disposable population either into agrarians or secon- 
 daries. That the process reaches its ultimatum, when 
 the last man of the disposable population withdrawn 
 from the preparation of luxuries, is converted into an 
 agricultural or secondary labourer. That this implies a 
 state of things, when the whole rent of the land is ab- 
 sorbed in the expenses of a pauperism, now accumulated 
 to the uttermost. That by the time when such a consum- 
 mation is reached, and probably long before it, the land- 
 owners, loosened from all interest or cave in their estates, 
 would abandon the administration of them. That 
 when once the tie of property was broken, there would 
 ensue an immediate dissolution of society. That the 
 occupiers or labourers on the inferior soils, now deprived 
 of the essential support, which through the medium of 
 their proprietors,, they drew from the superior onesj, 
 would turn, in violence, on the more fortunate occupi« 
 ers of the better land. And finally, that, whatever 
 temporary respite society might obtain from a scheme of 
 home colonization, it is a scheme which, if persisted in, 
 must have its final upshot iu the most fearful and deso- 
 lating anarchy. 
 
 7» That this contemplation suggests two distinct limits, 
 one, the extreme limit of a profitable, another, the ex- 
 treme limit of a possible cultivation. That, by abstain-^ 
 ing from schemes of pauperism, and^ instead of these, 
 giving the whole strength and wisdom of government to 
 the best schemes of popular education, we shall keep 
 within the former limit ; and, with an untouched dispo- 
 sable population, whether for the luxury of proprietors^ 
 
SYNOPTICAL VIEW. 3>9i 
 
 or for the public objects of a sound and enlightened pa- 
 triotism, we may have, at the same time, the general 
 population in a state of respectable comfort and suffi- 
 ciency. But if, transgressing the former limit, we enter, 
 with our home colonists, on unprofitable soils, and so 
 make way toward the latter limit — from that moment^ 
 in thus making room for a larger, we are on the sure 
 road to a greatly more wretched society than before ; 
 and degrade, throughout, the condition of the working 
 classes, while we at once impoverish the landlords and 
 enfeeble the state, by trenching on the disposable popu^^ 
 lation. 
 
 8. That no trade or manufacture contributes more to 
 the good of society, than the use or enjoyment which is 
 afforded by its own commodities ; hence the delusiveness 
 of that importance which has been ascribed to them, as 
 if they bore any creative part in augmenting the public 
 revenue, or as if, apart from the use of their commodities, 
 they at all contributed to the strength or greatness of 
 the nation ; and hence, also, the futility of the com- 
 mon distinction between productive and unprodueti've 
 labour* 
 
 9. That although commerce reacted most powerfully 
 on agriculture at the termination of the middle ages, so 
 as to introduce a new habit of expenditure among the 
 landlords, and mightily to extend the cultivation of land, 
 yet, now that the habit is firmly and fully established, 
 we are not to imagine, though any given branch of trade 
 or manufactures should be extinguished, that it will sen- 
 sibly throw back the agriculture. J'or that no proprie- 
 tor would let down the cultivation of his estate, because 
 the failure or fluctuation of particular trades had placed 
 beyond his reach some of his wonted enjoyments. That 
 he would still be at no loss for objects on which to spend 
 bis income ; and that, therefore, a large income would 
 be as much his earnest aim and his felt interest as before. 
 
 10. That there is, therefore, a misplaced and exag- 
 gerated alarm connected with the decay or the loss tDf 
 
 * " Extent and Stability of National Resources." 
 
400 APPENDIX. 
 
 trade. That the destruction of a manufacture does not 
 involve the destruction of the maintenance now expended 
 on manufacturers; and that the whole mischief incurred 
 by such an event would be to them a change of employ- 
 ment, along with a change of enjoyment to their custo- 
 mers; after which, we should behold, in every country 
 subsisted by its own agricultural produce,as large a popu- 
 lation as well maintained as before.* 
 
 11. That they are chiefly the holders of the first ne- 
 cessaries of life, or landed proprietors, who impress, by 
 their taste and demand, any direction which seemeth 
 unto them good, on the labours of the disposable popu^ 
 lation. 
 
 12. Grant but industry and protection, and then capi- 
 tal will be found to have in it as great an increasing and 
 restorative power as population has ; and that any policy 
 for fostering, or any fears for the decay of the one, are 
 as chimerical as the same policy, or the same fears in re- 
 ference to the other ; and that capital can no more in^. 
 crease beyond a certain limit than population can.t 
 
 13. That the diminution of capital, occasioned by ex-s 
 cessive expenditure, whether public or private, is not re- 
 paired so much by parsimony as by the action of a di^ 
 minished capital on profits ; and that the extravagancy 
 of government or of individuals, which raises prices by 
 the amount of that extravagance, produces only a rota- 
 tion of property, without any further diminution of it 
 than what arises from the somewhat higher rate of pro- 
 fit, which an increased expenditure brings along with it 5 
 and which higher rate of profit must, to a certain extent, 
 limit the cultivation of land, 
 
 14. That trade is liable to gluts, both general and 
 partial ; that no skilful distribution of the capital among 
 particular trades, can save the losses which ensue from 
 a general excess of trading ; and that the result is the 
 
 * " Extent and Stability of National Resources." 
 
 t " Christian and Civic Econppiy of Large Towns,"' _^^, 
 
SYNOPTICAL VIEW. 
 
 same, whether the undue extension has taken place by 
 means of credit, or from an excess of capital. 
 
 15. That the rate of profit is determined by the col- 
 lective will of capitalists, just as the rate of wages is by 
 the collective will of labourers — -the former, by the com- 
 mand which they have, through their greater or less ex- 
 penditure, over the amount of capital ; the latter, by the 
 command which they have, through their later or earlier 
 marriages, over the amount of population. That by 
 raising or lowering, therefore, the standard of enjoyment 
 among capitalists, profit is raised or lowered ; that, in 
 this way, both classes may encroach on the rent of land, 
 and share its produce more equally with the landlords. 
 
 16. That w^hen the agricultural produce of a country 
 is equal to the subsistence of its population, its foreign 
 trade is as much directed by the taste, and upheld by the 
 ability of its landed proprietors, as the home trade is.* 
 
 17. That it is not desirable that the commerce of Bri- 
 tain should greatly overlap its agricultural basis ; and 
 that the excrescent population, subsisted on corn from 
 abroad, yield a very insignificant fraction to the public 
 revenue.t 
 
 18. That, nevertheless, there should be a gradual 
 relaxation of the corn laws, and ultimately a free corn 
 trade — with the exception of a small duty on importa- 
 tion, for the single purpose of a revenue to government, 
 by which to meet the expenses to which it is subjected, 
 from the addition made by the excrescent to the whole 
 population. 
 
 19. That the abolition of their monopoly in corn, 
 would not be injurious to the British landlords ; saving 
 that the increase thereby given to the value of maney 
 might create an inequality between them and the fund 
 holders — which inequality, however, could be rectified^ 
 by means of an adjusted taxation, 
 
 * " Extent and Stability of National Resources" — and " Christiars, 
 and Civic Economy of Large Towns." 
 ' tibid. 
 
402 APPENDIX. 
 
 20. That, probably a free corn trade would not bt!f« 
 den the country with a large excrescent population. 
 
 21. That Britain has little or nothing to apprehend 
 from the loss of her colonies and commerce ; but that a 
 change of employment to the disposable population, and 
 of enjoyment to their maintainers, would form the whole 
 result of it. And that though, historically, foreign 
 trade did, at the termination of the middle ages, stimu- 
 late agriculture, yet that now% under all the possible 
 fluctuations of trade, there is perfect security for the cul- 
 tivation of land, on to that point at which it ceases to 
 yield any surplus produce to the landlord. 
 
 22. That, with the exception of their first brief and 
 temporary effect on wages and the profits of circulating 
 capital, and of their more prolonged effect on the pro- 
 fits of fixed capital— all taxes fall upon land ; the interest 
 of its mortgages being included. 
 
 23. That this doctrine, though now regarded as one 
 of the exploded errors of the French economists, should 
 not share in the discredit attached to their school — if 
 upheld by other reasonijigg, and made to rest on other 
 principles than those of the economists. That the 
 grounds on which our conviction in this matter is esta- 
 blished, were never once recognised by these economists, 
 that is, the dependence of wages on an element over 
 which labourers, collectively, have the entire control — 
 we mean population ; and the dependence of profit on 
 an element over which traders, collectively, have the en- 
 tire control—we mean capital. 
 
 24. That, to estimate the whole effect of taxes upon 
 land, we should add to the effect of them, in aggra- 
 vating the expenditure of landlords, the effect of them in 
 lessening their receipts. That every tax which bears on 
 the profit or maintenance of the agricultural capitalists, 
 and which bears on the wages or maintenance of the 
 agricultural, and their secondary labourers, and, gene- 
 rally, which enhances the expenses of farm management, 
 creates a deduction, pro tantOj from the rent. That, for 
 the commutation of all taxes into a territorial and funded 
 Impost, there would be a full equivalent to the landlords ; 
 
SYNOPTICAL VIEW. 403 
 
 first, in the lessened expenses of their living ; and, se- 
 condly, in the enlarged rent of all the land now under 
 cultivation. And that they, over and above, would ob- 
 tain more than an equivalent, in the new rent which 
 would accrue from the more extended cultivation of their 
 land, now unburdened of all those taxes by which the 
 cultivation had formerly been limited. 
 
 25. That the effect of tithes, in contracting the agri- 
 culture of a country, is the same with that of taxes on ca- 
 pitahsts, or labourers, or the instruments of husbandry ; 
 and that the abohtion of both would, in the first instance, 
 enlarge the comforts of the general community ; but, at 
 last, would prove exclusively a boon and an enlargement 
 to the landlords. 
 
 26. That tithes and taxes ought not to be abolished, 
 but commuted, as there ought to be a more liberal pro- 
 vision for the various branches of the pubHc service ; and, 
 more especially, for the support of the Hterary and eccle- 
 siastical establishments, the endowment of which is in- 
 dispensable to high scholarship, and to the full Christian 
 instruction of the people.* 
 
 27. That the extreme limit of taxation is the landed 
 rental of the kingdom ; and that, were taxation carried 
 to this limit, it would place the great bulk of the disposa- 
 ble population in the service of the state. 
 
 28. That the capabilities of the nation for defensive 
 war are greatly underrated ; they being at least commen- 
 surate to the extent of the disposable population. f 
 
 29. That the superior influence of Britain over other 
 nations in distant parts, is due to her exports ; and that 
 if, instead of her lighter manufactures, she had to export 
 raw produce, her power in offensive war would be lessen- 
 ed, while she might continue as strong in defensive war 
 as before ; and that, therefore, the balance of power is a 
 topic of needless and misplaced anxiety on the part of 
 British statesmen. 
 
 30. That the national debt is tantamount to a general 
 
 * " On the Use and Abuse of Literary and Ecclesiastical Endow- 
 ments." 
 
 t " Extent and Stability of National Resources." 
 
404 APPENDIX. 
 
 mortgage on the land of the kingdom, and that it has oc- 
 casioned no diminution of capital ; the absorption of ca- 
 pital by the government loan of any particular year be- 
 ing replaced next year by the operation of the diminished 
 capital upon profits. 
 
 31. That if the expenses of a war are raised within 
 the year, they do not enhance general prices ; but that, 
 in as far as they are defrayed by loans, prices rise, and so 
 that the excess upon the whole is equal to the sum bor- 
 rowed.* 
 
 32. That the national debt is therefore a double burden 
 upon the community, having been already paid once in 
 the excess of those higher prices which are consequent 
 upon each loan ; and to be paid a second time, either by 
 a perpetual interest, or by the liquidation of the principal. 
 
 33. That the nation is as able to pay the expense of 
 any war by taxes within the year, as by taxes and loans 
 together ; seeing that, in point of fact, it does pay the 
 loans within the year too, in the higher prices which these 
 loans have occasioned. 
 
 34. That the law of primogeniture is essentially link- 
 ed with the political strength, and other great public in- 
 terests of the nation. 
 
 35. That, on the whole, no enlargement of our econo- 
 mical resources will suffice for the wants of a population, 
 who are under no moral or prudential restraint on the in- 
 crease of their numbers. That the effect of each succes- 
 sive addition to the means of our subsistence, will, in that 
 case, be only a larger, but not a more comfortable or 
 better conditioned society. That however numerous, or 
 however successful the expedients may be, for adding to 
 the amount of national wealth ; they will be nullified, in 
 point of effect on the sensible comfort of families, by the 
 operation of but one expedient more, which shall ensure 
 a proportional, or beget a tendency toward greater than 
 a proportional, addition to the national population. That 
 a law of compulsory relief for the poor is precisely such 
 an expedient ; and that so long as it is in operation, every 
 
 * " Christian and Civic Economy of Large Towns."^ 
 
SYNOPTICAL VIEW. 405 
 
 other device which philanthropy can suggest, or even an 
 enlightened political economy can sanction, will turn out 
 to be futile and abortive.* 
 
 36. That but for this disturbing force, which so un- 
 settles the providential habits of the people, and so under- 
 mines every principle, whether of nature or Christianity, 
 to the spontaneous operation of which the care of the 
 poor ought always to have been confided, society might 
 undergo a very speedy amelioration. Because that a 
 very small excess in the number of labourers, effects a 
 very large and disproportionate reduction in the price of 
 labour ; and therefore, by a reverse process, it might only 
 require a very insignificant fraction of relief from the 
 numbers of the people, to operate a very large relief on 
 their circumstances and comforts. That emigration for 
 the lessening of the number, and the various other eco- 
 nomical expedients for the enlargement of the means, will 
 be of but slight and temporary effect, so long as the law 
 of pauperism shall maintain the population in a state of 
 perpetual overflow. But that, if these were related to a 
 scheme for the gradual abolition of the pauperism, they 
 would smooth the transition from a system of compulso- 
 ry, to one of natural and gratuitous relief; after which, 
 it were in the power of common, and more especially of 
 christian education, indefinitely to raise the habits and 
 tastes, and, along with these, to raise the economical con- 
 dition of ths people. 
 
 * " Christian and Civic Economy of Large Towns," and Pamphlets 
 on Pauperism, passim. 
 
 FINIS. 
 
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