Principles of political economy

PRINCIPLES

POLITICAL ECONOMY.

1 lie lotiMTvutiou and secure enjoyment of our NATURAL RIGHTS

i« Uie great and ultimate purpose of civil society; and all forms what-

*o»'\er of government are only good as they are subservient to that

purpone, tu \vhich they tire entirely subordinate." — BURKE. Tract on

i>rry LdtCS.

PRINCIPLES

POLITICAL ECONOMY,

DEDUCED FROM THE

NATURAL LAWS OF SOCIAL WELFARE,

AND APPLIED TO THE

PRESENT STATE OF BRITAIN.

G. POULETT SCROPE, M.P.

' %

F.R.S., $c.

"The rules of Political Economy arc as simple and harmonious as «h? laws which
regulate the natural world, but the strands and -waj-v^rd policy ofmau -vould render
them intricate and difficult."— Tracts by C. L . Ksq., '332

LONDON :

LONGMAN, REES, ORME, BROWN, GREEN, & LONGMAN,
PATE RNOSTER-ROW.

MDCCCXXX1II.

LONDON :

PlUNTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES,
Duke Street, Lambeth.

THE CONSTITUENCY

BOROUGH OF S T R 0 U D.

BOOKS were formerly dedicated to some powerful
personage whom the Author coveted as a Patron,
whose name might confer honour on his work, or who
had laid him under weighty ohligations. These are
perhaps not the least among the motives which induce
me to inscribe this little volume to you, my kind
friends, from whom I have experienced so much
favour, and of whose confidence I feel so justly proud.
But I have other apologies to plead for the liberty
I am taking. The relation of representative and
constituent is now very different from what it was
when the privilege of making the laws which decide
the destinies of a great people was sold to the highest
bidder. Mutual regard, reciprocal confidence, and a
general agreement on political principles, now form
the bond of union between a parliamentary trustee and
those who appoint him. The most perfect openness,
the most candid exposure of his opinions on matters

377:101

Vi DEDICATION.

of public interest, is what they have a right to expect
from him. Since to them he owes his public cha-
racter, to them he is accountable for his public con-
duct, whether in or out of parliament. On this ground
then, alone, I should feel justified in addressing
to you a volume which contains my sentiments on
many great questions of legislative policy. Nor can
a work, the main object of which is to set forth the
Rights of Industry to the full enjoyment of its fruits,
he more appropriately inscribed than to the inha-
bitants of a district distinguished for the honourable
and successful industry of an enlightened, and, I
sincerely believe, beyond that of other manufacturing
districts, an orderly, virtuous, and happy population.

I am,
With the truest respect and regard,

Gentlemen,
Your very obedient Servant,

THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

THE prevailing want of the present day seems to
be a want of correct information as to the true
interests of society. The progress of popular
education has already infused a mind into masses
heretofore but passive instruments in the hands
of those who were the exclusive possessors of
knowledge. The people now read; the people
reason ; the people think for themselves. What
do they read ? What are their thoughts ? From
what principles do they reason? These are ques-
tions of deep import. For the answers to them
must determine the ultimate result of the revolu-
tion, hitherto a tranquil and bloodless, but yet a
complete revolution, which has long since com-
menced, and is in active progress throughout
Europe. By education the people are everywhere
acquiring knowledge ; and knowledge is power.

Whilst education was nearly confined to the
few whose position led them to cultivate literature
as a recreation, an amusement, or a resource
against vacancy, the subjects which attracted the
greatest attention were naturally of a correspond-

b 2

Vlll PREFACE.

ing character — light, unsubstantial, and objectless.
The refinements of classical literature — the charm
of poesy — the studied graces of composition— the
subtle logic of the schools — the idealisms of
metaphysics — the abstract speculations of exact
science — and the nice distinctions of theological
dissent — these were, in turn or together, the en-
grossing subjects of study and controversy. But
the thirst of the people for knowledge is not to be
slaked at such fountains. Those whose daily
labour wins their daily bread, with whom com-
forts are scarce, and necessaries not abundant ;
whose very means of existence are in the highest
degree precarious, — this class no sooner begins to
read, to think, to reason, and to inquire, than their
reading, their thoughts, their reasoning, and
their inquiries run into channels of vital interest
to themselves, and immediately connected with
their own position. They ask themselves, they
interrogate each other, they consult all publications
to which they have access, upon the to them all-
important question, c How it happens that their
condition is so depressed — their position so pre-
carious? Whether this state of things is necessary,
and, if so, why ? If not, then how it may be
ameliorated?' For to tolerate it any longer than
appears to them unavoidable, assuredly they will
not submit.

Hence it is that the subjects we have mentioned,

PREFACE. 1X

as once engrossing the attention of the reading
public, are now comparatively neglected ; and
even the more useful branches of information on
natural history, and the arts and sciences, fail in
obtaining much regard, to the discomfiture of their
wondering teachers and professors. The prevail-
ing stream of thought arid argument sets towards
questions of deeper moment, of more urgent and
immediate bearing on the interests of mankind.
A strong, though as yet scarcely recognized feeling
has in fact begun to pervade society, that the well-
being of its component members is the object
most deserving of its attention, and should be its
first and most prominent study ; that the physical
and mental happiness of man may be most mate-
rially influenced by his social arrangements ; and
that these arrangements are susceptible of great
arid indefinite, if not infinite improvement, so as
to bring about a proportionate increase of hap-
piness to ,the individuals united under them, by
the simple application to their study and perfection
of the same sagacity, foresight, and powers of rea-
soning, which have effected such prodigious ad-
vances in the arts and sciences.

This feeling exhibits itself in the political ex-
citement, which more or less pervades every
nation of Europe ; and still more in the subjects
discussed by the periodical press of every state
where freedom of discussion is allowed. The

X PREFACE.

questions agitated in all assemblies — indeed,
wherever two or three are gathered together — in
the hovel no less than in the palace —in the village
pot-house, as in the brilliant circles of metro-
politan rank and fashion — in the factory, as well
as the club — have a direct practical relation to the
constitution and interests of society. The conduct,
the character, and the structure of governments
and legislatures — the nature and probable results
of laws to be enacted or repealed — taxation, the
public debt, poor-laws, free trade — the condition
and prospects of the great leading interests of the
state, agricultural, commercial, and manufacturing
— and, above all, of the labouring class, compre-
hending, as it does, the numerical majority, and,
consequently, the physical powers of the com-
munity— these are now matters ' familiar to our
ears as household words,' the topics of daily,
hourly conversation and discussion, in every
corner of almost every land ; — often ignorantly,
stupidly, blunderingly treated, it may be; — but
still canvassed, spoken, written, read, THOUGHT
upon.

The spirit that so occupies and agitates the
general mind is not, as some pretend, one of
causeless and casually excited dissatisfaction ; it
is no paroxysm of feverish irritation or chronic
restlessness : it is the natural consequence of the
progress which the many have made in the know-

PREFACE. XI

ledge of facts, and in the power of reasoning from
them. It is not symptomatic of disease, but
rather of that period in the growth of the human,
intellect when it passes from adolescence to
maturity : it indicates the approaching transition
of society into a state of greater health and
vigour.

The ideas of many who occupy themselves with
such subjects are, no doubt, vague and indistinct;
their opinions are fluctuating, and often contra-
dictory ; prejudice obscures the sight of numbers;
false lights and visionary alarms deceive and dis-
tract the attention of more ; the views of some are
narrow, mean, and selfish ; of others, wildly spe-
culative and theoretical ; of a few, destructive and
criminal ; but there is an average of correct ap-
prehension, sound judgment, arid virtuous inten-
tion, from which much may be expected. Above
all, there is a common desire, nay, a determination
to inquire into, and thoroughly sift the arrange-
ments of society, and a valuable acknowledgment
from all sides that the object of these arrangements f
and the end sought for in their discussion, is the
benefit, not of one, or a few individuals, but of
the mass of the associated community — in the
quaint phrase of the Utilitarian sage, ' the
greatest happiness of the greatest number/ From
the concussion of such elements good can scarcely
fail to be elicited. Confiding, as I do, in the

Xll^ PREFACE.

force and ultimate victory of TRUTH, and firmly
persuaded of its beneficial tendency, I augur well
of the struggle which is now going on, and en-
tertain sanguine expectations of its result.

This little work is an attempt to aid the solu-
tion of the great problem now undergoing such
general discussion. It is offered as an humble
contribution towards the great fund of knowledge
now in process of accumulation, (and dispersed
as fast as accumulated,) on the principles of social
welfare. It directs itself especially to investigate
and explain the laws that determine the supply
of a people with the necessaries, comforts, and
luxuries of physical existence. It is this branch
in particular of the science (if so it maybe called)
of social happiness, which appears to the writer
to be at present, if not the most neglected, at ail
events the least understood in theory, and the
most mismanaged in practice.

The character of nearly all governments is un-
dergoing a rapid improvement, even where their
forms remain unchanged. The welfare of the
people is now universally acknowledged as the
only legitimate end of state policy. The spirit of
conquest and the mad thirst after military glory
have subsided before the humanizing influence of
a lengthened personal, literary, and commercial
intercourse between nations. Education has taken
rapid strides in almost every quarter, and is

PREFACE. Xlll

quickly dispelling the bigotry and intolerance
which cunning had engrafted upon ignorance.
The press, the organ at once and the guide of
public opinion, has widely extended its peaceful
but powerful sway. A community of thought
and feeling, a sense of kinsmanship and common
interest, a kind of cosmopolitan sympathy, is
establishing itself among bodies of men in every
region of the globe ; and millions of hearts now
vibrate to the same chord, in conscious unison,
from the Mississippi to the Ganges, from Torneo
to the Cape. The number of minds everywhere
occupied in the investigation of useful subjects,
and the means afforded for the intercommunication
of their respective discoveries, has prodigiously
multiplied. Art, science and literature have
made, and are daily making, corresponding- ad-
vances. The mechanical arts, especially, have
moved forward with unexampled celerity ; inven-
tion has succeeded invention, until the facilities
for producing objects which shall minister to the
ever-varying tastes and ever-augmenting wants
of man, seem almost boundless.

Still, amidst these bright and promising pro-
spects, some gloomy shadows are visible. Some-
thing still disturbs these elements of general
improvement, neutralizes their beneficial qua-
lities, and hinders them from combining, as
might be expected, to work out a general and

XIV PREFACE.

uniform advance in happiness. Wealth, it is true,
has increased in certain quarters ; but poverty,
on the other hand, has increased likewise, or, at
least, has not proportionately diminished. There
is almost everywhere an actually overflowing sup-
ply of articles of luxury and refinement. But
there is, at the same time, almost everywhere, an
ominous and anomalous want of the very neces-
saries of subsistence. Knowledge is increasing1 ;
discoveries in art and science are adding daily to
the stock of superfluities ; while food, the staff of
life, seems to be stationary, not to say retrograde,
in the rate of its supply.

This is not as it should be. There is something
wrong

' When wealth accumulates as men decay.'
It is not merely an unhappy and a dangerous,
it is an unnatural and paradoxical state of things.
It can only be the result of culpable mismanage-
ment, mismanagement having its root either in
the fraud or the ignorance of those who model the
institutions, and administer the resources of na-
tions. Ignorance, rather than fraud, we believe
to be the main root of the evil. No statesman,
no despot even, in the present day, sets to work
knowingly to destroy his country and deteriorate
the condition of the people under his sway, for
his own selfish purposes. It is well understood
now that the interest of the governor lies in the

PREFACE. XV

well-being of the governed; that political dis-
contents have their origin in physical distresses;
that the ease, the power, the wealth, the glory,
of a government depend on the prosperity of
the nation it presides over. It is to the ignorance
then of both governors and governed, as to the
just direction of their collective resources, and the
true principles of economical policy ; to the blun-
dering stupidity of power, rather than to its
knavery and wickedness, that we must trace the
defective arrangements, and consequently imper-
fect operation of the mechanism of most existing
societies.

This ignorance, like that of every other kind,
is to be dispelled by inquiry and discussion. The
rules for securing the physical well-being of com-
munities are simple, and, when sought in a spirit
of candour, almost self-evident. The writer has
endeavoured to clear the subject from the abstruse
and unnecessary mystification in which it has
been shrouded of late by some of its more popular
expounders ; and to bring its leading principles
within the comprehension of readers of all classes
possessed of plain common-sense understandings.

It has been thought advisable to introduce the
strictly economical part of the subject, by a pre-
liminary discourse on the rights, duties, and in-
terests of man in society, for the sake both of
thereby denning with greater accuracy the true

XVI PREFACE.

scope and limits of political economy ; and also
of establishing a ground-work of axiomatic prin-
ciples, with respect to the rights of individuals
and the duties of governments, resting upon
which the maxims of political economy assume
the character, not of mere curious and interesting
speculations, but of rules of imperative duty on
the part of governments, and of unquestionable
right on the part of the governed.

One primary object which the writer has had
in view, in this as well as in other previous pub-
lications, he acknowledges to be the refutation of
that most pernicious dogma which has long been
palmed upon the public as the fundamental axiom
of political economy: namely, 'the tendency of
population to exceed the procurable means of
subsistence.' His desire has been to demonstrate,
in opposition to the heartless and paralyzing doc-
trines which this chimera has engendered, that
man's deficiency of subsistence is his own wilful
fault, — that, in his aggregate capacity, he has
everywhere and always had within reach the
sources of an abundant supply for the satisfaction
of all his reasonable wants ; and that, so far from
any artificial limitation of numbers being needed
in the present mid-day blaze of knowledge appli-
cable to the improvement of his productive powers,
nothing more is wanting, in order to secure a con-
tinual increase of the means of physical enjoy-

PREFACE. XVII

ment at the command of every individual^ how-
ever rapid the growth of numbers, than that
societies should exert, in the prosecution of their
collective interests, and the enlargement of their
collective resources, the same prudential foresight
which individuals are accustomed to employ in
advancing their particular interests, and extending
their individual means.

If he succeed only in obtaining the recognition
of this great truth, the author's most ardent wishes
will be amply fulfilled. It is pregnant with infer-
ences which cannot but lead to results of incal-
culable benefit to the whole human race.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Page

PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE. — ON the Coincidence of the
Rights, Duties, and Interests of Man in Society . 1

CHAPTER I — Definition of Right— some Rule of Right
necessary — Moral and Legal Rules of Right — should
coincide with Natural Right — Rights and Duties cor-
relative . . . . ib.

CHAPTER II. — Primary Natural Rights — 1. To Personal
Freedom — 2. To the common Bounty of Heaven —
3. To Property — 4. To good Government . .13

CHAPTER III. — Duty of a Government, the securing to
Individuals the full Enjoyment of their Rights — Means
for this end within its influence — 1. Moral and Reli-
gious Education — 2. Security from Personal Injury
— 3. The ahundant Production and general Distri-
bution of Physical Enjoyments — The latter alone the
object of Political Economy, and of this work . 28

PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY DEDUCED FROM
THE NATURAL LAWS OF SOCIAL WELFARE . 40

CHAPTER I. — Definition of the Science — The Study of
the Happiness of Societies so far as it depends on the
Abundance and Distribution of their Wealth — Its
Principles capable only of moral, not mathematical
proof . . . . . ib.

CHAPTER II.— Definition of Wealth— and of Labour—

XX CONTENTS.

All Labour productive. — Labour rather a pleasure
than a sacrifice — must, however, be free — and suffi-
ciently remunerated. — Minimum of sufficient remune-
ration.— Wealth no certain measure of happiness. —
Test proposed .....

CHAPTER IIT — Conditions of the Production of Wealth
— The Institution of private Property — Labour— Land
— Capital .....

CHAPTER IV. — LABOUR — Exchanges of its Produce —

Right to Free Exchange — Division of Labour — Its

advantages — Co-operation and mutual dependence of

s all Labourers — Barter — Money — Its use — Coin —

Credit — General use of .

CHAPTER V — WAGES— Ample and continually increas-
ing Wages secured to Labourers by the principles of
Free Labour and Free Exchange — Inequality of

t Wages in different employments, and of different indi-
viduals— Ability, even of the lowest class, increases,
and its reward ought to rise proportionately, with the
progress of civilization ....

CHAPTER VI. — LAND — Its appropriation essential to Pro-
duction— History and causes of its appropriation in
different ages and countries — In the East by the
Sovereign — In Europe by the Aristocracy — In Ame-
rica by the People — Influence of these different sys-
tems on Production and National Welfare — Natural
Laws of Property in ....

CHAPTER VII. — CAPITAL. — The result of previous Labour
—Not affixed to Land —Nor incorporated with human
ability — Nor reserved for private Consumption — But
employed, or reserved for Employment, in Production,
with a view to Profit from sale of its Produce. — Ne-
cessity of so restricting the meaning of the term. —

CONTENTS. XXi

Page
Utility of Capital. — Profit on Capital. — Nature of

Profit, and natural right to its enjoyment. — Mistaken
Views of those who declaim against the Profits of Ca-
pital.— Fixed and Circulating Capitals. — Elements of
Profit. — Net Profit, or Interest of Money. — Inequality
of Gross Profits.— Equality of Net Profit, in the same
country . e . . .136

CHAPTER VIII. — VALUE. — Value necessarily relative —
No real Value — General Value — Means ( Purchasing '
Power' — Elements of Value — Monopoly — Costs of
Production. — Rent, the result of Monopoly — Does not
enter into Price — Distinction between good and bad
Monopolies — Demand and Supply — Their variations
and reciprocal action — Cost of Production — Consists
in Labour, Capital, Time, Monopoly, and Taxation. —
Competition of Producers — by which Supply and De-
mand are kept nearly Level — Different Investments
of Capital and Labour — Partial Glut — General Glut
impossible, except through a Scarcity of Money . 164

CHAPTER IX. — DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. — Natural and
necessary inequality of Conditions and Property. —
Adventitious advantages. — Natural Right of Succes-
sion to Property by Will or Inheritance. — Variety of
Conventional Rules. — Test of their Equity. — Natural
Distribution of new Wealth — among Labourers, Land-
owners, and Capitalists — Can be determined only by
the principle of free Exchange. —The same principle
tends to the greatest increase of distributable Produce.
— Limitation of interference of Government to the
security of Persons and Property . . 217

CHAPTER X. — PRODUCTIVE INTERESTS. — Agriculture —
Manufactures — Commerce. — Progress, Subdivisions,
and utility of each. — Their community of interest, and
equal importance. — Preference awarded to Agricul-

c

XX11 CONTENTS.

Page

ture owing to the unnatural existing relations of po-
pulation and subsistence . . . 233

CHAPTER XI. — POPULATION AND SUBSISTENCE. — History
of the supply of Food to an increasing People. — Early
limitation of the numbers and resources of Man. —
Hunting State. — Pastoral State. — Agricultural State.
—Increased facilities for procuring Subsistence con-
sequent on every Improvement. — Culture of inferior
Soils indicative of increased, not of diminished Re-
sources.— Sure Resource of Migration. — Coloniza-
tion— Vast extent of rich Soil yet uncultivated. — Un-
limited capacity of the Globe for the production of
Food. — Misery the result of Crime and Folly, not of
any natural Law. — Food can easily be made to in-
crease faster than Population — as also Capital of every
kind. — Folly, mischief, and impiety of the Malthusian
Doctrine. — True direction of prudence to the Increase
of Food and Wealth, not the limitation of numbers
and happiness ..... 257

CHAPTER XII. — CAUSES OF POVERTY. — Mismanagement
of resources. — Faulty Institutions. — Economical struc-
ture and habits of nations. — Errors in all — Preca-
rious position of the bulk of the British people. — His-
tory of the Labouring Class of Britain. — Liberty and
Pauperism coeval. — Origin, principle, means and re-
sults of the Poor-Law. — Prejudice against it. — Use
' onfoini'led with abuse. — Its mat-administration. —
Allowance System.— Reform of the Poor-Law. — Pro-
posed Commutation of Poor-Tax for compulsory Mu-
tual Assurance Fund. — Necessity of Poor-Law for
Ireland. — General Scheme of Emigration. — Summary
of means for extinguishing Pauperism . . 293

CHAPTER XIII. — RESTRAINTS ON AGRICULTURE.— Tithe
System. — Local Taxation. — Restrictions on Inclosures 340

CONTENTS. xxiii

Page
CHAPTER XIV, — RESTRAINTS ON MANUFACTURES. —

Taxes on raw materials. — Excise duties. — Factory-bill 353

CHAPTER XV. — RESTRAINTS ON COMMERCE. — Restric-
tions on Exchanges. — Fallacy of the Arguments against
Free Trade. — History of the Protecting System. —
Ruinous policy for a Commercial State — Depresses
Industry and discourages Production. — Taxation no
ground for protection — Nor the absence of recipro-
city.— True principle and limits of protection. — Colo-
nial System. — Advantage of Colonial over Foreign
Trade. — Real use of Colonies. — Should be considered
as extensions of cultivable Territory, and the Trade
with them assimilated to the Home Trade. — Coloni-
zation.— Corn Laws — In principle unjust and impo-
litic, except to a very limited extent. — Present Sys-
tem.— Its removal should be preceded by a removal
of the restraints on Agriculture. — Absenteeism. — •
Conclusion ..... 360

CHAPTER XVI. — RESTRAINTS ON THE INSTRUMENT OF EX-
CHANGE.— Injury of restrictions on the Instrument of
Exchange. — Credit always employed as a medium for
circulating values to afar greater extent than Coin.—
Credit should be free to take what form convenience
may dictate. — Just limitations of Currency. — The ob-
ject, convenience, security, and stability of Value —
To be obtained either, 1. By complete freedom of
Note issue — 2. By a National Bank. — Vices of the
English System. — Bank of England Monopoly. — Va-
riations in Value of the Standard. — Proposed mea-
sure of Variations. — Their injustice and enormous
extent of late years. — Suggestions for improvement
of Monetary System, — Weights and Measures.—
Usury Laws . . « 397

XXiv CONTENTS.

Page

CHAPTER XVII. — RESTRAINTS ON THE CIRCULATION OF
LABOUR. — Law of Settlement. — To be counteracted
by giving facilities to Migration . . . 426

CHAPTER XVIII.— EXCESSIVE AND MISDIRECTED TAXA-
TION.— History and Progress of Taxation in Britain.
—Limited only by the resistance of the people. — Fund-
ing System — Its errors. — Pressure of the National
Debt on Productive Industry. — Financial mismanage-
ment.— Extravagance. — Misdirection of Taxation. —
True principles of Taxation. — Expediency of commut-

' ing the Taxes on Industry and the Comforts of the
Poor for an Income Tax . . .431

CHAPTER XIX. — Restraints on the Natural Distribu-
tion of Wealth . . , . .448

CHAPTER XX. — Concluding Observations . . 451

PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE.

CN THE COINCIDENCE OF THE RIGHTS, DUTIES, AND
INTERESTS OF MAN IN SOCIETY.

CHAPTER I.

Definition of Right — some Rule of Right necessary — Moral
and Legal Rules of Right — should coincide with Natural
Right — Rights and Duties correlative.

THE axiom, that ' whatever is is right,' has been
said, sung, and upheld in various argument. But
though perfectly true in the sense that Providence
has, on the whole, ordered all things for the best,
it is evidently false if applied to individual actions ;
as, for example, cruelty, theft, and murder. Pro-
vidence, in arranging things ' on the whole for
the best,' has left to man the liberty of acting on
any occasion in a variety of ways ; of all which
but one only can be right, or ' for the best.*

In the conduct of man, therefore, and in the
circumstances by which he surrounds himself, it
seldom happens that what is ought to 6e, or is
* right.'1 Caprice often urges him in one direc-
tion, prejudice in another, selfishness in a third,
sympathy in a fourth, fear in a fifth, habit in a
sixth, while force perhaps supervenes and compels
him to move in one totally distinct from all of

B

2 . ' •" ,^KELZM:NARY DISCOURSE.

these. Yet in whatever way he may be led to act
under the influence of such conflicting motives,
there has been all along one, and but one, right
course which he ' ought' to have taken, which
alone would have been ' for the best ;' that is, as we
interpret it, 4 most for the welfare of mankind.9

Paley makes abstract or natural right to depend
on the will of God, directly revealed, or deduced
from His general intentions, as they are evidently
displayed in His works. And for those who be-
lieve with Paley, as we most firmly do, that God
wills the greatest attainable happiness of his sen-
tient creatures, and especially of mankind, the
will of God becomes an additional and most power-
ful sanction of ' the right ' in the sense here
assigned to it. But whether it can be proved or
not to the satisfaction of every one, by the evi-
dence of natural or revealed religion, that the
Creator does will the greatest attainable happiness
of mankind in this world, it must remain self-
evident to every reasonable mind, and will pro-
bably be disputed by none, that whatever course of
conduct makes most for the happiness of mankind
is, abstractedly, 4 for the best,' or right in man.
Abstract right, therefore, or, in other words, natural
justice, may be defined as * that disposition of the
circumstances within his power by man, which is
most for the welfare of mankind.'

Throughout all ages and nations there has been
more or less of direct reference to the good of man-
kind, the happiness of society, the public welfare,
and similar phrases, as the standard of right and
justice. And both the moral rules which have
been suggested at various periods by the best and

RIGHT DEFINED.

wisest of men, and the laws which have been esta-
blished by power, with or without the assent of
the society for which they were intended, have
alike professed to aim at the promotion of this
great end.

These rules of morality or law have necessarily
partaken of the error incident to every human
achievement ; and, moreover, even if we could con-
ceive them to have been, in any instance, perfect
when first laid down, they will have required occa-
sional change to suit the changing circumstances
of man. From both which causes there must,
even in the best of times, have been some discre-
pancy between that which the legal or moral codes
of society recognized as right, and true moral or
natural right. This discrepancy it would be the
office of wisdom to discover and remove, so as to
bring the legal and supposed moral right to coincide
as completely as possible with natural right.

Unhappily wisdom has had but little to do with
the proceedings of most law -makers ; nor, had they
all been Solons in capacity, was their real object
always that which the/ professed to have in view.
While the public welfare has been on their lips,
their own private advantage, or the indulgence of
their selfish passions, was but too frequently up-
permost in their minds. In this way the discre-
pancies between legal and natural rights have
been widened, until at times all trace of the latter
has disappeared from the institutions of a society,
and been utterly lost sight of by those who enforce
or expound them ; until, in the maze of precedent
and prescription, the means have been mistaken
and worshipped for the end, and the law has been

if a

4 PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE.

looked upon as an abstract something to be vene-
rated and pursued for its own sake, independent of
its bearing on the welfare of man; until it has
even been stoutly denied that there is, or can be,
any other right than that which is established
by law.

The absurdity of this not uncommon opinion
need hardly be exposed. If there is no right an-
tecedent to the establishment of law, then where
there are no laws, as in a newly-occupied country,
there are no rights ; and men may ill-treat, plun-
der, nay, murder one another without doing wrong.
If law is the only standard of justice, then there
must be as many such standards as there are
varying laws throughout the world ; and it must
be right and just that the emperor of Morocco
should cut off the heads of his subjects as an
amusement before breakfast, if it so pleases him ;
that the Brazilians should kidnap and make slaves
of as many Africans as they can catch, and that
the New Zealanders should kill and eat each other
with salt and lemon-juice. But it is quite evident
that justice is one and invariable ; that laws may
sanction wrong as well as right ; that there must
be therefore some other criterion of their justice
or ri^htfulness than their establishment by the
local authority of the day, or their antiquity ; and
this test can, in our opinion, be no other than
their tendency to promote to the utmost the welfare
of mankind*.

* There are two objections -which may be advanced
against this foundation of natural rights.

I. That there may be many different opinions as to what
lends most to the welfare of mankind ; and who is to decide
the point ? The answer is, that the same objection applies

NATURAL SENTIMENT OF RIGHT. 5

Believing this object to be favourably regarded
by our gracious Maker, we are not surprised to
find that He has endowed man with an instinctive
sense of right, and a disposition to act in accord-
ance with it. That there is more or less of an
intuitive sentiment of justice present in every un-
prejudiced mind, is scarcely denied by any one,,
though some refer it to a modification of sym-
pathy, others of selfishness. All the three prin-
ciples are, indeed, intimately associated. To act

to any other supposed foundation of natural right, as the
will of God, or the instinctive sentiments of man. The appeal
must, in all cases, be to the reason of those who will think
upon the subject. It is to that tribunal that every writer
addresses himself. Those who do not acknowledge the au-
thority and unity of reason, calmly and impartially exer-
cised, may dispute the propriety of such reference; but
then the same persons must dispute, on the same grounds,
the existence of any essential distinction between right and
wrong, for none can be shown to exist but by an appeal to
reason, that is, to enlightened instinct.

II. The second objection is, that the welfare of mankind,
meaning thereby the entire species, is an expression so vagus
as to admit almost any latitude of interpretation. The an-
swer is, that wherever men are gathered together in a
social state, the interests of that society must be considered,
of course, to be that of the species, unless plain proof to the
contrary is made manifest. And again, that the interest
of the present generation must be supposed coincident with
that of the race, or of future generations, in the absence of
strong proof to the contrary. Where such proofs are acces-
sible and clear, then the balance must be struck in favour of
the mass and the species. But the welfare of distant na-
tions or ages may well be left by shortsighted mortals to
that creative Providence which has endowed them with a
power to control to a certain extent their own destiny and
that of their species, but has, no doubt, limited that power
within such bounds as will prevent their errors from perma-
nently affecting any of the works of His wisdom.

^ PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE.

rightly is the surest way of benefiting ourselves
as well as our neighbours*.

But in the rude collisions of the world the fine
natural sentiment of right is apt to be rubbed off,
or incrusted with prejudices of various kinds, and
biassed by views of less enlightened selfishness ;
so that it becomes unsafe to depend on its judg-
ment alone, and necessary to establish fixed rules
for the guidance of human conduct in the path of
rectitude.

The expediency of some restraint on individual
freedom of action is easily seen. Man, by the
constitution of his nature, is a social animal.
"Wherever the species has been observed, it is
gathered into groups, composed of several fami-
lies. But in every society, however limited, the
will of the individuals composing it must, by the
very nature of things, be limited in its exercise.
There is, for example, a physical impossibility that
two individuals should stand or lie in the same
place, or eat th^ same fruit or piece of flesh. And

* ( Man has a law within himself to himself. He hath
the rule of right within. All that is wanting is only that he
honestly attend to it.' — Butter's Treatise on Human Nature.
Hume, Reid, Brown, Lord Kames, and Dugald Stewart, as
well as Butler and Locke, uphold the c moral sense ' or social
instinct. A recent writer has well described its character.
' There is in our nature an original and inward principle
of love to our kind, expressly designed by its Divine Author
to generate our mural sentiments and affections, and ulti-
mately constitute our social happiness.' — Origin, Science, and
End of Mural Truth. It is to this principle we appeal when
we declare ' the right' to be whatever is most for the welfare
of mankind. It is this principle which alone impresses
us with the conviction that there is a right and a wrong, and
which, enlightened by knowledge and the most extensive ex-
perience, determines by the aid of reason our moral obligations.

RULES OF RIGHT.

yet it must occasionally happen that two or more
individuals will feel a desire to occupy the same
place, or satisfy their appetites with the same
morsel of food. In all such cases one individual
must give way to the other. And what is to de-
termine who is to give way ? — but one, it is
evident, of two things. Either the force of the
stronger individual, or some rule of right volun-
tarily acknowledged by him, or enforced upon
his observance by a still stronger party.

It is probable, as has been said, that some sim-
ple principles of natural right are instinctively
acknowledged by all sound and unwarped minds.
But they are, of course, liable to be frequently
clouded by prejudice and overborne by opposing
passions, A man may feel a consciousness of
doing wrong in ill-treating or destroying a fellow*
creature, or in forcibly taking from him the fruits
of his labour ; and yet passion, or the desire of
selfish indulgence, will occasionally overcome this
tendency to the right, and impel him to the com-
mission of wrong. The right, therefore, will but
seldom prevail, and wrong must continually be
perpetrated by the strong against the weak, unless
the right obtain some other support and sanction
than the mere instinctive sense of propriety in the
breasts of individuals. Now such a supporting
influence will naturally arise for the right in the
general opinion of the society, backed, as it will
usually be, when necessary, by its combined
power.

Though the passions of an individual, or his
desire for immediate gratification, may overcome
his instinctive sense of right in a question con-

8 PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE.

cerning his own conduct, the by-standers, being
comparatively uninfluenced by passion or selfish-
ness, will probably see the question in its just light.
Or putting aside all notion of a moral sense,
whose existence is yet a matter of dispute, it is
evident that the majority of the members of a
society must always feel it to be against their
interest that the strong and crafty should do what
they please with the persons or acquisitions of the
weaker and incautious. Scarcely any individual
can feel secure or happy for a moment, so long
as he holds his life, and whatever he may possess,
only on the frail chance of no one stronger or
more cunning than himself being desirous to
terminate his existence or appropriate his pos-
sessions. The great body of every society must,
therefore, see almost instinctively (for the boun-
daries of instinct and reason are not easily definable)
the necessity of discountenancing the commission
of such wrongs, and of giving their approval to
some rule of right as a substitute for mere strength
or cunning in the determination of questions where
the wills of two or more individuals clash.*

I * l If self-love, if benevolence be natural to man, if rea-
son and forethought be also natural, then may the epithet
be applied to justice, order, fidelity, property, society.
Men's inclinations, their necessities, lead them to combine j
their understanding and experience tell them that this com-
bination is impossible where each governs himself by no
rule, and pays no regard to the possessions of others; and
from these passions and affections conjoined, as soon as
\ve perceive like passions and affections in others, the sen-
timent of justice, throughout all ages, has infallibly and
certainly had place, to some degree or other, in every indi-
vidual of the human species. In so sagacious an animal,

LEGAL AND MORAL RULES. 9

But, moreover, it must soon be perceived that
the mere force of public opinion, however strongly
it operates upon one of the leading instincts of
man's disposition, the appetency for the approba-
tion and sympathy of his fellows, is not, in extreme
cases, sufficiently powerful to prevent the com-
mission of wrongs, and ensure the observance of
the acknowledged rule of moral right. The society
will, therefore, be led in its collective capacity, in
addition to the sanction of its approbation and
the threat of its disapproval, to enforce the ob-
servance of the rule they have laid down, by the
weight of their combined power, and the exaction
of penalties from offenders.

The rules according to which a society confers
its approbation or disapprobation on particular
actions constitute their notions of moral right and
wrong; and these, being spread by precept, and
confirmed by mutual communication, compose
what is called public opinion. The rules laid
down for the determination of cases in which the
society interferes compulsorily, or by penalty, con-
stitute the law, or established code of legal right
and wrong.

The interference of the latter is necessarily con-
fined to cases of a definite and determinate cha-
racter, and cannot be extended to a vast variety
of complicated and delicate relations in which
individuals are often placed towards each other,
and in which their conduct must be left more or

what necessarily arises from the exertion of his intellectual
faculties may justly be esteemed natural.' — Hume ; Inquiry
concerning the Principles of Morals. Appendix 3.

10 PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE.

less to their discretion, influenced only by the
power of public opinion over them, their own
sense of moral propriety, and the habit which al-
most all individuals will naturally have acquired of
thinking and acting in conformity with the re-
cognized code of moral fitness.

Since, however, there can be, at one time and
in one society, but one course or system of con-
duct most conducive to the general welfare, and,
therefore, right, both the moral and legal rules
ought, so far as the least comprehensive of the
two extends, to coincide, and, in all cases, to har-
monize with each other. They ought, at the same
time, to correspond with the principles of abstract
or natural justice, the only criterion of their cor-
rectness. That they do not always so agree in
the greater number of societies, savage or civi-
lized,— perhaps wholly in none, — is more a matter
of lamentation than of wonder to those who are
acquainted with the mode in which they are prac-
tically constructed and taught, and the conflicting
passions and interests which are continually at work
to bias and pervert them.

Every established rule, legal or moral, is an
expression of that course of conduct which society
claims of each individual ; who, in return for his
obedience to it, acquires on his side a claim to
have the observance of the same system of rules
enforced where he is concerned upon every other
individual by the society. His claim on society
is called his right , the claim of society on him,
to respect the rights of others, his duty. The
rights and duties of each individual are thus cor-

RIGHT AND DUTY CORRELATIVE. 11

relative, or mutually dependent on each other, and
prescribed by the same rules.*

Natural or moral right being whatever con-
duces most to the welfare of mankind, the rights
of man in the aggregate are entirely identified
with his interests. Those of each individual coin-
cide with his interest only so far as it does not
interfere with that of the species or community of
which he forms an unit. Fortunately, — or rather
by the contrivance of a beneficent Creator, — the
human mind is so constituted that the pursuit of
"virtue, the conferring happiness on others, and
the acquisition of the esteem of society which is
sure to follow such a course of conduct, form
the most copious and inexhaustible sources of
pleasure ; so that the true interest of the individual
is, in almost every case, identified with that of his
kind. The exceptions are comparatively rare ;
and in their instance, we are taught by religion to

* The theory which derives rights exclusively from a
* social contract entered into by all parties concerned,'
though more than once exploded, has been revived in the
present day. Such a contract is avowedly a fiction; for
when or where did the members of any existing society
enter into any compact of the kind ? The submission of a
society cannot be taken as proof of agreement. We are
obliged to submit to many things against our consent. Sub-
mission does not even imply the consent of the majority, for
a small minority will often overawe and control a body
vastly superior to them in number. Even were it physically
possible for all the members of a society to deliberate and
agree upon the institutions under which they are to live,
such agreement would be no proof of the justice or riyhtful-
ness of these institutions. The passions, the prejudices, and
the ignorance of the multitude, or the influence of a few
crafty leaders, might induce them to agree to laws of the
most injurious tendency, and so to sacrifice their just rights.

12 PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE.

believe that a compensation is reserved in another
state of existence for such as voluntarily sacrifice
their own immediate interests to those of their
fellow- creatures*.

* There exists a peculiar school of writers on morals,
politics, and jurisprudence, whose leading tenet is that every
action of man has necessarily a selfish motive, and that all
which is wanting to produce perfect and universal morality,
is for each individual to be taught what they declare to be
unexceptionably true: viz., that his interest is uniformly
identical with that of his kind, and, consequently, that he
will be most certain to secure his own greatest happiness,
by following the rules which lead to the greatest happiness of
his kind.

It is strange that the many fallacies latent in this the
doctrine of the ' Utilitarians' should be overlooked by rea-
soners, who especially pride themselves on their skill in
detecting the fallacies of others. Their error is threefold at
least :

1. If, in saying that man acts uniformly from sel/ish
motives, they only mean that every action supposes a pro-
pensity on the part of the agent, and a preference of that
over every other course of conduct, — their proposition is
identical, and amounts to this, — man's actions are always
the result of his volition; which is no discovery. But if they
use the term selfish in its ordinary sense, so as to imply
that the only motive of which individuals are conscious, is
a desire of self-gratification apart from any consideration
of the feelings of others, then the proposition is obviously
false. The truth is, they use the term in the first sense,
when they lay down their axiom ; and in the second, when
they employ it in argument.

2. It is not true that each individual is certain on every
occasion to secure his own greatest happiness, in this world
at least, (and surely the sect in question intend no refer-
ence to the next,) by acting in conformity with the rule of
moral right. Cases undoubtedly occur in which the in-
terests of individuals are positively opposed to that of
society. To take an extreme example, it is for the evident
good of society that a convicted and confirmed criminal

13

PRIMARY NATURAL RIGHTS.

CHAPTER II.

Primary Natural Rights — 1. To Personal Freedom — 2. To
the Common Bounty of Heaven — 3. To Property — 4. To
Good Government.

MAN'S natural rights may, perhaps, be usefully
classed under four simple and primary heads :

should be hanged. But it is as clearly his interest to escape
such a fate, if he possibly can.

3. But the greatest fallacy of all is, that the doctrine in
question assumes every individual to be capable of perceiv-
ing, even at the very commencement of his course of moral
education, (that is, while yet an infant,) and with infallible
accuracy, the real ultimate tendency of all actions to benefit
or injure mankind, and to be influenced accordingly to em-
brace or abstain from them. For without such supernatural
penetration, how is he to be operated on by a sense of their
moral or immoral character ? ' He is to be taught/ the Utili-
tarians would say, ' that such and such actions are moral,
and therefore conducive to his happiness.' But if he is taught
at the same time that the production of pleasure to himself
is the only reason why he should prefer the moral to the
immoral course, he will answer, and not without reason,
that he is a better judge than you of what pleases him — he
will disbelieve what you tell him, but cannot prove to him,
of ultimate tendencies — he will be actuated only by those
immediate contingencies that he is capable of perceiving ;
and those which require a difficult process of reasoning, and
a long course of experience and observation to develope,
will be to him as if they had no existence. Even if it were
true, therefore, (which we have shown it is not,) that the ulti-
mate interests of every individual are always identified with
those of society, a system of morals founded on a cultivation
of the selfish principle would be dangerously destructive of

14 PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE.

1. The right to personal freedom ; 2. The right
to the common bounty of Heaven ; 3. The right
to property ; 4. The right to good government.

I. Of the Natural Right to Personal Freedom.

The first and most important of the natural
rights of mankind is that to personal freedom ;

all morality. There would be much risk that every one
would take his own propensities as the measure of his own
moral code.

All persons acknowledge that, in the great majority of
instances, the interests of individuals and of the mass are
the same; and, therefore, those who teach morality are
right in urging, in addition to all other sanctions, that its
habitual observance by all individuals would be to the in-
finite advantage of each. But to put forward self-interest
as the sole fit and proper motive for individual action, to
the exclusion of the desire of gratifying others, of the wish
for human or divine approbation, and of the hopes and fears
of future reward or punishment, here or hereafter, — seems
to me about as likely a scheme for securing the general
observance of morality, as it would be for collecting the
public revenue to allow every one to drop his portion of the
taxes secretly into a box, freed from all other motive for
contributing his due share, than his sense of a common in-
terest in the full payment of the revenue. How many would
pay their taxes in full upon the strength of the conviction
that it is for the interest of each that all should pay ? How
many would keep their money in their pockets, and trust to
others for the plenishing of the Exchequer ? Suppose the
defaulters to be only one in a hundred — by what process of
reasoning is this one to be persuaded that it is not his in-
terest to save his money, and be protected in his person and
property at the expense of his neighbours ? The old saw,
' What is everybody's interest is nobody's interest,' ought
alone to have convinced the Utilitarians of the fallacy of
their leading principle. It is curious that the same pub-
lication which habitually puts forward this doctrine, often
unconsciously refutes itself in the most direct manner. — Sec
Westminster Review, xxxiv. p. 422,

RIGHT TO PERSONAL FREEDOM. 15

which is the right of every man to do whatever
does not injure, others more than it benefits him-
self; in other words, whatever is not inconsistent
with the general welfare, of which his own forma
an integral part.

This right follows directly from the definition
of natural justice ; since it evidently tends to aug-
ment the general happiness that every one should
please himself whenever he can do so without
taking from others more than he gains himself.

Nor is there any other natural liberty than this.
Absolute freedom of action can only be attained
by complete isolation from the rest of the species
— a state unnatural to man. In order to reap
the advantages of social existence, he must re-
nounce a portion of his free will, and submit to-
such restraints as are necessary for the common
good. Slavery itself is a wrong, utterly opposed
to the principles of natural justice ; not because it
is an interference with the abstract freedom of man,
but because it is such an interference as cannot be
compensated by any benefit accruing to his master
or others, — because the evil resulting from it to
mankind at large infinitely exceeds all the pos-
sible gain.

The determination of the specific acts which
are or are not permissible to a free member of
society, is the province of the codes of law and
morality, to which we have already adverted. A
just code of law and morals will restrain the free
action of each individual only so far as is clearly
necessary for the benefit of the whole, and will
therefore rob no one of the full extent of his na-
tural right to personal freedom.

16 PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE.

II. Of the Natural Right to the Bounties of
Creation.

The second great natural right, coequal per-
haps with that of personal freedom, is the equal
right of all mankind to the common bounties of
the Creator.

Man is placed by his Maker on a world whose
surface abounds with a variety of spontaneous
natural productions, many of them more or less
useful and desirable to him, and evidently intended
for his use. It is perfectly clear that all men being
equal in the sight of their Creator, no one can
have any greater natural right to any of these
gifts than another. Therefore, the earth, the air,
the waters, and all their produce, must be common
property ; of which each individual has a right to
make such use as shall not prejudice the rest of
mankind in a greater degree than it benefits him-
self. And this right rests upon the same prin-
ciple to which we have referred every other.
Whatever limitation, therefore, is established to
the right of man to use or consume any natural
productions, can be justified (or shown to be con-
formable to natural justice) only by proof that such
limitation is necessary for the general welfare.

And this brings us to the third great natural
right — the right to property, — which constitutes
in itself the principal limitation here spoken of.

III. Of the Natural Right to Property.

In the same way as it is clearly perceivable by'
reason that the right of individuals to personal
freedom of action must be limited by regard for

NATURAL RIGHT TO PROPERTY. 17

the general good, so is it with respect to their
right to the use of the desirable productions of
nature. Without such limitation practically en-
forced, there must arise perpetual strife between
individuals anxious to use the same thing, the
same fruit or wild animal, for instance ; and the
will of the stronger prevailing, the equal rights of
the weaker party would be overthrown. The
continual recurrence of such contests must be
completely destructive of the general happiness ;
and, therefore, the adoption of some rule is ab-
solutely necessary for limiting and determining
the right of individuals to the sole use or consump-
tion of natural products : in other words, to an
exclusive property in them. One simple rule of
this sort appears to have been universally adopted
by every fraction of the human family, in every
quarter of the globe, and from the first traces we
possess of their history. And it is this ; that what
a man obtains from nature by his own exertions
becomes his property. No tribes, even of naked
and wandering savages, have yet, we believe, been
discovered in which the right of private property
in the things each had appropriated by his labour,
was not recognized. ' Barbarians have been met
with, who had no ideas of religion or of God>
or only such as were fashioned upon their own
wretched existence and untamed passions ; but
even of their community each member was as sen-
sible that the stone hatchet he had made, the
canoe he had hollowed out with it, or the bow for
which he had exchanged a hatchet of his own
making, was his, as are the members of the most
law-regulated community, that they have a right

18 PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE.

to enjoy what the law confirms in the possession
of each person*.' The ideas of meum and tuum,
founded on the natural law of appropriation by
labour, are as old as the union of any two or three
human beings in society.

It is true that there have been, and yet are,
many infractions of this rule. Brute force or
cunning has frequently prevailed over this as over
ether rights ; sometimes contenting themselves
with abstracting a portion of the produce of labour,
sometimes taking possession of the labourer him-
self, and compelling his exertions by the dread of
personal torture. But even in this extreme state
of degradation, a sentiment of their outraged
rights seems rarely to have been extinguished
among the slaves themselves ; nor could one slave
take from another what he had created or appro-
priated by his exertions, without committing an
acknowledged injustice.

The right in the labourer to the produce of his
toil, so universally acknowledged, may well be
supposed an intuitive perception common to all
sound minds, like the right to freedom of person
and action, of which it is a natural corollary. And
this is the opinion of Mr. Locke, as given in his
view of the origin and foundation of a right to
property. ' Every man/ he says, * has a property
in his own person, that nobody has any right to but
himself. The labour of his body, and the work of
his hands, are his property. Whatsoever, then,
he removes out of the state that nature hath left
it in, he hath mixed his labour with it, and joined

* The Natural and Artificial Right of Property con-
trasted, p. 37.

NATURAL RIGHT TO PROPERTY. 19

something that is his own, and thereby makes it
his property. It being by him removed from the
common state nature has placed it in, it hath by
this labour something annexed to it that excludes
the common right of other men.- For the labour
being the unquestionable property of the labourer,
no man but he can have a right to what that is
joined to — at least, where there is enough, and as
good, left in common for others*/ ' And amongst
those who are accounted the civilized part of
mankind, who have made and multiplied laws to
determine property, this original law of nature
for the beginning of property in what before was
common, still takes place ; and by virtue thereof,
what fish any one catches in the ocean — that great
and still remaining common of mankind — or what
ambergris any one takes up on its coasts, is, by
the labour that removes it out of the common state
nature has left it in, made his property who takes
that pains about it/

In this view, the right to property acquired by
labour is derived from the right to personal free-
dom, which itself rests on the evident intention
of the Creator. But if this were disputed, none
at least can dispute that it is immediately and
immoveably based on the true foundation of all
right, expediency for the general welfare. If not
an intuitive perception, its justice and necessity
must have been suggested by the very earliest
lessons of experience. It must have been recog-
nized from the first, in every society, to be for the
common advantage that such a rule should be laid
down and adhered to, taught by the sages, sanc-
* Of Civil Government, book ii. chap. v. sec. 28.

c 2

20 PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE.

tioned by public opinion, and, if need were, en-
forced by the common strength — in order to prevent
the unhappiness which continual conflicts for the
possession of the produce of each other's labour
must otherwise unavoidably occasion to all. It
could not but have been felt that the absence of such
a rule would go far to check all productive labour
whatever, and reduce mankind to live, as the phrase
is, from hand to mouth, in a state of endless strife,
snatching for their daily sustenance whatever was
within their reach ; fighting among each other for
the chance-got fragments of their repasts ; and
exposed, like the beasts of prey — to which, in this
condition, they would bear the closest analogy — to
frequent famine from the failure of food. There-
fore it is that, even where force or fraud has tri-
umphed over the principles of natural justice, and
the weak have been compelled, against their will,
to labour for the strong — there has yet been an
understanding on all sides, and a general sense of
the necessity, that the masters should at least pro-
tect the properties as well as the persons of their
slaves from the attacks of each Other. Tyrants
even have seen the protection of property to be
for their interest, as an essential condition to the
productiveness of their subjects ; and their sway,
though founded on usurpation, has been usually
submitted to more or less willingly by the patient
multitude, so long as they observed a decent show
of respect for the rights of property founded on
industrious acquisition.

The details of the right of property it is for
the law of each society to determine, and for its
moral code to sanction. We do not here mean

RIGHT TO GOOD GOVERNMENT. 21

to advert to any of the branches of this great sub-
ject. It is sufficient to state that, to be consonant
to natural justice, these definitions must, in all their
details, tend to the promotion of the general
good.

IV. Of the Natural Right to Good Government.

Another important right is, the Right to Good
Government^ as the only security for the enjoy-
ment of any right whatever.

It has been shown that every society requires
laws to be laid down and enforced for prescribing
the boundaries of personal freedom and individual
appropriation. The power which lays down and
enforces these laws is called the governing power,
or Government^ of the society.

Much has been written, and much spoken of
late, on the political rights of individuals ; and
especially has the right been loudly and frequently
asserted of every individual to self-government;
that is, to an equal share in the governing power.
We can recognize no abstract right of any kind,
but such as may flow from the one great principle
of expediency for the general welfare of man-
kind. That, on this principle, government of some
kind is indispensable to every society is easily
proved, if it have not been sufficiently proved al-
ready.

If men were beings of angelic dispositions and
perfect wisdom, so that they could act no otherwise
than inexact accordance with natural justice, no go-
vernment would be necessary, either to frame rules
of conduct, or to constrain their observance ; and

22 ' PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE.

we might save all their trouble and cost. But we
are fallible creatures, and, moreover, when aware
of the right, are often led, by passion or capricer
to take the wrong path. There can be, therefore,
no security to individuals for the enjoyment of
any of their rights, no chance of maintaining the
order and tranquillity essential to the general wel-
fare, but through the compulsory interference of
the collective power of society in controlling the
actions of those who would otherwise infringe the
rights of others and disturb the general happi-
ness. Laws, as we have seen, are necessary for
this purpose — defining the rights of individuals;
and authority must be placed somewhere to frame,
to interpret, and to enforce obedience to these
laws.

For since the circumstances of societies are un-
dergoing continual alteration, their laws will need
corresponding changes, to adapt them to the new
relations of individuals to each other and to the ex-
ternal world. But such alterations must require the
exercise of profound sagacity, extensive expe-
rience, and mature deliberation ; which cannot be
obtained in general assemblies of the entire body of
any society. The task, therefore, of framing the laws
for the regulation of a society must be entrusted
to a select body of limited number. In the same
manner it is evident that the collective power of a
society cannot be usefully employed in a mass on
every occasion which may require the enforcement
of its laws. A similar selection, therefore, must
take place, of some party in whose hands autho-
rity must be lodged, to employ any portion of this
power which may be necessary for the purpose.

RIGHT TO GOOD GOVERNMENT. 23

In other words, both the legislative and executive
functions of social government, to be effectual,
must be entrusted to a limited number of persons.
Now, were it demonstrable beyond the possibi-
lity of dispute, that the permanent interests of a
community (the only end and object of any go-
vernment, and the measure of the rights of the
individuals composing it) would be always best
promoted by conferring the absolute power of
making and executing laws on a single individual,
autocracy would be the form of government most
accordant with the natural rights of man. If, on
the contrary, it could be plainly proved that the
welfare of a community required every individual,
man, woman, and child, (the only true universal
suffrage) — or every adult individual of both sexes
— or every adult male — or only a certain number
and class of adult males — or any other select body
whatsoever — to be entrusted with the legislative
or executive power, or with the choice of the
persons to whom that power is to be delegated
— then, in any of these several cases, that form of
government would be the one most accordant with
natural right. In short, the right of every indi-
vidual in this matter is not to self-government^ but
to good government — to that form of government
which is most highly conducive to the general wel-
fare— a right to have his happiness consulted, and
his rights protected, by the authorities entrusted
with power, in the same degree with those of
every other person in the community. That this
is really what has been understood, though per-
haps confusedly, by even the most extravagant
theorists on the principle of self-government, is

24 PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE.

shown by their stopping far short of universal
suffrage. None of them think of giving a vote
to children, madmen, or criminals ; few have even
proposed its extension to females ; yet, if the
right is anything inherent in the species, it must
belong equally to every individual from the mo-
ment of his birth, and can only quit him with his
life. If they defend their limitation of the suf-
frage, as without doubt they would, by asserting
the incapacity of women, children, lunatics, &c.
and that the interests of all, including these classes,
would be better secured by the suffrage being
exclusively entrusted to the adult males, the ques-
tion is then confessedly but one of degree — between
one kind of limitation and another — and to be
argued upon the same principle, and with reference
to no other abstract right than that we speak of;
namely, to good, or rather, to the best government.
And if we assume, what few in this country will
think of disputing, that representative institutions,
in some shape or other, are indispensable to good
government, the question will be simply what
limitation or extension of the electoral franchise,
and what checks upon its exercise, may be rea-
sonably expected to provide the best form of go-
vernment, and secure the greatest sum of general
happiness.

It is not, of course, our object here to enter
upon this question. All we wish to do is, to place
the subject ojf political rights in a clear light, and
on its proper footing ; and to show the grounds on
which all parties are bound in reason to argue it.
The solution of the problem in any individual in-
stance will necessarily vary much, according to

POLITICAL RIGHTS AND DUTIES. 25

local and temporary circumstances. The extent
of suffrage which would be most for the benefit
of a highly intelligent and generally educated com-
munity must be prejudicial to a people in which
the vast majority are yet wrapped in almost brutal
ignorance. The same form of government which
is suited to England in the present day would
clearly not be equally advisable for Spain — perhaps
even not for Ireland.

What has been said may also help to remove
the prevailing fallacy of supposing the elective
franchise, under a representative form of govern-
ment, to be of the nature of a right personal to
the voter. When individuals are selected to exer-
cise any power in a state, the legitimate object of
such selection being solely the promotion of the
general happiness, not the exhibition of any pecu-
liar favour or advantage to the individuals them-
selves, it follows that this power, whatever its
nature, whether regal, senatorial, or electoral, can
only be looked upon in the light of a sacred duty
imposed upon the individual, to be exercised
strictly and conscientiously for the benefit of the
people at large, and not for any purpose of private
or local interest. It follows as a necessary corol-
lary, that no one can have a property, or a private
interest, vested in any public trust or office ; or
any just ground of complaint if it is taken away
from him at any time for purposes of public be-
nefit.

The political rights of man may, therefore, be
defined as the claim of every individual to have
his interest promoted and protected to the sam.3
extent as that of every other member of society by

26 PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE.

the combined power of the whole body : in other
words, it is aright to good government. Recipro-
cally, his duty to society is, to submit to, and co-
operate when required in the just exercise of its
power. The right is conditional on the fulfilment
of the duty — the duty on the enjoyment of the right.
The denial of the right absolves from the duty —
the refusal of the duty nullifies the right. Tyranny
justifies resistance from the individuals subjected
to it. Crime justifies the infliction by society of
punishment on the individuals guilty of it.

Government has been called a necessary evil.
Expensive, unjust, and tyrannical governments are
evils unquestionably of the most severe kind, since
they entail a train of unnecessary sufferings on those
who are subjected to them ; but a good govern-
ment is simply the establishment and maintenance
of a rule of order and justice for securing the
general welfare ; which can hardly be called an evil:
at least if any evils accompany it, they are compen-
sated by an infinitely preponderating balance of
good.

The right, therefore, to good government,
which we have placed last in the order of man's
natural rights, comprehends, in truth, all the rest.
It is only through the means of good government,
that individuals can enjoy their rights to personal
freedom, to the common bounty of Heaven, or to
the property which their toil has produced them;
and it is solely in order to secure to individuals the
enjoyment of these their natural rights, that govern-
ment is instituted.

I have declined, as foreign to the purpose of
this work, to enter into the question of the best

POLITICAL RIGHTS AND DUTIES. 27

form of government, either abstractedly, or with
reference to any particular age and country. Such
an inquiry, indeed, it is at once apparent, cannot
properly be instituted until a complete knowledge
has been obtained of the duties of a government,
and the means by which it can best fulfil them.
Without a clear understanding of the nature of
these duties, any question as to the form of
government most likely to secure their effective
fulfilment would be palpably premature. •

23

CHAPTER III.

Duty of a Government^ the securing to Individuals the full
Enjoyment of their Rights — Means for this end within its
influence — 1. Moral and Religious Education— *2 Secu-
rity from Personal Injury — 3. The abundant Production
and general Distribution of Physical Enjoyments — The
latter alone the object of Political Economy, and of this
work.

THE chief object for which government is insti-
tuted, and consequently its principal duty, is, as
has been said, to secure to all the individuals over
which it presides the full enjoyment of their natu-
ral rights ; in other words, as the great object of
those rights, to guarantee to each the greatest
attainable amount of happiness consistent with the
general welfare.

To fulfil this its duty, the members of a govern-
ment should not only possess a pure and single-
minded desire to accomplish their task, but like-
wise a thorough knowledge of the principles of
natural right, and of the circumstances which de-
termine the happiness of individuals and the gene-
ral welfare of societies. And not only they, but
every one who criticises the conduct of a govern-
ment, and passes an opinion upon any law, insti-
tution, or rule of society, should be equally in-
formed on these points ; or, in the absence of such
information, his decisions can be but mere guesses,
as devoid of reasonable foundation as those which

DUTIES OF GOVERNMENTS. 29

a blind man may form upon a question of colours,
or a deaf person upon one relating to music.

And yet it is to be feared there are few out
of the. numbers who, in this and other countries,
habitually discuss and criticise the proceedings
of legislatures and the character of laws, —
few, indeed, even of those who are occupied, or
seek to occupy themselves, as members of the
legislature or executive, in making, altering, and
enforcing laws, who possess any clear or correct
apprehension of even the first principles of natural
right, of the primary circumstances on which the
general welfare depends, or the means essential
to be taken for its promotion. Even in this coun-
try, the most advanced perhaps of any in such
studies, what is the fact ? — A few vague general
notions caught up during a hasty perusal of Paley
or Blackstone ; a host of prejudices carefully im-
planted at school and college by teachers inte-
rested in maintaining the abuses of existing insti-
tutions ; mistaken but deeply-rooted impressions
upon private interests ; party attachments, and
personal caprices ; these compose the stock of
opinions and motives on which too many a legis-
lator commences and carries on his business.
Even the very best disposed and best qualified
have, it is to be feared, but a slight acquaintance
with the fundamental principles of social happi-
ness ; as is too often proved by the shallowness
of their reasonings, and their constant shrinking
from any recurrence to first principles. And yet
nothing is more certain than that all legislation or
action of government which does not proceed
upon a just knowledge of the true interests of

30 PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE.

man in society, can be but a journey in the dark,
through an unknown country, without guide or com-
pass ; wherein the right road may by mere accident
be blundered on, but in which the chances are greatly
in favour of error and consequent misfortune.

The conventional avoidance by our modern
legislators of all reference to first principles
argues not merely an ignorance of them, but
some vague fear that the actual institutions of
society would be endangered by their acknow-
ledgment.* But this dread is happily as un-
founded as it is unwise. If, indeed, the mass of

* ' Pleased as we are with the possession of property,
we seem afraid to look back to the means by which it was
acquired, as if fearful of some defect in our title. Or, at
best, we rest satisfied with the decision of the laws in our
favour, without examining the reason or authority on which
those laws have been built. We think it enough that our
title is derived by the grant of the former proprietor, by
descent from our ancestors, or by the last will and testament
of the dying owner; not caring to reflect that (accurately
and strictly speaking) there is no foundation in nature or in
natural law, why a set of words upon parchment should
convey the dominion of land ; why the son should have a
right to exclude his fellow-creatures from a determinate spot
of ground because his father had done so before him ; or
why the occupier of a particular field or of a jewel, when
lying on his deathbed and unable to retain possession,
should be entitled to tell the rest of the world which of
them should enjoy it after him. These inquiries, it must
be owned, would be useless and even troublesome in common
life. It is well if the mass of mankind will obey the laws
when made, without scrutinizing too nicely into the reasons
for making them. But when law is to be considered
not only as a matter of practice, but also as a rational sci-
ence, it cannot be improper or useless to examine more
deeply the rudiments and grounds of these positive consti-
tutions of society.' — Blackstone** Commentaries ,11. ct i. p. 2.

DUTIES OF GOVERNMENTS. 31

the institutions of any state were opposed to the
first principles of justice, it would surely be far
better to examine and ascertain the extent of their
discordance, with a view to its correction, than
to endeavour to conceal or shut our eyes to their
defects. It is, however, quite wrong to imagine
that the great institutional landmarks of this country
are opposed to the principles of natural justice, or ,
that they would not be confirmed and strengthened
in public opinion — the firmest bulwark for any
institutions — by a reference to these principles,
and the most open, full, and general discussion
upon their accordance or disagreement. The
danger in an inquiring age like the present, when
institutions have ceased to be respected because
they are established, and venerated because they are
ancient, — when the people have begun to think and
to reason on such subjects, and are no longer con-
tented with what is, without satisfying themselves
whether it ought to be, — the danger lies in the
general ignorance of the public as to the true
principles of public welfare, and in the general sus-
picion that the discordance of existing institutions
from these principles is far greater than it really is,
— a suspicion which is generated by the unwilling-
ness of legislators to refer their conduct to first
principles, and nourished by those who are ready
at all times to imbue the multitude with opinions
which may dispose them for violence and plunder.
The chief object of this work, now that the
ground has been cleared by the determination of
the simple principles of natural justice, will be to
examine the circumstances within the influence of
a government upon which depends the general

32 PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE.

welfare of communities ; and to compare with
them the legislative policy of this country, in order
to ascertain how far and in what particulars they
agree or disagree.

This inquiry will, I think, show that the great
body of the present owners of property have no
reason to dread the discussion of such questions ;
for that their real interests are not opposed to, but,
on the contrary, are identified with those of society
at large ; and that they may, therefore, safely, and
without apprehension, meet their adversaries on
the fair field of argument, and rest their cause on
the firm foundation of the first principles of natu-
ral justice.

The circumstances which determine the well-
being of a society, and are, more or less, within
the control of its government, may, it is consi-
dered, be classed under three great heads, viz. —

1. The moral and religious disposition of its

members.

2. The degree in which they are individually se-

cured from personal injuries.

3. The degree in which they are individually sup-

plied with the necessaries, comforts, and phy-
sical enjoyments of life.

1. With respect to the moral and religious dis-
position of the members of a society. — It can
scarcely be doubted that man is, by the constitu-
tion of his nature, disposed as well to love, to
sympathize with, and to benefit his fellow-crea-
tures, as to venerate the great Being to whom he
ascribes the creation of the universe with all that
is therein. This innate tendency to virtue and

GENERAL EDUCATION". 33

piety may, however, on the one hand, be checked,
or even utterly destroyed ; on the other, fostered,
encouraged, and developed, by the favourable or
unfavourable circumstances which surround the
individual from his earliest years, — in one word,
by his education. Now it is unquestionable that
the direction of these circumstances, or the educa-
tion of the mass of any people, is within the
power, — and few can doubt that it therefore forms
one of the foremost of the duties, — of their go-
vernment ; and this not only with the view of
inculcating a moral and religious disposition
amongst them, but likewise of eradicating, so far
as is possible, the root of all evil — ignorance, and
widely disseminating the seed of all good — know-
ledge.

I have no intention, however, of going into a
discussion of the mode and degree in which the
great business of general education should be un-
dertaken or superintended by a government. I
shall content myself with remarking, as bearing
upon our immediate subject, that, of the circum-
stances which indirectly influence the moral and
religious character of a nation, none are more
important than its economical condition, or the
degree in which its members are enabled to com-
mand the necessaries, comforts, and enjoyments
of life. A state of general misery is alike unfa-
vourable to the development of the social virtues
and the cultivation of national religion. In no
quarter of the globe do we see vice so confirmed,
crime so abundant, religion so grievously polluted
by impiety and superstition, as in those countries
where the physical wants of the people are most

34 PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE.

meanly supplied ; where poverty, and its attendant,
recklessness, exasperate the evil passions of our
nature, and smother the germs of every generous
and noble sentiment

2. I shall pass over with equal brevity the con-
sideration of the means possessed by a government
for securing the members of the community it is
placed over from personal injury. This is noto-
riously one of the first duties of every government,
and is to be effected by laws expressly enacted for
the protection of the persons of individuals, both
from domestic and foreign aggression. That the
laws enacted for this purpose in most countries are
as yet far removed from perfection, is a matter
now of general acknowledgment ; but it would
be foreign from our present purpose to enter upon
the examination of their defects, or the means of
improving them. I proceed, therefore, to the
third class of circumstances within the influence of
a government, by which the happiness of every
community is determined, namely —

3. The degree in which its members are indivi-
dually supplied with the necessaries, comforts,
and physical enjoyments of life. To promote to
the utmost this supply, is, or ought to be, the one
great object of all laws and institutions, civil or
criminal, which relate to property in any of its
shapes, — which laws compose, indeed, the great
mass of legislation in every state.

It is therefore evidently most essential that the
members of every government and legislature,—
and, under representative institutions, even the
persons by whom these trustees of the general in-
terests are chosen, — should possess as general and

POLITICAL ECONOMY. 35

correct a knowledge as possible of the means for
securing the greatest abundance and most liberal
distribution of the physical enjoyments of life
amo?ig the members of a society.

Now this important knowledge it is the business
of Political Economy to convey,

Much obloquy has of late been thrown upon the
science which assumes this name, and upon its cul-
tivators,— obloquy not perhaps wholly unmerited
on the part of some of their number, who from
generalizing hastily upon insufficient facts, have
arrived at conclusions so opposed to the common,
sense and experience of practical men, that the
latter have been led to look upon the propounders
of these theories as Laputan philosophers, and on
the science as a mere bundle of mischievous para-
doxes. The ridicule which some of these hyper-
economists have justly incurred, — in some in-
stances converted into indignation by the dog-
matism with which the most mischievous fallacies
were put forward and obstinately maintained by
them, — has been unhappily shared by the science
which they professed to explain, but which, in fact,
they only obscured and mystified. So prevalent
are these impressions, that it has at times been
doubted whether it would not be advisable to dis-
card altogether the title of Political Economy, and
pursue our inquiries into this important subject
under some new and less obnoxious name. But
such a change would be the cause, probably, of
much confusion. The candour and enlightened
spirit of the age must be trusted to for dispelling
this unjust prejudice. The time is arrived when

D 2

36 PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE.

the value of the true philosophy of wealth must be
recognised, and its claims to general attention
made manifest, in spite of the temporary discredit
it has suffered through the blunders and self-
sufficiency of some pretenders to its exclusive
interpretation. The science of medicine is not
the less esteemed because occasionally disgraced
by the St. John Longs and Van Butchells. Man-
kind is not the less indebted to chemistry because
its early history was stained by the knavery
and nonsense of the alchemists. Astronomy
is not despised because its grand truths have
been, in former ages, debased by the jugglery
of fortune-telling and judicial astrology. Neither
will Political Economy, the science which teaches
how to advance to the utmost possible extent
the production and general diffusion of the means
of enjoyment, and so improve, as far as is prac-
ticable, " the physical condition of every mem-
ber of society, be deprived of the consideration
which its paramount importance to mankind de-
serves, because empiricism may have momentarily
flourished, and mischievous errors been propa-
gated, under its name. On the contrary, it be-
comes, on this very account, the more necessary
for all who wish to arrive at a knowledge of the
truth on this important subject, and have an in-
terest in its dissemination, (as who has not ?) to
apply themselves to its study. Error must, in
such a matter, be more than commonly pernicious ;
and the more errors of the kind we believe to
have been propagated, the more incumbent it is
on all who have the requisite leisure to examine

POLITICAL ECONOMY. 37

and sift the subject to the utmost, with the view
of purifying it from its mischievous fallacies, and
establishing its useful truths.

Nor are errors on this subject by any means
confined to those who have pursued its study in
their closets. On the contrary, the most perni-
cious fallacies and absurd paradoxes have been,
and still are, generally current among those who
pride themselves on being 4 practical' men, and on
despising theory. There are, indeed, few rasher
theorists than those who habitually declaim against
theory. The notions, for example, that a country
is enriched by what is called a favourable balance
of trade causing an influx of the precious metals ;
that the expenditure of taxes in employing the
people compensates them for the burthen of tax-
ation; that improvements in machinery are inju-
rious to the labouring class ; that one individual,
or one country, can only gain at the expense of
another ; that the outlay of an absentee's income
abroad, or the introduction for sale in this country
of an article of foreign manufacture, abstracts an
equal amount of employment from our native in-
dustry;— these, and many others that might be
mentioned, are theoretical doctrines of the falsest
and most injurious character, taken up by nume-
rous persons on what they consider the authority
of ' common sense,' but which, in truth, is merely
crude induction from a very limited and imperfect
experience. No governments can, indeed, act, or
individuals form a judgment upon their action,
except upon theories of some kind, true or false,
with respect to questions within the province of
Political Economy ; and it would be quite con-
trary to general analogy to suppose that truth

38 PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE.

is not to be ascertained on this, as on other sub-
jects, by careful and judicious inquiry ; or that
random conjecture and blind impulse are to be pre-
ferred in this, any more than in other matters, to
rules deduced from extensive and systematic inves-
tigation. In the economy of states, just as in the
management of human bodies, diseases have oc-
casionally been brought on or heightened, as well
by false theory as by ignorant guess-work ; but
no one will dispute that it is to the sedulous pro-
secution of scientific inquiry that we can alone look
for correct views and safe or beneficial treatment.

Neither should any one be deterred from this
study by a notion of its inherent difficulty or dry-
ness. True it is that crabbed and tiresome works
have been written upon it ; and many who have
looked into them may have laid down the books
in disgust at their dulness, or despair of being
able to comprehend their reasoning. There is,
however, good ground for suspecting that these
abstruse writers were themselves as much lost in
the maze of their arguments as their readers.
Truth, on this as on other subjects relating to the
daily business of mankind, is simple in itself, and
may be made clear and intelligible to all ordinary
capacities. And as to its presumed want of in-
terest, surely an examination of the means for
placing the greatest possible abundance of the
comforts and luxuries of life at the command of
every member of the community, must come home
to the bosoms and business of all men ; and, if
properly treated, afford a matter of pleasing as
well as useful speculation.

* Such inquiries, in truth,' as has been observed
by one of the most elegant writers on this subject,

POLITICAL ECONOMY. 39

if not the least erring, ' cannot fail to excite the
deepest interest in every ingenuous mind. The
laws by which the motions of the celestial bodies
are regulated, and over which man cannot exer-
cise the slightest influence, are yet universally
allowed to be noble and rational objects of study ;
but the laws which regulate the movements of
human society, — which cause one people to ad-
vance in opulence and refinement at the same time
that another is sinking into the abyss of poverty
and barbarism, — have an infinitely stronger claim
upon our attention, both because they relate to
objects which exercise a direct influence over
human happiness, and because their effects may
be, and, in fact, are, continually modified by human
interference. National prosperity does not depend
nearly so much on advantageous situation, salu-
brity of climate, or fertility of soil, as on the
adoption of measures fitted to excite the inventive
powers of genius, and to give perseverance and
activity to industry. The establishment of a wise
system of public economy can compensate for
every other deficiency. It can render regions na-
turally inhospitable, barren, and unproductive, the
comfortable abodes of an elegant and refined, a
crowded and wealthy, population. But where it
is wanting, the best gifts of nature are of no value ;
and countries possessed of the greatest capacities
of improvement, and abounding in all the mate-
rials necessary for the production of wealth, with
difficulty furnish a miserable subsistence to hordes
distinguished only by their ignorance, barbarism,
and wretchedness */

* M'Culloch's Political Economy, Preface, p. 25.

40

PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY DE-
DUCED FROM THE NATURAL LAWS OF
SOCIAL WELFARE.

CHAPTER I.

Definition of the Sciences— The Study of the Happiness of
Societies so far as it depends on the Abundance and Distri-
bution of their Wealth. — Its Principles capable only of
moral, not mathematical proof .

POLITICAL Economy teaches the art of managing
the resources of a society to the best advantage of
its members. It does not, however, as has been
already explained, embrace the moral and reli-
gious education, the political constitution, or the
personal protection of a people, but concerns itself
solely with the artificial means of enjoyment, com-
posing the necessaries, comforts, and luxuries of
life — things which are the result of labour and the
objects of exchange ; and which, when accumu-
lated to any considerable extent, are ordinarily
spoken of as wealth.

Hence it has been usually designated as the study
of ' the nature and causes of the wealth of nations/
This definition is, however, incomplete, and has per-
haps led both to a false estimate of the objects of the
science, and an erroneous method of pursuing it,
by seeming to restrict inquiry to the means of
increasing the gross amount of national wealth,
without regard to its diffusion^ or to the influence
of different modes of production and distribution

POLITICAL ECONOMY DEFINED. 4)

on national happiness. Again, it has been called
the science of 4 the happiness of states;' but this
would extend it over too wide a field. Its true
subject of inquiry is, we think, the happiness of
societies so far as it depends on the abundance and
distribution of their wealth.

The principles of Political Economy must ob-
viously be deduced from axioms relative to the
conduct and feelings of mankind under particular
circumstances, framed upon general and extensive
observation. But neither the feelings nor the con-
duct of a being like man, endowed with mental
volition, and infinitely-varying degrees of sensi-
bility, can, writh anything like truth, be assumed
as uniform and constant under the same circum-
stances. Hence the highest degree of certainty
which can belong to the principles of Political
Economy will amount only to moral probability,
and must fall far short of the accuracy that cha-
racterizes the laws of the physical sciences. This
consideration should have prevented the attempts
which have been made by many writers on Poll*
tical Economy to attribute the force of mathema-
tical demonstration to its conclusions. The fashion
just now among this class of inquirers is to desig-
nate their favourite study as ' Political Mathe-
matics ; ' but it would obviously be just as rea-
sonable to give the name of ' Ethical Mathematics'
to the sister science of morals. The rules of
economical policy are to be ascertained only
by studying the same variable course of human
action, and with a reference to the same indefinite
end — the happiness of the species — as the rules
of morality. Far from partaking of the character

42 POLITICAL ECONOMY.

of an exact science, like the mathematics, which
deals in the qualities of abstract and imaginary
entities, it has not even the fixity of any of the
natural sciences to whose study the mathematics
are usually applied ; the facts of which it takes
cognizance consisting only of such variable, vague,
and uncertain essences as compose human pains
and pleasures, dislikes and preferences, —

' Hopes, fears, joys, sorrows, tears, and smiles.'

Still, though the nature of the subject precludes
any approach to mathematical certainty, the ge-
neral laws of human action and human happiness
are to be ascertained with a correctness amply
sufficient for the formation of general rules. —
Though the conduct of any individual man cannot,
with complete confidence, be predicted from a
knowledge of the circumstances surrounding him,
yet that of the generality of men — of the great
masses of mankind — may be determined before-
hand with all but absolute certainty ; and the ob-
ject of the political economist, like that of the
moralist, being to act upon the masses, this know-
ledge is sufficient for his purpose, and will enable
him to declare with confidence the combination of
circumstances necessary to bring about any de-
sired result within the range of his science.

43

CHAPTER II.

Definition of Wealth — and of Labour All Labour produc-
tive.— Labour rather a pleasure than a sacrifice — must,
however, be free — and sufficiently remunerated. — Mini-
mum of sufficient remuneration. — Wealth no certain mea-
sure of happiness. — Test proposed.

WEALTH, then, in its relation to happiness, is the
subject of the investigations of Political Economy;
and by wealth we profess to understand all the
necessaries, comforts, and luxuries of life which
are habitually bought and sold, or exchanged. If
a brief definition of wealth were desired, it might
be declared to comprehend all ' the purchaseable
means of human enjoyment.'

There are many things which contribute to the
enjoyment of man, — such as air, water, the light
and warmth of the sun, the beauties of nature, the
blessings of health, and the exercise of the social
affections, — which yet are never considered (un-
less metaphorically) as wealth. They are valuable
in the common sense of the term ; but they possess
no value in exchange. They are not capable of
being made the subject of purchase and sale, or of
being guaranteed by the law as property : the eco-
nomist, therefore, has no concern with them. The
range of his inquiries is limited to such objects of
human desire as are capable of appropriation by
the law, and of transfer by sale or exchange. The
regulation of those elements of happiness, phy-
sical or mental, over whose supply man exercises

44 POLITICAL ECONOMY.

no control, he leaves to Providence ; — to the mo-
ralist, the divine, the physician, he leaves the study
of those which fall within the sphere of their se-
veral influences. His peculiar object is to ascer-
tain the means of augmenting the happiness of
mankind, in as far as it is affected by the abun-
dance or distribution of those more tangible and
appreciable matters which compose the purchase-
able necessaries, comforts, and luxuries of life *.

One of two circumstances is necessary to confer
exchangeable value on an object, in addition to its
useful or desirable qualities, viz. — that it require
some labour to produce it, or that it exist in less
quantity than is wanted, — in technical terms, that
its supply be short of the demand for it. Water,
however useful, nay, necessary, to man — however
valuable in the ordinary meaning of the word —

* Mr. Malthus and other economists have much puzzled
themselves and their disciples by raising a needless debate
about some particular things, of which it is disputed whether
they are to be considered wealth, and therefore within the
range of Political Economy, or not. For example, the ser-
vices of menials, and of artists and actors, &c. have caused
much hot dispute. Mr. Malthus excludes them from the
category of wealth, on the ground that they are immaterial.
Inasmuch as they are habitually bought and sold, I should
consider them comprehended in the definition of wealth
given above. I can see no essential distinction between
the services of a nobleman's outrider and those of the horse
he rides : between the value conferred upon a piece of canvas
by an artist, and that conferred upon a piece of cotton by a
calico-printer : they are equally purchased in exchange for
wealth; they are equally reckoned as the signs of wealth
by the vulgar j they are equally enjoyed as wealth by their
possessor. But, in truth, the attempt to refine upon the sub-
ject with such minute accuracy of definition is much more
likely to lead to confusion than clearness.

WEALTH PRODUCED BY LABOUR. 45

yet, wherever it is to be had in abundance without
trouble, as by the side of a river, has no exchange-
able value : it costs nothing, and will, therefore,
sell for nothing. But at a distance from springs
or rivers, as in a town, where water is not to be
obtained without some trouble, it acquires a value
in exchange, and that value will depend chiefly
upon the trouble or labour it costs to procure it. An
additional element in value is scarcity, or an insuf-
ficient supply to meet the demand. In the deserts
of Africa a skin of water may at times acquire a
value infinitely exceeding the cost of conveying- it
there from the nearest well. A rare jewel, or book,
or object of art, often obtains a value bearing
no relation to the labour by which it was pro-
cured or produced. But the primary element of
value in most things is cost of procurement ; and
the cost of procurement consists almost wholly of
the trouble or labour necessary for procuring
the article.

What, for example, gives their value to the fruits
of the earth? Not their adaptation to the appetite
of man. The finest fruits, if they grew spon-
taneously in such abundance over all the inhabited
earth, that every one might satisfy his longings
for them by the mere trouble of lifting his hand to
them, would have no selling value. But inas-
much as fruits grow only in particular situations,
and require much trouble in planting, protecting,
gathering, and bringing them to market, they
acquire a proportionate value, — since those who
wish to obtain them must either take all the trouble
necessary for procuring them, or give something
in exchange for them which shall be considered a

46 POLITICAL ECONOMY.

satisfactory equivalent for all this trouble by those
who have taken it in order to produce them.

All saleable property, or wealth, therefore, is
the produce of trouble or labour. And in order to
avoid confusion, it is desirable to confine this term
labour, to such exertion as is productive of wealth.
Men exert themselves for amusement, health, or
recreation, and may fatigue themselves as much in
so doing as a ploughman or a mason ; but their
exertion neither produces nor is intended to produce
anything which can be exchanged or sold, and it
will be desirable, therefore, not to call such exer-
tion labour. The limitation of the term labour to
such occupations as are productive of wealth, and
exerted for the sake of gain, will serve to put an
end to all the unprofitable and futile discussion, so
common in works on political economy, as to what
kinds of labour are productive and what unpro-
ductive.*

Though it is a law of nature that labour, in some
shape, is necessary for the support of man's exist-
ence, since even the necessaries of life are in no
quarter of the globe to be procured without it, yet
those persons are surely in error who consider this
condition as an evil, and labour as essentially a

* The difficulties with which the ultra refining and mathe-
matical school of political economists have to contend, are
well exhibited in the disputes between them as to the limits
of productiveness. Mr. Malthus denies that the labour of
a cook, a coachman, an author, or an actor is productive,
though asserting the productiveness of that of a butcher, a
coachmaker, a printer, and a scene painter. Mr. M'Culloch,
running into the other extreme, insists that the occupations
of billiard playing, blowing soap-bubbles, nay, of eating,
drinking, and sleeping, are productive !

LABOUR A PLEASURE. 47

sacrifice and privation. Eating and drinking are,
likewise, necessary for the maintenance of life;
but they are not on that account usually considered
as sacrifices. As has just been remarked, we often
see the amateur artist, gardener, farmer, or me-
chanic, fatigue himself as much for the mere plea-
sure afforded by the employment, as those who
do the same things for their daily bread, or for
gain. So far from complete inaction being perfect
enjoyment, there are few sufferings greater than
that which the total absence of occupation gene-
rally induces. Count Caylus, the celebrated French
antiquary, spent much time in engraving the plates
which illustrate his valuable works. When his
friends asked him why he worked so hard at such
an almost mechanical occupation, he replied ' Je
grave pour ne pas me pendre.' When Napoleon
was slowly withering away from disease and ennui
together, on the rock of St. Helena, it was told
him that one of his old friends, an ex-colonel in
his Italian army, was dead. 4 What disease killed
him?' asked Napoleon. ' That of having nothing
to do/ it was answered. * Enough/ sighed Na-
poleon, * even had he been an Emperor.'

Even severe manual labour is not necessarily a
sacrifice. There is an animal pleasure in toil.
It is questionable whether the mental or bodily
labour to which the highest and wealthiest classes
are driven to resort as a resource against ennui,
communicates, in general, so pleasurable an ex-
citement as the muscular exertions of the common
hind, when not overworked. Nature has likewise
beneficently provided, that if the greater proportion
of her sons must earn their bread by the sweat of

48 POLITICAL ECONOMY.

their brow, that bread is far sweeter for the previous
efforts, than if it fell spontaneously into the hand
of listless indolence. It is scarcely to be ques-
tioned, then, that labour is desirable for its own
sake, as well as for the substantial results which it
affords; and, consequently, that it by no means
lessens, but rather adds to the general chance of
happiness, that nearly all the members of society
should, in some shape or other, be placed under an
obligation to labour for their support.*

Nor is it much to be regretted that some modes
of employment are less agreeable or more irksome
than others. Habit has a powerful effect in quali-
fying the disagreeableness of occupations, and of
converting them into sources of gratification.
Hundreds of facts might be adduced to prove that
the persons engaged in employments which to
others of different habits appear intolerably dis-
gusting or irksome, become after some practice
not merely reconciled, but attached to them. There
are few workmen who, if asked, will not declare
their preference for the branch of labour to which
they have been brought up or long accustomed, over
any other. It will appear, on examination, that
whether an individual ply his occupation by sea or
land, in the open air, in the interior of crowded
towns or manufactories, or in the bowels of the
earth, — these circumstances in no degree influence

* In a popular farce, Deputy Figgins, a London shop-
keeper, when persuaded by the solicitation of his wife to
leave his shop for a day, and take an excursion to Richmond,
exclaims, l Well, my dear, since we must give up the day to
pleasure, let us make it as like business as possible.' And
the sentiment is so true to nature, that the hit always tells
through the theatre.

LABOUR SHOULD BE FREE. ' 4§

the pleasure he takes in his lahour, or the amount
of comparative happiness which falls to his lot. In
truth, whatever inconveniences do attend particular
employments are necessarily compensated by the
proportionately increased remuneration, which,
under a system of free labour, is sure to be awarded
to them; and that this compensation is complete in
the estimation of the labourers themselves, is proved
by there being as much competition for such em-
ployments as for any other.

This brings us to the important consideration
that, in order not to interfere with happiness, labour
must be FREE, that is to say, voluntarily exerted,
and left at liberty to take any direction that it may
please the individual labourer to give to it. Com-
pulsion is itself a privation, and a source often of
very considerable suffering ; and an occupation
which might be undertaken and exercised with
pleasure by any one of his free will, must be a
grievance and a hardship if forced upon him.

But not only is forced labour less pleasurabh
than free, it is likewise incomparably less productive.
All observation confirms what our instinctive senti-
ments will suggest, that to encourage a man to
put forth his powers to the utmost in any kind of
labour, he must be left free in his choice as to the
nature and quantity of his work. It is scarcely
necessary to refer, in proof of this, to the notorious
idleness, apathy, and obstinacy of the slave. But
it may be as well to advert to the decisive fact,
that by far the most productive labour of all is that
of the mind, which is not susceptible of compul-
sion. A man may be forced to dig a field, or spin
a web, but he cannot be forced to improve a plough

50 POLITICAL ECONOMY.

or a loom, — much less to invent a steam-engine or
a spinning-jenny. Nor even if compulsion could
extort such results of mental labour from those
who were capable of it, could a master know
beforehand where lay the dormant capacity. No
artificially prescribed contrivances can direct the
ingenuity of individuals into those lines of thought
or action for which they are by nature best quali-
fied. Perfect liberty in the choice of occupations
is absolutely necessary, to ensure the adoption of
such as are most suitable to the peculiar qualifi-
cations of the individual, and likely, in conse-
quence, to be most productive, as well as most
agreeable. And thus the freedom of labour be-
comes doubly important, as necessary for increas-
ing both the happiness of the labourer and the
productiveness of his toil. It is moreover, as we
have seen, one of the first natural rights of man,
which no government can justly intrench upon,
without the strongest proofs of the necessity of
such interference for the general welfare.

Neither must labour, to be pleasurable or pro-
ductive, be without an object. It is the cheering
anticipation of some gratifying result, and the hope
of enjoying this, which sweetens the toils of labour,
relieves its irksomeness, and appears to shorten its
duration. It is the produce of labour which forms
its natural reward. It is in the satisfaction of
man's wants that the sacrifices, if any, necessary
for that end, are more or less fully repaid. Though
labour is necessarily no evil, yet it is the pro-
spect of its reward that gives it much of its zest ;
and if this be scanty and inadequate, the toil en-
dured for its sake is embittered. If sufficiently

LABOUR SHOULD BE REMUNERATIVE. 51

remunerated, labour cannot, under a system of
freedom, be a source of suffering. The temptation
of high wages may, it is true, induce some indivi-
duals to over-work themselves imprudently, and
exhaust their strength and health. But these are
rare exceptions. We deal only in generals ; and,
as a general rule, it cannot be doubted that where
a sufficient remuneration is to be obtained by
moderate labour, it may be most safely left to the
labourers themselves how far they will or will not
exceed that point.*

With respect to what constitutes a sufficient
remuneration for labour, there may be some un-
certainty. This, however, may be laid down as
unquestionable, that it must not be less than will
find the labourer and his family, if he have one —
ay, even as large an one as he can possibly have, —
in a sufficiency of wholesome and agreeable food,

* This assertion does not militate against the principle of
the sabbath, or that on which the ' Factory Bill' is founded.
The sabbath was instituted for a state of society in which
the labourers were principally slaves, and needed some pro-
tection from being overworked by their masters. It has
operated most beneficially in countries where slavery no
longer exists, but where the reward of labour, owing to a
bad system of public economy, is so scanty that the labourers
would otherwise have been driven to ceaseless toil, by sheer
want. As a moral and religious institution, the sabbath is
beyond all praise. But in an economical view, where labour
is free and well remunerated, it is clear no law can be
wanted to protect the labourer from overworking himself.
And, in fact, where wages are high, the workmen generally
take one, often two holydays in the week, in addition to the
Sunday. The same reasoning applies to the Factory Bill, a
measure which in a healthy state of society would be a need-
less interference, though in the existing circumstances of
this country, it seems to us highly desirable.

E 2

52 POLITICAL ECONOMY.

warm and decent clothing, and convenient lodg-
ing,— in short, in the means of comfortable sub-
sistence, besides enabling him to indulge in an
occasional holyday, and to lay by a provision
against sickness, casualty, and old age.

If, as we think will hardly be denied, these views
are correct, we arrive through them at something
like a general principle as to the fundamental
conditions essential to the general happiness ; —
namely, that the labour, which we must believe
will always be necessary for the support and gratifi-
cation of the great mass of mankind, be volun-
tary and free in the choice of its direction; and
that by moderate exertion it obtain as its re-
compense at least a sufficiency of the necessaries
and principal comforts of life, both for the present
consumption of the labourer and his family, and
for a reserve against contingencies.

These conditions fulfilled, every further increase
of the comforts or luxuries which falls to be divided
among the members of a community, is an in-
crease to their general means of happiness, pro-
portionate, cceteris paribus, to the equality with
which they are distributed. But these conditions
must be fulfilled before an increase of the general
wealth can be assumed to be an addition to the
general happiness, and therefore a desirable object
in the eyes of the political economist; who, mindful
of the true end of his science, looks to wealth only
as a means of happiness, and declares against all
such measures as, though tending to augment the
mass of wealth, do not tend to distribute it in such
a manner as to augment the general happiness.

That every increase of wealth is not a propor

WEALTH NO MEASURE OF HAPPINESS. 53

tionate increase of the aggregate means of enjoy-
ment— nay, that some kinds of wealth may be
greatly augmented at a great sacrifice of human
happiness — is easily demonstrable. Suppose, for
example, a race of absolute sovereigns to have a
taste for jewels, and to employ several thousands
of their subjects or slaves, generation after genera-
tion, in toiling to procure them : these treasures
will be wealth of enormous value, but add barely
anything to the aggregate means of enjoyment.
Suppose another race of sovereigns to have em-
ployed equal numbers of workmen during the same
time in making roads, canals, docks, and harbours
throughout their dominions, and in erecting hospi-
tals and public buildings for education or amuse-
ment : these acquisitions to the wealth of the
country, having cost the same labour, may be of
equal exchangeable value with the diamonds of the
other sovereign ; but are they to be reckoned only
equally useful — equal accessions to the aggregate
of human gratification? Suppose two tracts of
ground of equal extent and fertility, one laid down
as a deer-park for the sole pleasure of a wealthy
individual, or sovereign, (as when the New Forest
was emparked by Rufus,) the other divided into
moderate- sized farms, each affording to the land-
lord a fair rent, to an honest farm'er and a tribe of
contented cottagers employment and maintenance,
— to the community an enlarged supply of food.
Such tracts may be equally valuable, if sold in
the market, but are they equal in their influence
on the sum of human enjoyment ? Even Slavery
itself may be in all probability, to a certain extent,
a means of increasing the quantity of exchange-

54 POLITICAL ECONOMY.

able wealth in the world ; but will any one recom-
mend it as a means of augmenting the mass of
human happiness ? No ! wealth may be pur-
chased at too high a price, if that price be the
degradation and suffering of those who produce it.
Wealth is only to be measured by its exchangeable
value. In this sense increase of wealth assuredly
is no true measure of the increase of enjoyment;
and the science of wealth, if the attention be con-
fined to the means of increasing its aggregate
amount, may just as frequently lead to what will
injure as to what will benefit the human race. If
the greatest happiness of the community is the
true and only end of all institutions, it follows that
a government which should take political economy
of this kind as a guide to its legislation, without
continually correcting its conclusions by reference
to the principles on which the happiness, not the
wealth of man depends, must often sacrifice the
real interests of the people it presides over for a
glittering fiction.

It may be said that such inquiries would be diffi-
cult and complicated ; — that it is impossible to
mete out happiness, or establish a graduated scale
by which to ascertain the utility of legislative mea-
sures towards this end. But the same argument
might evidently be urged with equal force against
all moral science. The happiness of society is the
only end of every moral as of every economic
precept. If it be, as we readily admit, impossible
to ascertain to a fraction the precise extent in
which any given measure is likely to affect the
happiness of a community — still this can be no
reason for adopting so obviously false a standard

TEST OF PUBLIC HAPPINESS. 55

as the increase of its aggregate wealth alone.
There are other tests which there can be no good
reason for neglecting; — there are, in the pursuit of
economic as of moral policy, some broad landmarks
to which it would be folly to shut our eyes — some
palpable boundaries which it would be madness to
cross — some clear general rules which point the
direction of our path, and reduce the chances of
error within very trifling limits, if we do not madly
refuse to walk by their light.

One of these criteria, and by far the most im-
portant, is the proposition, which we do not hesi-
tate to lay down as a fundamental truth, — that the.
amount of human enjoyment principally depends
on the number of human beings enabled, without
excessive toil, to obtain a comfortable subsistence,,
with satisfactory security for its continuance.

That the happiness of individuals does not neces-
sarily increase with their wealth, is attested by the
combined authority of all the philosophers and
moralists of past ages. The most cursory obser-
vation of mankind proves that there is often as
much enjoyment of life beneath a straw roof as a
painted ceiling, — under a smock frock as a silken
robe. Nay there are who very plausibly urge that

' Quei che felici son non han camicia.'*

* Casti, La Camicia delF Uomo Felice ; — one of the few of
his Novelle that can be read with a relish for the philosophy*
undisturbed by disgust at the profligacy, of this clever satirist.
A sick sovereign is recommended, as an infallible specific
for his disorder, the application of ' the shirt of a happy
man.' His emissaries in vain ransack all countries in search
of such a being. At last they discover an individual who
acknowledges himself to be happy, in the shape of a wild

5*6 POLITICAL ECONOMY.

tlie cares of life increase with the increase of
property.

Without heaping together commonplaces on the
subject, it will be disputed by few that, beyond a
certain point, the amount of enjoyment shared by
the different classes of society is pretty equal.
* Life,' says a shrewd writer, herself of the most
elevated class, ' affords disagreeable things in
plenty to the highest ranks, and comforts to the
lowest ; so that, on the whole, things are more
equally divided among the sons of Adam than they
are generally supposed to be.'* * Whoever enjoys
health/ says Jean Jacques, ' and is in no want of
necessaries, is rich enough; 'tis the aurea medio-
critas of Horace.'

This last passage states truly what that point is,
at which an increase of wealth ceases to be a pro-
portionate increase of enjoyment. Had Rousseau's
language possessed the word, instead of neces-
saries, he probably would have said ' comforts/
Our own poet confines the real wants of man to
4 Meat, fire, and clothes : what more ? clothes, meat, and fire.'
These, or in other words, the means of comfort-
able subsistence, compose the competence which
admits of perhaps as keen and complete enjoyment
of life as any fortune can bestow. That this com-
fortable subsistence is to be procured only by
labour, so that it be voluntary, free in its direction,
and not excessive, is, as I have attempted to show,

mountain shepherd. But alas! he has no shirt ! on which
the tale ends with the above exclamation, ' Those only are
happy who have no shirts to wear.1 So D'Alembert used
to say, ' Qtii est ce qui est heureux ? Quelque miserable !'
. * Letters of Lady M. W. Montague.

TEST OF NATIONAL HAPPINESS. 57

no detraction from the enjoyments it affords, but
rather, if anything, an addition to them.

If, however, we come to the conclusion, that an
individual who has within his easy reach the means
of comfortable subsistence enjoys as fair a chance
pf happiness as those who occupy stations in the
common opinion of the world more enviable, it is
very clear that less than this will not afford the
same chance. Though the enjoyments of wealth
may be, on the whole, counterbalanced by the
cares that accompany it, the evils of poverty are
real and uncompensated. An individual who wants
the means of subsistence, — nay, of comfortable
subsistence, together with satisfactory security for
its continuance, is in a state of suffering ! Coarse
diet may please the hungry appetite of the peasant
as much, or more, than do costly viands the palate
of the rich gourmand, and a frieze coat may be as
pleasant wear as superfine, — but scanty, unvaried,
and ill-flavoured food, or deficient clothing and
fuel, if it does not entirely prevent, must greatly
detract from the enjoyment of life.

The conclusion then is, that every individual
who has assured to him the means of comfortable
subsistence without excessive toil, has a tolerably
equal chance for happiness with those who possess
a larger share of wealth; but that any falling off
from this condition will proportionably lessen the
individual chance of enjoyment. Consequently,
the means of enjoyment possessed by any society
must be judged of principally by the number of those
who possess the means of comfortable subsistenc3
on these terms, compared with that of those who

58 POLITICAL ECONOMY.

fail in obtaining them. And we thus acquire a
primary measure of national happiness — indepen-
dent of the aggregate amount of wealth in its pos-
session— which cannot but be of service in the
study of the domestic economy of communities.

The inference we deduce from this position is,
that the first economical object with every govern-
ment ought to be the securing to every individual
member of the community it regulates, the means
of comfortable subsistence in return for his labour,
and the certainty of its continuance ; and that
until this is effected, no general augmentation of
the national wealth — no signs of increased luxury
among the higher or middle classes — no swelling
of the import or export lists, or other supposed
tests of national prosperity, can be depended on.
The increase of wealth may add to the means of
gratification of the few who have already more than
they can possibly enjoy, but it may be accompanied
by a falling off in the means of the many, who
even now have less than the minimum necessary
to save them from positive suffering.

Under such circumstances — and they are found
not in this only, but, with the exception of the
United States and some of our colonies, in nearly
all civilized countries — the aim of the economical
policy of their rulers should be, not simply to
obtain the greatest possible production of wealth,
but to obtain it in such a shape, and by such
means, as will distribute the greatest possible share
of it among the greatest number of people — so as
to afford to each individual, at least, a sufficiency
for his comfortable subsistence.

TEST OF NATIONAL WELFARE. 59

How this great object is to be accomplished —
what are the steps which should be taken to pro-
mote so desirable a state of things, — can only be
discovered by a study of the natural laws which
determine the production and distribution of wealth,
and particularly of those things which compose
the necessaries of subsistence and the primary
comforts of life. To this study we now proceed.

60

CHAPTER III. 1

Conditions of the Production of Wealth — The Institution of
private Property — Labour — Land — Capital.

IT appears that man has everywhere and always
from the first traces we possess of his history,
laboured in the production of wealth on that
simple principle of appropriation, which, as we
have seen, is the natural foundation of the right to
property ; — namely, that whatever an individual
creates or redeems from a state of nature by his
labour, is his, and ought to be at his sole disposal.
In some rare instances, however, this prin-
ciple of private property has been exchanged for
that of a community of goods between all the
members of a society. But the experiment may
be pronounced to have never succeeded in prac-
tice. Indeed, it will appear upon reflection to
be irreconcilable with the most elementary prin-
ciples of human nature. One of the strongest
of these is the desire of individual appropriation.
Sympathy is no doubt a very powerful sentiment ;
but it is provided by Nature, with a view, as
we may well believe, to the preservation of the
species, that the instinct of self- gratification should,
for the most part, prevail over it. In the common
phrase, one's-self stands as number one. In
the extremity of want or danger this instinct
betrays itself most conspicuously. Next to a

INSTITUTION OF PRIVATE PROPERTY. 61

man's own self, in his estimation, usually stand
his children, his parents, and the wife of his
bosom. These are almost a part of himself;
and their gratification is nearly as strong a motive
for exertion as his own. But the sentiment be-
comes diluted by an attempt to expand it^over a
wide circle. And it is certain that, as a general
rule, man will not labour for others than his imme-
diate family, or for the increase of any common
fund to be shared in alike by the members of a
large community, with anything like the zest and
willingness, the assiduity and perseverance, with
which he will toil for himself.

Even within the limits of a family circle the
same rule holds good among those who have at-
tained to an age rendering them capable of labour.
History presents us with many examples, and
some are yet to be found existing, of patriarchal
families in which all the members, comprehending
several generations, labour for one common fund.
But though these instances frequently offer en-
gaging pictures of domestic happiness, yet it is
certain that such communities have been rarely, if
ever, observed to make any advance in the arts of
production or the accumulation of wealth, or even
to increase in numbers ; but are found to stagnate
in a condition barely removed above want, until
something occurs by which they are broken up,
and the strong stimulus of individual gratification
is substituted for the less cogent one of the gene-
ral benefit.

An additional objection to a community of pro-
perty is that it necessarily puts an end to all in-
dividual liberty of choice as to the direction,

62 POLITICAL ECONOMY.

or amount of labour. Each labourer must have
his specific task allotted to him by some superior
power established for the purpose, which task
he must be compelled to execute under pain
of some forfeiture or privation. But we have
already shown that to encourage the utmost pro-
ductiveness of labour, as well as to render it plea-
surable, the labourer must be left free to choose
both the nature and quantity of his work.

It is the neglect of these principles which is
even now betraying many ardent and benevo-
lent investigators of the public happiness into
signal and mischievous absurdities. The followers
of Owen in this country, and of St. Simon in
France, with other similar sects which are spread-
ing through Germany and the United States of
America, struck by the remarkable fact that the
vast advance made of late years by civilised
nations in the arts of production, though it has
increased the wealth of a few, has added propor-
tionately little to the share of enjoyment that falls
to the great body of the people, whose labour is
the primary instrument of all production — have
hastily jumped to the conclusion that, in order to
ensure the more equal distribution of the products
of industry, all that is wanting is a new arrange-
ment of society on the basis of a community of
property. Now nothing can look more pleasing
upon paper, or sound more enchanting! y in a
lecture upon social happiness, than a proposal to
put an end to all the struggles of individual com-
petition, and the painful contrast of contiguous
wealth and poverty — to substitute love, friendship,
and common enjoyment, for hatred, jealousy, and

INSTITUTION OF PRIVATE PROPERTY. 63

exclusive self- gratification. No picture can be
more pleasing than that of men dwelling together
in unbroken harmony and untiring union. No
assertion can be more plausible than that were all
the efforts of the industrious combined in one
common direction, and all the rubs and jostling,
and cross purposes, and mutual interference pre-
vented, which now check and retard the progress
of each, the general advance would be greatly
accelerated. But — is it possible to realise this
beatific vision ? There is not the slightest ground
for supposing so. Its designers forget that the
industry, of which in the present advanced state of
society they witness the fruits, has been brought
into being, and has hitherto grown and thriven,
only under the shelter of the institution of private
property and the stimulus of competition; and
that neither history nor observation warrants,
in the least degree, the assumption, that in-
dustry could exist at all except on these con-
ditions. The establishment of a community of
property would most probably, by damping indus-
try and discouraging production, shortly leave no
property whatever to divide. The desire of indivi-
dual acquisition has hitherto been the main motive
to every exertion. Take it away, by sharing the
results of a man's labours equally, or in certain
proportions, fixed by others, among his neigh-
bours— so that he himself shall not be benefited,
except in an infinitesimal degree, by its increase,
and who will guarantee the continuance of his
exertions with the same vigour and energy which
he now evinces, if he even continue them at all,
when sure of a maintenance, at all events, from

64 POLITICAL ECONOMY.

the labours of others? Experience has proved
the constitution of the human mind to be such,
that freedom in the direction of labour, and secu-
rity for the personal enjoyment or disposal of its
products, are the conditions on which alone industry,
will be effectually put forth, and production ad-
vanced. That the opposite conditions will admit
of the same results is not merely not in accordance
with, but directly opposed to the analogy of our
experience. The proposal of a community of
goods as a remedy for their present unequal distri-
bution is like an attempt to cure a horse of stum-
bling by cutting off his legs. We are not sur-
prised that the same philosophers generally advo-
cate a community of wives and children, with a
view, it must be supposed, to the increase of the
conjugal and parental affections.

That the products of industry are, at present, too
unequally and therefore unfairly distributed, is most
true; but surely means may be devised for remedy-
ing this, short of the complete annihilation of the
principle itself of production — individual acquisi-
tion. That such means are attainable indeed, and
this by the simplest exertion of fore-thought and
pre-arrangement, I trust to be able shortly to
show.

Enough has been said here, perhaps, to prove
that since the main object of all regulations re-
specting wealth is to obtain the greatest possible
amount of production consistently with a sufficient
remuneration to the producers, the principle of a
community of property must be rejected as un-
friendly to the voluntary increase of production ;
and the natural right of every individual both to

LABOUR CREATES NOTHING. 63

choose the direction, and dispose of the produce
of his labour, (under reservations to which I
shall hereafter advert,) admitted as the only true
foundation of economical polity. We proceed to
consider the other essential conditions of produc-
tion.

All wealth is the product of labour ; but not of
labour alone. Labour can create nothing. All
that it does, is to alter the disposition of things
already existing in what is usually called a state
of nature. To produce anything, the labourer
must operate upon some natural substance, and
call in the ever-active powers of nature to his aid.
The agriculturist, for example, does not create
corn ; he only applies the seed after a certain
method which his knowledge, obtained through
experience or precept, teaches him to be best
adapted for causing the growth of the greatest
quantity of corn ; and the powers of the soil and
the atmosphere, the moisture of the heavens, and
the genial warmth of the sun bring about the pro-
duction of his crop. These powers, therefore, of
earth, air, water, and fire, (which the ancients in
their ignorance of chemistry considered, and in
their equally ignorant, though pardonable grati-
tude, worshipped as primary elements,) or to speak
more correctly, the natural affinities of the material
substances occurring on the surface of the earth
— must co-operate with the labourer, or his toil is
utterly unproductive.

Nor is this generally enough. There are few
things which an individual, though availing himself
of all the powers of nature within his reach, can
produce by himself, or by a single effort of labour.

F

66 POLITICAL ECONOMY.

He must call in the aid of others ; and lie must,
likewise, exert himself at repeated intervals ; — he
must avail himself of the results of his previous
labour, or that of others — generally of both.
Take the simplest case — the labour by which a
man may sometimes satisfy his hunger by gather-
ing berries from a bush. Even here nature must
have first produced and ripened the fruit to his
hand. Wild fruits, however, are but scantily sup-
plied by nature. If then, to supply his wants, a
man desire animal food, he must provide himself
with some product of previous labour (his own,
or of others), a club, a bow, a trap, or a gun ; and
he must acquire, moreover, by previous labour,
both of mind and body, a knowledge of the
haunts and habits of the animals he wishes to
take, or he has but a small chance of breaking
his fast upon them. If wild fruits and animals
become equally scarce, and he is led by Necessity,
the fertile mother of Invention, to sow or plant
the herbs and trees which produce the former, and
to domesticate the latter for the supply of his
wants — still more observation, forethought, con-
trivance, and preparation are necessary on his part.
He must acquire a knowledge of the habits and
characters of the useful plants — of the best
methods of cultivating and storing them ; he
must provide the proper seeds and plants — tools
with which to dig up the soil, clean it, and gather
his crops, — fences to keep off wild animals, and
confine his tame ones, with a store of fodder for
their sustenance. All these preparations are the
result of previous labour, accumulated for the
purpose of aiding him in the production of food.

LABOUR— LAND— CAPITAL.

67

Similar provisions will be required to supply him
with clothing, shelter, and other desirable ob-
jects.

The results of labour so accumulated, or pro-
vided beforehand for productive purposes, are
called by the general term capital.

It is thus made clear that labour can produce
nothing, or scarce anything, without the aid both
of capital and the useful qualities of those natural
substances which are scattered over the surface of
the earth. These, then, are the primary and
essential elements of human production ; — Labour,
Capital, and the natural products of the earth's
surface, — which, so long as they are affixed to
that surface, and not severed from it by in-
dustry, are all classed in the language of politi-
cal economists, (following in this the language of
the law of property) under the somewhat vague
title of Land*. And if, as would seem proper, we
comprehend under the term labour all the ability,
or productive capacity of man, natural or acquired
— under that of capital all the substantial results
of labour, stored up and employed in furthering
production — and under that of land, all the natu-
ral qualities of those substances met with on the
face of the earth, which can be appropriated and
rendered available for productive purposes, we
shall embrace under these several heads every

* " The word 6 land ' includes not only the face of the
earth, but everything under it, or over it. Therefore, if a
ihan grants all his lands, he grants thereby all his mines
of metal and other fossils, his woods, his waters, and his
houses, as well as his fields and meadows." — Blackslone's
Commentaries, ji. c. ii. p, 18.

F 2

68 POLITICAL ECONOMY.

tiling that in any shape co-operates in the pro-
duction of wealth, or in satisfying the wants of
man in every phase of his condition, from the
extreme of barbarism to the acme of civiliza-
tion. These elements of production we now pro-
ceed to consider separately, in the order in which
they have been mentioned, namely, Labour, Land,
and Capital.

69

CHAPTER IV.

Labour — Exchanges of its Produce — Right to Free Ex-
change— Division of Labour — Its advantages — Co-opera-
tion and mutual dependence of all Labourers — Barter—
Money — Its use — Coin — Credit — General use of.

THE first essential towards production is labour.
To play its part efficiently in this great business,
the labour of individuals must be combined, or,
in other words, the labour required for producing
certain results must be divided among several
individuals.

If a man were to attempt to raise from the
earth's surface all the food required by himself and
his family, and all the materials for their clothing,
furniture, and shelter, and likewise to prepare them
for use, it is clear, that the food, clothing, furni-
ture, and lodging he could obtain in this way
would only be of the very poorest and scantiest
description ; not, under the most favorable cir-
cumstances, equal to those which Robinson .Crusoe
is described as having provided for himself in his
island solitude ; for Crusoe had attained a know-
ledge of many of the arts of civilized life, by edu-
cation in a society where exchanges of labour had
long been practised. Had all men persisted in
labouring on a system of isolation, each for him-
self only, all must have remained in a state of
barbarism. None of the useful arts could have

70 ' POLITICAL" ECONOMY.

existed. The metals would have slept untouched
in the rock ; the timber would have rotted un-
hewn in the forest ; the soil would never have
been turned up by the plough or spade. A few
raw fruits stripped from the wild bushes, and the
precarious produce of the chase for food — clothing
of skins, and the rude shelter of the cave or
branch-hut, would have made up the sum total of
human possessions. Under this system, the
members of mankind must have been kept within
very narrow limits by disease and a continual
dearth of subsistence. Countries which now con-
tain millions of civilized men, enjoying for the
most part an abundance of comforts, could scarcely
have supported as many hundreds of half-starved
savages.

But it is contrary to the inherent tendencies of
human nature that such a state of things should
long continue. Man is formed to live in society ;
and, as we have seen, necessity suggests to every
society the general recognition of the right of each
individual to freedom in the direction of his indus-
try and a private property in its produce. Now,
wherever, and so soon as these two fundamental
principles of society are acknowledged, exchanges
of the produce of labour immediately must com-
mence among individuals. One, for instance, has
gathered more fruits than he can consume, and
meets with another who has a larger stock of
skins fit for clothing than he can himself make use
of. The first is in want of clothing, the latter of
fruit, and each finds his advantage in exchanging
the excess of the article he possesses for that of
the other. The exchange being wholly voluntary

FREEDOM OF EXCHANGE. ~7l

on both sides, the advantage is mutual, and equal
to both parties, or it would not be agreed to by
both ; and the same is true even in the most arti-
ficial state of society. So long as exchanges are
free and voluntary, so long it is evident that the
benefit to the exchanging parties is mutual and
equal, or each would not agree to them.

The right to freedom of exchange is included
in the right to a free disposal of the produce of
labour, and rests on the same ground of expe-
diency ; since it is evident that in whatever degree
the labourer is at any time prevented from ex-
changing the produce of his industry with others,
for whatever he can obtain for it most desirable
to himself — to that extent are his exertions
damped and discouraged, their productiveness
diminished, and their reward lessened; at the
same time that his personal freedom of action is
needlessly, and therefore wrongfully, interfered
with.

The adoption of this system of exchanging the
products of labour makes it exceedingly con-
venient and advantageous for each labourer to
confine himself to the production of one, or at
most, only a few commodities, and to exchange
all that he produces beyond his consumption with
others who in their turn do the same. Each is
thus enabled to avail himself of any peculiar
natural advantages he may possess, whether of
personal powers or of position, for the production
of a particular commodity ; and, likewise, to ac-
quire by the force of habit and undivided attention
a high degree of skill in the performance of his
peculiar task. By help of these natural and

72 POLITICAL ECONOMY.

acquired advantages, he is enabled to produce far
more, and, consequently, to obtain in exchange
for the produce of his labour, a far greater quan-
tity of the things he desires to consume, than he
could by any possible efforts directly produce of
himself.

It is by this division of labour among a variety
of classes of labourers, each of which takes a
different branch of industry, that the gross amount
of production is infinitely augmented. Under the
sanction of just and well-administered laws en-
forcing the fulfilment of contracts for the exchange
of labour or of goods, and giving security to
private property, this division is carried in some
countries to an extraordinary extent; and its effect
in augmenting the general production, and con-
sequently the wealth and comforts of all classes,
is almost incalculable.

Dr. Smith was the first writer who called atten-
tion to the extraordinary increase in the productive
powers of industry caused by the division of em-
ployments, and his mode of treating and illus-
trating the subject has been but little improved
upon by any succeeding writer. He classes the
advantages gained as,

First, increased skill and manual dexterity
in workmen. A nail-maker, for example, by con-
fining himself exclusively to the manufacture of
that article, will make two or three thousand nails
in a day; where an ordinary smith, who only
turned his hand occasionally to this process, could
make but as many hundreds. A man who wanted
Euch a common thing as a few pins, might, if he
attempted to fabricate them for himself, spend a

DIVISION OF LABOUR. 73

day in making a dozen of very bad ones ; whereas
by giving their attention exclusively to this branch
of industry, and subdividing its various processes
among themselves, ten men will, in a pin manu-
factory, make in one day as many as 50,000
well-finished pins, and their cost to the consumer
is proportionately reduced. The rapidity with
which the operations of some manufactures are
performed, exceeds what the human hand could,
by those who had never seen them, be supposed
capable of acquiring.

Secondly, the saving of time. An individual who
carries on many different employments in places
often necessarily far apart, must waste much time
in moving from one to the other, which will be
saved by attaching himself exclusively to one oc-
cupation. This is Adam Smith's argument, but he
might have thrown a far stronger light on the
economy of time that results from a well-regulated
division of labour, if he had noticed the power it
frequently gives to one individual to do the work
of numbers, quite as effectually as they could do
it themselves. An excellent illustration of this
benefit is given by Dr. Whately* in the establish-
ment of a post-office and letter-carriers, without
which every letter would require a special mes-
senger to convey it to its destination. A postman
who carries a thousand letters from the city, and
delivers them in the vicinity of Chelsea in the
course of a few hours, may be said to do the work
which, without such a contrivance, would engage
a thousand persons for nearly the same time. The
carriage of goods of all kinds by persons who

* Lectures on Political Economy, Oxford, 1831.

74 POLITICAL ECONOMY.

specially addict themselves to that calling, whether
by sea or land, is, of all branches into which em-
ployment is divided, one of the most generally
useful ; because it operates to a vast extent in
economising the time and labour of individuals.
At what rate would production of any kind ad-
vance, if every labourer were obliged to proceed
in person to fetch every article he required from
the spot where it was raised, and to carry every
thing he produces to the place where it is to be
consumed ?

It is evident that, by these and many other con-
trivances, there is not only effected a vast economy
o£ti?ne, but of power likewise, through the division
of labour. Without it a man would be often em-
ployed in doing what a child could equally well
perform ; and a workman of consummate skill or
natural capacity for some particular branch of in-
dustry would be forced to let his great powers of
production remain dormant for the greater part
of his time, while he was providing for his varied
necessities in a number of occupations, which
might be as well done by those who are capable
of nothing else.

Thirdly, the invention of tools, machines, and
processes for shortening labour and facilitating
production. It is evident that a man who is
eternally shifting from one occupation to another,
for the direct supply of all his various wants by
his individual exertions, will not be near so likely
to invent ingenious methods for shortening or
saving his labour, as one whose attention is de-
voted exclusively to a particular branch of industry.
In fact, by far the greater number of improve-

DIVISION OF LABOUR. 75

ments in tools and machinery have been pro-
duced by the efforts of workmen and artificers to
economize their time and trouble, and increase
the productiveness of their peculiar employments.

Perhaps in no trade has the division of labour
been successfully carried to so great an extent as
in that of watch -making1. In an examination
before a committee of the House of Commons, it
was stated, that there are a hundred and two dis-
tinct branches of this art, to each of which a boy
may be apprenticed.

An equal gain results from the division of the
labour of the head, as from that of the hands.
* As society advances, the study of particular
branches of science and philosophy becomes the
principal or sole occupation of the most ingenious
men. Chemistry becomes a distinct science from
natural philosophy ; the physical astronomer sepa-
rates himself from the astronomical observer ; the
political economist from the politician ; and each
meditating exclusively or principally on his pecu-
liar department of science, attains to a degree of
proficiency and expertness in it which the general
scholar seldom or never reaches. And hence, in
labouring to promote our own ends, we all neces-
sarily adopt that precise course which is most
advantageous for all. Like the different parts of
a well-constructed engine, the inhabitants of a
civilized country are all mutually dependent on,
and connected with each other. Without any
previous concert, and obeying only the powerful
and steady impulse of self-interest, they univer-
sally conspire to the same great end ; and con-
tribute, each in his respective sphere, to furnish

76 POLITICAL ECONOMY.

the greatest supply of necessaries, luxuries, con-
veniences, and enjoyments.'*

The system of the division of labour might be
equally called the combination of labour, since its
effect is the co-operation of many labourers to
produce a common result. In fact, wherever this
system has made any considerable progress, the
society assumes emphatically a co-operative cha-
racter. Every member is dependent on the aid of
others in everything that he does, and for every-
thing that he enjoys. The ploughman cannot
turn a furrow without the help of the wheelwright
and smith ; these can do nothing without that of
the timber and iron merchant, the miner, and the
smelter. These again must be assisted by the
rope-maker, the powder manufacturer, the en-
gineer, the carrier, and several others ; while all
depend upon the baker, the mealman, the butcher,
the farmer, the grazier, &c. for their supplies of
food, — and on the tailor, the cotton and cloth
weavers, the flax and wool grower, the importer of
cotton, fee. for their clothing. All society is, in
fact, one closely-woven web of mutual dependence,
in which every individual fibre gains in strength
and utility from its entwinement with the rest. But
while all the members of society co-operate for a
common purpose, the increase of the general wel-
fare, each individual is still strictly occupied in pur-
suing what he considers his own private and exclu-
sive interest in whatever way he likes best.

And here is to be seen the vast superiority of the
principle of freedom over that of compulsion — of
the system of co-operation which springs naturally
* Macculloch, Political Economy, p. 95.

CO-OPERATION OF LABOURERS. 77

and spontaneously from the mutual wants of men,
over that artificial, forced, and premeditated system
of co-operation, which of late has been put forward
as the true rule of social arrangement, by the
erratic and visionary philanthropist, Mr. Owen,
and some of his followers. Had the wisest of
mortals, at any former period in the history of
this country, been entrusted with full powers to
frame and organize a co-operative system, assign-
ing to each individual in the state the task he was
to perform for the common welfare, and distri-
buting to each the share considered to belong to
him of the common produce — can it be supposed
for a moment that he would have been able to
devise arrangements capable of securing anything
like the efficacy and perfection with which the
principles of free labour, private property, and
free exchange perform at present the supply of
all the varied and complicated wants of this vast
population ?

If we confine our attention to the mode in
which the inhabitants of the metropolis are pro-
vided with the necessaries of life, we' may see in
it a wonderful phenomenon strongly illustrative of
the benefits of the actual system of co-operation,
founded on these great principles. If the manage-
ment of this important business were entrusted to
a few individuals, a neglect, a mistake, an indis-
cretion on their part, might occasionally bring
upon this mighty centre of wealth and industry
all the horrors of famine, and compromise the
existence of a million and a half of people.
What is it, then, that performs this important
function — that supplies this great population with

78 POLITICAL ECONOMY.

its daily food, so quietly, and so effectually,— •
without bustle, without even organization, — with-
out excess, as without waste — the supply so
equally adjusted to the demand, that the prices of
butchers' meat and bread do not perhaps suffer a
variation of a farthing throughout the year, which
is not to be accounted for by natural causes
affecting the original sources of supply ? What is
it that performs this daily miracle, which only
does not excite our continual admiration because
it is self-effected with all the order, ease, and cer-
tainty of a great natural process ? Why, the prin-
ciple of competition ; the free and open rivalry of
thousands of individuals, each acting according to
his own discretion in his own self-appointed
sphere ; each actuated by the unerring instinct of
self-interest, which prompts him to produce as
much as he can sell, but no more ; to sell as
much as he can with a profit, but to provide no
more than he can dispose of without loss ; to keep
the supply full, but to prevent excess. An abun-
dant supply causes each producer to lower his
prices, and thus enables the public to enjoy that
abundance, while he is guided only by the appre-
hension of being undersold; and, on the other
hand, an actual or apprehended scarcity causes
him to demand a higher price, or to keep back
his goods in expectation of a rise. * For doing
this the dealers of provisions are often exposed to
odium, as if they were the cause of the scarcity ;
while in reality they are performing the important
service of husbanding the supply in proportion to
its deficiency, and thus warding off the calamity
of famine. The dealers deserve neither censure

BARTER — ITS INCONVENIENCE. 795

for the scarcity they are ignorantly supposed to
produce, nor credit for the important public ser-
vice they in reality perform. They are merely
occupied in gaining a fair livelihood. And in the
pursuit of this object, without any comprehensive
wisdom, or any need of it, they co-operate, un-
knowingly, in conducting a system, which, we
may safely say, no human wisdom directed to that
end could have conducted so well ; the system by
which this enormous population is fed from day
to day*.'

The advantages of the division and combination
of labour will still further appear, when we come
to treat of the several classes into which society
divides itself as civilization advances.

The direct exchange of goods of any kind for
goods is called barter; and, as it is the most
simple mode of exchange, so we find it still the
only method in use among some uncivilized na-
tions. But its excessive inconvenience must sug-
gest, even to a very low degree of intelligence,
the advantage of improving upon it. Suppose a
savage, for example, to have taken and killed a
bullock, or other large animal, which he would
find a difficulty in consuming alone. He is de-
sirous of exchanging the surplus beyond his own
consumption for a variety of other objects which
he is in want of. His neighbours, on their side, are
anxious to purchase his meat, but it is highly im-
probable that each should have by him, and can
spare, just that quantity of any of the peculiar
articles of which the owner of the meat stands
in need, which will enable the former to obtain
* Whately's Lectures, p. 108.

SO • POLITICAL ECONOMY.

in exchange the precise quantity of meat which
he desires. To obviate this difficulty, which must
be continually recurring, one or other of two
very simple methods would suggest themselves :
the one, that he who had the meat or other ob-
ject to dispose of, should give credit to him
who wanted it, on his engagement to repay him
either the same or such other object as may be
agreed upon, when able to do so, or at some defi-
nite time ; the other, that individuals should gene-
rally keep by them a stock of some peculiar
article in general request, a portion of which
would be readily taken by every seller in exchange
for his commodity. The first of these methods
of facilitating exchanges is that of credit, the second
of money. Both were probably coeval in their
origin. Both have continued in use with more or
less of improvement among all nations, civilized
as well as uncivilized, to the present day.

Of the commodities that have been, and in some
instances still are, in use as money by different
nations, we may instance oxen, shells, salt, lea-
ther, and iron, &c. But in nearly all countries
men seem to have been at an early period deter-
mined by irresistible reasons to employ in prefer-
ence for this purpose the more valuable metals,
copper, silver, and gold. These reasons are, their
possessing qualities fitting them for this peculiar
office, in a far superior degree to any other commo-
dity of intrinsic worth. They maybe kept almost
any time without loss ; they are of such rarity,
and so much esteemed (that is, of such great
intrinsic value), that small portions of them, easy
to be carried about (more especially of the two

MONEY— COIN — CREDIT. 81

precious metals) will exchange for comparatively
large quantities of most other goods ; and they
may be divided without loss into any number
of parts, and re-united again, through their
fusibility, with the same ease. The only dif-
ficulty was that of ascertaining their precise quan-
tity and quality. For this purpose it would be
necessary both to weigh and assay them. But as
the process of weighing and assaying each piece
of metal every time it was taken in exchange
would have been an endless one, wholly destructive
of all the convenience to be derived from its use
as money, it seems to have been very soon dis-
covered that the government of every country, in
order to prevent imposition as to their weight or
quality, should affix a certain stamp on the bits of
metal to be employed as money, indicative of its
quantity and fineness ; at the same time prohibit-
ing by law the issue, or mintage, as it is called,
of money by private individuals, punishing the
imposition on the public of false money, when
detected, by the heaviest penalties. So stamped,
money is called com; and on the faith of this
government stamp, and the laws by which its imi-
tation is prohibited, coined money passes current
by tale, without the troublesome process of weigh-
ing or assaying. It is in this form that the pre-
cious metals, gold and silver, have become the
universal measure of the value of other commodi-
ties, and the principal instrument or medium for
their exchange.

But we have already mentioned the existence
and general use of another medium for conducting
exchanges besides money of intrinsic value ;

Q

82 POLITICAL ECONOMY.-

namely, Credit, or the confidence placed by
one individual in the engagement of another
to pay him at a certain time a certain quantity
of goods or money. This mode of conducting
exchanges has one great and evident advantage
over the use of money, namely, that it saves
individuals the necessity of keeping by them a
stock of an expensive commodity, for no other
purposes than that which their credit, if unques-
tionable, would answer equally well. On the other
hand, the drawback to the use of credit, as a me-
dium of exchange, is its insecurity. Every one
may know in the circle of his neighbours and ac-
quaintance, individuals whom, from their character
for rectitude and honesty, he would trust, to any
extent, ' with untold gold 3* but, unfortunately,
our moral nature is by no means so perfect as to
admit of such confidence being universal, or any
thing like it. In order, therefore, to prevent, as
far as possible, frauds upon the over- credulous,
it has been found necessary, in all countries, for
the government to enforce by laws the fulfilment
of engagements — a necessity parallel to that which
led, as just explained, to the laws for regulating
the coinage of money. Supported by this guaran-
tee, credit has performed its part as an instrument
of exchange in all ages and countries where
commerce has made any progress, and that to an
extent seldom perhaps fully recognized by writers
on these subjects. Because the precious metals,
coined or uncoined, have been almost always and
everywhere employed as the measure of value,
they have been hastily concluded to have been
likewise the principal, if not the only, instrument

EXTENSIVE USE OF CREDIT. &£

vf exchange. But these two tilings are perfectly
distinct, and a very little examination would suf-
fice to convince us that the employment of credit
in commerce, as a medium of exchange, has heen
very considerably underrated — that it has always
carried on a much larger amount of business than
money, and indeed that, without it, commerce
could have made but very little progress, cramped
and fettered as it would have been by the disad-
vantages incident to the use of metallic money,
which is, in truth, only a somewhat superior kind
of barter.

This inquiry, however, may be better reserved
for a future occasion. I will only mention here
three facts, illustrative of the vastly superior ex-
tent to which in commercial countries credit is
necessarily employed as an instrument of ex-
change, beyond real or metallic money. These
are, first, that the entire commerce of Scotland,
foreign and domestic, is carried on without the
practical use of a single gold piece. Secondly,
that, at the banker's clearing-house in London, ex-
change transactions are daily settled to the extent
of five millions sterling — on some days of thirteen
millions — without the intervention of any coin
whatever, and by the employment of a floating
balance of only about 200,000/. in Bank of England
notes, themselves merely representing the credit of
that establishment. Thirdly, that there is at every
moment in existence an aggregate mass of trans-
ferable credit in the shape of book debts, foreign
and inland bills of exchange, mortgages, annui-
ties, and other monied liabilities, including the
great national debt itself, to an extent, as regards

G 2

84 POLITICAL ECONOMY.

the whole empire, certainly of several thousand
millions in value, the whole of which is strictly in
continual employment as a medium of exchange —
an instrument, that is, whereby one individual
obtains possession by consent of the produce or
property of another ; — while the amount of real or
metallic money circulating through the same coun-
tries does not perhaps exceed thirty millions, and
might probably, as in Scotland, be dispensed with
altogether, without affecting in the least the extent
of this prodigious mass of transactions on credit.

85

CHAPTER V.

Wages — Ample and continually increasing Wages secured
to Labourers by the principles of Free Labour and Free

'_ Exchange — Inequality of Wages in different employments,
and of different individuals — Ability, even of the lowest
class, increases, and its reward ought to rise proportion-
ately, with the progress of civilization,

HOWEVER directed, the motive to labour, freely
exercised, must always be the result accruing to
the labourer. This is technically called his wages.
And since the more productive labour is rendered
by the subdivision of employments and facilitation
of exchanges we have been describing, the greater
must be the aggregate quantity of the good things
of life produced, it seems self-evident that the
share falling to the lot of each individual labourer,
as his recompense or wages, ought to be propor-
tionately augmented. That it will be so, seems
equally obvious, if the several labourers and the
several owners of the elements of production are
left free to settle terms with each other, whence
there must result a fair adjustment of their relative
claims on the joint produce. The great principles,
in short, of free labour, and free disposal of its
produce, would seem amply sufficient to secure an
equitable distribution of property among the se-
veral classes who contribute to its creation.

And this we believe to be an unquestionable
truth. Under institutions securing freedom in

£6 POLITICAL ECONOMY.

the direction of labour, and in the enjoyment,
disposal, and consequently exchange of its products
in the home or foreign markets, the products of
industry will divide themselves spontaneously in
the most equitable manner among the several
classes whose labour or property co-operates in
any way in their production ; and the benefits they
thence derive will so stimulate the exertions of the
several classes of producers, as to cause a con-
tinued cumulative increase, not merely in the
wealth of the society so organized, but also in the
share of that wealth falling to the lot of any indi-
vidual member. We believe that if, in some socie-
ties which have reached a highly artificial and com-
plicated state, this, its natural and legitimate con-
sequence, has not always followed every improve-
ment in the division of labour and facilitation of
exchanges, — it must necessarily be owing, and can
in every case, by some little attention, be traced
to the interference of erroneous institutions with
these simple natural principles of production and
distribution, — an interference adopted sometimes,
perhaps, in ignorance of its mischievous effects to
the community at large, but generally with more
or less of a fraudulent intention of diverting the
produce of industry into other hands than those
into which the just system of free labour and free
exchange would distribute it. On such inter-
ferences, and the means whereby their ill effects
can be most safely and speedily corrected, we shall
have the opportunity of dwelling more at length
hereafter.

But under a system of free exchange the recom-
pense (wages) of every labourer will be by no

INEQUALITY* OF ABILITY AND OF ITS REWARD. 87

means equal ; nor even exactly proportioned to the
severity or duration of his employment. It must
be determined by the value of his produce in the
market. And this will increase in proportion to
the talent, skill, and application of the labourer, or
any other circumstances which may render his
labour more productive than that of another. A
man whose natural powers of body or mind enable
him to contribute more efficiently to the general
work of production than another, may equitably
expect, and will, under the system of free exchange,
receive a larger share of the gross general produce.
The same is true of one who by advantages of edu-
cation or continued application, has acquired a supe-
rior degree of skill or knowledge in any of the arts
of industry. And the increased reward thus ob-
tained by increased productiveness, is the motive
and necessary stimulus to those efforts for rendering
labour more productive, which have carried man-
kind forward from the savage to the civilized state,
and can alone be depended upon for inciting him
to yet further advances. Every attempt to equalize
the wages of different employments or individuals
by compulsory arrangements has the certain effect
of damping the ardour of industry, putting a stop
to improvement, and checking the march of pro-
duction.

The powers of an individual to produce, or co-
operate in the production of wealth, may be called
his ability. The lowest degree of ability consists
of the rude, unskilled, untutored, muscular powers
of the human frame. The great body of labourers
in all countries are possessed of little more than
this inferior ability. - But the recompense (wages)

83 POLITICAL ECONOMY.

of this lowest class of labourers, varies, notwith-
standing, very much in different countries. In a
savage state of society, for example, mere human
strength can do but little, for want of tools with
which to work, and instructions how to employ
them. By practice, and the exercise of his native
ingenuity in contriving expedients and fabricating
instruments, a clever savage may increase the
productiveness, and consequently the reward of
his labour far beyond that of his companions ; but
even under the most favorable circumstances, his
exertions will not be near so productive as those
of the most stupid clown in a civilized country,
armed with the instruments which the accumulated
ingenuity of ages has contrived, and applying them,
however mechanically, after those methods which
the stored wisdom of others has proved to be most
efficient. On this account the inferior degrees of
ability will obtain far higher wages in a highly
advanced, than in the earlier stages of society.
The produce of the daily labour of an English
ploughman, shepherd, or common mechanic, is at
present probably three times as much as that of
the similar classes of labourers in the time of Eli-
zabeth, and six times as much as at the period of
the conquest. If their wages, or the amount of
the necessaries and conveniences of life which they
obtain in return for their labour, have not increased
quite in the same proportion, it must be in conse-
quence of the faulty direction given to the distri-
bution of the produce of labour by the artificial
circumstances to which we have already alluded,
and which we shall hereafter explain. In the same
way the productiveness of an English day-labourer

VARIOUS DEGREES OF ABILITY. 89

is perhaps twice as great as that of a Frenchman,
four times that of a Russian, and six or eight times
that of a Hindoo. His wages ought therefore to
be proportionate, and probably would be so under
an equitable system of economical policy.

The reward of the industry of the higher classes
of labourers will in the same manner rise with its
productiveness. An artisan of superior natural
abilities, who has had the advantage of the instruc-
tions of a master in some peculiar business, and
has applied himself assiduously to acquire the
manual dexterity and the practical arts of his trade,
has gained a degree of ability, which, as contri-
buting much more largely than that of an inferior
workman to the marketable means of enjoyment,
is enabled to command in the market a propor
tionately larger share of the general stock. The
wages, or market value, of personal ability of any
kind, will depend partly on the degree of study or
application and the expenditure of time required
on the average to produce it. But it is, moreover,
influenced in a great degree by monopoly, i.e. the
more or less exclusive possession of ability of any
description, whether consisting in secret processes,
the craft and mystery of particular trades, or of
peculiar qualifications, natural, or acquired under
more or less extraordinary combinations of circum-
stances. It is the rarity of particular kinds of
talent that confers the greater part of their value
upon them. The average wages of fiddlers is per-
haps, taking into consideration the time spent in
acquiring the art, little more than that of plough-
men; but when the combination of rare genius
with equally rare assiduity creates a Paganini, he

99 POLITICAL ECONOMY.

is able to command almost any price in return for
his exertions. There occurs but one Lawrence in
a century, and this it is which enables such an
artist to put a value on his productions, perhaps a
hundred times what an ordinary dauber is happy
to get for the same quantity of paint, canvass, time
and trouble.

But the possessor of superior ability, in any line
of industry, is not only enabled to put a monopoly
value on the produce of his labour directly exerted,
he has it likewise in his power to communicate to
others, by instruction, his own superior qualifica-
tions ; and whilst he requires, of course, payment
from them in exchange for these instructions, he
puts it in their power to obtain in turn a proportion-
ately high recompense for their industry in con-
sideration of its comparative rarity. The value of
such instructions is sometimes heightened by the
communication of secret processes, which give to
their possessor a decided advantage over his com-
petitors in the same line of art. In general, how-'
ever, it consists in the communication of a variety
of delicate and difficult manipulations ; such as cari
only be learnt by actual exhibition and repeated
experiment under the eye and tuition of an experi-
enced master*. The high premiums of apprentice-

* A remarkable instance in proof of the necessity of per-
sonal instruction in some of the useful arts, was related by
Mr. Ostler, a manufacturer of glass beads and other toys, to
the Committee of the House of Commons on artizans and
machinery ; and is quoted in Mr. Babbage's valuable work
on the Economy of Manufactures. Mr. Ostler, it seems, had
received some years since, an order for upwards of five hun-
dred pounds worth of doll's eyes. But notwithstanding his
having some of the most ingenious glass toy-makers in the

IMPROVEMENTS OF ABILITY. 91

ship taken by those who are engaged in the superior
departments of the useful and ornamental arts, arise
chiefly from this source ; and the proportionately
high wages that are earned by journeymen or
masters in these several callings follow neces-
sarily from the expensive course of instruction
they have undergone, the assiduity with which they
have endeavoured to perfect themselves in their
art, and the more or less rare excellence to which
by these means, aided perhaps by superior natural
abilities, they have attained in its practice.

In this way the skill or acquired ability of one
man is handed down from father to son, or from
master to pupil, through successive stages, accumu-
lating as it passes on by the added improvements
of its various possessors. But as every pupil or

kingdom in his service, he could not succeed in making the
article, and was obliged to renounce the order. " About
eight months ago," he continues, u I accidentally met with
a poor fellow who had impoverished himself by drinking,
and who was dying in a consumption, in a state of great
want. I showed him ten sovereigns ; and he said he would
instruct me in the process. He was in such a state that he
could not bear the effluvia of his own lamp ; but though I
was very conversant with the manual part of the business,
and it related to things I was daily in the habit of seeing, I
felt I could do nothing from his description. (I mention
this to show how difficult it is to convey by description the
mode of working.) He took me into his garret, where th»
poor fellow had economised to such a degree, that he actually
used the entrails and fat of poultry from Leadenhall market,,
to save oil, (the price of the article having been latterly so
much reduced by competition at home.) In an instant,,
before I had seen him make three, I felt competent to make
a gross ; and the difference between his mode and that of
my own workmen was so trifling, that I felt the utmost
astonishment."

92 POLITICAL ECONOMY.

apprentice is enabled to instruct a considerable
number of others, there is a constant tendency in
every improved process or secret to spread through
a wider circle. There are, moreover, many pro-
cesses of art which can be communicated by
written directions, without personal exhibition ; and
these, sooner or later, get wind and become dis-
seminated very extensively wherever the blessing
of a press, more especially a free . press, exists.
Once committed to printing, a receipt or peculiar
process travels in all directions, not only through
the country where it was invented, but many others
likewise, and is handed down, with little or no
chance of loss, to distant ages and generations. It
is to the splendid inventions of letters and printing
that we owe the rapidity with which the process of
mutual instruction in the productive arts is now
daily increasing the wealth of modern societies.
AVithout their aid, example and precept might hand
down some improvements in human ability ; but
they would be subject to frequent loss and destruc-
tion ; and the intercourse of minds must, under such
circumstances, be slow, torpid, and unfruitful of
those inventions which are now rapidly augmenting
the efficiency of skill and industry, and multi-
plying the aggregate of production, in countries
blest with just and free institutions, where every
valuable piece of information is allowed to circulate
with unlimited freedom.

These are the things that constitute ' useful
knowledge/ The vast superiority in the produc-
tiveness of a Watt, an Arkwright, or a Wedge-
wood, over that of a clever savage, is almost en-
tirely owing to the influence of accumulated ability

REAL AND MONEY WAGES. 93

of tin's nature stored up in books, and operating
in the development of intellectual powers, which
would otherwise have remained dormant and useless
towards either the enrichment of the individual,
or, as in the case of the three great men we have
named, the lasting benefit of the whole human
race. Such wonderful inventions, when thus pro-
claimed to the world, become public property, a
gratuitous addition of vast amount to the ability
of all present and future labourers in the peculiar
arts to which they are applicable.

It may, it is true, be long before the Calmucs
or Chinese avail themselves of the increased power
such inventions put at their disposal, but in the
mean time even these distant nations profit from
them through the greater cheapness of the com-
modities with which they are supplied, by the
growing ability of Europeans. And we, too, in
the mean time are improving even upon these
inventions far more rapidly than other nations can
adopt them ; so that the superiority we have once
obtained over them is continually increasing rather
than diminishing. When we come to trace the
principle and effects of foreign commerce, we shall
be able to show how futile are the fears entertained
by some, of our being shortly left behind in the
race of industry by other nations, or losing the pre-
eminence this country has acquired in productive-
ness over every other on the face of the globe.

We have hitherto spoken of wages, (real wages,)
in the sense of the quantity of the necessaries and
conveniences which the labourer can command in
the market in exchange for his services. Such
appears to be the most correct meaning of the

94 POLITICAL ECONOMY.

expression. But in common language, wages is
generally understood as referring to the sum in
money (money-wages) which the labourer ob-
tains. These two meanings are, of course, very
distinct. The money-wages of a labourer may
rise, whilst the quantity of necessaries and com-
forts he can obtain in exchange for them, and
upon which alone his condition in fact depends,
is decreasing. This was notoriously the case in
Britain in the early part of the present century,
when owing to a succession of bad harvests, the
money-price of necessaries reached an exorbitant
elevation ; and though the money-wages of nearly
every class of labourers rose likewise, their pur-
chasing power was greatly lessened ; so much so
indeed, that the inadequacy of the current wages
of agricultural labour to maintain a family was
the cause of their being then, for the first time,
supplemejited out of the parish rate in the southern
counties of England, — a baneful practice, for the
adoption of which, if there were any excuse as a
measure of temporary expediency at that moment,
there can be at least none for its continuance in
the present day, when experience has so fatally
proved its mischievous effects on the morals,
habits, and circumstances of our peasantry — when
it has been universally recognized as equally unjus-
tifiable in principle and in law.

Enough has been said to shew, that in a country
\vhich has already made a great progress in the
arts of production, and is still daily improving upon
them, the remuneration for labour, even of the
lowest kind, ought to be considerable, as compared
with earlier periods, and ought, likewise, always to

WAGES OUGHT PROGRESSIVELY TO INCREASE. 95

be on the increase ; never, unless locally and tem-
porarily, to fall off in its amount.

If, therefore, in such a country, the wages of
"the mass of labourers are at any time not sufficient
to command for them a competence of the neces-
saries and comforts of life, — if wages are found
during periods of considerable duration, through
extensive districts, and in a variety of occupations,
to decrease in amount instead of advancing, we
may rest assured that such a state of things can
only be the result of a faulty arrangement of the
political institutions which determine the distri-
bution of the produce of industry. And the study
of the naturally just and equitable principles on
which such institutions ought to have been mo-
delled— and when proved to be in fault, ought to
be corrected — becomes one of the most important
and interesting subjects of inquiry to which the
attention of any reasonable friend to humanity can
be addressed.

Before, however, we can prosecute our researches
into the nature of such errors and the mode of cor-
recting them, we must first examine the other
elements which co-operate with labour in the great
business of production ; and the owners of which
have, of course, an equal right with the labourers
to share in the joint produce.

These are, as we have seen, Land and Capital.

96

CHAPTER VI.

d" 'Its appropriation essential to Production — History and
causes of its appropriation in different ages and cotmtries —
In the East by the Sovereign — In Europe by the Aristo-
cracy— In America by the People. — Influence of these dif-
ferent systems on Production and National Welfare.—*
Natural Laws of Property in.

POLITICAL Economists, we have said, following the
example of lawyers, comprehend under the term
land, when speaking of it as the sole original
source of wealth, all the natural powers of the
surface of the globe which can be made available
for the use of man, including, together with its
soils, mines, quarries, and waters, the animals and
vegetables found thereon in a wild state.

These gifts of Nature, our common mother, are

Eoured forth in all but infinite profusion upon the
ice of the teeming earth, for the common use of
mankind. But in order to avail himself of them
for his various purposes, man must, as has been
shown, appropriate them by his labour; and,
having done so, he acquires an equitable title to
their possession founded on the labour he has ex-
pended in their appropriation. If fruit grew spon-
taneously on herb or tree, in sufficient abundance
to supply the wants of all, the labour of gathering
it would be all that were necessary to give an indi-
vidual an equitable property in fruit. With the
fish of the sea, and many of the fowls of the air,
and some wild animals, this rule indeed holds good
in law at the present day, even in countries where
society has in many respects attained a most arti-

ORIGIN OF PROPERTY IN LAND. 97

ficial and complicated condition.* But of the fruits
of the earth, and the animals most fitted for food,
there is no such spontaneous abundance ; and in
order to ensure the production of a sufficiency of
these for the wants of man, it is necessary that
much pains should be taken by some one, — that
the soil be inclosed with fences to prevent the
ravages of wandering animals, broken up by til-
lage, planted and sown with the fitting vegetables,
and the growing crops protected, as well as
gathered. Now no one, it is plain, would take
the trouble to inclose and cultivate a piece of
ground, and plant or sow it several months, per-
haps years, before the crop can be fit to gather, —
unless he were secured (so far at least as human
confidence can be secured) in the exclusive privilege
of gathering and appropriating the fruits of his
labour when ready for use. And the same may be
said of the land employed for breeding, rearing,
and fattening domestic animals. For this simple
reason, it becomes absolutely necessary in order to
admit of the production of artificial crops or stocks
of cattle, to secure in the strongest possible man-
ner a property in land to him who incloses and
cultivates it, or in any way renders it productive.
And this necessity has been perceived and acted
on throughout all the known and cultivated regions
of the globe, though under a great variety of

* Our law maxims with regard to fish, game, and such
things as are * ferce natures ,' assert that they are ' nullius in
bonis,' or no man's goods ; and that of them ' Capiat qui
capere possit,' catch who catch can. A qualified property is
still to be acquired in these and some other things ( per t/z-
dustriam.' See Blackstone, ii. 391.

H

98 HISTORY AND CAUSES OF

modifications in the customs and laws by which the
tenure or occupation of the land is regulated.* Some
of these modifications afford more, some less, encou-
ragement than others to production. That system
is evidently to be preferred which affords the most.
It has, indeed, seldom been sufficiently remarked
by those who have studied the nature and causes
of national wealth, to what a pre-eminent degree
the social and economical condition of a people is
influenced by the laws and customs that prevail
among them respecting the occupation and owner-
ship of land. There is no exaggeration in the
assertion that, by these circumstances almost alone,
the position of any nation in the scale of civiliza-
tion is practically determined. Nor will any one
be inclined to doubt this, when he adverts to tha
simple consideration that it is from the land, and
the land alone, that nations derive as well the
whole of the food on which they are supported, as
the raw materials out of which by their industry
and ingenuity they elaborate all the other neces-
saries, comforts, and luxuries of life; so that it
must entirely depend upon the more or less easy

* The exclusive property in wells appears from Scripture
to have been established in the first digger or occupant, even
in places where the ground and herbage remained yet in
common. See Btackstone, ii. c. i. p. 5 ; who also states,
' It is agreed upon all hands that occupancy gave the ori-
ginal right to the permanent property in the substance of the
earth, which excludes every one else but the owner from the
use of it.' Occupancy by use, that is, full and complete
utilization, (if the word is allowable,) must be intended ;
though Blackstone does not clearly express this. It is not
probable that any individual would have been allowed to ap-
propriate more land than he could occupy in this sense. Id.p.£»

THE APPROPRIATION OF LAND. 99

and equitable terms on which the cultivation of the
soil by those who possess the means, is permitted
or encouraged by those who own it, whether the
production of every kind of wealth be restrained
within the narrowest limits, or developed to the
utmost extent of which human industry is capable
under the most favourable circumstances.

The terms on which the cultivators of the soil
are admitted to its occupation vary materially
in different parts of the globe ; and a review of
these different customs and of their effects during
a series of ages, as unfolded both in history and
from recent observation, exhibiting their respec-
tive merits and defects, and the influence they
severally exercise over the moral, economical, and
political condition of the countries in which they
prevail, would in itself be a work of great interest.
The space we can afford to this branch of our sub-
ject, perhaps the most important division of the
whole field of inquiry which is subjected to the
social economist, is less than it deserves, but we
will endeavour to compress all the prominent points
into a manageable compass.

The natural and equitable title to property in
land which arises from its appropriation 4 per in-
dustriam,' by the labour necessary to render it pro-
ductive, must always have required the sanction
and support of the law, — that is to say, of what-
ever supreme authority was set up in a state for
the purpose of securing the common welfare by
restraining individual rapacity. But power, once
established, seldom contents itself with promoting
the legitimate objects of its appointment. l Quis
custodiet ipsos custodes?' Those who were en-

H2

dOO HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

/trusted with the regulation of the terms on which
•the land of a country with all its natural produc-
tions might be appropriated, have very naturally
•availed themselves of this authority, when they
-could, to appropriate as much as possible of it, or
-£>f its produce, to themselves.

The origin of the peculiar political institutions
«of most nations is buried in considerable obscurity.
It has even been disputed which of the two great
principles of government is the most ancient and
natural, the despotic, — under which one claims a
'Tight to supreme power over the many, — or the
free, under which the many claim the right to be
.governed only by officers of their own choice.
But it is so perfectly obvious that one individual
-can never have acquired power over a numerous
society except with the consent of the majority,- —
x>r, at least, of an overwhelming body of supporters,
that the question of priority does not appear to us
•-to admit of a doubt. It is, however, of little mo-
ment. Referring to fact, we find that the earliest
.authentic accounts we possess of human societies
generally agree in describing their infant condition
as one of great simplicity, very similar to that of
.most savage tribes at the present day, in which,
while the rights of each individual, at least of each
-full grown male, are considered equal, a power is
.lodged, by common consent, in some officer or
-.body of officers, to make and enforce the laws
necessary for the general welfare. Among hunting
-tribes, the personal activity requisite for the sup-
port of each individual, and the state of constant
warfare in which they necessarily lived, — through
unavoidable conflict of neighbouring tribes for

THE APPROPRIATION OF LA*|D. JG'F

their hunting-grounds as game became scarce, anc£
even occasionally of individuals for their prey —
must have rendered every male a warrior, andf
might enable him, if he chose, to claim and ex-
ercise an equal share of power. Yet, if we are
to judge by the analogy of modern instances^
the authority of chiefs and elder warriors — an
authority obtained partly by superior strength and
activity, partly by superior sagacity and expe-
rience— would, even in such a state of society, bs>
generally recognized. But as men settled down
into pastoral and agricultural occupations, and the
division of labour commenced, the duty of pro-
tecting the society from external aggression would
naturally be confided to a class selected for this
purpose; and, in like manner, the business of
making and executing the laws necessary for the
common good would be entrusted to another body
of functionaries. The most experienced elders
would be probably chosen for the latter purpose ; .
the most vigorous, active, and energetic in middle
life, for the former. Now subordinatioii and obe-
dience are the essentials of military success. To.
be effective, therefore, every army must have had
its leaders. Unfortunately, the command of an
army too often confers a power not only of repel-
ling foreign aggression, but of securing domestic
domination. A successful general, whom his sol-
diers, trained to military duty, have been long
accustomed implicitly and unhesitatingly to obey,
is enabled, if he chooses, to put down all othei?
authority, and establish his will as sole law through-
out the country of which he was chosen, and still,
perhaps, affects to consider himself the protector.

102 NATU'P.E AND OK!G?N OF

Such an usurpation is as easy as it is probable,
under the circumstances of strong temptation in
which military leaders are often placed. And
these tricks have, in fact, full often 4 been played
before high heaven;' — so often, as almost to justify
the ostracising jealousy of the classical republics.
History proves that all absolute governments, of
which the origin is recorded, commenced in some
circumstance of this character, which may be con-
sidered as the natural generation of despotism.

Wherever despotic power exists, whether the
result of domestic treachery or foreign invasion,
there property, as well in land, as of all other
kind, — and even life itself — is, of course, held only
at the will of the ruler. And, accordingly, we find
in countries which appear to have been subjected
to this form of government, that the exclusive pro-
prietorship of the land, as the primary source of
all wealth, has been claimed by the sovereign.

In some parts of the world this claim has been
practically exercised up to the present day, — in
others but nominally; the usufruct of the soil
having been transferred by grant of the sovereign
to inferior holders, and his claim continued, per-
haps, only in some mere formality, itself often
obsolete and disregarded. Throughout all Asia,
from China to Turkey, (excepting only the Russian
provinces,) the revenue of the ruler is still, and
always has been, raised from the cultivators of the
soil by a sort of land tax, consisting of a propor-
tion of the produce, which varies, as may naturally
be imagined, with the tyranny or mildness of the
reigning sovereign, and the greater or less powers
of exaction with which the intermediate collectors

LANDED PROPERTY IN ASIA. 103

are armed. The cultivator is by some persons con-
sidered to be, throughout this large portion of the
globe, the legal owner of his plot of land. And
indeed he has some of the supposed characteristics
of ownership, since he is empowered, in general,
to mortgage, sell, or alienate it, and that it de-
scends at his decease, if not otherwise disposed of,
in equal portions to his heirs. There is, however,
an almost infinite variety in the local customs
which determine this tenure ; every petty province
having some minute peculiarity. And it is even
yet a matter of dispute among writers who have
deeply studied the institutions of our Indian empire,
which of the three parties who have everywhere
a joint interest in the land, the peasant- cultivator
(or ryot), the tax-collector (or zemindar), and the
sovereign, is its real legitimate proprietor. In
practice, each has a lien upon its produce, and
to that extent each may be reckoned its owner.
The tax-collector, like the ryot, has an hereditary
and transferable interest in his post, which brings
him a revenue in a per centage of the sum he
collects from the ryots for the sovereign.

The question would perhaps have offered fewer
difficulties, had due attention been paid to the
simple principles on which land is originally appro-
priated from a state of waste, by the industry of the
labourer, and subsequently when it has become,
through his agency, a valuable possession, seized
on as their property by any party sufficiently power-
ful to support such a claim. The ancient institu-
tions of the Hindoos, which have scarcely varied
during four thousand years, strongly illustrate and
confirm what we have already urged on this point.

104 NATURE AND ORIGIN OF

The Institutes of Menu, a work of immense anti-
quity, expressly declare that ' cultivated land is
the property of him who cut away the wood, or
who cleared and tilled it.' And indeed if this rule
did not follow from the most obvious principles of
natural justice, its policy, as encouraging the
improvement and cultivation of waste land in a
new and little occupied country, would lead to its
enactment even under the most unnatural and
barbarous tyranny.* But every society must have
a government of some sort for its protection from
domestic anarchy and external attack ; and a
government necessitates a general contribution or
taxation for its support, which in an early and
agricultural state can only be raised off the land.
Hence a certain proportion of the produce of the
soil has been almost everywhere required for this
purpose from its cultivators. In ancient Egypt,
one- fifth of the crops was so taken. Among the
Jews, a tenth ; and in the Grecian likewise and
Bom an states a similar proportion was the contri-

* In Persia, where, from the peculiar nature of the soil,
a very expensive system of artificial irrigation by means of
wells is absolutely necessary for the production of crops, the
ancient and inalterable law confers on the person who so-
digs such wells the perpetual ownership of the land fertilized
by him, (with the sole reservation of the quit-rent or tax of
one-fifth of the produce to the Shah;) and so necessary is
the inviolability of this rule felt to be, for securing a due
supply of food in the country, that throughout the scenes of
anarchy, rapine, and licentiousness of which Persia has
been so often the theatre, property of this character has been
invariably respected. In the same manner, as we find from
the Holy Scriptures, in the very earliest ages a well in the
desert was held to be the property of him who dug it, and
of his descendants for ever.

LANDED PROPERTY IN ASIA. 105

bution generally required for the use of the state.
In Persia, a fifth; in Hindostan, from one-eighth
to one- seventeenth appears to have been levied in
the earliest ages. In the Institutes of Menu the
sovereign is expressly permitted to double this tax,
raising it to one-fourth, during war. Such was
the tax paid to Porus when Alexander invaded him.
Whether this latter regulation acted among
sovereigns as a premium on war, or not, it is but
too notorious that the Eastern world has very
rarely enjoyed the blessings of peace. And in
the convulsed and desolating state which almost
perpetual warfare induces, amid alternating inva-
sions, revolts, conspiracies, and conquests, it may
be easily imagined how, through all these phases,
the poor cultivator, whom, after all, the rival fac-
tions were but contending for the power of plun-
dering, was ground to the earth by continued
exactions, and could profit little by the barren
honour, even if it were conceded to him, of a
nominal ownership in the soil. Its produce, when
cultivated by his toil, was sure to be claimed by
some party or other, — the temporary sovereign,
or his subordinate chieftains. The ryot might
esteem himself fortunate who was allowed to pre-
serve his life and a bare sufficiency for its main-
tenance, as the requital of his toil. The question,
therefore, as to whether the Asiatic ryot, the
zemindar, or the sovereign, is the legal owner of the
soil, seems to us susceptible of a very simple
solution. Throughout the East, the will of the
sovereign has always been law — so that to hold
land by that will was to hold it by law. It is only
when law acquires a power above that of the so-

106 TENURE OF LAND IN ASIA.

vereign that private property in its true sense can
be said to exist. We must not ask then, with
regard to Asia, what is the law, but what is the
custom and the fact ; and the answer is, that the
necessity of affording to the peasant-cultivator
some guarantee for his continued occupation of the
soil he ploughs and sows, in order to induce him
to plough and sow it, has compelled the Asiatic
despots to allow him a partial and limited proprie-
torship ; that is to say, they have permitted him
and his descendants to occupy and cultivate his
spot of ground on condition of paying whatever
proportion of its produce the sovereign chooses
(directly, or through his officers, to exact, And he
has seldom, or never, been content to take less
than could by threat, torture, or violence, be
squeezed from the miserable cultivator, leaving him
a most inadequate subsistence. The cultivator is,
then, in law, custom, and fact, the slave of his
sovereign,* and his property is wholly at the com-
mand of the latter. If, therefore, as seems pre-
sumable, the owner of land can only be defined as
one who has the right of profiting by whatever
circumstances may improve the value of his land ;
the ryot has been always considered, in theory, the
landowner, — never in practice. He was conti-
nually promised this right by sovereigns or their
collectors, who wished to tempt him to improve his
land ; but who, so soon as it was improved, raised

* He is punishable with stripes if he neglect to cultivate
duly his land — his pretended property. He is, therefore,
not even master of his own limbs and actions, but essen-
tially a slave.

TENURE OF LAND IN ASIA. 107

their demands on him in proportion, so as to leave
him none of the benefit.

The Asiatic system is evidently a compromise
between the usurped and unlimited power of the
despot, and the ancient and natural privilege of
private property as the result of appropriation by
private labour; — a concession extorted from the
chief by the necessity of persuading his people to
exercise their industry, lest he should prove, like
Sultan Mahmoud, in the Arabian Nights, a ruler
only over owls and ruins, barren plains and dead
carcasses.

Even under our comparatively mild and peaceful
sway it is to be feared that the peasant-cultivators of
our Eastern empire have suffered severely from the
weight of direct taxation imposed upon them, and
the exactions of the intermediate parties who are
intrusted with the collection of the revenue from
the poor ryot.

There is nothing necessarily mischievous in the
theory of the Eastern forms of land occupation.
On the contrary, it approximates to that which we
consider the most natural, equitable, and beneficial
arrangement, — namely, the securing a permanent
property in the land to him who renders it pro-
ductive, and to his heirs, subject only to a pay-
ment to the state proportioned to the value of the
produce, for the purpose of defraying the expenses
necessary for the protection of this and other pro-
perty. The misery suffered by the land- cultivators
of Asia and the wretched state of their agriculture
are a consequence not of the original rule of the
country, but of its continual infraction. It is their
exposure to the desolating violence of almost per-

108 NATURE AND ORIGIN OF THE

petual warfare, the insatiate tyranny of despotic
power, and the extortionate rapacity of its minions,
that have dried up the naturally abundant sources
of production throughout Asia, repressed industry,
and prevented the acquisition of skill or capital
by its miserable and degraded cultivators. Had
there existed in India any defined legal rights —
any power beyond the mere arbitrary caprice of
an individual, by which the demands of the state
upon the cultivators could have been so far re-
strained as to leave the latter the power of bettering
their condition by their industry, the vast quan-
tity of waste but exuberantly fertile land in that
country, and the luxuriance of its climate, would
have admitted of an increase of production which
must have raised the prosperity of the natives and
the resources of the government to an almost
incalculable extent. The regulations which, with
the most humane intentions, have been lately
enforced for securing to the ryots the legal owner-
ship of their land, and permanently fixing the pro-
portion of their contribution to the state, are
likely in no long time to change the entire face of
the country, and benefit all parties in an extraor-
dinary degree.*

The remarks we have been led to make at some
length on the systems of land occupation in the
East will enable us to understand the more easily
the origin and real character of those which pre-
vail in Europe and the western states of the civi-

* Mr. Jones's work ' On the Distribution of Wealth*
contains in its Appendix some valuable information from
Col. Tod's Rajast'han and other sources, upon the inte-
resting topic of the land-tenure of our Indian possessions.

TENURE OF LAND IN EUROPE. 109

lized globe. Through all their vicissitudes of
peace and warfare, the institutions of the Orientals
have experienced little change ; remaining, like
their manners and customs, almost identically the
same in the present day as we know them to have
been, from authentic records, twenty centuries at
least before Christ. Not so those of the nations
of Europe. The latter, whether from an inherent
difference in their organization, or from fortuitous
circumstances, have passed through a process of
, more or less gradual change in their habits, social
arrangements, and national character; — a change
which, though fluctuating occasionally from good
to ill, may, we hope, be characterized generally as
a progressive amelioration, and may be looked upon
as opening to the speculative philanthropist the
cheering prospect of a further indefinite, but con-
tinual, improvement in the general condition of
mankind at large, over whose history Europe,
the heart of civilization, seems destined to exercise
so mighty an influence.

In Europe, as in Asia, when a military chief
had, by usurpation, conquest, or consent, acquired
absolute power, the entire soil of the country, as
well as the lives of its inhabitants, would, we might
suppose, be considered his property, to be dealt
with at his will and pleasure. This, however,
does not appear to have been the case; and we
have, therefore, to account for the circumstance,
that while in Asia absolute despotism has flou-
rished everywhere down to the present day, and
the sovereign can still command the entire pro-
duce of^the land and labour of the community, —

110 NATURE AND ORIGIN OF THE

in Europe, on the contrary, the power of a con-
queror or chieftain has always been more or less
limited, and his claim to the exclusive property of
the soil restricted to a mere nominal title.

The solution of the problem is to be sought in
the same circumstance which has tempered the
power of the sovereign in other respects as well as
in his claim to the ownership of the land, — namely,
the continual existence of an hereditary aris-
tocracy, or intermediate class of powerful indivi-
duals between the throne and the mass of the
people. Such a class has never shown itself in
Asia. There the officers of state, nobles, and
inferior authorities, derived their power, wealth,
and importance, from the sovereign alone, who
made and unmade them at his pleasure, and never
permitted them to acquire sufficient strength and
consistency to claim any privileges from a source
independent of his will. It is an interesting ques^
tion, what occasioned the existence of such a class
in Europe and their absence in Asia ? There must
have been some general predisposing cause, or so
broad and universal a distinction could scarcely
have grown up and permanently rooted itself
throughout two extensive continents.

It appears to us that the origin of this impor-
tant distinction is to be looked for in the peculiar
occupations of the primitive settlers who were the
ancestors of the people of the north of Europe,
The Scythian hordes, whose overflowing increase
seems to have been continually drafted off in a
westerly direction, were originally pastoral tribes,
led to adopt that mode of life by the peculiar

TENURE OF LAND IN EUROPE. HI

character of the elevated, open, and wide- spreading
grass-plains they occupied in Tartary, Persia, Ara-
bia, and the Russias, European and Asiatic. The
inhabitants of southern and eastern Asia were,
from the same cause, viz. the superficial nature of
their territory, which consisted of deep and rich
alluvial soils, devoted to agriculture. Now in an
agricultural territory, as we have already observed,
a successful invader or usurper has no difficulty in,
establishing and securing the power of a despotic
sovereign, and enforcing a claim of absolute right
over the land, persons, and property of all his
subjects. Such a ruler, as has also been noticed,
would naturally find his advantage in permitting
the agricultural population to continue their culti-
vation of the soil in any way they chose, and to
extend it to any hitherto untilled spot they pleased,
on condition of their paying him whatever portion
of their crops he might choose to demand ; which
portion would, of course, usually be all that could
be wrung from them without absolutely forcing
them to discontinue their labours. Hence the ryot
system of the Asiatics.

But pastoral and nomad tribes, on the contrary,
are with difficulty reduced to such prostrate sub-
jection. Their wandering habits naturally imbue
them with a love of freedom, and a spirit and
vigour with which to assert their independence.
And they possess, moreover, an easy resource, in
the power of escape by migration from any attempt
to enslave them. Whether such attempts occa-
sioned the migrations of the successive swarms
which, first passing from Asia into the north of
Europe, afterwards deluged the entire surface of

112 TENURE OF LAND IN EUROPE.

the latter continent, — or that they were owing, as
is more probable, to the multiplication of numbers
and the want of room, to which pastoral nations
are so soon exposed, — it is certain, from all
the accounts remaining to us of these tribes,
that they enjoyed a degree of freedom scarcely
compatible with the subordination necessary for
the maintenance of the social union in a settled
agricultural state. What difference of rank or
property subsisted among them was of that nature
only which still prevails among nomad tribes,
each of which recognizes a chief, with perhaps
a few subordinate officers ; and in which an
inferior class of slaves are sometimes found, con-
sisting of captives taken in war ; — the remaining
freemen being their own masters, and on a perfect
footing of equality, after arriving at a mature age.
Such were the German tribes in the time of
Tacitus; the chase and pasturage their chief
sources of subsistence ; without cities, or even
contiguous dwellings; occupying the land in com-
mon ; obeying chiefs elected out of particular fami-
lies ; and having some few subordinate distinctions
of military rank. Such too were the barbarians
who, three centuries after the Christian era, over-
ran the entire Koman empire, and settled them-
selves as conquerors in every corner of western
Europe. They are described by cotemporary
writers as great bodies of armed men, with their
wives, children, slaves, and /locks, migrating in
quest of new settlements, which they wrested by
their barbarian vigour from the effeminate and
degenerate Romans. The lands they had conquered
were probably divided equally among the free

ALLODIAL AND FEUDAL TENURES. 11 S3"

warriors, the chief retaining the largest share, and-
were cultivated principally by their slaves. But,,
as they in turn adopted some of the habits of the
people they had dispossessed, fixed themselves in.
particular spots, began to occupy themselves in
agriculture, and to build permanent habitations,,
they became more exposed to the domination of
their military chieftains. During the turbulent
middle ages these several clans were incessantly
engaged in mutual warfare under their respective
leaders; and the authority which, in a state sa
circumstanced, the chief necessarily exercised over
his body of military companions, was recom-
pensed by a division among them of the lands he,,
with their aid, wrested from their neighbours.
There existed at that time little wealth of a-
portable nature, and the reward, therefore, of mili-
tary service could only be a share of the land which
the chieftain's conquests enabled him to command,.
These lands, cultivated by the slaves taken in warr
could easily be made a source of wealth. And
such grants, when they escaped the grasp of a still
stronger tyrant or invader, were allowed to become
hereditary, on condition of the continuance of the:
same military services in consideration of which,
they were originally bestowed. In this manner,
grew up a distinction between allodial lands, or:
those which belonged to freemen, (the descend-
ants, probably, of the original free invaders among,
whom the land was partitioned upon their first
migratory settlement on it,) and the lands held by
feudal tenure of a military chief, on condition o£
military service.

The several chiefs in their turn recognized a_

114 FEUDAL SYSTEM.

supreme lord or suzerain, under whom they mar-
shalled themselves in expeditions of importance,
and from whom they likewise held feudal fiefs
granted as a reward for their past, and a gage for
their future services, on the same terms as those
they divided among their own particular sup-
porters, or vassals.

The power of the sovereign, through this gra-
duated chain of dependence, never became absolute
in Europe as in Asia. His principal vassals were
always more or less independent of him. Each
had his own clan, or body of vassals, who looked
up to him as their only head, and were ready to
obey his orders at any time, whether to act for, or
against, his suzerain. And a league of these
chieftains could often overawe, and occasionally
succeeded in dethroning their sovereign. The
entire history of Europe, in fact, is but the narra-
tive of continued struggles between sovereigns
and some of their vassal nobles ; in which now
one, now another party obtained the mastery.
Under the immediate successors of Clovis, the
Frank conqueror of Gaul, the royal authority was
uppermost. But the nobles soon contrived to
regain the power which their negligence alone had
allowed the sovereign to usurp, and which that of
the contemptible kings of the line of Clovis
enabled them easily to resume. The chief vassals
of the crown succeeded in obtaining a full recog-
nition of their hereditary right to their patrimonial
possessions, to which the royal investiture gave
more of ornament than sanction. ' From the
death of Charlemagne the kingdom of France was
a bundle of fiefs, and the king little more than one

PREDIAL SLAVERY. 115

of a number of feudal nobles, differing rather in
dignity than in power from the rest.'*

The independence of the German aristocracy
reached its height towards the middle of the thir-
teenth century. Since that period the sovereigns
found it necessary to strengthen themselves
against their nobles by calling in the aid of their
people, and particularly of the commercial and
manufacturing towns, which, with this view, they
fostered by immunities, privileges, and protection
from the extortions of the neighbouring counts
and barons. From these elements sprung the
political condition of the European states ; which,
unquestionably, owe what freedom they enjoy to
the necessity which drove the sovereign to conci-
liate the mass of the people, as a counterpoise to a
powerful aristocracy.

The land, meantime, was cultivated almost
wholly by slaves, who were bred and treated in
all respects like cattle. Their numbers were also
recruited by the prisoners taken in war, and to a
certain extent, in the most turbulent times, by free-
men, who were actually driven to enrol themselves
among the slaves of powerful chieftains in order to
preserve their lives ; a petty freeman being a
common prey to all parties, whereas the slaves of
one chief were of course protected by him from all
others. There were some distinctions among
slaves — not, however, of much importance. Some
were certainly saleable like cattle, and might be
severed from the land ; others were, by custom,
or perhaps in virtue of the original bargain under

*Hallara,i,p.244.

i 2

116 SERFSHIP.

which they or their ancestors had submitted them-
selves as slaves to the chief, attached to the soil,
(adscripti gleba,) and could only be alienated with
it. They derived their subsistence by cultivating
for their own use small tracts of land allotted to
them by the lord for this purpose, (a cheap con-
trivance for making them maintain themselves;)
and for the remainder of their time they laboured
on the demesne land, or portion reserved for the
lord's own use, the produce of which formed his
revenue. Even the kings of France and Lom-
bardy supplied the expenses of their rude courts
from their demesne lands. Charlemagne himself
was a farmer, and regulated the economy of his
farms with the minuteness of a steward.*

Nearly the whole of Europe was at one time
cultivated in this manner by slaves, or, as they are
generally called, serfs. But the labouring classes
of the western states have by slow degrees con-
trived to emancipate themselves from personal
bondage, and obtain the invaluable natural right
of either working on their own account, or dis-
posing of their services to the highest bidder.
Among the northern and eastern nations serfship
still prevails ; in some, as Russia for example, in
its unmitigated form ; the owner having almost
unlimited power over the persons of his serfs;
beating, mutilating, and even putting them to
death at his will.

The mode in which the lord in these countries
obtains a revenue from his estate is still by em-
ploying his serfs to cultivate and manage his

* Hallam, chap. ii. part ii.

GRADUAL MITIGATION" OF SERFSHIP. 117

demesne lands under a superintendent ; each serf
having permission, in return for his labour, to
maintain himself and his family, by tilling certain
portions of land allotted to him for the purpose.
Usage has by degrees established for the serfs
something like rights, which the humane genius
of modern law has learnt to respect. Their hold-
ings are considered hereditary; and in many
districts the amount of labour which the serf is
required to perform for the lord is fixed. Attempts
have likewise been made of late years to substitute
a better form of land-occupation than serfship
under any modifications can ever be ; and, by
affording the peasant a hope of improving his con-
dition by his own exertions, to stimulate his torpid
industry.

The progress of this change from serfship to
free tenancy, as it has taken place by slow degrees
in the west of Europe, may be illustrated from the
example of England. During the Saxon era,
predial slavery was universal. Even at the end of
the thirteenth century, two hundred years after
the occupation of the country by the Normans, a
very large proportion of the body of cultivators
was still precisely in the condition of the Russian
serf. During the next three hundred years, the
unlimited amount of labour exacted from the
villeins (as they were then called) in return for
the lands allotted to them, was gradually com-
muted for definite services, and they acquired a
legal right to the hereditary occupation of what
were termed their copyholds. Two hundred years
have scarcely elapsed since the change to this
extent became quite universal, or since the per-

118 EVILS OF SERFSHIP.

sonal bondage of the villeins ceased to exist
among us. The last claim of villeinage recorded
in our courts was in the fifteenth of James I. 1618.
Bare instances, perhaps, existed some time after
this. In the mean time the stipulated services
silently and imperceptibly ceased to be exacted,
or were commuted for annual money -payments.
Similar changes are now taking place throughout
Germany. They are perfected nowhere, and in
some large districts exhibit themselves in very
backward stages.

The disadvantages of a system of serfship or
villeinage are obvious, and are attested by the low
state of civilization, the poverty, and imperfect
cultivation of the countries in which it prevails.
The labour compulsorily exacted from tenants on
the grounds or on behoof of their landlords, is
sure to be performed in a very slovenly manner.
Men do not exert themselves with spirit or effect
unless they are working on their own account,
and are allowed themselves to reap all the advan-
tages of their superior industry. It has been
proved that one Middlesex mower will cut as
much grass in a day as three Russian serfs. And
the necessary absence under such a system of all
improved implements or processes of husbandry,
augments the comparative inefficiency of serf-
labour. Indolence and carelessness are the habi-
tual characteristics of a peasantry in this condition;
their want of skill, means, and energy, must have
a disastrous influence on the annual produce of
the land and labour of their territory, and tend to
keep the country they inhabit in a state of
poverty and political feebleness, from which it will

METAYER SYSTEM. 119

be impossible for it to emerge while so deleterious
a system is suffered to prevail. These disadvan-
tages are, in fact, very generally recognized by all
the enlightened classes in serf countries, and have
given rise to the numerous attempts now going on
to substitute payments of produce, or money, in
lieu of labour, as the rent of land, that is, the con-
ditions upon which the owner allows the cultivator
to occupy. The great end in view is, of course,
to encourage the industry of the cultivator by
placing him in a position to improve his own cir-
cumstances, as well as those of his landlord, by
increased skill and exertion. For the details of
these efforts, and their varied success, we must
refer to the valuable work of Mr. Jones.*

The system of serf- cultivation, though formerly
common through a very large extent of Europe,
was not universally practised. In some countries
a different plan has been acted on from a very
early period by the landowners, who have ac-
cepted from the cultivators of their estates a share
of the produce as rent. The existence of such a
state of things indicates a more advanced condition
of society than that which accompanies the serf
system. The serf, in fact, is a mere slave, com-
pelled to till his master's land, and cheaply main-
tained by the permission to cultivate for himself a
patch of soil, barely enough to provide himself
with subsistence. The metayer on the contrary
is, in all respects, a voluntary tenant, who enters
into a sort of joint- stock partnership with his land-
lord; the latter finding the land, and the seed,

* Jones on Rent. 1831.

METAYER SYSTEM —

<fcools, and stock, necessary for its cultivation ; the
former the equally necessary labour. The product;
•Is divided between them, generally in equal shares,
from which division the name (metayer, medie-
tarius) is derived. This form of holding is to be
'traced very clearly to Greece, whence it was intro-
duced among the Romans, and has perpetuated
itself, in some degree, in most of the countries
which were formerly provinces of that empire ;
•though partly superseded by that of serfship and
-villeinage, which, as we have seen, grew up under
^the feudal system. In Italy, Savoy, France, and
Spain, metayer tenancy is common, and has a
^very decided influence on the methods of cultiva-
tion, and all those important relations between the
•different orders of society which originate in the
.appropriation of the soil and the distribution of its
produce. In France, before the revolution, four-
sevenths of the whole surface was occupied en
•metairie. Even now, in spite of the multiplication
of small proprietors consequent on the revolution,
.-this class of tenants are supposed to cultivate one-
half of France, and the greater part of Italy and
->Spain.

Though the metayer has many apparent advan-
tages over the serf, in his personal freedom, and
the power he enjoys of cultivating his farm as he
pleases, freed from the tyranny and irksome super-
intendence of the proprietor, yet he is found, in
-practice, to be very little, if at all, more advan-
tageously situated. It would seem, at first sight,
.that the reward of his toil, consisting in a definite
share of the produce, would increase with his
industry and skill, and therefore stimulate him to

ITS DISADVANTAGES. 121

exertion. But the shortsighted covetousness of
the proprietors has almost everywhere prevented
this, by inducing them, when they could not by
agreement directly increase their share, to do so
indirectly, by throwing the government taxes on
the tenant, and claiming for themselves an exemp-
tion from all imposts. By this and other similar
contrivances, the share of the metayer has been
generally so reduced as to leave him but a bare
subsistence, and no hope of bettering his condition
by any exertion of industry. The metayers of
France are described by Turgot before the revolu-
tion, and by other writers of the present day, as
existing in the depth of misery, always in arrear
to their landlord, and consequently entirely at his
mercy, from their utter inability even to live upon
their half of the produce of their farms. This
misery of course reacts injuriously upon their
landlords' interests, by giving a careless, slovenly
character to their mode of cultivation, and putting
anything like energy or a spirit of improvement
out of the question.

Again, the divided interest which exists in
the produce is a bar to improvement. The tenant
is unwilling to listen to the suggestions of his
landlord ; the landlord to intrust additional means
to an ignorant, prejudiced, and careless tenant.
When stock is to be advanced by one person and
used by another, some waste and neglect in the
receiving party, great jealousy and reluctance in
the contributing party, naturally ensue. Hence
the implements and stock placed at the disposal of
the metayers are, in general, very scanty, and of an
indifferent quality ; and their land on the whole is

122 TENURE OF LAND IN ENGLAND.

very imperfectly cultivated. These disadvantages
must continue severely to affect the condition of
countries in which this imperfect system of land-
occupation prevails. Their agriculture must be
exceedingly unproductive, as compared with the
capacity of the soil and the amount of labour
existing upon it ; and since the produce of land
forms, as we have seen, the substratum of all other
wealth, the production of the aggregate stock of
the means of enjoyment must be proportionately
slow, languid, and contracted.

Such, with very trifling variations, are the imper-
fect systems on which land is occupied for the
purpose of cultivation throughout the entire con-
tinent of Asia, and nearly the whole of Europe.
In Great Britain, Holland, and the Netherlands,
a different mode has been adopted, to which in a
great measure is to be ascribed the extraordinary
comparative progress which agriculture has made
in this corner of Europe.

At a very early period, as has been already men-
tioned, the stipulated services of the villeins or
manorial tenants in England began to be com-
muted for annual payments in money. About the
same time it became not uncommon for the lord
to lease out for the duration of certain lives, or
for a term of years, portions of the manorial
waste, upon payment of a money fine, to such
persons as were desirous and able to reduce it to
tillage. As these leases expired, the lands, whose
value had increased through the cultivation be-
stowed on them, were relet for an augmented fine,

ORIGIN OF COPY AND LEASEHOLDS. 123

or at an annual money -rent ; frequently for both.
And the lord in time found it much more con-
venient to lease out in this manner his demesne
lands likewise, than to farm them himself through
a bailiff. In this manner the greater portion of
the land of England came to be occupied by
tenants on lease. Many small plots were still cul-
tivated by their owners, the liberi tenentes, or free-
holders, who had acquired them by purchase, or
by descent from the freemen and military tenants
of the feudal era. Other estates still remained in
the hands of the descendants or purchasers from
the ancient villeins, holding, as it was called, at
the will of the lord by copy of court roll, (the
record of such grants.) To the latter tenure cus-
tom, and the indulgence of the lords of manors in
never resuming the grant, in process of time gave
a prescriptive right, recognized by the courts as
a valid claim according to the common (or custom-
ary) law of the land. But even of these smaller
properties, many, when they fell into the hands of
minors or women, or were purchased by persons
engaged in trade or otherwise, were in their turn
leased out to tenants willing to pay their owners a
money-rent for their occupation. So that, by
degrees, nearly the whole surface of England, as
well the small estates of the inferior class of land-
owners, as the extensive domains of the lords of
manors, the nobles, the crown, or the church,
came to be cultivated in portions of moderate ex-
tent, by tenants who undertook to farm these
portions on leases for certain terms, stipulating
for payment to the owner of an annual rent.
Now it is immediately evident that such a

124 LEASEHOLD SYSTEM —

system of occupation must afford scope for the
development of those principles of industry and
economy which are implanted in the bosoms of all
men, and want but the slightest encouragement to
expand and perform their valuable functions. A
cultivator, secured by a lease in the possession of
all that he can raise off his farm over and above
the rent he has stipulated to pay its owner, stands
for the term of his occupation in the position of
its owner, and is urged by the inducement of direct
interest to labour in every possible way to increase
the productiveness of his holding. It is to the
assiduous industry of these leasehold tenants, and
the smaller occupying freeholders, that we are
indebted for the great advances this country has
made in agricultural skill, and for the fertilization
of almost every corner of its surface where the
plough can enter. To their steady economy we
owe the accumulated mass of agricultural capital
which renders the labour of British farmers so
greatly more effective than that of the continental
cultivators.

The advantages inherent in the leasehold system
of occupation would, however, have been ineffec-
tual, but for the protection which the law extended
to the tenants from the rapacity of their landlords,
and the countenance which the courts of Britain
have, with very rare exceptions, at all times
liberally afforded to the efforts of the industrious
classes of society to emancipate themselves from
the thraldom in which they had been bound by the
feudal system. On the Continent the worst fea-
tures of that system remained almost in their
integrity up to a very recent epoch, when its bar-

ITS ORIGIN AND ADVANTAGES. 125-

barous customs and unjust inflictions were at
length repudiated by a people among whom intel-
ligence had partially penetrated ; and the first
shock of the French revolution put an end to the
absolute power of the great landowners over their
peasantry, which had till then been usually exer-
cised with the most arbitrary severity. Perhaps it
is to the spirit of independence and love of liberty
uniformly inspired by commercial pursuits, that
we are to attribute the success which at so much
earlier a period attended the efforts of the English,
the Dutch, and some other maritime states, to free
themselves from the shackles of feudalism and the
galling yoke of the landed aristocracy, under
which the inhabitants of the more purely agricul-
tural states of the Continent continued, till very
lately, to groan. We have already seen that serf-
ship was almost wholly extinguished in England
in the time of Elizabeth. While the cultivators
of nearly all Europe were abject slaves, subjected
to the whip, knot, or gallows of their feudal lords,
the merry and stalwart yeomen of England had
rights recognized by law, which they well knew,
and, * knowing, dared maintain,' They tilled the
fields of proud and wealthy barons, not on such
terms as a master imposes on his slave, but on
those of free contract for mutual benefit, such as
left the lord as much indebted to his tenant, as the
tenant to his lord. In gaining this high compa-
rative condition, the cultivators of England were
assisted by the sovereign, who felt the advantage
of being backed by their honest and hearty loyalty
in his disputes with disloyal nobles, — and by the
judges of the law-courts appointed by him, them-

126 LEASEHOLD SYSTEM —

selves sprung from the people, and naturally in-
clined to favour the liberty of the subject. Black-
stone truly says that * the law of England has
always been ready to catch at anything in favour
of liberty.'

One other remarkable circumstance contributed
to favour the advance of the class of English
farmers in wealth and independence, namely, the
continued fall in the value of money during the
three successive centuries which followed the dis-
covery of America. The abundance of gold and
silver flowing from the new world into the old
lowered their value, and with them that of money.
The sovereigns during the same period frequently
resorted to the trick of debasing the coin of the
realm, in order to pay their old debts in money of
less intrinsic worth. And the consequence was,
that leasehold tenants who had contracted at
the beginning of a long term of occupation for
payment of a fixed annual rent, proportioned
in amount to the value of money at that time,
profited greatly as its value was subsequently less-
ened, and the money-price of every produce of
their farms proportionately increased. The land-
owners were, of course, losers in the same propor-
tion. But the nation at large benefited to an
extraordinary degree. For had this difference
passed into the hands of the landlords, to whom
in equity, perhaps, it was due, it would have been
spent by them as revenue on more sumptuous
clothing, furniture, or feasting, and larger trains
of menials ; whereas in the hands of their tenants
it was economized, and accumulated into capital,
being expended by them in the more vigorous

ITS ORIGIN AND ADVANTAGES. 127

cultivation of their farms, in bringing fresh lands
under culture, in the erection of farm buildings,
and other permanent improvements, by which the
general productiveness of the national soil was
increased.

It is to these combined causes that we must
refer the remarkable superiority of the agriculture
of Britain over that of the Continent. They
resolve themselves into circumstances, more or
less casual in their nature, which conferred on
the cultivators of land an advantage, which they
are always sure to employ to the furtherance of
agriculture and the enrichment of the state. Had
they not been aided by such adventitious circum-
stances, had they been left at the discretion of the
legal owners of the soil, these latter would, no
doubt, have mistaken their real interest, in Eng-
land, as they have done everywhere else, — in the
west as well as in the east, — and by grinding the
peasantry to the very earth, exacting from them
all the fruits of their labour beyond the barest
pittance on which life can be supported, would have
put it out of their power to accumulate the stock,
and acquire the skill, and exert the energy which
were the indispensable elements of that immense
improvement in agriculture from which the land-
lords of England, even though in spite of them-
selves, have been ultimately the greatest gainers.

Nothing can be more certain than that the
interests of the landowners of any country are
indissolubly bound up with those of their tenantry
and of the community at large. The interest of
the state obviously requires that its territory be
brought into a state of the utmost possible pro-

128 INTEREST OF LANDLORDS

ductiveness. But this can only be effected by a
body of cultivators possessed of ample capital, and
occupying their farms under such conditions as
will make it their interest to manage them in the
most perfect manner. That the landowner is
equally interested in this state of things is con-
vincingly demonstrated by a comparison of the
rent of land of equal natural qualities in England
and throughout the Continent. But the experience
of every age and country has proved, we fear, that
if it be left to the wisdom and foresight of the
landowner to encourage the growth of such a
tenantry, it will never take place. The miserable
scantiness of the produce of the greater part of the
cultivated earth is manifestly owing to the want of
capital and skill, — the poverty and degradation —
of the peasant cultivators ; a condition which is di-
rectly caused by the extortionate rapacity of those
persons, whether kings, nobles, or lesser proprie-
tors, who have established a claim to the owner-
ship of the soil. Wheresoever circumstances have
compelled a relaxation of the gripe in which the
cultivators are generally held by these terrarum
domini, they have uniformly been found to take
advantage of it for the extension and improve-
ment of agriculture. The forcible emancipation
of the great body of cultivators in France, by her
first revolution, from the oppressive bondage in
which they were previously held by their land-
lords, has, in spite of the destructive circumstances
by which that revolution was attended, and for a
long period followed — in spite of the desolating
effects of the conscriptions of Napoleon, occasioned
so vast an increase in the revenues of the great

THE PROSPERITY OF TENANTS. 129

body of agriculturists, that France consumes now
more than three times the quantity of manu-
factured commodities she did before that epoch,
and her non-agricultural population has doubled.
These facts tell how much she lost in wealth by
the feebleness of the agricultural efforts of the
peasantry under the old regime.

We repeat, that from the landowners of a
country it must not be expected that they will spon-
taneously afford that immediate relaxation of their
power over their tenantry which is necessary to
allow the latter to emerge from a state of poverty,
and cultivate with spirit and effect. This has ever
been, and must be, the work of a superior power, —
whether proceeding from above or from below,
acting with the calmness of deliberate wisdom, or
the convulsive reaction of turbulent despair, — by
which the landowner is compelled to take those
steps which are as necessary for his own as for
the general benefit.

A striking illustration of the truth of this posi-
tion,— which, harsh as it may sound, is in accord-
ance with every known fact, as well as the recog-
nized principles of human conduct — is presented
by the actual condition of Ireland. In that
country we may see the natural effects of uncon-
trolled power in a landed aristocracy to dictate the
terms on which the soil shall be cultivated by the
native population. There the far greater propor-
tion of the land is tenanted by the very lowest class
of peasantry, possessed of neither skill nor capital,
each occupying in fact but a rude turf cabin and a
plot of potato ground, with perhaps the run of a
•cow in the neighbouring common or bog. And

K

130 IRISH COTTIER SYSTEM,

these cottier tenants (as they are called) are
driven by the competition of their continually in-
creasing numbers, to offer for this miserable
holding a money rent so high as to leave them but
an inadequate supply of the coarsest fare. The
condition of the Irish peasantry proves that even
where usurpation has not proceeded to the extreme
length of claiming a property in the persons of its
subjects, still the exclusive ownership of the soil — -
which the bulk of the people must obtain leave to
cultivate, or starve, — enables the land proprietors
of a poor but populous country to impose on them
any terms they are pleased to exact, and thus
virtually, if not nominally, to enslave them. The
cottier is, in fact, an instrument which the Irish
landlord employs to wring from his estate the ut-
most return an imperfect system can produce, and
when it has served his turn, flings away to rot on
the nearest dunghill. The law mocks the Irish
peasant with the title of freeman. He is free only
to starve, — for the same law confers an uncondi-
tional monopoly of the soil of his native island on
a few individuals, and he must accept the terms
they choose to offer, however hard, or perish of
famine. And there, as elsewhere, it happens that
the over-reaching avarice of the landowner, by
clutching at all hazards an immediate gain, keeps
the peasant cultivator in a state of misery, de-
gradation, and helplessness, which totally inca-
pacitates him from developing the productiveness
of the land entrusted to him, to the great ultimate
loss of its proprietor. Hence it is that a country
blest by nature with a soil of unexampled fertility,
intersected by magnificent navigable rivers, situated

OCCUPATION OF LAND IN AMERICA. 131

in the most favourable climate, and inhabited by
an active, spirited, and energetic population, within
reach of all the advantages of the highest civiliza-
tion, and protected from external injury by a
wealthy and powerful government, — offers a pic-
ture of discontent and turbulence, of moral degra-
dation and physical want, probably unequalled in
any other quarter of the globe.

Even in England the mistaken selfishness of the
landlord class is exemplified, in their attempts by
means of the corn laws to confine the increasing
population of the country to food grown on her
limited soils. The injury which they themselves
sustain by thus checking the extension of oar
manufacturing industry, and pauperizing a large
portion of the population which might maintain
itself if it were allowed to exchange the produce
of its labour with the foreigner for food, — is easily
demonstrable, and will be reverted to in a subse-
quent chapter.

In the northern division of the New World, and
in some of our Australian colonies, we may see a
system in practice very different from any of those
we have been employed in contemplating, — a sys-
tem approaching perhaps as nearly as is desirable
to the natural and equitable law of land proprietor-
ship. Those vast territories, throughout which
man was, up to a very late period, a comparative
stranger, offered an almost boundless extent of
surface for his occupation. The adventurers that
migrated from the old world to settle on these fair
shores, bringing with them both a knowledge of
the arts of civilized life, and the habits and maxims
of regulated freedom, found there on their arrival

132 LAND TENURE IN MODERN COLONIES.

no powerful monopolists claiming, on the plea of
ancient grants or modern conquest, to exclude
them from their just place at the bosom of mother
earth — no arbitrary despot proclaiming himself,
by right divine, lord of Heaven and earth and all
that is therein, and urging them to toil only that,
like the bee-master, he might despoil them of the
honey they should store ; — they had

* The world before them where to choose,
And Providence their guide.'

Each took possession of as much land as he found
it convenient to cultivate, and rejoiced to find
-others fixing their choice in his immediate vicinity,
and sharing with him the well-known advantages
-of a division and exchange of labour. As the
settlements advanced, and it was found to be for
the common interest that the occupation of fresh
land should be regulated in a systematic manner,
for the sake of more effectually securing proper
^communications and measures for internal security
and external defence, — the state was appointed pro-
prietor of all the unoccupied lands, but only with
the view of their being dealt out to all who might
wish to settle, upon such terms and in so regu-
lated a manner as would ultimately be most con-
ducive to the benefit of the settlers themselves.

Here was a practical adoption through an ex-
tensive tract of country of those simple and natural
principles which we have shown ought every
where to regulate the appropriation of land, the
common bounty of the Creator. We see its
results in the extraordinarily rapid increase of
wealth and population among the settlers wherever

ITS ADVANTAGES. 133*

they enjoy internal tranquillity, as in the United
States and the British Colonies. In the provinces
formerly colonized by Spain and Portugal, civil
dissension, the natural fruit of the despotic prin-
ciples introduced from the mother countries, has
unhappily marred, in some degree, the lot of their
inhabitants.

Political economists are in the habit of ex-
plaining the high wages and prosperous condition
of the cultivators of North America and our
Australian possessions, by the single circumstance
of these newly-settled countries possessing vast
tracts of uncultivated land, from which it is easy
for any industrious man by the labour of his own
arm to procure a comfortable subsistence for him-
self and his family. But the fact is, that many of
the most ancient states of the old world contain*
an almost equal abundance of waste and untilled.
lands, of high natural fertility, and provided by
nature with every requisite quality for the occupa-
tion and enjoyment of man, upon the sole con-
dition that he exert the powers with which she has
furnished him in the development of their pro-
ductiveness. It is to the vices of the governments-
and institutions of the old world, not to the-
deficiency or exhaustion of its rich, and, through a.
vast extent, yet virgin soils, that we must attribute
whatever is to be found of misery in the condition
of their people. It is by the strong remaining"
taint of feudal slavery, the weight of despotic
tyranny, and the ignorance and bigotry which a,
long course of systematic oppression has engen-
dered in both people and rulers, that the develop-
ment of their natural resources is impeded, in-

134 COLONIAL CULTIVATION.

dustry, economy, and foresight prevented from
expanding themselves, and the gifts of a bountiful
Providence turned but too frequently into curses.
Nor can there be a stronger proof of this assertion
than the comparatively unimproved condition in
which the Spanish and Portuguese colonies have
stagnated, — though new and highly fertile states,
for several centuries ; whilst the northern states
of America have made, in a third part of the time,
such rapid progress in improvement, as to present
already to the delighted contemplation of the
friend of humanity one of the most powerful,
wealthy, prosperous, and civilized nations of the
globe, spread over a territory where little more
than a century back there wandered only some
scattered hordes of barbarous savages. The dif-
ference can be attributed to nothing but the
different political institutions of these settlements,
the one having been modelled on the peninsular
despotisms, the other an emanation of the stern
and independent spirit inherited from the ancient
Scythian tribes, and which, even in the worst of
times, still struggled for existence in some angle
or other of the old world. There is nowhere a
more striking proof of the relative advantages of
free and despotic institutions, and of the habits,
ways of thinking and acting, in a word, the social
disposition, respectively generated in nations by
such institutions, than is afforded by a comparison
of the actual condition and past history of the
American states of British origin, with those of
Spanish and Portuguese derivation.

In countries where erroneous institutions — by

AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS AND CAPITALISTS. 135

giving to an arbitrary sovereign, or equally arbi-
trary aristocracy, the exclusive property of the
soil, — have retained the cultivators in a state of
poverty and helplessness, each individual peasant,
with his family, occupies a separate plot of ground,
and the share of the produce which is allowed to
remain with him constitutes his wages, or the re-
turn for his labour. We have seen how scanty
and insufficient under such circumstances this
return will always be. Where, as in Britain, a
better system of cultivation prevails, the occupier
is in the habit of employing labourers to assist
him, advancing to them their subsistence, or wages,
and providing the tools, seed, and stock, necessary
for carrying on his agricultural operations on tha
extensive scale which is proved by experience to
be most favourable to production. Such a culti-
vator is a capitalist, that is to say, an owner and
employer of capital, or stock productively engaged.
Before, therefore, we can appreciate all the results
of this peculiar system of land occupation, we
must endeavour to obtain a correct notion of the
characteristics of that which has been already
mentioned as the third great and almost indis-
pensable element of production, viz. capital.

136

CHAPTER VII
CAPITAL.

The result of previous Labour — Not affixed to Land — Nor
incorporated with human ability — Nor reserved for pri-
vate Consumption — But employed, or reserved for Em-
ployment^ in Production^ with a view to Profit from sale
of its Produce. — Necessity of so restricting the meaning
of the term. — Utility of Capital. — Profit on Capital. —
Nature of Profit, and natural right to its enjoyment.—
Mistaken Views of those who declaim against the Profits
of Capital. — Fixed and Circulating Capitals. — Elements
of Profit. — Net Profit, or Interest of Money. — Inequality
of Gross Profits. — Equality of Net Profit, in the same
country.

LABOUR, as we have seen, without the assistance
of the powers of nature as developed on the sur-
face of the earth, can do nothing. But neither
can labour do much, even with the possession of
land, and the aid of all the powers of nature, in
the absence of much previous preparation, the
result of preceding labour ; — and especially of a
stock of tools to work with, of materials to work
upon, and of food, clothing, and other necessaries
for the maintenance of the labourer while at work.
A few berries from the bush, water from the spring,
and now and then a stray animal, taken by superior
swiftness of foot, must compose the sole subsistence
of the man who has within reach no prepared
reserve, either of food, or of instruments for ob-

ACCUMULATED LABOUR. 137

taining it. The poorest savage generally possesses
some stores of this nature, the products of previous
labour, nor always depends for his daily meal upon
the chance of obtaining it by his daily exertion.
But in an advanced state of society, few things
can be produced and prepared for consumption
except by processes which require much time —
days, months, often years — during which the
labourers employed must be supplied with food,
clothing, and other necessaries of subsistence. A
variety of tools, instruments, and machinery, are
equally necessary, as well as a stock of materials ;
all of which things have to be provided at an ex-
pense of much time and labour, before any of the
ordinary operations of industry can commence.
Stocks of all these things, it is evident, must be
accumulated somewhere at hand, for the use of
the various classes of labourers, or production of
no kind could be carried on. The agricultural
labourer could neither turn the soil, nor deposit a
grain in it, if he were unprovided with his spade,
plough, harrow, and other implements of husbandry.
The smith and the carpenter must cease to work
unless they can find somewhere a stock of iron
and timber prepared to their hands, as well as the
fuel, forge, and workshop, with the tools and
instruments peculiar to their trades. And these,
and all other classes of labourers, depend likewise
for their daily sustenance and comforts, on the due
provision of food, clothes, furniture, and houses,
either in their own possession or within their
reach.

The results of previous labour, accumulated in
any country, constitute its stock of wealth or of the

138 STOCK INVESTED IN LAND —

materials for producing wealth. But of this
aggregate stock a very considerable portion is so
far incorporated with, or affixed to, the soil, as
to be by law, custom, or necessity, inseparable
from it. Such are the permanent improvements
which have been made upon the land at various
times since its first occupation, with the view of
augmenting its productiveness — such as fences, du-
rable manures, roads, canals for irrigation or traffic,
plantations of fruit or forest trees, and buildings
of different kinds ; — all of which are ranked by law
and custom, together with the land to which they
are affixed, in the general class of ' immoveables,'
or landed property ; and the returns derived from
them are merged in rent. Nor can Political
Economy when taking a general view of the sources
of wealth, without inextricable confusion, depart
in this generic nomenclature from the established
usage.

Another portion of the accumulated results of
labour resides in the acquired skill and knowledge
of individuals, in the acquisition of which much
time and trouble has been expended. The entire
body of the useful arts and sciences forms a part,
and the most valuable part of the stock of society.
It is the accumulated result of intense preceding
labour on the part of the great benefactors of man-
kind for ages back, preserved to us through suc-
cessive generations, and with continual improve-
ments, by tradition or in writing. These treasures
of knowledge, however, before they can be pro-
ductively applied, must be appropriated by indi-
viduals with additional labour on their part, and
so far mixed up with their natural qualifications

IN ABILITY — IN MOVEABLES. 139

as to become personal to them. This kind of stock,
therefore, enters into the category of ability or hu-
man powers of production, under which head we
have already considered it. Its returns properly
fall under the appellation of wages.

The third and remaining portion of the aggre-
gate stock of a community consists of the material
products of previous labour, that are separable
from the soil as well as from individuals ; and it
is therefore properly designated as i moveables ' or
moveable stock.

Moveable stock is itself to be distinguished into
two great divisions, according as it is kept or used
for the purpose of producing wealth, or simply
for individual gratification without any ulterior
object.

The first division comprehends the various tools,
machinery, materials, necessaries of subsistence,
or other things provided for sale, or for the eon-
sumption and use of labourers while employed in
the production of saleable commodities ; — and is
properly designated, as we have already explained,
by the term capital. The remaining portion of
moveable stock which is not kept for sale, or con-
sumed with the view of facilitating further produc-
tion— but only for that, which is, in truth, the
real end and object of all production, the gratifi-
cation of its owner — is indifferently called revenue,
wealth, property, goods and chattels, &c. ; — but
must not be confounded with capital.

Though it may be difficult in all cases to deter-
mine of every particular object, whether it is pro-
ductively engaged, and therefore to be reckoned
capital or not ; — yet this need no more prevent our

140 REVENUE.

distinguishing the whole moveable stock of a coun-
try under two great heads, according as it is em-
ployed with a view to the reproduction of more
wealth, or only with a view to immediate gratifica-
tion, than we need be interdicted from classifying
natural objects into minerals, vegetables, and
animals, because there are some few intermediate
species which can be with difficulty referred to
either class. No useful conclusions can possibly
be come to upon what is going forward in society,
if we do not distinguish between those masses of
wealth which are habitually consumed in a pro-
ductive manner — in such a way, that is, as to pro-
duce an equal or greater quantity of wealth — from
those which are consumed unproductively, or so
as to leave no equivalent behind. When an indi-
vidual consumes a certain quantity of his stock
with no other aim or result than the gratification
of himself or his friends, the mass of wealth is pro
tanto diminished ; and though gratification is the
ultimate end of all production, yet since a portion
of the means of gratification is destroyed, and no
similar portion produced, such consumption i&
evidently unproductive. What is consumed in
this way is usually said to be expended as revenue.
When an individual, on the other hand, purposely
expends stock in such a way as that its consump-
tion is the means of producing an equal or greater
quantity — as for example, the consumption of seed
and husbandry implements by a farmer : no por-
tion of the aggregate of wealth is destroyed ; but
on the contrary, there is, in almost every case,
an increase, which forms, what is usually called
profit, and is the motive for such expenditure.

DEFINITION OF CAPITAL. 141

We should therefore define capital as that portion
of moveable stock which is employed, or reserved
for employment, in production, — to which we
would add (in order to exclude ambiguity as far
as possible) — with a view to profit by the sale of
its produce*.

* The term capital is employed, we think, by Smith and
most other economists in far too extended a sense, and
requires to be more strictly limited than it usually is by
writers on the subject, if we desire to preserve any distinc-
tion between this and the other main elements of produc-
tion, land and labour. We cannot acknowledge acquired skill,
ibr instance, to be properly called capital., unless by metaphor.
Otherwise, what is pure labour ? The mere brute force of
man is rarely, if ever, exerted without some little skill to
aid its application, a skill acquired by practice or precept.
There is no occupation so mechanical, not even that of
carrying a load, or breaking stones on the highway, in
which some skill may not be acquired, so as to enable one
man to do more work than another who is less skilled. It
is true that much capital is often expended by labourers in
the acquisition of skill and knowledge, which eventually
bring in to their owners an increased return ; but when
capital has been thus incorporated with man himself in
the increase of his productive powers, we must consider it
more accordant with usage, and less likely to create con-
fusion, that it should thenceforward go by the name of
ability, not capital ; and its returns be called wages, not
profit.

Again, when capital has been expended upon the perma-
* nent improvement of land, as in clearing, fencing, draining,
and fertilizing it, in roads, canals, bridges, and buildings,
we can no longer think it properly designated as capital.
It is incorporated with land, so as to be inseparable from
it, except by an extremely slow process ; and its returns are
practically merged in rent. This portion of rent undoubtedly
represents the profit of the capital which has been spent on
the land, just as the increased wages of an artificer repre-
sent the profit of the capital expended in teaching him his
irade; and we need not forget this, though it may be more

142 UTILITY OF CAPITAL.

No labourer, we have said, can work at any-
thing hut with the aid of capital, either produced
hy himself, or procured from others. But produc-
tion could advance only with the utmost slowness,

convenient and more accordant with usage, instead of calling
them both profits, to call one rent, the other wages. If
labour, land, and capital, are to be distinguished by any
intelligible line of separation, we think it can only be by in-
cluding, under the first term, all the productively engaged
powers of man, natural or acquired ; under the second, those
of the soil and the things permanently affixed to it ; under
the third, those of the moveable substances man has stored
up with a view to production. In Political Economy, much
labour has been expended in vain, and great confusion
introduced, where all is really plain enough, by over refining,
and by ill-judged endeavours to give a mathematical accu-
racy to definitions and propositions which from the nature
of their subject can pretend to no more than the grouping
of phenomena according to their most striking general
characters. If, as the definitions and language of some
economists would contend, every thing on which capital has
been expended with a view to a return is still to be called
capital, there is an end to all distinction between the three
primary elements of wealth. All labour then is capital,
and all land. The labourer must be reared on capital for
years before he can do any work ; he must be fed daily on
capital, or his ability vanishes ; land must be cleared and
cultivated by capital, or it will produce nothing. Both
labour and land are, therefore, by this rule essentially and
entirely capital, and all wages and rents are in fact profits!
And so, indeed, says Mr. Macculloch, with all possible
gravity, (Principles of Political Economy, p. 118) quite
regardless of the circumstance that every one of his works,
even that in which he comes to so startling a conclusion, is
entirely made up of a series of disquisitions on the recipro-
cal influence of land, labour, and capital, rent, wages, and
profit. We need hardly observe that things which are
identical can have no reciprocal action on each other. The
same spirit of ultra-refinement has driven him into the
equally monstrous inconsistency of defining labour to be

PROPERTY IN CAPITAL. 143

if every labourer were to endeavour to fabricate
for himself the tools he works with, and to raise
from the soil the materials he employs and the food
he consumes. At a very early period in the pro-
gress of improvement through the division of
labour, it must have been discovered by experience
to facilitate greatly the object of all labour, pro-
duction, for some classes of labourers to occupy
themselves exclusively in making tools and ma-
chinery of different sorts for the use of the re-
mainder— others in the cultivation and preparation
of the different kinds of raw material required for
the several processes of industry, — and others
again in the growth and provision of the food,
clothing, and various articles which are necessary
for the subsistence of the whole.

The stock of these things which an individual
has produced, not for his own use, but with a view
to their employment or consumption by others,
are of course as much his property, as if he had
intended them for his own use, and he has the
right to dispose of them to those who want them

' any sort of action or operation, whether performed by man,
the lower animals, machinery, or natural agents, that tends
to bring about a desirable result;' (Edition of Wealth of
Nations,) thus making labour include both capital and land.
Again, his definition of capital, as 'all that can be made to
aid in production,' includes in it land, labour, revenue, and
profit itself: while his astounding declaration, that bubble-
blowing and turtle-eating are productive occupations,
necessarily follows from these premises. If such definitions
are adopted, Political Economy becomes at once an entire
jumble of meaningless phrases : land, labour, and capital, —
rent, wages, and profits, are all different words for the same
thing ; — production and consumption are undistmguishable ;
' And nought is every thing, and every thing is nought/

144 PROFIT OF CAPITAL

on the most advantageous terms he can make.
He can either sell them out-right ; or, if it be more
convenient both to him and to those who wish to
employ the things, lend them, on condition of
receiving a stipulated remuneration for their loan,
in addition to the repayment of the things them-
selves, or their equivalent. Or as a third alterna-
tive, he may retain some portion of his capital in
his possession, such as machinery and implements,
and with another portion, consisting perhaps of
the necessaries of subsistence, or their equivalent,
purchase the labour of such individuals as are
willing to work for him, employing his capital.

If the entire capital a labourer works with belong
to himself, whether by right of purchase or pro-
duction, the whole produce of his labour will
likewise properly belong to him. But if he works
with the capital of another, it is evident that a
part of the produce which results from the joint
employment of his labour and the other's capital
belongs of right to the owner of the capital. Thus
if A supplies B with either food, or tools, or
materials, upon which to work at making any
article, it is clear that a proportionate part of the
article or of its value rightfully belongs to A.
What this part should be — what, in short, should
be the several shares of the labourer and the capi-
talist in any case, must depend on the relative value
of the capital supplied by one, and the labour fur-
nished by the other, and this can only be equitably
settled by previous agreement between the parties,
voluntarily entered into by both for their mutual
advantage.
The share of the labourer is the remuneration

RIGHT TO PROFIT. 145"

of his labour, and forms his wages. The share
of the capitalist goes, for the most part, to re-
place that portion of his capital which has been
consumed, damaged, or worn out, in its employ-
ment. But there must remain to the latter some
surplus beyond this ; for it would be worth no
man's while to employ his capital productively, if
he can gain nothing by so doing. The surplus
which accrues to the capitalist after his capital has
been replaced, is his only remuneration for its
employment, and is called its profit. Profit is the-
inducement of the capitalist to employ his capital
in production, just as wages form the inducement
of the labourer to exert his skill and strength in
the same manner. The former has obviously as
much right to be paid for the use of his capital,
as the latter for the use of his labour. Both have
combine-d to produce a joint result, which could
not have existed in the absence of either. Without
the capital, the labour would have been nearly un-
productive ; without the labour, the capital must
have remained dormant and unincreased, even if
secure from waste. The right to possess and
freely dispose of capital, and to receive whatever re-
turn, or profit, is to be obtained by accommodating
other parties with its loan, or by employing the
hired labour of others in rendering it productive,
stands evidently on precisely the same ground as
the right to possess or dispose of any other thing,
equally the produce of labour. The expediency
of protecting the free use and employment of pro-
perty as capital, that is to say, productively , and
the free enjoyment of its returns, is evident from the

146 NATURE OF PROFIT.:

simple consideration that in the absence of such
protection no one would produce any of such
things as are necessary for aiding production, — at
all events, no more of them than he wanted for his
own use. Every labourer must then make his own
tools, and raise from the earth his raw materials
and his food. There would be an end at once to
all that vast increase of the general stock of the
means of enjoyment which results from the divi-
sion of labourers into the various classes of tool-
makers, growers and preparers of raw material
and of food, house-builders, furniture-makers,
manufacturers of clothing, ornaments, &c. So-
ciety would be resolved into its first elements.
Each man must betake himself to the cave or
hollow tree for shelter, his nails for tools, berries
and game his sole food, skins his only clothing ;
and famine and want must rapidly cut down the
numbers of mankind to the meagre hordes of mise-
rable savages that could alone support themselves
on such terms.

The profit obtained by the owner of capital
from its productive employment, whether in his
own hands or those of another party, to whom it
is lent, is to be viewed in the light of a compen-
sation to him for abstaini?ig for a time from the
consumption of that portion of his property on
his personal gratification ; and the compensation
is therefore proportioned to the time during which
his capital is so engaged instead of being spent
upon himself, as revenue. It has been said time
is a mere word — a sound — can do nothing, is no-
thing ; — and can ^therefore neither have nor give

COMPENSATION FOR TIME. 147

value*. This is a very great and extraordinary
mistake. What gives value in exchange to labour ?
Only that no one will, under a free system, give
his labour for nothing, and consequently those
who require the labour of others must pay for it.
But the same cause gives value to time, No one
will sacrifice time by allowing it to operate on his
property — will sow his wheat, for instance, and al-
low it to remain a twelvemonth in the ground, or
leave his wine in a cellar for years, instead of con-
suming these things, or their equivalents, at once —
unless he expects them to acquire additional value
in proportion to the time during which they are so
kept unconsumed. That they do thus acquire addi-
tional value, owing to certain natural laws — the
sown wheat multiplying itself in its crop, the
kept wine improving in flavour — is notorious.
And if this additional value were not to be allowed
to their owner in the price he obtains on parting
with them, it is evident there would be no in-
ducement to him to employ his property in this
productive manner. Wheat would not be sown
for a future crop — wine would not be placed in.
cellars to improve. Were it not for the certain
prospect of the profit to be obtained at a distant
time by the productive employment of capital,
and that the profit too will be proportioned to the
time which elapses before the production is com-
pleted, no one would employ any portion of his
wealth productively, except for the relief of his
own immediate wants — no one would accumulate
wealth in a productive shape, except for his own

* Macculloch, Political Economy, p. 314 ; Mill's Ele-
ments of Political Economy, p. 9,

L2

148 ALLOWANCE OF PROFIT —

consumption. Capital, in its true sense, would
almost cease to exist. If, under these circum-
stances, property were accumulated, as no doubt
it still would be, through the influence of the
strong natural passion for accumulation which
exists in most minds, it would be hoarded in the
form of substances that could be kept by their
owners without injury, but without utility — gold,
jewels, plate, pictures, furniture,

' Rich stuffs and ornaments of household.'

And, in fact, in barbarous ages, when there ex-
isted a prejudice against the taking of interest on
property lent^ these were the forms exclusively
assumed by accumulated wealth. The owner of
such treasures might, perhaps, occasionally gloat
over them with a miserly satisfaction, but still
with less gratification than if they had been in-
creasing through their productive employment —
while to none but himself could they be of any
service whatever. And thus they remained locked
up in chests and closets, without contributing in any
degree to the benefit of any person — until, per-
haps, the strong temptation they offered to the
cupidity of the robber or the tyrant caused the
destruction of their possessor, and the dispersion
of his treasure into other hands — there to stag-
nate as uselessly to the mass of mankind.

But when freedom is afforded to the employ-
ment of capital, and security to the enjoyment of
its returns — when no impediment is offered by
mistaken legislation, grasping tyranny, or vulgar
prejudice, to the voluntary and mutually beneficial
agreement of two parties, one of which is desi-

INDISPENSABLE TO PRODUCTION. 149

rous of productively using for a season what the
other has painfully produced or saved by a sacri-
fice of present ease or enjoyment — the self-same
passion for accumulation induces every one who
is able to save, instead of hoarding his savings in
these unprofitable shapes, to give them the form of
tools, buildings, machinery, raw materials, and
food — objects which he can lend out to labourers
for employment in production, on the condition of
receiving for their use, a share of the increase of
wealth they assist the latter in producing. In
this way the miser of former days is converted
into the employer of labour, and the promoter of
every useful and valuable branch of industry
And thus those selfish feelings of our nature
which prompt to the increase and accumulation of
wealth — not as a means merely, but an end — be-
come in the highest degree serviceable to the
common interest, and are enlisted in the cause of
the general happiness. The miser of the present
day may yet, like his prototype in the dark ages,
gloat over his wealth ; but he now keeps it by him,
in the form, not of gold ingots, jewels, and costly
stuffs- — but of bills, bonds, and securities, the re.-
presentatives of that substantial wealth, which, in-
stead of rotting in close coffers, is employed in
the hands of ceaseless industry, levelling the
forest, and cultivating the plain, quarrying the
mine, giving motion to the loom, and ploughing
the ocean, — taking a thousand shapes, perhaps, but
in each aiding man to avail himself of the pro-
lific powers of nature, and multiply his means of
subsistence and enjoyment. True it is, this ca-
pital would produce no increase without the skill

150 PREJUDICE AGAINST CAPITAL—

and labour of those who employ it ; — but it is
equally true that their skill and labour would pro-
duce nothing, — nay, that they could not even
maintain their existence, without the capital which
they employ, and that by which they are main-
tained while at work. The wealth which is pro-
duced by the union of capital with skill and labour,
is evidently, as .we have already said, the joint
property of the owners of the capital and of the
skilled labour. Each has contributed to its pro-
duction, and each has a right to a share of it.
If the capitalist were to be unjustly denied his
share, accumulated property would thenceforth
never take the form of capital ; except that small
portion which each man could employ by himself
and for his own immediate purposes.

All this seems so obvious to the most ordinary
capacity as hardly to be worth dwelling upon.
And yet there are persons who still, — in the pre-
sent light of civilization, in the nineteenth century,
and in the midst of all the evidence which is
afforded, wherever we turn our eyes, of the pro-
digious part which capital is playing in the pro-
duction of the necessaries, comforts, and luxuries
of human life, — declaim against capital as the
poison of society, and the taking of interest on
capital by its owners, as an abuse, an injustice, a
robbery of the class of labourers!* Such blind-
ness is to me truly unaccountable. That those
who observe the prevalence of great misery among
the inferior classes of workmen in this and other

* See Hodgskin's Popular Political Economy, ' Labour
defended against the Claims of Capital,' and other works
of the same author.

ITS MONSTROUS FOLLY. 151

wealthy countries, — who witness and deplore the
fact, that in spite of all the manifold improve-
ments which are continually adding to the pro-
ductiveness of labour, the share of the gross
production which falls to the common labourer
does not increase — perhaps even diminishes — that,
on viewing this anomaly, they should conclude
something to be wrong in the arrangements which
at present determine the distribution of the wealth
produced in great part by labour — is no source of
astonishment to me, — for I arrive at the same
necessary conclusion from the same observation.
But that any sane person should attribute the evil
to the existence of capital — that is, to the employ-
ment of wealth in aiding the production of further
wealth, instead of being unproductively consumed,
almost, if not quite, as fast as it is created, or un-
productively hoarded to satisfy the lust of the
miser — is indeed wonderful. Why, without capi-
tal, this island would not afford subsistence to a
hundredth part of its present population. Destroy
the security for the free enjoyment or disposal of
capital, — deny its owner the privilege of accepting
what any one may find it for his advantage to
give for its use — arid every individual will be
reduced at once to his unaided resources. He will
find nowhere any store of food on which to live
while he is digging, and sowing, and protecting his
immature crop, — no stock of tools with which to
work, or of clothes and other necessaries of exist-
ence. All trades would stop at once, for every
trade is carried on by means of capital. Men
would at once be reduced to the isolation and help-
lessness of barbarism.

152 THE RIGHT TO CAPITAL AND ITS PROFIT —

But, perhaps, it is in the imagination of these
schemers, that there should not be a general de-
struction, but only a general divisio?i, of the
capital at present existing, among the present race
of labourers; so that each, it is thought, would,
for some time at least, be provided with a stock of
food, clothes, and tools, with which to continue
the business of production. We suppose some-
thing like this is contemplated. But, putting out
of sight the injustice, confusion, and attendant
horrors of the frightful scramble which is here
disguised under the smooth name of a general
•division of property — (a scramble which, in the
extremely complicated and artificial state of so-
ciety characterizing this country, must be attended
with infinitely more violence, convulsion, and dis-
turbance, than any political catastrophe on re-
cord,)— how, we must beg to ask, is production
to go on afterwards ? In a very short time, a
large part of the population — all the idle — and in
•such a crisis there can be but little industry — will
have consumed their share of the plunder in riot
and excess. Admitting that others have gone to
work industriously in the production of the things
they require, each for himself — have ploughed and
sown, and spun and wove, — have stored corn in
their granaries, and cattle in their homesteads, and
fuel and clothing and comforts of various kinds in
their lofts, and cellars, and warehouses, — what is to
become of all that large body who, having squan-
dered away their share of the general booty, will
have no means left of maintenance ? Heps and
Jiaws cannot last them long. It is clear that one
of two things must occur. Either they will, if

THE FIRST RIGHT OF INDUSTRY. 153

sufficiently numerous and strong, call for another
division of property, that is, once more plunder
the barns, granaries, homesteads, and warehouses
of the industrious; — or, if they are not strong
enough to attempt this, they will humble them-
selves to the owners of these same barns and
warehouses, and petition for food and clothing in
return for all they have to offer, their labour; that
is to say, they will apply to them for employment
arid wages. If the owners of property refuse their
petition, starvation and disease must rapidly carry
them off; not however before they have robbed,
and plundered, and done all the injury to the
remainder of society which their despair and des-
titution will prompt. If their request is acceded
to, the old system of masters and men, capitalists
and labourers, will recommence ; — and the so-
ciety— at least whatever portion of it we can sup-
pose to have survived the shock of such a con-
vulsion,— will be reconstituted on its old and natural
principles, to recommence the difficult march of
improvement, and with the feeble hope of re-
gaining, after the lapse of years, perhaps of ages,
the elevated position we are at present so fortunate
as to occupy, as yet unscathed, — to reproduce
slowly and painfully the vast stock of accumu-
lated capital which it once possessed, but which, in
a fit of popular insanity, had been broken down
and scattered to the winds.

The security of property and the liberty of con-
suming or employing it in whatever way the owner
pleases, or finds most for his interest, is, as has
been truly observed, the first of the rights of in-
dustry, and the essential condition of her pro-

154 FIXED CAPITAL.

gression. But of all modes of employing property,
the very last which it would occur to an en-
lightened friend of humanity to obstruct, is its
employment in aiding production — that is, as
capital. It is quite clear that the profit or interest
to be gained by the employment of capital is the
principal motive to its accumulation, and the only
one to its employment in furthering production.
It is quite clear that if the owner of capital is not
allowed to make what profit he can upon it by
lending it to others, no one will accumulate more
capital than he can use himself, and nearly all
savings would thenceforward be hoarded in cellars
and closets, instead of aiding industry and facili-
tating production.

Adam Smith and other economists distinguish
two kinds of -capital, fixed and circulating. The
latter is defined to consist of such things as
are continually going from and returning again
to their owner, and afford a profit only on being
parted with; such is the money which a master
keeps by him to pay his workmen, his stock of
materials, and of worked-up goods — and the stock
in trade of all wholesale or retail tradesmen.
Capital is said to be fixed which is invested in
buildings, machinery, implements for facilitating
labour, improvements of land, roads, canals,
bridges, railways, &c. ; things which yield a profit,
not by being parted with, but while remaining in
their owner's hands, and employed in producing
other things. Smith considers as fixed capital the
acquired skill and ability of the members of society.

It is doubtless serviceable to distinguish those

CIRCULATING CAPITAL. 150

kinds of capital which are rapidly circulated — that
is, consumed and replaced within brief periods, as
a year for example, from capital of a more
durable nature. But it may be surmised that
except in the time during which they remain un-
consumed in the employer's hands, there is no real
distinction between the two classes of capital here
mentioned. The capital laid out by a manufac-
turer, farmer, or tradesman, in the payment of his
labourers' wages, circulates most rapidly; being
turned, perhaps, once a week, if his men are paid
weekly by the weekly receipts on his bills or sales.
That invested in his materials and stock in hand
circulates less quickly, being turned, perhaps
twice, perhaps four times, in the year, according
to the time consumed between his purchases of
the one and sales of the other, supposing him to
buy and sell on equal credits. The capital in-
vested in his implements and machinery circulates
still more slowly, being turned, that is consumed
and renewed, on the average, perhaps, but once in
five or ten years ; though there are many tools
that are worn out in one set of operations. The
capital which is embarked in buildings, as mills,
shops, warehouses, barns, in roads, irrigation,
&c., may appear scarcely to circulate at all. But
in truth, these things are, to the full, as much as
those we have enumerated, consumed in contri-
buting to production, and must be reproduced
in order to enable the producer to continue his
operations ; with this only difference, that they are
consumed and reproduced by slower degrees than
the rest. The continual repairs they require attest
their consumption and reproduction; and the

156 VARYING RATES OF CIRCULATION.

capital invested in them may be turned, perhaps,
every twenty or fifty years. If then the terms
fixed and circulating capital are to be retained, I
would confine the latter to such portions of
capital as are renewed or repurchased, and con-
sumed or parted with, within a year; that of
fixed capital to such as remain more than a year
with the person who employs them for profit.*

In some trades the whole capital embarked is
turned or circulated several times within the year.
In others a part is turned oftener than once a year,
another part less often. It is the average period
which his entire capital takes in passing through
his hands or making one revolution, from which a
capitalist must calculate his profits. Suppose, for
example, that a person engaged in a particular
business has one-half of his capital invested in
buildings and machinery, so as to be turned only
once in ten years ; that one-fourth more, the cost
of his tools, &c., is turned once in two years, and
the remaining fourth employed in paying wages
and purchasing material is turned twice in one

* The futility of Smith's distinction is seen in his efforts
to separate a farmer's stock into fixed or circulating capital,
according as it is kept by him or parted with for profit.
Thus the cattle and sheep a farmer milks and shears are
said to be fixed, those he grazes and breeds, circulating
capital. The seed he throws into the ground to produce
next year's crop of corn is a fixed, — the hay he feeds his
breeding or lean cattle upon to produce next year's crop of
lambs or fat beef, a circulating capital. The truth is, that
with a farmer as with any other producer, of the capital
which the extent of his business requires, part circulates
more, part less slowly. The average period in which his
entire capital is turned, that is, parted with and reproduced,
is the time upon which his profit is calculated.

PROFIT CALCULATED ON THE MEAN RATE. 157

year. Say that his entire capital is 10,000/.
Then his annual expenditure will be

£5000 ~ 10 =± £500
2500 -7- 2 = 1250
2500 X 2 = 5000

£6750
7j per cent, on £10,000 = 750

£7500

To which sum his annual sales should amount
in order to clear seven and a half per cent, profit
on his capital, and for this end he must charge
a profit often per cent, on the value of his goods;
the mean term in which his capital is turned being
sixteen months.

Take another case, in which the fixed capital
required bears a smaller proportion to that which
circulates rapidly. Say that one-fourth of the entire
capital circulates in ten years, one-fourth in one
year, and one-half twice in the year. Then the
annual expenditure will be,

£2500 -f- 10 = £250

2500 — 2500

5000 X 2 =10,000

£12,750

7J per cent, on £10,000 = 750

Annual sales . . . £13,500

In this case a profit of little more than five and
a half per cent, on the value of the goods will
bring in to the producer seven and a half per cent.

158 ANALYSIS OF PROFITS — WAGES —

of annual profit upon his capital ; tlie^entire capi-
tal circulating in a mean period of less than nine
months.

Should the greater part of the capital embarked
circulate still more rapidly, a much smaller per
centage on the articles sold will pay a fair profit
on the capital. Should'the capital, for instance,
be turned five times on the average in the year, a
profit of one per cent, on the sales will bring in
five per cent, annual profit on the capital.

The higher the profit that can be obtained on
capital, the greater of course the encouragement
to its accumulation and employment.

But before we can speak of profits as high or
low, we must learn to distinguish matters, which,
in ordinary language, go by the name of profits,
from the interest or net profit on capital.

Many capitalists are themselves personally en-
gaged in productive occupations. The manu-
facturer, the merchant, the tradesman, the farmer,
the master-mechanic, are all capitalist- labourers.
The surplus by which the sum they realize from
the sale of their produce exceeds the sum they have
expended in its production, is in common lan-
guage called their profits, or living profits. But
some portion of this is unquestionably of the
nature of wages, — the recompense of their per-
sonal labour, skill and ingenuity. Another portion
often consists of monopoly gains, arising from the
possession of exclusive advantages, such as secret
processes, patent instruments or machinery, supe-
rior connexions, information, facilities of local
position, &c. Another portion consists of a com-
pensation for the peculiar risks incident to the
business in which the capital is engaged. It is

INTEREST — INSURANCE AGAINST RISKS. 159

the remainder only that properly forms the net
profit or interest of capital — that return for its
temporary use which can be got without personal
lahour or extraordinary hazard. This is usually
calculated as a per-centage on the value in money
of the capital employed. And it is itself made up
of, 1. Compensation for the sacrifice of immediate
personal gratification ; 2. Insurance against the
risk of loss through circumstances which may
affect the general security of property. The latter
element of interest depends on the internal tran-
quillity of the country ; the chance of foreign inva-
sions or political convulsions, such as endanger
property ; the efficacy of the laws which enforce
contracts; the pure administration of justice; and
other similar considerations, — varying in an ex-
treme degree in different times and places; —
insomuch, that a half per cent, in England will be,
perhaps, a fuller compensation for such risk, than
two per cent, in Ireland, three per cent, in Russia
or France, and ten per cent, in Turkey.

Under similar circumstances of political risk
the interest of money, or net profit of capital, will
vary according to the quantity of capital seeking
employment as compared to the demand for it.
The supply and the demand of capital depend on
the relative force of two powerful principles in
human nature continually opposed to each other, —
the desire to consume, and the desire to save or
amass. Were every individual in a country to
consume the whole of his income, whether derived
from rent, wages, or profit, the amount of capital
would remain stationary. Were the owners of
capital to consume annually a portion of their
stock, while the labourers consumed the whole of
their wages, and the landlords the whole of their

160 NATURAL ADJUSTMENT OF CAPITAL.

rents, capital would decrease. The history of
nations, however, teaches, that wherever institu-
tions exist affording any tolerable security to the
peaceful possession and enjoyment of property,
the saving principle is sure so far to prevail over
its antagonist, (chiefly among the industrious
classes,) as to cause a continual increase of capital
through the accumulation of portions of income
abstracted from revenue to be employed as capital.
But not only does the rate at which capital
increases, and therefore its supply, depend on the
relative predominance of the saving over the
spending passion, but the demand for it is influ-
enced in the inverse sense, by the same circum-
stance. If we suppose the passion of saving
carried to excess in any country, — were every
member of society to content himself with the
mere necessaries of life, and endeavour to employ
as capital all the remainder of his income — it is
evident that the demand for commodities would be
limited to the bare necessaries of life for that
number of individuals. All the various productions,
which art and ingenuity now supply to gratify the
infinite wants and caprices of mankind, would glut
the market without a purchaser. The demand for
capital would shrink almost to nothing, and profits
fall to the merest trifle. This, however, is an
extreme supposition, which can never really hap-
pen ; for if profits fall through the competition of
increased capital, the inducement to save is weak-
ened, while that to spend is increased, by the fall
in cost of all articles consequent on diminished
profits. It may, therefore, be safely left to the
mutually counteracting influences of the two pas-
sions we have spoken of, to determine that current
average rate of net profit, which is the measure of

INEQUALITY OF GROSS PROFITS. 161

the degree in which the owners of capital prefer
prospective gain to present enjoyment.

From what we have now advanced it is evident
that no conclusion can be come to upon the relative
advantages of any two trades, or ways of employing
capital, from a mere statement of the gross profits
returned by each. One may return twelve per
cent., the other only six, yet the net profit, or real
advantages derived from the capital embarked in
each by its owners, may be, in reality, equal. The
gross profits of the first business may be swelled
by the circumstance of its requiring a much higher
class of ability to exercise it, (as the trade of
making chronometers, compared to that of making
wooden clocks) ; — or through its being carried on
with the help of some secret process, patented
machinery, or peculiar advantage of position,
(such as the vicinity of coal or iron mines, canals,
railroads, or other facilities of transport) ; — or by
reason of the greater comparative risks to which
the business is subjected, — as that of gunpowder
making, or ship insurance, over occupations not
so exposed to casualties ; or of trades in which
long and large credits are given (a London tailor's,
for example) over those in which the returns are
quick and sure. If the two trades whose profits
are compared, are not carried on in the same
country, or under the same laws and government,
then the variation in their gross profits may be
still further swelled by the difference of the risk
each is subjected to from political circumstances
affecting the security of property in general ; as
in the instance of Ireland and Great Britain.
Nothing therefore can be more fallacious than the

M

162 OSCILLATIONS OF NET PROFIT —

idea that the amount of the profits realized in
any business (in the vulgar meaning of the term,
in which it has likewise been used by most po-
litical economists) forms a just measure of the
real surplus returns of the capital engaged in it ;
nor can any proposition be more erroneous than
that there ever will, or can, be any thing like an
equalization of the gross profits of every business.

Making abstraction, however, of all the above-
mentioned extraneous circumstances of risk, trou-
ble of personal superintendence, or peculiar advan-
tages, it is evident that the net profit or interest of
capital to be realized from different modes of
employment, in the same country, or under the
same political circumstances, will be equal, or
nearly so. And for the reason, that as fresh
capital is being continually accumulated from fresh
savings, there will be a number of persons con-
tinually on the look-out for the means of employ-
ing their capital to the greatest advantage ; and if
any one occupation promised a higher return
than others, making allowance for its peculiar
compensatory risks, difficulties, labour, and other
circumstances, — it would be chosen in preference
by so many of these speculators, as by the compe-
tition of their produce in the market must soon
bring down the returns of that particular trade to
the general level, — perhaps for some time below
it. There is, in fact, a continual oscillation of
this sort going on in the returns of capital in most
employments, about the mean level or average of
net profit, and is accompanied, or rather, caused,
by an analogous oscillation in the market value,
or selling price, of commodities about the mean

ABOUT A MEAN LEVEL. 163

cost of their production. These are matters into
which, now that we have obtained a tolerably clear
notion of the nature of the primary elements of
production, labour, land, and capital, we must
enter into further detail.

164

CHAPTER VIII.
VALUE.

Value, necessarily relative — A"o real Value — General Value
— Meajis ' Purchasing Power' — Elements of Value—
Monopoly — Costs of Production. Rent, the result of
Monopoly — Does not enter into Price — Distinction be-
tween good and bad Monopolies — Demand and Supply —
Their variations and reciprocal action — Cost of Pro
duct ion — Consists in Labour , Capita/, Time, Monopoly,
and Taxation. — Competition of Producers, by which
Supply and Demand are kept nearly Level — Different In-
vestments of Capital and Labour — Partial Glut — General
Glut impossible, except through a Scarcity of Money.

MUCH confusion has attended the use of this word
in political economy, which a simple analysis of
its meaning might have obviated. In common
language everything which is desirable, as health,
wit, beauty, goodness, is said to have value. But
political economy meddles only with things which
are the subject of exchanges ; and in the discussions
of the science, value therefore must mean always
commercial value, or value in exchange. In this
sense, in order to have value, it is not enough that
an object be desirable. Many things are highly
desirable for their useful or agreeable qualities, (as
air, light, and water, for example,) but yet under
ordinary circumstances, have no value — because
their supply being unlimited and no trouble re-

VALUE NECESSARILY RELATIVE. 165

quired from any one to obtain as much of them as
he can want, no one will give anything in ex~
change for them. The moment their svpply falls
short of the quantity required, — in other words, of
the demand, — or that it becomes necessary to take
some trouble to obtain the quantity required, they
acquire an exchangeable value. On board ship —
in the deserts of Africa — and in other places where
the stock of water falls short of the quantity re-
quired, it obtains a value, which rises with its scar-
city. In cities, water is habitually sold at a con-
siderable price ; and this price is generally pro-
portioned to the trouble necessary for supplying
the quantity required.

When, then, we speak of the value of anything,
we must always have reference to some object of
comparison or exchange. In ordinary phrase,
money is the understood object of reference. But
money being merely, as has been said, some one
commodity selected for particular qualities to be
used as a general measure of value and medium of
exchange, is itself liable to vary in value ; it is there-
fore clear that value is not in strictness to be deter-
mined by quantity of money. When employed
alone, in scientific arguments, without reference to
money or any other single specific object, com-
mercial value must be understood to mean ex-
changeable worth in the general market, or what
Adam Smith called ' purchasing power.' An ob-
ject, in fact, whether gold, silver, cotton, or any
other article, is said to have risen or fallen in value,
when it will command in exchange a larger or a
smaller quantity of other things in the gross than

166 NO SUCH THING AS REAL VALUE.

before. The expression is purely relative. Nor
can there be such a thing as positive, absolute, or
real value.*

When a desirable commodity is to be obtained

* Smith and his followers have insisted much on every-
thing having a real value, which they define to consist of
the quantity of labour required to produce it; and they
accordingly call labour the natural standard or measure of
value. But it is indispensable for a standard measure to be
something both definite in its nature, and as nearly as pos-
sible invariable itself in value. Gold, silver, iron, or wheat,
for instance, may be employed as standard measures of
value with more or less of accuracy, because at least we
know precisely the distinguishing qualities of these objects ;
they can be easily identified in all times and places ; and
equal quantities of them will always at the same time and
place be of equal value.

But what can be more vague and indefinite in its meaning,
or more variable in its value, than labour P In some coun-
tries labour is habitually far more severe and unremitting
than in another ; so that a day's labour in each by no means
expresses an equal quantity of exertion. Again, an hour's
labour of one man may in the same place be worth a year's
labour of another. Jt is impossible that anything so
variable in meaning and value can be fitly employed as a
fixed general measure of the value of other things.

It has, however, been urged by these writers that the
exchangeable value of anything will always depend on the
quantity of labour necessary to procure or produce it, and oa
this ground it is proposed as the best measure of the value
which it composes. One would have supposed that the
commonest facts might have sufficed to prevent the promul-
gation of so false a position. What causes the workmanship
of one artist to sell for ten times as much as that of another ?
Certainly not the greater proportion of labour bestowed on
it. Why will a statue by Chantrey, a portrait by Lawrence,
a novel by Scott, bring twenty times the money which
the productions of inferior labourers will command ? Why
again is Tokay wine more valuable than piquette ?— or old

LABOUR NO MEASURE OF VALUE. 167

in any quantity that can be required by a pro-
portionate outlay of labour, like water from a

wine than new? — Why an acre of land at Battersea than
one on Dartmoor, — a diamond than a bit of glass, — an
antique brass coin than a modern gold one? Not surely
because of the greater quantity of labour worked up in them,
It is true that these same writers sometimes attempt to
qualify their rule by admitting exceptions in the case of
those commodities whose supply is limited by monopoly, or
the exclusive facilities for their production possessed by
some individuals. But is there any commodity which is
not more or less affected by monopoly ? Is there any in the
production of which superior advantages are not enjoyed by
some parties over others, enabling them to raise its price in
the market ? All land, to begin with, the primary source of
every commodity, is, in nearly all civilized societies, mono-
polized. And the superior advantages of position or quality
belonging to one tract of land over others, enable its owner
to place a far higher value on its produce than will just
cover the labour of production. All mines of coal and metal,
quarries, woods, water-power, &c., are in the same predica-
ment. And if we reflect that there is no commodity which
is not, in part or altogether, made up of materials produced
tinder these monopolies, we shall be led, perhaps, to conclude
that the proposition of the economists in question is the very
reverse of the truth; and that there is scarcely any com-
modity the value of which is solely determined by the quan-
tity of labour required to produce it.

The fact is, that all these attempts to identify value with
labour, or to distinguish real from relative value, are founded
in a gross misconception of the nature of value, which, as
we have said above, like length, weight, bulk, or any other
quality susceptible of measurement, has essentially a relative
only, not a positive meaning. What is real length, or real
weight, or real bulk ? Just as*unintelligible as real value.
Value is { comparative estimation as an object of exchange ;'
and when used without reference expressed or implied to
any particular commodity as its measure, means general
value, or value in exchange against goods in general ; — as
Adam Smith phrased it « purchasing power in the general
market.'

168 MONOPOLY VALUE.

copious spring, or stone from an inexhaustible
quarry, its value will in the long- run be determined
solely by the comparative labour required to pro-
cure it. But many commodities can only be
obtained at all in limited quantities, and when the
quantity required, or the demand, exceeds the
quantity produced, or the supply, — their value
is proportionately enhanced. This permanent
scarcity, or rarity as it is called, is the cause of
the greater part of the value of all precious stones
and metals, superior works of art, scarce and fine
wines, antiquities, and curiosities of all sorts. The
increased value which the owners of such objects
are enabled from their rarity to obtain for them,
beyond the mere cost of labour or capital by which
they may have been procured or produced, is
called monopoly value; a monopoly, as we have
already explained in speaking of the higher classes-
of labour, being the possession of some more or
less exclusive advantage, enabling its owner to
obtain a higher return than others for his capital
or labour. The owner of the vineyard which pro-
duces Johannisberg, is in possession of a mono-
poly which enables him to put a much higher
price on his wine than can be obtained for the
produce of other vineyards cultivated with the
same expenditure of labour and capital. A person
passing through the streets of a town is struck by
a stained and dirtied piece of canvass at a broker's
door. He buys it for a trifle, cleans it with a
little labour and expense, and it proves to be a
Claude or a Raphael, worth a hundred times after
this discovery what it was before. It is the rarity
of fine pictures by such artists that confers a

VALUE — LOCAL AND TEMPORARY. 169

monopoly value on them. Objects which are
unique of their sort are often of great value in
consequence. When there are but two known
copies of a scarce work, it has happened that the
possessor of one has bought the other at an extra-
vagant price, for the purpose of destroying it, —
his single copy being, in its unique state, of greater
value in the market than the two were before.
Monopoly value arises likewise from other circum-
stances of considerable moment, and particularly
from the following:

Many commodities, — indeed the larger propor-
tion of goods in every market, can be supplied in
increased quantities only by an increased propor-
tionate outlay. This principle teems with very
important consequences, and follows necessarily
from a very simple circumstance, which if it had
received the attention it deserved from political
economists, might have prevented their falling into
no little confusion and error.

Value we must beg our readers to observe, has
a strict relation to time and place. The value of
a thing is the quantity of other goods or of money,
that is, the price, it will command at a particular
time and in a particular place. A thing may
have a high value at one time, as ice in the dog-
clays ; and no value at another, as the same ice in
January. Again, that which is of little value in
one place is of great value in another; as the
old proverb about coals at Newcastle teaches.
When therefore the value of anything is spoken
of, reference is made, or understood, to some par-
ticular time and place ; and when value in the
general market is spoken of, the average of local

170 VALUE DEPENDENT ON TIME AND PLACE.

markets is intended ; and, unless otherwise ex-
pressed, the present time.

Few objects are either sold or consumed at the
same time and place where they are created.
Nearly all articles require both more or less of
time and labour, not merely to grow, prepare, and
put them in marketable condition, but likewise
to bring them from the spot where they are
prepared, to the market or place where they are
sold. In fact, the greater proportion of the most
important objects of commerce — those which com-
pose the food of man, and the raw materials of his
clothing, comforts, and luxuries, — are raised by
cultivation from the surface of the earth. But the
process by which they are raised is one which
requires much time — a season at least, often many
~— as well as an extensive surface of soil ; and a
very small proportion of them are consumed on
the spot where they are grown, or immediately
upon their production. Consequently, the cost or
expenditure, necessary to produce these things for
the bulk of their consumers, must consist not only
of the labour of raising them, but likewise of the
time consumed in their growth and preservation,
and also of the time and labour employed in
bringi?ig them to market.

The value added to goods by the time necessary
for preparing, persevering, and bringing them to
market is, as we have seen, charged under the name
of profit on the capital expended. That the cost
of carriage of goods from the spot where they are
prepared to the market where they are sold, is
likewise a main element in their value, will not be
disputed. In some articles, as stone, coals, water,

ONE VALUE AT ONE TIME AND PLACE. 171

&c., it makes up by far the greater part of their
cost. In order to diminish this as much as pos-
sible, the demand of a particular market for any
things which are raised by cultivation of the soil,
will be supplied from the soils nearest at hand,
that are most fitted for the purpose. But it is
obvious that as the demand in that particular spot
increases, the supply has to be procured at an
increased cost, either from more distant soils —
causing an increased expense of carriage to mar-
ket— or from such soils as, though nearer at hand,
are of inferior productive quality to those first
taken into tillage — that is, which require a greater
expenditure of labour or capital upon them to
insure the same quantity of produce. It is, how-
ever, certain that there cannot be two prices (or
values) for goods of the same quality, in the same
market and at the same time ; since no seller will
take less from one buyer than he can get from
another, and no buyer will knowingly give more
to one seller than another will take for the same
article. The competition of buyers and of sellers
with one another in the same market, will always
bring the value of articles of the same quality in
one market to the same level. It follows, then,
that as the demand in a market for such objects as
are produced under the circumstances just spoken
of increases, the value in that market of the whole,
supply of them must keep up to the level of the
value of that part of the supply which is
produced in the market at the greatest cost.
If this portion of the supply could not com-
mand that price (excluding, of course, the results
of temporary and accidental miscalculations)

172 SURPLUS BEYOND PRODUCING COSTS. \

it would not be brought to market. And if that
portion can command that price, so will all the
rest of the quantity sold. The producers of this
last portion will be repaid precisely for the labour
and time they have consumed in growing or fabri-
cating their article, and bringing it to market (in
other words, the costs of its production, — the capi-
tal employed in producing it being replaced with
a profit, and the labour repaid at ordinary wages).
But the producers of all the other portions which
were produced under easier circumstances, will get
a surplus beyond the costs of production. And
this surplus will be the greater in proportion to the
greater comparative advantages of proximity to
the market, quality of soil, facility of communica-
tion, or other favouring circumstances, under which
their produce was raised and brought to market.*

* We beg the reader to observe that whenever we em-
ploy the word, to produce, or any of its derivatives, producer,
production, and produce, we have reference to the produc-
tion of an article at the market where it is offered for sale.
It would be very convenient and tend materially to settle
many disputed questions of political economy, if all writers
would bear in mind and adhere to this rule in their employ-
ment of the term. The producer of corn is properly not
the farmer alone who raises it from the soil, but the person,
whether farmer or corn-dealer, who produces it at the mar-
ket. The farmer is the grower simply, until he, or some
other for him, brings it to market and offers, i. e., produces
it for sale. The cost of production includes the cost of
carriage to market as well as of the growth of the corn. la
manufactures, it is not the man who weaves the cloth or
cotton that is its producer, but the person who, having
defrayed the costs of the raw material, the manufacture, and
the carriage to market, — of the whole operation, in short,
to which its existence is owing, produces it there for sale.
So the producer of an article, raised or fabricated abroad to

RENT. 173

It is this surplus that constitutes the rent of land ;
— at least, that particular part of the rent of land
which arises from monopoly, or its superior advan-
tages over other lands cultivated for the supply of
the same market. If the cultivator of the land is
likewise its owner, he puts this surplus (or rent)
into his own pocket. If he occupy the land of
another, he pays over the surplus, as rent, to his
landlord ; who it is obvious, on the average of
years, will not be willing to let his land for less
rent than the surplus which he or any other person
might gain from its cultivation, after replacing the
capital employed with a fair profit, and allowing a
fair remuneration for the labour of the cultivator.

Bent, however, it must be recollected, in Great
Britain and similarly circumstanced countries, in-
cludes, in its ordinary acceptation, many other
things besides the monopoly- gain arising in the
manner we have described from natural or casual
advantages, whether of soil or position. A vast
amount of labour and capital has been laid out by
its successive owners or occupiers ; much of which
remains permanently invested in the soil, adding
to its value and productiveness. And the portion
of rent, which is attributable to these acquired or
artificial advantages, must be considered as repre-

be sold in this country, is not the foreign grower or manu-
facturer, but the person, whether foreign or native, who
produces it for sale in our markets. When we arrive at the
discussion of the question of Free Trade, it will be found
that the vague use of this term has occasioned much obscurity
which is at once cleared up by its correct and strict appli-
cation in the sense we have assigned to it. (To produce, v.a.
to offer to notice; to exhibit to the public j to bring forward.
— Johnson.)

174 ELEMENTS OF RENT.

senting the profit on the capital so expended. If
the expenditure were to be calculated which has
been from first to last laid out in permanent im-
provements of the land of this country, — for ex-
ample, in the original clearing and enclosure,
drainage, making of roads, farm-buildings, fences
and gates, pools, water-courses, plantations, irri-
gation, &c., it would appear that by far the larger
part of the rent received for landed estates consists
of the necessary profit on this outlay. Of the
remainder, part accrues from peculiar advantages
with respect to proximity to markets, or manures ;
part from superior natural fertility of soil. It is
to this last portion only of the ordinary rent of
land that the greater number of political economists
have confined their attention ; and this exceed-
ingly narrow and imperfect view of the nature of
rent has necessarily led them into much incon-
sistency and error*. The two last portions of rent

* " Rent/' says Mr. Ricardo, (and Messrs. Macculloch,
Mill, and many other economists have adopted his defi-
nition)— " Rent is that portion of the produce of the earth
which is paid to the landlord for the use of the original and
indestructible natural powers of the soil" (Ricardo, Pol.
Econ., chap, ii.; Mill's Elements, p. 39 ; Macculloch's Prin-
ciples, p. 4.31.) This definition excludes all that large por-
tion of rent which we have noticed above as resulting from
artificial improvements ; as well as all that other large por-
tion which is the consequence of favourable position with
respect to markets, communications, manures, &c. How
much of, the rent of English estates depends on the first
class of circumstances ? How much of the rental of land
in the neighbourhood of London, Liverpool, or Manchester,
on the second ? The < original indestructible powers ' of
the British soil were the same in the time of the Heptarchy
as they are now. How is it then that they brought in no
tent, or next to none, at that time ? If rent depends solely

MONOPOLY RENTS. 175

— (which are, in fact, one and the same, since
superior natural fertility is no source of rent, ex-
cept it be conjoined with proximity to a market)
— possess all the character of monopoly- gains.

Monopoly we have defined as the exclusive
possession of some superior advantage over other
parties engaged in supplying the same market,

on natural fertility of soil, why do some acres of land in
England let for ten pounds a year, while an acre of equal
fertility in Canada will not command a sixpence of rent ?
Whilst this school of political economists declare rent to
be solely owing to the ( difference in natural fertility of
soils,' and build their whole science upon this principle or
* theory of rent,' as they call it, other writers pull this theory
to pieces, and in its place have set up another, viz., that
rent is solely owing to the ' pressure of population against
produce, causing a rise in prices.' (Westminster Review ;
True Theory of Rent, &c.) This explanation, however, is
not much nearer the truth than the other. Rent may cer-
tainly exist in a society whose numbers are in no degree
excessive ; nay, it may increase at the same time with an
increase in the productiveness of agriculture, and in the
share of its produce falling to each individual inhabitant j
just as it may arise and increase where all soils are alike in
fertility. It is, in fact, the simple consequence of an in-
creased local demand requiring an increased local supply—-
which supply must be procured either from inferior soils
close at hand, or from the best soils at a greater distance.
It may and does often happen that the% increased supply can
be sold, through continued improvements in agriculture or
the arts, at a less price, or can be commanded by the indi-
vidual consumers in greater quantity than at an earlier
period : and yet there will be an increase of rent arising
from the superior advantages of position or quality, &c., of
some lands over others, for supplying the actual demand.
Rent consists, then, of the difference between the expense of
producing that portion of the required supply which is pro-
duced under the least favourable circumstances, and that
produced from the land which yields the rent.

176 BENEFICIAL MONOPOLIES.

enabling its owner to derive a proportionately
larger gain from the same expenditure of labour
or capital. Competition is the antagonist principle
to monopoly. Each producer is constantly strug-
gling to increase to the utmost, and make the most
of, his own advantages over others ; and, of course,
his efforts tend at the same time indirectly to re-
duce the superiority of others over him. The re-
sult is a vast increase of production, by which the
public, in its capacity of general consumer, gains
a proportionate advantage.

The term Monopoly carries with it in vulgar
estimation an odium which is, in truth, only due to
such monopolies as are gained by unfair means,
force, or fraud. If a man by the fair exercise
of his natural, acquired, or accidental advantages,
obtain a larger return for his labour or capital than
others, no one disputes his right to it ; and, in-
deed, inasmuch as such higher returns form the
main inducement for the acquirement, cultivation,
and exercise of superior advantages, the result of
which, viz., increased production, is so great a
benefit to society — it is evident that monopolies of
this kind are not merely harmless, but eminently
useful. They hold up to public view the prizes
that are to be gained by excellence of any kind in
the race of production. They encourage industry
and excite emulation. And even those which ap-
pear the result of accident solely, are not without
their use. They help to relieve the monotony
of society, and cause that unequal distribution of
wealth, which, when not carried beyond the whole-
some limits to which fair and free competition will,
we believe, always confine it, may be compared

BENEFICIAL MONOPOLIES. 177

in their effects to the beneficial inequalities in the
physical surface of the globe, which bring a great
variety of climates and productions within a limited
compass, and are essentially necessary for distri-
buting over its surface that fertilizing fluid from
which the freshness, verdure, and vigour, of its
vegetation are derived.

The exclusive legal ownership of land possessing
superior advantages of any kind, natural or arti-
ficial, of fertility or of position, is, as has been
shown, a monopoly, which enables the owner to
obtain a rent from those who cultivate it, or, if
he cultivate it himself, to make a rent, proportioned
to the peculiar advantages of his particular estate
over lands that are habitually engaged in supplying
the same market under the most unfavourable cir-
cumstances.

The owners of most mines, fisheries, forests,
&c., enjoy a similar advantage of monopoly.
Those which are naturally most prolific, or best
situated for supplying the principal markets, afford
the largest returns to their owner, after replacing
the capital and paying the labour employed in
working them. And if instead of working the
mines, fisheries, &c., himself, he prefers to let them
out to be worked by others, he will obtain through
the competition of capitalists, willing to undertake
the business if they can only secure the ordinary
returns of capital and labour — a rent consisting of
the surplus produce of each particular property be-
yond these returns, and of course proportioned to
the peculiar advantages of each.

The possession of superior machinery, of secret
or patented processes, or of skill, talent, ingenuity,

178 RENT NO ELEMENT OF PRICE.

or knowledge, applicable to any of the arts of
production, is likewise, as we have seen, a mono-
poly, enabling their possessors to employ their
labour or capital to greater advantage than others,
and consequently to get a greater return for it, a
higher profit, or a larger wage. Some of these
advantages may even be, and are occasionally, let
out by their owners to other parties at a rent.

The value of any monopoly to its owner is
measured by the superiority he enjoys over the least
favourably situated of all his habitual competitors
in the same market. These could not afford to
continue supplying the market, for a permanence ,
unless they obtained the average return ; that is,
as high a return for their capital or ability in that,
as they could obtain in any other employment.
But however much the owner of such a monopoly
may gain by its possession, the public sustains no
loss. The extra rent of land, for example, or the
extra value conferred on land by its superior fer-
tility, favourable position for markets, &c., adds
nothing to the selling price of landed produce. It
is entirely a vulgar error to suppose that rents affect
prices. If the landlord were to renounce his rent
altogether, this would in no degree affect the de-
mand or supply of the market, and prices would
remain unaltered. The cultivator of the best or
nearest lands would still ask as much for his corn
or cattle as he could get, and this would be deter-
mined by the terms upon which the cultivator, en-
gaged habitually in supplying the market under
the least favourable circumstances of soil and
situation, could afford to send it there. The only
consequence of a complete abolition of mono-

•

UTILITY OF LANDLORD CLASS. 179

poly rents would be to put them in the pockets
of the farmers, under the name of extra profits
—in short to turn the farmers into landlords.
But society could gain no advantage by thus
prohibiting the owners of land or any other valu-
able exclusive property from letting out, if they
please, their possessions to others for produc-
tive employment, instead of personally engaging
themselves in their business. And, on the con-
trary, there is a very evident advantage accru-
ing to society from the existence of an inde-
pendent and wealthy class of persons, disengaged
from the necessity of constant personal attention
to their affairs, and therefore enabled to give up
their time gratuitously to literary and scientific
studies, or the performance of public, but unpaid
duties. It is from this class that the ranks of our
legislature and magistracy, our authors and rrren
of science, must be recruited. And it is, more-
over, from the elevation of mind and manners, the
refinement and intellectual polish which leisure
and easy circumstances enable this class, to attain,
that much benefit descends to all the other classes,
in the example afforded them of a higher taste for
the comforts and decencies of life, and a higher
standard of enjoyment than the gratification of
mere animal wants.

It is not easy to define accurately in words the
distinction which separates beneficial, or harmless,
from injurious monopolies. Generally speaking,
as we have said, that which results from supe-
riority acquired and exercised in a fair and open
manner is beneficial — such as are obtained or
supported by fraud, or force, are publicly inju-

N 2

180 INJURIOUS MONOPOLIES.

rious. No one blames Chantrey or Lawrence
for charging as high a price as they can obtain for
their productions. No one disputes the general
advantage of allowing the grazier who produces
the best ox, or the farmer who brings up the finest
sample of corn, in the market, to carry away the
topping price. No one doubts the right of a
merchant, who from superior sagacity has foreseen
the probable future deficiency of some article in
the market, and provided a stock of it against the
time, to make what extra profit he can of his
speculation. Again, no one quarrels with Lord
Grosvenor or Mr. Portman, for charging as high
a ground-rent as they can obtain, even though it
reach five guineas a foot, for their land in the pa-
rishes of Marylebone or Kensington. But if the
owners of land in the vicinity of a populous and
wealthy town, not content with the extra price or
rent they may freely command for its employment
as building-sites, pleasure-grounds, market-gar-
dens, accommodation-pastures, and from the saving
in the expense of conveyance of its produce to mar-
ket, occasioned by its proximity — if, we say, not
content with these accidental and natural, but just
and fair, advantages, they were to attempt to en-
hance the value of their monopoly, supposing them
to have the power, by any legislative interference
with the freedom of trade, as for instance, by
interdicting the inhabitants of the town from ob-
taining their supplies of vegetables, meat, butter,
&c., from other lands — such monopoly would un-
doubtedly be one of a most unfair, pernicious, and
shameful character. It would be nothing less
than a conspiracy to raise the price of necessaries.

CORN-LAW — EXCLUSIVE PRIVILEGES. 181

The corn law, in as far as it acts, or was intended
to act, in raising the rents of the landlords of this
country, at the expense of the consumers of corn,
by preventing their access to cheaper though more
distant markets, is a monopoly of this description
— only to be justified, if at all, by strong proof
that the land of this country is specially burdened
for the benefit of all, and requires countervailing
protection in the shape of a bounty on its produce.
This is a question we reserve for discussion on a
future occasion.

Other examples of injurious monopolies are af-
forded in the exclusive privileges to carry on par-
ticular trades, or deal in particular commodities,
which governments have sometimes with short-
sighted policy granted to individuals. There are
perhaps some rare circumstances which may jus-
tify the temporary concession of such privileges ;
as when they are proved to be necessary for the
encouragement of an infant trade from which
much ultimate benefit is rationally expected — like
that of the East India Company when first formed
— or for the rewarding of successful ingenuity, as ;
in the case of patents ; but these concessions, if at
all admissible, (which is doubtful,) form but rare
exceptions to the general rule, which is decidedly
against all such privileges. Unquestionable proof
of their specific utility should be required before
they are conceded, since they are a direct infringe-
ment of the rights of all to the free direction of
their industry. It may be strongly suspected too,
a priori, that any business which is not promising
enough to go alone without nursing, or stand the
wholesome breezes of competition, is not likely

182 CONSPIRACY MONOPOLIES.

to be generally beneficial, or to succeed eventually
in gaining sufficient strength to support itself.

Another hurtful kind of monopoly is that ob-
tained by the combination or conspiracy of par-
ties, who being enabled to command the entire
supply of any article to a market, use this power
for the purpose of putting an extraordinary price
upon it — restricting the supply to the community
in order to enhance its value, and consequently
to increase their surplus profits upon their expen-
diture. An instance of this is the notorious com-
bination of the great coal- owners of the north,
which was exposed in a late committee of the
House of Lords. Another, that of the companies
by which London is supplied with water, who have
divided the town among themselves, engaging
mutually to confine themselves within their se-
veral districts ; by which they are enabled, without
fear of competition, to charge the public an ex-
orbitant price for this most necessary article, and
clear extravagant profits for their shareholders.
If any attempt is made by a stranger to compete
with these banded monopolists, they can by their
combined influence and by a temporary relaxation
of their prices, deter him effectually from the vast
outlay of capital which would be necessary before
he can even commence his competition, and having
thus driven him away, they can return to their
old charges. So that the public are completely
at their mercy.

If monopolies of this character are carried to
an extent which inflicts serious injury upon the
mass of the people, by enhancing the price and re-
stricting the supply of the first necessaries of life,

FORESTALLERS AND REGRATERS. 183

it is incumbent on the government of the country
to interfere for their protection. The law which
secures to any one the exclusive property of a
coal-mine, or a spring of water, is, after all, sanc-
tioned only by its subserviency to the public wel-
fare. And when this is notoriously and unques-
tionably obstructed by the mode in which the
owner of the property exercises his power, the
private must be made to give way before the public
right. The possession of such an exclusive pro*
perty assumes the character of an obnoxious ex-
clusive privilege conferred by law, and ought, like
all privileges of that nature, to be modified, or
repealed, as the interest of the community may re-
quire.

The law, in fact, does continually interfere in
this way with the rights of private property. If
a road, or canal, is required for the public conve-
nience, parliament makes no scruple of compelling
the owners of the lands through which the line
passes to give up the necessary space for it, on re-
ceiving a fair compensation for their land at its
ordinary value. And nothing can be more equit-
able than such a practice.

For several centuries there prevailed a strong
prejudice in this country against the forestallers
of corn and other provisions, — dealers, that is, who,
in the apprehension of a scarcity, buy them up with
the intention of obtaining a monopoly of the
market, and being able to retail (regrate) them
out afterwards with a high profit. But the growing
enlightenment of the age has placed within the com-
prehension of nearly every one, that such a pro-
cess is on the whole far more beneficial than hurt-

184 RULE AS TO MONOPOLIES.

ful to the people who consume the provisions.
And this because the forestaller, anticipating the
dearth of provisions at an earlier period than
others, by his demand raises their price, and thus
discourages their consumption and waste, and
diminishes the severity of the subsequent scarcity.
The forestaller may gain a high profit by selling
dear that which he bought cheap ; but if his
sagacity had not led him to speculate on obtaining
this high profit, by large purchases and reserves,
the probability is that there would have been no
supply at all for the public ; — at all events, much
less than has been secured by his providence. In
fact, such speculating provision-dealers tend by
their operations to distribute the supply pretty
equally throughout the year, which, without their
aid, stimulated as it alone is by the hope of mo-
nopoly profits, would be necessarily so irregular
as to occasion profusion and waste at one period,
dearth and famine, as their consequence, at another.
The true rule, therefore, with respect to mono-
polies seems to be that every one should be left at
liberty to avail himself of whatever peculiar advan-
tages fall to him by accident, or through his own
exertions fairly and freely exercised in concurrence
with other competitors — but that no one be per-
mitted to increase his own superiority by destroy-
ing, or unfairly restraining the powers of others. —
And likewise that the law (except in extreme cases,
when the public benefit is unquestionably inte-
rested) should abstain altogether from either con-
ferring exclusive advantages, or breaking them
down when adventitiously established and not
unfairly exercised.

DEMAND. 185

What we have advanced on the elements of
value makes it evident that the value (or selling
price) of an article at any time and place is deter-
mined by the proportion of the demand to the
supply at that time and place. And it is a change
in that proportion which occasions the rising or
falling of prices. The extent of the demand for,
and supply of, articles, and, consequently, their
relation to each other in any market, is liable to
be affected by a variety of circumstances, some
temporary, others more or less permanent in their
operation.

I. The extent of the Demand for a thing depends
on the intensity of the desire for its possession
among a larger or smaller number of persons,
and likewise upon their means of purchasing it.
As Adam Smith long since said, ' Every beggar
may desire a coach and six,' but to be effectual,
to make itself sensible as a demand to the coach-
makers, the desire must be accompanied by a
power of purchase, — that is, by an equivalent sup-
ply of money or money's worth.

The demand for those objects which are em-
ployed as the principal subsistence and necessary
comforts of a people varies least of all, being
chiefly determined by the number of the population
to be supported, which is not liable to sudden
change, — and to their tastes and habits, which,
though varying in the course of long periods of
time, are equally unsusceptible of sudden fluctua-
tions. A deficiency in the means at the disposal

186 VARIATIONS OF DEMAND.

of the mass of the 'population for purchasing the
necessaries of life — such as is occasioned by a
sudden rise in their price unaccompanied by a
proportionate rise in the wages of labour, cannot
but diminish the effectual demand for them ; not
however in the proportion of the increased price,
—every other possible sacrifice being naturally
made to obtain a sufficiency of necessaries. A
fall in the price of these things, on the other hand,
does occasion a fully proportionate increase of de-
mand ; at least in those countries, and they are
unhappily many, the bulk of whose inhabitants
are at all times ill-supplied with necessaries, and
therefore limited in their demand for them only
by a deficiency of their ' power of purchase/

The demand for articles of ornament and con-
venience is liable to much more rapid and frequent
changes. The caprice of man exercises, it is well
known, a far more powerful sway over the intensity
of his desire for superfluities, than over his neces-
sary wants. Fashion prides itself on singularity,
and is ever in search of novelty. So that change
is of its very essence. And such changes must
occasion a proportionate fluctuation in the demand
for these articles, as well as for all such as are
consumed in their production and supply. The
introduction of a new article which obtains favour
with the public, will suddenly give rise to a new
and extensive demand for that particular com-
modity, and proportionately diminish the demand
for some other whose place it takes. Thus cotton
or Berlin gloves were, a year or two back, very
generally substituted for leather gloves, to the
great temporary detriment of the makers of the

VARIATIONS OF SUPPLY. 187

latter article, and the proportionate benefit of the
cotton hosiers. The gilt-button-makers have been
severe sufferers from the general introduction of
the fashion of covered silk buttons. At one time
printed cotton goods are the universal wear, and the
next year silks, perhaps, are in almost equal vogue.
A general mourning raises the demand for all dark
goods, and depresses that for the gayer fashions.
Fortunately for the producers of such articles of
dress, these changes of taste, though often very
rapid in a particular class, never occur simultane-
ously throughout all the classes of society. A
mode of dress which has gone out of fashion among
the higher and wealthier ranks, will perhaps be
just introducing itself in the middle class, to
descend, when the latter have worn it out, to the
lower and more numerous. So that the demand
when slackening in one quarter is usuallyincreasing
in another. And the stuffs which have been long
discarded by those whose caprice originates a
fashion, are for a considerable time afterwards in
full demand among a herd of tardy imitators.

II. The supply of goods is determined by the
circumstances that affect their production, and is
subject to still greater variations than the demand.
Those things which are raised directly from the
soil by agriculture, comprehending not only food,
but the raw material of nearly all manufactures, are
liable to great and frequent fluctuations in supply*
from the variable character of the seasons. Abundant
crops occasioned by favourable seasons cause the
market to overflow with a quantity of such com-
modities far beyond the average supply. Unfa-
vourable seasons create a general deficiency below

188 COSTS OF PRODUCTION.

the average. Other obvious circumstances often
affect for a time the supply of a market with par-
ticular commodities, such as the early setting in of
a frost by which the harbours in high latitudes
are blocked up before the vessels loading there
can get away — the imposition of an embargo on
the exporting harbour — or the interruption of
the commerce between different countries by the
breaking out of war.

These causes of variation in the supply of goods
are more or less temporary and casual in their
nature. The circumstances which determine per-
manently and on the whole the average supply of
goods to meet the demand for them, are those
which may be included under the general designa-
tion of their necessary costs of production.

The cost of producing any article comprehends,
1. The labour, capital, and time required to create
and bring it to market in sufficient quantity to
meet the effectual demand for it. 2. The addi-
tional charges occasioned through the entire sup-
ply being produced under monopoly of any kind.
3. Whatever additional charges are occasioned
by the amount of taxation, to which it, or any
of the materials employed in its production, may
be subjected by the authorities possessing that
power.

1. That portion of cost which consists of the
labour, capital, and time, required for creating and
bringing to market a sufficient supply of the article,
is by far the most important. The money-cost of
the requisite labour will depend on the current or
ordinary remuneration of the particular kinds of
labour employed at the several places where they

MONEY-COSTS— REAL COSTS. 189

are put into requisition. Thus the expense of pro-
ducing corn in Great Britain will materially depend
on the current wages of agricultural labourers in this
island. Any general fall or rise in the wages of
any class of labourers engaged in production, goes
to lower or raise the money cost of the articles
they produce. Hence the continual struggle
between labourers and their employers, as to the
rate of wages; it being the direct immediate inte-
rest of every employer to diminish this main item
in his expenses, with the view of increasing his
share of the sum for which he expects to sell his
commodity.

Again, the money-cost of the capital consumed
will depend, not on its amount only, but also on
the time during which it is engaged, the risks to
which it is exposed, and the current rate of interest
which its owner will, of course, expect to receive
for its employment.

But the real cost, or actual amount of labour,
capital, and time required for the production of any
thing, will vary with the greater or less skill,
knowledge, and appliances of all kinds available
in aid of it.

Every improvement in the processes by which
commodities of any kind are produced, contributes
towards the great end of lessening the produ-
cing costs of commodities by the saving of
time, capital, or labour. Every step that is
made in any of the arts and sciences subservient to
production tends directly to increase man's power
over nature — to render a fixed amount of his
labour more efficient, that is to say, productive of a
larger amount of the objects of his desire. Some

190 DIMINUTION OF REAL COSTS.

of the most striking of such improvements are
those continually made in the means of communi-
cation. The formation of new roads, canals, and
rail-roads, with the introduction of steam navi-
gation, have been most conspicuous among the
causes which have operated of late years, and in
this country especially, to reduce the cost and
facilitate the supply of commodities, particularly of
the more bulky articles. An instance in point
is afforded by the vast increase in the traffic
between Ireland and the western coast of England,
since 18:24, the period when steam-boats were
first employed in the Irish channel. The markets
of this island have thus received a prodigious addi-
tion to their supplies of provisions. Lancashire
has especially profited, from the contemporaneous
opening of her great rail-road, which receiving the
Irish produce from the vessels at Liverpool, car-
ries it forward with the utmost expedition, and
for a trifling charge, to Manchester and its neigh-
bourhood. Fresh meat, eggs, and butter, are
thus conveyed with almost miraculous cheapness
and celerity from the very centre of Ireland
(whence canals take them to Dublin) into the
heart of the most populous manufacturing district
of Britain. The cost of provisions in these latter
places must be proportionately diminished.

The capital employed in production consists
chiefly of appliances of various kinds for facili-
tating labour. The main object of the invention
of tools and machines of every description is the
economy of labour, with a view to diminish the
real cost of production. It is chiefly to the won-
derful progress made of late years, and especially

ECONOMY OF LABOUR. 191

in this country, in the arts of mechanical invention,
that we are indebted for the superiority of modern
society over that of earlier ages, in the abundance
of luxuries, comforts and conveniences at the dis-
posal of nearly every class. The immense wealth
that has been produced and accumulated in this
country of late years is wholly to be ascribed to
the stupendous inventions and discoveries of Watt,
Wedgewood, Hargraves, Arkwright, Compton,
Cartwright, and a few others. "These added so
prodigiously to our capacities of production, that
we went on rapidly increasing in population and
wealth, notwithstanding an expenditure of blood
and treasure unparalleled in the history of the world.
It is believed that an individual can, at this mo-
ment, by means of the improved machinery now in
use, produce about two hundred times the quantity
of cotton goods that an individual could produce at
the accession of George III. in 1760 ! The im-
provement in other branches, though for the most
part less striking than in the cotton manufacture,
is still very great; and in some, as in the lace
manufacture, it is little, if at all, inferior*/' The
loom is one of those inventions which have most
signally advanced the productive capacity of man.
* Ulloa mentions that the Indians of South America
have no other method of making cloth, than by
taking up thread after thread of the warp, and
passing the woof between them by the hand ; and
he adds that they are thus frequently engaged for
two or three years, in the weaving of hammocks,
Coverlets, and other coarse cloths, which a Euro-

* Edinburgh Review, No. cxii.

192 RESULTS OF MACHINERY.

pean would, by means of his loom, produce in as
many days, or probably hours*.'

Facts like these strongly illustrate the immense
benefits derived by society from improvements in
machinery, by which the real cost of consum-
able goods — or the time and labour required for
their production — are diminished. The prejudice
against machinery, still prevalent among the poor
and ignorant, and which has often shown itself
in outrage and rioting, arises from the circum-
stance that any change in the mode of production
of particular goods throws out of employment
for a time many of those who were occupied on
the superseded method ; and who are unfitted, by
their habits, situation, want of skill, and other cir-
cumstances, to supply the demand which must
immediately spring up, somewhere or other, for
labour of another kind, to be employed in the im-
proved method. The pressure of such changes
(like those we have traced to changes in fashion
and demand) is often very severe and enduring ;
as in the instance of the unfortunate hand-loom
weavers, who have, for twenty years past, been
engaged in a hard but unavailing competition with
the improvements of the power-loom. And these
sufferings ought undoubtedly to be mitigated at
the expense of society, by direct relief, but still
more by the adoption of means for facilitating
the transition of labourers from one branch of em-
ployment, or one locality, in which they are no
longer wanted, to other employments or places in
which the demand for labour is brisker. Any

* Edinburgh Review, No, cxii. p. 315.

DIMINUTION OF REAL COST. 103

interference, with improvements from which society
at large profits so greatly, for the sake of protecting
the particular classes engaged in the employments
about to be superseded, is obviously indefensible.

Interference has been often asked for by the
sufferers in these cases, and their advocates. But
such a principle, once admitted, it is evident, would
tend directly to stop all improvement ; it would
have necessitated the prohibition of printing for
the protection of manuscript copyists — of steam-
boats for the protection of sail makers — and of
bridges for the protection of ferrymen : it would go
to prevent the employment of every contrivance
by which human labour is aided in any branch of
industry, and reduce us, — as was well observed by
a Glasgow operative before a committee of the
House of Commons — to the teeth and nails as our
sole instruments of production. The sure result
of every improvement in machinery is an in-
creased production of the means of enjoyment.
Whatever partial evils attend that beneficial result,
may and ought to be mitigated by other means
than by placing obstacles in the way of the march
of improvement.

Capital which consists in tools or machinery,
is more or less durable, and will usually aid
in the successive production of a large quantity
of commodities before it is wholly consumed.
The portion of such capital that is consumed
in production enters as an element into cost, toge-
ther with the current rate of profit upon it for
the time during which it has been advanced.
Thus the cost of one hundred quarters of corn to
the grower includes, besides his labourers' wages

194 ECONOMY OF TIME.

and his own, the value of that portion of his stock
(viz., seed-corn, ploughs, harrows, and other im-
plements, horses, horse-provender, manure, &c.,)
which has been consumed in raising his crop, toge-
ther with the current profit on the value of every
several portion of this capital for the time during
which it has been employed in the production of his
corn. Hence, improvements which save any part
of the time necessarily consumed in the business of
production, effect a material reduction in the cost
of the produce, by lessening the amount of profit
chargeable on the capital employed, as well as
the amount of wages chargeable for the labour of
those who assist in, or superintend, the work. The
improvements we have just noticed in communi-
cations of every kind, and above all the extraordi-
nary acceleration which has taken place of late
years in the conveyance of both public and private
intelligence, throughout this and other countries,
have contributed in a remarkable degree to dimi-
nish the producing costs of many objects by ena-
bling their producers to save much of the time
•which was formerly wasted in the intervals between
the different stages of the process of production,
as well as between its completion and final sale.
If a manufacturer is able through such circum-
stances to turn his capital twice in the year, where
formerly he could have turned it but once, that
portion of the producing cost of his article which
consists of the profit on the capital employed, and
of the wages of himself, and perhaps several of
his assistant labourers, his clerks, &c., will be but
half what it was at the former period.

2. When the entire supply of a commodity, or

MONOPOLY CHA.RC4ES. 195

of any of the elements necessary to the production
of a commodity, is produced under a monopoly,,
the extraordinary charges which the owner of the
monopoly is thereby enabled to make, go to swell
the amount of its cost. Thus the proprietor of a
patent or secret process by which a particular ar-
ticle is exclusively produced, has it in his power
to charge a monopoly price for his article beyond
the amount of the ordinary wages and profits on
the labour and capital consumed in its production.
So the owner of a vineyard, which, like that of
Tokay, or Chateau Margaut, exclusively produces
wine of a peculiarly fine quality, is enabled to
raise the price of its produce to those who buy of
him far beyond the ordinary remuneration for the
capital and labour expended upon it. And these
extraordinary charges enter into the producing
cost of the article, because their payment is the
necessary condition of its production for sale.
Unless their terms are agreed to, the monopolists
may decline to produce or sell the article at all. All.
commodities which, in any stage of their produc-
tion, or in any one of their necessary elements,
are subject to similar charges for exclusive powers
or privileges, are proportionably raised in pro-
ducing cost. And their cost is proportionably
lowered by the breaking down of any such mono-
polies, and the opening to all of the power or privi-
lege so exercised by a few. But it must be
observed that the payment of all such monopoly
charges is wholly voluntary on the part of the con-
sumer, who has no right to complain of its ex-
action, so long as he is left free to purchase or pro-
cure the article in any cheaper manner if he can. .

o 2

1*96 MONOPOLY CHARGES.

When, however, only a portion of the entire
supply is produced under a monopoly, the neces-
sary cost of the article is not affected by such
monopoly, but consists solely of the labour, time,
and capital required to produce that portion of the
supply which is brought to market under the least
favourable circumstances to its producers, and con-
sequently, under no monopoly. Though the parties
concerned in the production of the remaining
portion of the supply receive a monopoly profit,
they do not thereby raise the price of their article.
It is out of their power by refusing to produce, or
by any other means, to raise the price one jot
beyond that at which the commodity can be sup-
plied by other parties who will be content to get
the current profit on capital and wages of labour.
The proprietor of a peculiarly rich or well-situated
coal mine, for example, obtains a monopoly profit
upon his produce, consisting of the difference
between the cost of producing the article from his
mine, and the cost of the same article from the
poorest or worst-situated mine of all by which the
market is habitually supplied. But the price of
the entire supply of coal is determined by the cost
of this latter portion, and is therefore in no degree
raised by the superior advantages enjoyed by the
owner of the best mines. The same law, as we
have already seen, applies to all raw produce de-
rived from land; — the cost of which is in no
degree affected by the rent of the best lands; but
is determined by the labour, capital, and time re-
quired for its production from the least favourably
situated lands of all that habitually supply the
same market.

TAXATION. 197

3. It is obvious that the amount of taxation to
which a commodity is liable, in itself or any of its
component elements, must add just so much to
the cost of producing it for sale in the market,
together with the current rate of profit on the
sums so paid for the time during which they have
been advanced. A diminution of the customs
duties on foreign produce, or of the taxes levied on
articles of home growth or manufacture, or on
any of the materials employed in their production,
has the effect of diminishing their cost to the pro-
ducer. So also the breaking out of a war, by
increasing the premium on marine insurances, adds
to the producing cost of all imported goods.*

* The majority of political economists, in pursuance of
the fallacy already exposed of identifying value with labour,
resolve cost of production into the quantity of labour only,
required for producing the article. It is scarcely necessary
to say more in refutation of so palpable an error. Land and
capital must unite with labour in the production of every
thing, and the owners of land and capital, no less than the
owners of labour, have the power of demanding and are in
the habit of receiving a share of the value of every commo-
dity, in return for what they contribute towards its pro-
duction. And even though we should exclude from consi-
deration all monopoly charges, and view the value of land
and capital as the result merely of anterior labour, yet it
would be in the highest degree irrational to refuse to dig"
tinguish the labour that inclosed and cleared a field, planted
an oak, or raised a building centuries ago, or that which built
a ship, or framed a machine several years back, from the
labour which is employed at the present time in using the land,
building, timber, vessel, or machine, in the preparation of
something for immediate sale. Nor even though we ad-
mitted all land and capital to owe their value to labour, would
this suffice to resolve cost ultimately into labour. For it will
not be denied that profit is a constant element in cost. And
this, as we have proved, is a compensation not for labour,

198 COST DETERMINES PRICE.

It is quite evident that the cost of producing
any article must in the long run determine its price
(or selling value.) For unless a price can be ob-
tained sufficient to cover this cost, no one will
continue to produce it for sale at that expense.

A sudden increase of demand, or a casual defi-
ciency of supply, will frequently raise prices above
this level ; as a diminished demand, or an acci-
dental increase of the supply beyond the demand,
will lower them beneath it. Such effect is, how-
ever, but temporary. The constant tendency both
of demand and supply is to come to an equih>
brium, and the point about which they oscillate
is that selling price of the commodity which will
just cover the cost of its production at that time
and place.

Should the price fall below this level, producers
find that particular branch of industry a less advan*
tageous mode of employing their capital and labour
than others, and some are therefore led to dis-
continue it ; or those who were on the point of
embarking in it are led to prefer another occupa-
tion. The supply is thus generally diminished,
until it is brought down at least to the level of
that extent of demand which will pay the pro-
ducing cost.

When, on the other hand, the supply is deficient

but for the time during which the owner of capital has
allowed it to be employed productively with a view to ulti-
mate remuneration, instead of consuming it immediately on
his personal gratification. It is also clear, as has been shown
above, that monopoly charges, as well as taxation, wherever
they exist, are included in costs of production, together with
the ordinary elements.

EQUILIBRIUM OF DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 199

as compared to the demand, the price rising in con-
sequence above the cost of production, producers
are encouraged by an increase of profits to en-
large their business, and invest adclitional capital
and labour in that particular trade, until the in-
creased supply meets the demand, and brings down
the price to the level of the producing cost.

These oscillations of price about the mean level
of the costs of production are continually taking
place ; — the circumstances which influence supply
and demand being of so complicated a character
that the one can never for a length of time remain
exactly adjusted to the other. The producers can
never anticipate with precision the extent of the
demand, and will therefore usually be something
within or beyond it. Moreover, as we have
seen, supply and demand act and re-act on each
other. An increased supply by lowering price
not only tempts those that employed the article
previously to enlarge their consumption, but like-
wise brings it within reach of a wider circle of
consumers, who acquire a taste for it which usually
continues even when the price has again risen.
Hence a permanent increase of demand is gene-
rally established by a temporary fall of price. An
increased demand by augmenting profits attracts
fresh speculators into the business, and in turn
raises the supply.

The competition of individual producers is in this
way constantly tending to equalize the supply and
demand. Each acting in his own sphere, actuated
by the instinct of self-interest alone, endeavours
to produce as much as he can sell with a fair
profit, and yet to produce no more than he can so

200 MONOPOLY V. COMPETITION.

dispose of : — each and all endeavour, for their se-
veral interests, to keep the supply full, but to
prevent excess.

Competition is, indeed, the soul of industry, the
animating spirit of production, the ever-present,
all-pervading elastic principle, which, like the
power of gravitation on the atmosphere and ocean,
fills every vacuum in the market of exchanges, —
equalizes the quantity of every commodity to the
necessity for it — and preserves their relative values
at the mean level of their comparative estimation
in the regard of the great body of consumers.
Every one who sees his neighbour getting an ad-
vantage which lies open to himself — a higher profit
or a larger wage — anxious to share in the benefit,
starts as his rival, if it be possible for him to do so ;
that is to say, where no monopoly interferes to pre-
vent him ; and the number of competitors who
thus throw themselves into any peculiarly advan-
tageous business, must speedily reduce its profits
to the general level, and its prices to the neces-
sary costs of production.

Monopoly and competition are antagonist prin-
ciples, working constantly against each other, but
in such a way as to benefit society by the result
of their joint forces. The object of the mono-
polist is to limit the supply, in order to raise the
price. The struggle of competitors to share the
advantages of the monopolist tends to increase the
supply, and therefore lowers price. The first prin-
ciple befriends the public by holding out high en-
couragement to invention, skill, and improvement ;
the other, by reducing the price the public have to
pay for improvements to the lowest point consistent

DIFFERENT INVESTMENTS OF CAPITAL. 20T

with the continuance of a sufficient encouragement
to their invention.

The mode in which the principles we have been
analyzing determine the direction and extent of
productive operations will be seen, perhaps, with
greater clearness, if we examine briefly some of
the simplest habitual modes of employing capital
and labour.

Suppose A. to possess property of the value of a
thousand pounds.

1. If he realize, that is, sell it for a thousand
pounds in money, it is then in that form which
combines, perhaps, the greatest security and con-
venience, as enabling him to make whatever use
he pleases of it, — to remove with it to any part of
the world, — to expend it on his own gratification,
—or to employ it in any productive investment
which offers at the moment the highest advan-
tages. But so long as he retains it in the shape
of money in his pocket or his chest, it is of no
other advantage to him than what he may derive
from a feeling of its security, and of his power of
commanding through its means any thing in the
market up to that value. If he wish to make a
profit of his money, as a source of revenue, he
must change its mode of investment.

2. He may, for example, lend it to some one
who is in want of money, on securities of a pri-
vate nature, such as bills, bonds, mortgages of
land or buildings, &c., or of a public nature,
as Government, East India, or Bank stock, canal
and company shares, &c. The latter class of
securities are readily available ; that is to say,

202 HONIED SECURITIES.

the owner may realize or turn them again into
money whenever he chooses; but they fluctuate
in value, and may sell therefore for more or
less than was given for them. All bear the cur-
rent interest on money, with a difference deter-
mined chiefly by the more or less of risk attached
to each, and the more or less of trouble and ex-
pense attending their transfer.

These monied investments are all mere debts,
or claims representing money expended (often
unproductively), but for which some productive
property stands pledged. They may, therefore,
be considered as part-ownerships in the property
so burdened. Some, as mortgages and government
stock, have a priority of claim for a definite return
to that of all other owners. Some, as canal and
company shares, bank and East India stock, are sub-
ject to similar fluctuations in value, through causes
affecting the returns of these respective specula-
tions, as the capital embarked in private concerns.

Property of this kind, consisting in money obli-
gations, is clearly quite distinct from capital, though
it is frequently confounded with it in common con-
versation. It brings interest to the owner, but is not
productive as regards the community generally. It
merely represents the claim of one party to a
portion of the returns of the land, capital, or
labour of some others. If these claims were
reckoned in a calculation of the national capital,
they would be counted twice over ; once in the
hands of those who pay the interest of the debt
with which their capital is burdened, and again
in the hands of the creditor who receives that
interest. The national debt, for example, is not

PRODUCTIVE INVESTMENTS. 203

capital ; but rather the reverse. It is a burden
upon the capital and industry of the nation, which
are pledged for its payment. If the national
debt and all other money securities were abolished
to-morrow, there would be neither more nor less
of capital in the country than before. But the
profits of capital and the wages of labour would
be raised by the annihilation of a prior claim
upon the aggregate produce to that of the pro-
ducers themselves. At the same time, the in-
justice of such a * sponging ' process is manifest.
The creditors have given, and the debtors have
received, expended, and profited from, what both
parties considered an equivalent to the claim.
The former may be looked upon as * sleeping
partners ' in the business, which the latter are
enabled to carry on by means of the advances of
capital or other necessary aid, which have been
made to them. And the right, therefore, of the
national (or any other) creditor to his stipulated
share of the national produce, is as strong, and
rests on the same grounds of equity, as that of
the landowner, the capitalist, and the labourer, to
their stipulated portions of whatever they have
voluntarily combined to produce.

3. But instead of monied securities, A. may
prefer to invest his thousand pounds in some pro-
ductive business; — in supplying or aiding the supply
of some market with goods. He may do this as a
' sleeping partner ;' in which case he will expect
only to make a profit on his capital little greater
than the current interest of money, after allowing
for all the risks to which the business in which it
is embarked is exposed. Or he may engage per-

204 MERCANTILE INVESTMENTS. '

sonally in the business ; in which case, besides this
profit on his capital, he will expect to gain a re-
muneration for his labour. Perhaps he will
speculate, as it is called, in goods — buying one
day, when he considers prices are low and likely to
rise, to sell again after an interval, — or, as a
wholesale dealer, he will purchase of the grower,
or manufacturer, or importer of an article, and
sell to the retail dealers, — or, as a retail dealer
purchasing of the wholesale dealer, he will sell to
the consumers in such quantities as are required
for immediate use. In every case he acts with a
view to profit by selling for more money than he
gives ; and this profit must, on the average, be
sufficient to pay him interest on his capital during
the time it is employed ; to repay, moreover, his
personal trouble and skill, as well as all expenses
incurred between the purchase and sale — as car-
riage, shop and warehouse rent, taxes, &c. ; and
likewise to cover the risk which he takes upon
himself of damage to his goods while they remain
with him, and of a fall in the market-prices. It
is evident, that, to cover all these items, a very
considerable per centage of gross annual profit
on his capital must usually be necessary. In such
engagements, however, the capital is seldom long
in being realized, or turned again into money.
Most capitalists of this class, which comprehends
all merchants, wholesale dealers, and shopkeepers,
turn their capitals more than once — often several
times, in the year. So that, as already remarked,
a small profit on the price of each article sold
may afford a very large annual profit on the capital
employed.

PERSONAL AND LANDED INVESTMENTS. 205

4. Perhaps it may suit the views of A to expend
his capital in the acquisition of the skill and
knowledge, or ability, requisite for some pro-
fessional business ; in studying the law, for in-
stance, or medicine, or surgery, or divinity, or
commerce, and fitting himself for the practice of
one of these professions. Or he may purchase a
commission in the army. These are modes of in-
vesting capital subject to much risk — not the
least of which is that of death or sickness, by
which the value of the acquired ability may be
annihilated at once. But in proportion to the
number of blanks is the greatness of the prizes,
so that there is never any want of competition in
such occupations. Capital so expended in the
acquisition of personal qualifications or advan-
tages, loses its name, and assumes that of ability.
Its returns can no longer be properly called profit,
but wages, salary, or professional gains.

5. Or A. may prefer to invest his thousand
pounds in the purchase of land. This is gene-
rally reckoned the most permanent and secure of
all investments, as being less exposed to loss by
commercial or political convulsions; and it con-
sequently returns, on the average, a less interest
than any other. But it has its disadvantages, par-
ticularly in the high stamp duties imposed in this
country on deeds of sale, mortgage, &c. which
are partly compensated, though in a most awkward,
manner, by the exemption of landed property
from the probate duty. There is likewise much
difficulty in finding a purchaser for land at any
time when its owner wishes to sell, owing to the
variety of tastes respecting situation, residence, &c.

206 FARMING INVESTMENTS.

The growing burthen of poor-rates, and its fluc-
tuating character, is another disadvantage, which,
of late years more especially, has attached itself
to landed investments.

When A. has purchased land, he may either let
it to those who will pay him, in the shape of rent,
the interest on the capital he has so invested ; or
he may cultivate it himself, for which purpose he
will require an additional capital.

6. Let us suppose that, instead of purchasing,
he employs his capital in cultivating, or as it is
called, 'farming' land. For this he must lay out
a part in the purchase of tools and implements
of husbandry, called dead stock, — part in cattle,
sheep, pigs, horses, &c., or live stock; and part
he will keep by him in the shape of money, with
which to pay the wages of his labourers and other
current expenses. He now looks for his profit
and personal remuneration to the surplus of the
sum for which he sells the annual produce of his
farm, beyond what is necessary to pay his rent,
and maintain his capital at its full former value ;
—in other words, to compensate for the wear and
tear of his dead, and to replace his live stock, and,
moreover, to cover his average risk of loss from
casualties, bad seasons, &c. His rent will be a
matter of agreement between himself and the
landlord, before he enters on his occupation. But
he will not be likely to agree to pay more than
what will, according to the best calculation he can
make at the time, of the probable produce of the
farm, leave him a decent maintenance in return
for his own exertions, and a net profit on his ca-
pital equal to the ordinary rate which he could-

FARMING CAPITAL. 207

Iiave obtained in other lines of business, or nionied
investments. Nor, on the other hand, is the
owner of the farm likely to let it for less than such
a rent, which it is evident he could make for him-
self by cultivating it on his own account, either
personally, or through an honest agent or bailiff.
For these reasons, the average rent of land equals,
and may be said to consist of, that surplus of its
average annual produce which remains after re-
placing the capital required to cultivate it, and
paying the current profit upon that capital, and
the current remuneration of farming labour.

If A. rent his farm at the will of his landlord,
i. e., from year to year, he will usually take care
to expend no more upon his land every year than
what he can get off it within the year. But if he
rent on a lease for a term of years, or occupy his
own land, — or, in some rare cases of confidence
in his landlord, even when occupying as tenant at
will only — he will probably lay out some of his
capital in durable improvements of his farm ; for
example, in draining wet lands, clearing fresh
soil, adding to the farm-buildings, or such a system
of manuring and cultivation as can only be ex-
pected to repay the outlay within a period of some
years.

That part of his capital which he expends in
this manner, is fixed to the soil, and cannot, like
his moveable stock, live and dead, be realized by
sale. He can only expect to get it back by de-
grees, in the form of an increased annual produce
from his farm ; which increase, if the improve-
ment be of a permanent nature, assumes thence-
forward the character of rent, and upon the

208 FARMING CAPITAL.

termination of the lease accrues to the landlord in
an increase of his rent. If the improvement is
fitted only to last a certain term of years, as the
lime-manuring of land, temporary farm-buildings,
and improved rotations of crops, the increased
return must be sufficient to replace the capital
expended at the end of the term, and pay the
usual profit, or the farmer will not be induced to
lay out his capital in effecting it. Capital ex-
pended in the latter way, is precisely on the
footing of that laid out in perishable implements,
or dead stock, except in the circumstance of its
not being removeable. And a hundred pounds
laid out in implements which may be expected to
last ten years, ought to bring in the same gross
return as a hundred pounds laid out in manuring
a field in a mode of which the effect may be ex-
pected to last the same time.

It is clear that lasting improvements on land
cannot be expected from farmers who have no
leases ; and hence where tenancy at will prevails,
as it does at present over the greater part of Eng-
land, the repairs as well as all permanent improve-
ments have to be undertaken by the landlord,
if at all. It is more than doubtful whether, under
such a system, the land is cultivated so well,
or rendered so productive, as under a system of
leases. But the uncertain prices of late years
have naturally indisposed landlords to put their
land out of their own disposal for a long term;
during which, if prices rise, the tenant reaps the
entire benefit — whereas if they fall, the land-
lord finds himself obliged to remit the stipulated
rent, lest his tenant ruin his farm by a deficiency

MANUFACTURING INVESTMENTS. 209

of capital for its proper cultivation. Hence leases,
in times of great fluctuation in the prices of agri-
cultural produce, are a protection to the tenant, but
not to the landlord. Why prices have fluctuated
so injuriously, and how they may be steadied, is a
question to which we shall recur hereafter.

7. Should A. prefer the business of a manu-
facturer, he, perhaps, lays out a part of his
capital in buildings and machinery, fixed, more 02
less, to the soil, like some of those in the case
last considered. Another part of his capital is
employed in the occasional purchase of raw ma-
terial, tools, &c., and another in the frequent pay-
ment of the wages of his workmen. Or he may
rent the buildings, machinery, &c., and employ
his whole capital in the latter forms. His returns
must in this case, as in that of the farmer, be suffi-
cient, besides recompensing his own trouble and
skill, to replace his floating capital — that, namely,
(as already explained,) which circulates within the
year — with the ordinary rate of profit ; to replace his
fixed or more durable capital at the end of the
term which it is calculated to last, with the same
profit ; and moreover to cover all the risks pecu-
liar to the business, — such as that of the article he
fabricates being superseded by a change in the
taste, and consequently in the demand, of the public
— or the machinery he employs by a new and su-
perior invention. The risks of these kinds at-
tached to manufacturing operations are (for rea-
sons we have, in part, already given) much greater
than in agriculture ; and hence the compensation
or insurance against such risks must be propor-
tionately large. It has not been uncommon, of

p

210 MINING AND SHIPPING INVESTMENTS.

late, for buildings and machinery, on which thou-
sands of pounds had been expended, to fall in
value in a very brief period, through changes in
the demand of the market, the introduction of
improved machinery,* or a general depression of
trade — to little or nothing. In times of depres-
sion, indeed, (such as we have seen but too often,
and may be said hardly yet to have emerged
from,) it is not uncommon for manufacturers, —
rather than shut up their factories or works (which
would in that state rapidly go to decay), and give
up business, — to renounce the idea of getting any
return from their fixed capital, and to work on,
even under a loss upon their floating capital, in
hopes of better times arriving to repay them for
the sacrifice, by once more giving them a Tair
profit on their entire concern.

8. Persons who embark their capital in working
mines, in building houses or ships, and in a variety
of other productive investments, are circumstanced,
in all essential points, like the farmer or manu-

* { Machinery for producing any commodity in great de-
mand seldom wears out ; new improvements, by which the
same operations can be executed either more quickly cr
better, generally superseding it long before that period ar-
rives : indeed, to make such an improved machine profitable,
it is usually reckoned that in five years it ought to have
paid itself, and in ten to be superseded by a better.' ' The
improvement which took place not long ago in frames for
making patent net was so great, that a machine in good
repair, which cost 1200/., sold a few years after for 60/.
During the great speculations in that trade, the improve-
ments succeeded each other so rapidly, that machines which
had never been finished were abandoned in the hands of
their makers, because new improvements had superseded
their utility.' Babbage, Economy of Manufactures, p, 233.

CONDITION OF ALL INVESTMENTS. 211

facturer just described. A part of this capital is
fixed in more or less durable objects, and ought
to bring in a sufficient annual return to replace the
wear and tear, and maintain the value of the ca-
pital ; part is floating, or circulating within the
year, in the purchase of materials and stocks of
goods, and the payment of wages, taxes, rent, &c.
None of these different modes of employing
capital, it is quite evident, would be undertaken,
if they did not hold out a fair expectation of such
returns as will both pay the ordinary rate of profit
upon the whole capital employed for the time re-
quired for its circulation, and enable its owner
to replace it at the end of that term, as well as
remunerate him for his skill and trouble, according
to the standard of remuneration generally ex-
pected by his class. No business would be entered
upon that did not fairly promise this. And, there-
fore, for a market to be habitually supplied with
any commodity, the necessary condition is that it
sell, on an average, for a sufficient price to repay
these, the elementary costs of its production.

When the supply of any goods in any market
is in excess over the demand, so as to reduce their
selling price below the elementary costs of pro-
duction, there is said to be a glut of them. This
glut may be partial, as when confined to one mar-
ket ; — in which the evil soon cures itself by a
transfer of the goods to other markets, where the
demand is brisker. Or it may be general, with
respect to the markets, but confined to a single
article. This, likewise, is for the most part
speedily corrected., by a portion of the producers

212 GLUTS — PARTIAL AND GENERAL.

transferring their labour and capital to some other
more profitable occupation.

But can there be a general and simultaneous
glut in all the markets of a country, not of one
or a few articles only, but of a large majority, or
the great mass of commodities ? This is a ques-
tion which has been much and hotly disputed by
political economists. That goods of all kinds are
frequently sold below their prime cost, is but too
well known to commercial men. Forced sales,
caused by the bankruptcy or temporary embar-
rassment of the owners requiring them to be in-
stantly turned into money at any sacrifice, are
continually occurring ; and a certain proportion
of goods thus constantly find their way into the
consumer's hands at less than cost price. In times
of general embarrassment and of a scarcity of
money in circulation, (such as we have witnessed
almost periodically for some years past,) still larger
quantities of goods continue to be produced and
sold for some time at a continual loss to their pro-
ducers. This is chiefly owing to two circum-
stances : 1st. The impossibility of realizing fixed
capital at such times, so that those who have a
large proportion of their property embarked in
buildings, machinery, stock, or implements, must
continue to employ it in production, though at a
tremendous loss, rather than let their fixed capital
lay wholly idle, and their buildings, machinery,
&c., go to decay for want of use and repairs.
2nd. The very distress caused by a want of re-
munerative prices in some trades tends to increase
their production. Workmen, in consequence of
the fall in their wages by the piece, work the

NATURAL CURE OF GLUTS. 213

harder in order to obtain a higher pay by the day.
And capitalists, likewise, in their struggles to
avoid ruin, try to make up for diminished profits
by increased sales*.

All this increase of production, by adding to the
glut, tends to cause a yet further fall in prices,
and to occasion further losses to the producers.
But in the economical, as in the moral and physical
worlds, there are few evils that do not sooner or
later work out their own cure. Even in the appa-
rently desperate state of things we have been de-
scribing, there are elements in operation of a
nature to bring about an improvement. The ex-
traordinary cheapness of goods produced in in-
creased quantities at a continual loss, opens their
consumption to a lower and more numerous class
of purchasers. They make their way into new
markets, and are employed in substitution for
other goods, or for purposes to which they had
not previously been applied. A new and enlarged
demand thus springs up : and in the mean time,
the anxiety of the producers to diminish their ex-
penses forces them to task their ingenuity to the

* Mr. T. Attwood, in his Examination before the Com-
mittee of Secrecy on the Bank Charter question in 1 831, says,
" Nothing is more common than for manufacturers to in-
crease their establishments at the very time they are upon
the road to ruin. In the iron trade, for example, if they
have two furnaces they will build a third, because the loss
upon the two furnaces is 10*. a ton, but upon the three, it
will be reduced to 5s. a ton. Within the last five or six
months, when the iron masters and manufacturers generally
are all going to ruin, and in a state I do not like to describe,
they are, many of them, enlarging their works, not to par-
take of profit, but to prolong the path to ruin, by dimi-
nishing their general charges." 5654-5.

214 GENERAL GLUT OF GOODS —

utmost, in the invention of new machines or pro-
cesses, by which a saving of cost may be effected ;
so that it often happens by the time a new and
enlarged demand has been established through the
sacrifice of large stocks of goods at losing prices,
that the producers find themselves enabled to
supply this demand at these same prices, with a
profit. We believe the history of the silk, the
iron, the glove, and the cotton-trade, and perhaps
of many more, within the last few years, affords
decided instances of an extended beneficial demand
having been thus bought by temporary sacrifices.

It is, however, strongly to be suspected that
such epochs of general embarrassment and distress
among the productive classes, accompanied — "
indeed, brought on — by a general glut or apparent
excess of the stocks of all goods in every market,
— phenomena of which sad experience has of late
too frequently attested the real existence, in spite
of what theory may urge as to their impossibility
—it is to be suspected, we say, that such pheno-
mena are anomalies, not in the order of events
which flow from the simple and natural laws of
production, but occasioned by the force of some
artificial disturbing cause or other, introduced
through the fraud or folly of the rulers of the
social communities they so grievously affect. A
few words will explain our meaning as far as we
think it necessary to proceed in the development
of this important principle on the present occasion.

We have hitherto spoken of price as syno-
nimous with value. But in truth, this is only on
the faith of the conventional assumption which is
the basis of all commercial interchange, that

SUPPOSES A GENERAL WANT OF MONEY. 215

money is a true measure of value. Unhappily,
this assumption is far from well-founded — nay,
it may be pronounced a pernicious fallacy. Mo»
ney, whether of intrinsic value, as coin, or the
representative only of value, as bank-notes, is,
like every other changeable commodity, liable to
vary in value with changes in the relation of its
demand and supply. Gold and silver money freely
coined, must vary in local value with every alter-
ation (and they are very frequent) in the local
supply and demand of the precious metals. Bank
paper payable on demand in coin must vary pre-
cisely in value with the metal into which it is by
law convertible at the option of its possessor.
Inconvertible paper-money will vary whenever the.
quantity in circulation is either beyond or within
the quantity which is required, at the time, for the
exigencies of commerce, in the country through
which the paper circulates. And as these exigencies
are continually fluctuating, and there exists no test
by which their extent can be at any time gauged,
this kind of money likewise must be frequently
varying in value.

Bearing in mind this instability of value inherent
in money of all kinds, we cannot fail to perceive
that a general glut — that is, a general fall in the
prices of the mass of commodities below their
producing cost — is tantamount to a rise in the
general exchangeable value of money ; and is a
proof, not of an excessive supply of goods, but of
a deficient supply of money, against which the
goods have to be exchanged. Suppose every ar-
ticle in the market to have fallen in price fifty
percent. This is no proof that any one article

21 G FAULTY MONETARY SYSTEM.

has fallen in value — that is, in general estimation
as compared with the rest. Still less is it any
proof that there has been an over-production of
all goods — (which is in fact an unintelligible pro-
position, for how can there be too great an
abundance of all good things? Can the desires *
of man ever be sated ?) It is simply a proof that
the value of money has risen one hundred per cent.

But money, being employed as the measure
of value, ought essentially to be invariable itself
in value. Lamentable, therefore, is the ignorance
and neglect of those governments, which, while
enforcing the employment of money of any kind
as a medium of exchange, take no precautions
against its liability to vary in value, and permit such
variations to derange the whole course of trade,
to vitiate all money contracts, and convert, as we
have witnessed in late years, the triumphs of in-
vention, the success of industry — the very abun-
dance of produce of every description, into a
source of suffering to every class of producers !

It is unpardonable mismanagement only of this
kind that can so far invert the natural character of
things, and give rise to so paradoxical a pheno-
menon as universal over-production. Of such
mismanagement we shall have examples to offer
at a later period, as well as propositions for its
correction. Meantime we proceed to examine
the nature of the existing arrangements for the
distribution of wealth.

217

CHAPTER IX.
DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH.

Natural and necessary inequality of Conditions and Pro-
perty.— Adventitious advantages. — Natural Right of Suc-
cession to Property by Will or Inheritance. — Variety of
conventional Rules. — Test of their Equity. — Natural Dis-
tribution of new JVealih — among Labourers, Land-owners,
and Capitalists — Can be determined only by the principle
of free Exchange. — The same principle tends to the greatest
increase of distributable Produce. — Limitation of inter-
ference of Government to the securing of Persons and
Property.

IN as far as we have hitherto traced the natural
laws which determine the production of wealth, it
has, we think, been apparent throughout that the
conditions most favourable for its increase are the
free and secure enjoyment by every adult indivi-
dual of his personal liberty, natural advantages,
and acquired property, — conditions which neces-
sarily include freedom of industry and exchange,
and the free use of the spontaneous bounty of
Heaven.

There would have been good reason for pre-
suming a priori that the general rules which
tend to bring about the greatest aggregate of pro-
duction are the most favourable to the interest of
all consumers. For the more there is to divide,
the larger, it is probable, will be the share of
each.

218 NATURAL PRINCIPLES OF DISTRIBUTION.

But we are not left on this point to a mere
balancing of probabilities.- For it may be made
palpably manifest that these great and abiding
principles, at the same time that they swell the
amount of wealth, tend likewise to distribute it
in the most equitable manner among the various
classes of individuals who have in any way co-
operated in its production. The latter tendency
is, indeed, the condition and cause of the former.
The certainty of freely and fully enjoying the fruits
of productive labour and ingenuity is the most
efficient stimulus to the exertion of these powers
and the increase of their results. It is the main
object of this work to prove, that the greatest
aggregate production of wealth flows from the
same plain and simple principles of natural right
which ensure its most equitable distribution, and
tend at the same time to the production of the
greatest aggregate of human happiness.*

We say the most equitable distribution. Great
was the mistake of those philanthropists who have
interpreted an equitable distribution of the good
things of life to mean their equal distribution. No

* This is in no degree inconsistent with what was urged
in an earlier chapter (p. 53), as to an increase of wealth
being no measure of the increase of happiness. Wealth
may for a time be increased at a great sacrifice of human
happiness, as in the instances we there gave, — though, in the
long run, such sacrifices will be found to have occasioned a
diminution of the aggregate productiveness, by checking
the growth of population, and the improvement of the arts
and sciences, which require a condition of ease, leisure, and
plenty, freedom both of the physical and mental faculties,
the stimulus of hope, and the prospect of an indefinite ame-
lioration of our circumstances, for their full development.

NATURAL INEQUALITY OF CONDITIONS. 219

two conditions can be more incongruous than these.
Any attempt to effect an equality of property
among men, instead of approaching to equity,
would involve the extreme of injustice ; — instead
of being consonant to the law oif nature, such a
state could only be maintained by the continual
infraction of the law of nature.

The difference naturally existing between the
bodily and mental powers and dispositions of
individuals must necessarily, under the natural
law of production and distribution, create great
inequality in their several possessions and stations.
However equal their position when they began the
world, the industrious, sharp-witted, intelligent,
active, energetic, ingenious, prudent, and frugal,
must speedily leave behind the idle, slow, stupid,
careless, improvident and extravagant. The former
will acquire considerable property under the same
circumstances in which the latter will scarcely
perhaps procure a maintenance. But any attempt
to counteract this the natural law of distribution,,
which awards to each workman the produce of
his own exertions, must proportionately check the
disposition of each to avail himself of his natural
capacity, or to acquire additional powers, and would
therefore, be no less impolitic than unjust.

Accidental circumstances add, no doubt, to this-
natural and necessary inequality of conditions.
Yet would it not be safe or right to interfere with
their influence; since it is almost impossible to
separate the advantages that an individual derives
by accident from 'those which are the consequence
of foresight and enterprise. A man's property
may certainly be improved by accident; as for

220 ACCIDENTAL CAUSES OF INEQUALITY.

example, by the discovery of a productive vein of
metal or coal, or a valuable quarry on his estate.
But who is to determine whether his discovery
was not in a great degree, perhaps wholly, the
result of laborious study and research ? Were the
right of property denied, or interfered with, in
such things as appeared to derive a value from
accident, it is obvious that much of the ingenuity
and inquisitiveness of research which is one of the
main springs of economical improvement, would
be deadened by the uncertainty of obtaining its
just reward.

It has been proposed as an exceedingly just
mode of raising a national revenue that the rent
of land should be directly taxed ; or, at least, that
portion of rent which is the result of accidents of
position. The same objection (and it is a very
strong one) applies to this proposal. It is very
true that the value of a landed estate sometimes
rises enormously without any exertions on the part
of its proprietor, but in consequence either of its
fortuitous proximity to a flourishing manufacturing
or commercial town, — of a new canal or rail-road
being carried through it, — or of its soil or situa-
tion being found peculiarly adapted to the growth
of some valuable products. The high land-rents
of the Grosvenor and Portman metropolitan es-
tates may be adduced as instancing an increase of
the first kind; many estates of the midland manu-
facturing districts will afford examples of the
second; and some of the hop- grounds of the
southern counties of the third. But is it certain
that the proprietor of land under such circum-
stances is wholly passive, and takes no part in

INHERITANCE AND SUCCESSION. 221

promoting and encouraging the improvement
which is likely to confer on him so special a
benefit? We do not dispute that, in the case of
growing towns, it is the duty of every government,
acting for the interests of the public, to make an
early and sufficient reservation of tracts of land in
their immediate neighbourhood, to be applied to
purposes of public health and convenience. But
further interference, even in such an extreme case,
would probably be deleterious. In the improve-
ment and extension of towns, — in the construction
of new canals, rail-roads, and turnpike roads, it is
usual to see the proprietors of land whose interests
are likely to be advanced by such measures, take
a very prominent part; and any tax upon the
increased rents derived from such general improve-
ments would be certain to delay and discourage
their execution.

Of the causes of inequality in the economical
condition of men there are none more strikingly
obvious, or more frequently declaimed against as
artificial and unjust, than the laws of inheritance
and succession to property.

In speaking of the natural right to property as
founded solely on the labour by which it is appro-
priated, we purposely deferred the consideration of
the question as to the devolution of the right on the
decease of the individual labourer. It would
clearly be quite contrary to the interests of society
that property on the death of its owner should
cease to belong to any one; since this could not
fail to renew all the dangerous personal struggles
and ceaseless contentions which it is the great
object of all the primary institutions of society to

•222 TESTAMENTARY DISPOSITIONS.

prevent. It is equally evident that since the per-
fect and complete ownership of property, neces-
sary, as we have seen, to stimulate its production,
includes the power of freely disposing of it by sale,
loan, or gift, in any manner the owner pleases, it
must in reason include the power of disposing of
it after death. For a denial of that power, or any
serious restraint upon it, would be easily evaded by
disposing of the property by gift, or sale, during
life, instead of by testamentary bequest. The
liberty to appoint a successor to property after
death is, therefore, part and parcel of the natural
right to its ownership and free disposal, and
cannot be reasonably or safely separated from it.
That it has ever been so considered by the unpre-
judiced sentiments of mankind is shown by the
almost universal prevalence through every age
and nation, of a law or custom, giving a dying
person the power of disposing of his property
by will.

In the absence of testamentary disposition, the
natural rule is clearly inheritance ; that is to say,
that the property devolve on the children, or, in
default, on the nearest relatives of the deceased
owner, upon the reasonable presumption that, if
he had not neglected to make a will, or been pip-
vented from doing so by casualty, he would have
disposed of his property in that manner.* The

* Blackstone calls ' the permanent right to property,' as
well as that of children to the inheritance of their parents,
' not a natural but a civil right.' His learned commentator,
Professor Christian, justly corrects this very obvious error.
* The notion,' he says, ' of property is universal, and is sug-
gested to the mind of man by reason and nature, prior to

LAWS OF INHERITANCE. 223

necessity is very obvious, that the rules of inherits
ance or succession should be strictly laid down
by law in order to prevent that confusion which
any doubt as to its ownership must occasion.

The rules established on this ground in different
countries have varied greatly ; and all these vari-
eties cannot be equally accordant with natural
right, that is, with the permanent interests of
society. Some indeed are manifestly impolitic,
from interfering too much with the natural laws
of distribution, and that free disposal of the pro-
ducts of industry which is so essential to its encou«?
ragement. Others err in the opposite sense, by
permitting the owner of landed property to deter-
mine its devolution not merely to a single imme-
diate successor, but to an endless succession,
through continued generations.* To confer such
a power on any individual is evidently unjusti-
fiable. Property, landed property especially, re-
quires continual protection, repairs, and expensive
management. The land-owner who, during a long

all positive institutions. If the laws of the land were sus-
pended, we should be under the same moral obligation to
refrain from invading each other's property, as from attack-
ing each other's persons.' Again, ' the affection of parents
towards their children is the most powerful and universal
principle which nature has implanted in the human breast;
and it cannot be conceived, even in the savage state, that
any one is so destitute of affection and of reason as not to
revolt at the position that a stranger has as good a right as
his children to the property of a deceased parent. Hceredes
successoresque sui liberi, seems not to have been confined to
the woods of Germany, but to be one of the first laws of the
code of Nature?' Blackstone, vol. ii. p. 11.

* The law of France may be instanced, perhaps, as an
example of the first error, that of Scotland of the last.

224 ENTAILS — LIMITATION OF.

occupation, has, at much pains and cost to himself,
preserved or increased the value of his estate, has
earned as equitable a right to dispose of it at his
death as any of its former possessors, even as he
who may have originally rescued it from a state of
waste. To deny him this power is to lessen his
interest in doing justice to his property. It is, in
fact, acting in opposition to the very principle
which alone sanctions the establishment of any
right at all to property in land, — the expediency
of encouraging its improvement. There are many
other strong grounds of objection, political and
moral, both to endless entails, — perhaps to any
kind of entail, — as well as to the determination by
law of the right of succession ; but we forbear to
dwell on them, as likely to lead us too far from our
subject. It is sufficient to have shown that their
tendency is destructive of the very principle on
which the right to property in land is founded.
The true course which legislation should endea-
vour to steer is such as will afford to individuals
a sufficient power of disposition over their property
as may encourage them to preserve and improve
it, and at the same time prevent the tying up in
mortmain of large properties, and the excessive
accumulation of landed estates in few hands.

It is clear, from what has been said on this point,
that the mode in which wealth distributes itself by
the free operation of the natural laws of produc-
tion necessarily occasions great inequalities of
property and position among the members of
every society. Under this natural system of dis-
tribution,— which will be that of all just and wise
legislation, — some may possess wealth beyond

NATURAL DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 225

what their own exertions have produced, and
which has devolved to them by gift or bequest ; —
but all who have contributed to the production of
new wealth will be confirmed in the enjoyment and
free disposal of whatever they have created.

Let us take a rapid survey of the different chan-
nels into which all newly created wealth will spon-
taneously distribute itself.

There are, as has been shown, but three elemen-
tary sources of wealth — labour, land, and capital;
and these, in an advanced stage of society, are gene-
rally owned by more or less distinct parties : whence
it becomes convenient, and is usual, to divide the
general body of those who co-operate in production
and share its results into three principal classes ;
namely, labourers, landowners, and capitalists.
Between these parties, their joint produce naturally
divides itself in the manner and according to the
laws we have already in part noticed, under the
name of the wages of labour, the rent of land, and
the profit of capital ; and the share of each class
constitutes its income or revenue.

This general classification is useful, as facilitat-
ing the analysis of the phenomena of society. It
is obvious, however, that the three classes are by
no means nicely distinguishable. On the contrary,
there are many individuals who partake, more or
less, of two, and some of all three, characters.
The labourer, for instance, in this and some other
countries, is occasionally the owner of the land he
cultivates, as well as of the tools, live stock, and
other small capital with which his labour is aided.
In this case, his wages, profit, and rent will be
mixed together so as to be indistinguishable. Few

Q

226 SPONTANEOUS DIVISION

labourers, in any country, are without some little
capital in the tools of their craft. Again, the
owners of considerable capital are, for the most
part, labourers. Merchants, manufacturers, whole-
sale and retail traders, ship-owners, and land-
farmers, personally superintend the employment
of their capital ; and the remuneration of their
labour, as we have before seen, is vulgarly included
in the gross profit of their capital, under the term
living profits. A man of superior abilities or ex-
perience will often employ his capital in such a way
as to bring in twice as large a return as that
cleared by his duller neighbour ; and it would be
no less difficult than unnecessary to determine
whether this is to be reckoned increased profit or
wages.

The class of landowners is, in general, rather
more broadly distinguished from the others, in
this country at least ; though not a few, as has
just been said, cultivate their land by their own
skill and industry, as well as with their own
capital. Even the great body of wealthy land-
owners of this country, though not personally
engaged in the business of cultivation, are in the
habit of expending much capital on their estates,
in erecting and keeping up fences, drains, roads,
farm-buildings, &c. ; the cost of which is usually
defrayed by the landlord. Capital, however, so
expended, as has been already explained, becomes
no longer distinguishable from land, and its return
merges in rent.

The proprietors of canal, dock, and joint-stock
company shares, as well as all of what are called
sleeping partners, from their not being personally

AMONG THE PRODUCING CLASSES. 227

engaged in business, are pure capitalists; their
income being solely derived from the net profit or
interest of their capital.

Mortgagees, annuitants, pensioners, fundhold-
ers, and other owners of fixed money incomes,
form a class apart from any of the three which we
have been considering. They are simply creditors,
and can scarcely be called capitalists in any accu-
rate classification of the owners of wealth. Their
property is not capital until it be realized : it is
merely a debt secured by law upon the land,
capital, or labour in the ownership of other parties.

In whatever proportions the several classes of
labourers, capitalists, and landowners contribute
their quota to the production of wealth, in that
proportion have they clearly an equitable title to
share in the wealth produced. But by whom and
by what rule is it to be determined in what pro-
portion any of the parties concerned have contri-
buted towards the production of any portion of
wealth? No after-analysis, however laboured,
could pretend to discover, with any accuracy, the
degree in which the various contributions of these
different parties may have co-operated in its pro-
duction. No tribunal that could be established
would decide the point so as to satisfy them all of
the correctness of its verdict. There exists no
test — no common measure of the relative value of
labour, land, and capital, independent of the esti-
mation of their owners. This can be ascertained
only at the time the contributions are made or
arranged, and by no other judges than the interested
parties themselves, and by no other means than
their voluntary settlement of terms with one an-

228 FREE EXCHANGE —

other ; in short, only by previous bargain or con-
tract inter se.

In one word, the principle of free exchange can
alone bring about a fair adjustment of their rela-
tive claims on their joint produce. Take, for illus-
tration, the simplest case : — Suppose A. a labourer,
to have raised a quarter of wheat, by cultivating
the land of B. C. having advanced him on loan the
necessary implements, and D. the food on which
he subsisted while at work. What possible guide
can there be to the determination of the equitable
share of A. B. C. and D. respectively in the value
of the wheat, except the terms which they shall
freely have agreed upon with each other at the
commencement of the undertaking ? And if this
be true in the simplest cases, it is equally true
of the more complicated ; which it would be
still more impracticable for any foreign party to
adjudicate.

Custom will, indeed, establish a sort of standard
by which these questions may be determined, in
the absence of previous agreement : as, if a
master hire a labourer without specifying the
wages he intends giving, those ordinarily given
for labour of that class by the custom of the
country will be understood by both parties ; and
custom will, in the same manner, determine the
fair rent of land of a certain quality, and the fair
interest of money. But the custom itself consists
only of the average of the free and voluntary agree-
ments of parties similarly circumstanced through
the neighbourhood. Any attempt to tie down
such agreements generally, as by a law, establish-
ing either a minimum or a maximum of wages,

THE TRUE PRINCIPLE OF DISTRIBUTION. 229

interest, or rent, destroys the only criterion of
their just amount, and substitutes a blind and ar-
bitrary power, without any possible clue to guide
it to a correct decision.

While the principle of free exchange of pro-
perty and services can alone be depended on for
securing an equitable distribution of wealth among
the several classes who contribute to its production,
such free exchange is equally indispensable to the
encouragement of all in the work of production,
and consequently to the increase of the aggregate
produce to be distributed.

If, for example, the owner of land were in any
way restricted from freely disposing of his land to
his greatest advantage,— as by letting it out to
farm to the highest bidder, or in portions of such
size as he finds most profitable, — he would have
the less inducement to employ it, or allow it to be
employed, in production. He might, by such re-
strictions, be induced to prefer keeping it in a
state of waste, as a park, chase, or warren, com-
paratively unproductive and unserviceable to so-
ciety. If he continued to cultivate it, he would be
less likely to make any sacrifice for its improve-
ment, by expending a portion of his rents in
drainage, buildings, planting, or other endeavours
to increase the productiveness of his estate. The
same consequences would follow if, on the other
hand, he were restrained by a tax or penalty from
laying out any part of his domain in park or plea-
sure ground according to his taste. He would be less
likely to reside upon his estate, and its general pro-
ductiveness would probably, in the long run, be
diminished rather than increased by such restriction.

230 EVILS OF LEGISLATIVE INTERFERENCE

Again, in whatever degree the capitalist may be
interfered with in the free disposal of his property
to his greatest advantage, (as is practically done to
a great extent throughout most European states,
by vexatious and embarrassing regulations, muni-
cipal and general, respecting the production, or
removal from place to place, of particular com-
modities, and as has been proposed in this country
by those who would have the law dictate to
.farmers what number of labourers they should
employ, and how they should cultivate their farms)
— in that degree will he be less desirous of accu-
mulating capital, less eager to discover and avail
himself of openings for its profitable employment,
and less capable of making a profit upon it;
he will be less productive and less economical, and
consequently a less useful member of society, as
well as a less happy one, through the annoyance
which such restrictions occasion.

And the labourer, in his turn, unless left free to
make the best bargain he can with his employer,
and to carry his labour to the best market, where-
ever it may be ; if interfered with by regulations
confining him to particular occupations or parti-
cular places in which to exercise his industry, will
never fully put forth his energies ; but, in propor-
tion to the restraint he suffers, assumes more or
less of the sulky, idle, careless, and revengeful
character of the slave — feels himself injured and
ill-treated ; — at all events, wanting one of the
essential conditions of industry — freedorn of choice
in its direction — is less productive, as well as less
happy. Attempts to regulate wages, whether by
fixing maxima or minima, or to regulate employ-

IN THE DIRECTION OF INDUSTRY. 231

ments, by dividing society into castes, each con-
fined [to an exclusive occupation, as well as the
ancient municipal regulations with regard to ap-
prenticeships, servitude, &c., appear to have always
produced the effect of damping the exertions of
the labourers and diminishing their productiveness.
The labour- rate, a new hobby of the present day
with some of our well-meaning but not very pro-
found legislators, is exposed, on the same ground,
to merited reprobation.

Interference of any kind, in short, in the spon-
taneous direction of industry, and the free employ-
ment by their owners of the great agents in pro-
duction, labour, land, and capital, has the certain
effect of benumbing their powers and lessening
the sum of production, and consequently the
shares, of the producing parties ; as well as of
needlessly, and therefore unjustly, curtailing their
freedom of action.

The only interference allowable is that which
can be shown to be indispensable for the great
object of securing the persons and property of
every class. The law need, and ought to do no
more. This comprehends the sum and substance
of all the duties of a government with respect to
wealth. Subject, tberefore, to this condition, and
to this only, perfect liberty in the voluntary ex-
change of the property and services of individuals
is the only means of giving full play to the deve-
lopement of their productiveness, and of increas-
ing, to the utmost extent, the amount of their
several shares. Such liberty is, on this ground, —
the sure ground of expediency for the further-

232 JUST CLAIMS OF THE STATE.

ance of the general happiness — the absolute right
of every member of society.

The limitation introduced includes, of course,
all such appropriations of private property, and
such directions of private action by the govern-
ment, as are necessary for securing the persons and
property of all. It is for the representatives of the
people to determine the just claims of the state
upon the purses or services of its citizens. But
the exaction of such claims from each is the con-
dition on which alone the rights of citizenship can
be conceded to each. In a future chapter we shall
touch upon the principles by which the great state-
engine of ' taxation' ought to be regulated, and its
proceeds applied.

But before we proceed to this, it will be useful
to take a general review of the existing modes by
which wealth is produced and distributed.

233

CHAPTER X.
PRODUCTIVE INTERESTS.

Agriculture — Manufactures — Commerce. — Progress, Subdi-
visions, and utility of each. — Their community of interest,
and equal importance. — Preference awarded to Agricul-
ture owing to the unnatural existing relations of popula-
tion and subsistence.

THE various branches of industry into which the
business of production divides itself in a civilized
and highly advanced community, are nearly in-
finite in number. They are ordinarily classed,
however, for more easy consideration, into three
great departments, or, as they are called, ' interests *
— viz. the agricultural, the manufacturing, and the
commercial or trading interest.

1. The Agricultural interest includes all whose
land, capital, or labour is employed in the growth
of food and the raw materials of manufacture. It
comprehends, in this country, the more or less dis-
tinct classes of landowners, farmers, and la-
bourers. Among the two latter there are various
subdivisions. The corn-grower, the dairy-farmer,
the cattle-breeder, and the cultivator of hops, mad-
der, flax, teazles, &c. are, in general, different per-
sons : as the carter, ploughman, herdsman, shep-
herd, drover, hedger and ditcher, woodsman, &c.

234 AGRICULTURE.

are distinct occupations among agricultural labour •
ers. Those who follow the business of meal
men, corn and cattle-dealers, and some others,
are so closely connected with this interest as
to rank rather in it than in either of the other
divisions.

The history of agriculture is a subject of great
interest, for which, however, we must refer our
readers to the works especially devoted to this
.subject. Of all arts it is perhaps that in which
the least improvement has been made in the
course of the historical ages, notwithstanding its
pre-eminent utility. Still its progress has been
considerable, especially in this country, where,
since the adoption of turnip-husbandry, the sub-
stitution of green crops for fallows, and the great
extension of sheep-farming, the produce of our
superior soils has been more than doubled, and
large crops raised off millions of acres of poor
land which previously would bear nothing to repay
their cultivation.

A wide field is here still open for improvements
to which no probable limit can be assigned. The
science of agricultural chemistry is yet in its in-
fancy. Its further progress will, no doubt, enable
us greatly to multiply the produce of a limited
tract, and, perhaps, to bring the most barren sur-
faces into profitable cultivation. Even now, a
deficiency of manure is the only check to the pro-
ductiveness of any soils, and as yet one of the
most copious sources of supply of the most valu-
able of all manures, — the sewerage of great towns
— is wholly neglected. By taking the necessary
steps for securing and applying this, a great start

MANUFACTURES. 235

might probably be given to the agriculture of
densely peopled countries.*

2. It is the business of Manufacturers to work
up for use the raw materials raised at home by the
preceding class, or imported from abroad ; giving
them the shape of clothing, houses, household
furniture, machinery, tools, and a variety of con-
veniences and ornaments. They comprehend nu-
merous branches ; such as the iron, the woollen,
the cotton, the silk, the leather, the stocking, the
glove, the hat, the carpet, the lace, and the soap
trades, the house and ship-builders, cabinet-
makers, gold and silversmiths, watch-makers, brass
ornament makers, cutlers, printers and publishers,
engineers, &c. ; and each of these separate trades
is subdivided into numberless distinct avocations.
There are many to whom the term manufacturers is
not ordinarily applied, who would yet be reckoned
as such in any general classification of the entire
body of producers : such are tailors, shoemakers,
carpenters, joiners, smiths, plasterers, bakers,
maltsters, curriers, &c., with the entire class of arti-
sans employed in these several trades.*

The economical history of manufactures is a

* See Mr. J. Martin's Plan for purifying the air and
water of the metropolis. 1833.

f The term manufacture is usually applied only to esta.
hlishments on a large scale ; and those who produce the
same article on a small scale are called makers rather than
manufacturers : but in a scientific treatise, and when em-
ployed to designate a class of operations in contradistinction
to agriculture, the term must be extended, so as to embrace
all those occupations by which the raw productions of the
earth are worked up into objects of use or ornament, whe-
ther by the labour of one individual or of many.

236 MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY.

subject of very considerable interest to the student
of political economy, but would, if fully gone into,
occupy a much larger space than can be afforded to
it in this little volume. It well deserves, indeed, to
form the exclusive matter of a separate work ;
and I am not without hopes that it may, before
long, be taken up and illustrated by the same
author who, in the volume he has published on
Rent, has so ably examined and described the cir-
cumstances which, in different times and countries,
have determined the mode of occupation and cul-
tivation of the soil.*

The division of labour which takes place in a
very rude state of society must, even in the infancy
of every nation, have effected a certain separation
between the classes who occupy themselves in
tilling the soil and gathering its crops, and those
who are engaged in working up these crops or
the other raw products of the earth, and fitting
them for general use, in the form of tools, raiment,
ornaments, houses, furniture, &c.

A further subdivision of this class of industrious
occupations among different trades or crafts, each
giving employment to distinct ranks of artificers,
seems likewise to have taken place at a very early
period in the history of art. The goldsmiths, the
jewellers, the workers in iron, in brass, in wood, in
stone, in pottery, in woollen, and in linen ; the shoe-
makers, the tailors, the carpenters, the plasterers, and
the masons, are spoken of in the Jewish Scriptures
?.nd other early records, and appear to have followed

* Jones on the Distribution of Wealth and the Sources of
Taxation.

ITS RECENT ADVANCES. 237

exclusively their several avocations from the first
dawn of civilization. A common professional edu-
cation, a common interest in the advancement of
their art, and a desire, by combination and mo-
nopoly, to exclude competition and obtain a higher
return for their labour, seem, in most countries, to
have occasioned the union of the artisans following
any one of these several trades into a sort of cor-
porate fraternity, sometimes sanctioned by char-
ters, like the guilds of the European states sub-
sequent to the middle ages. Some of these fra-
ternities unquestionably attained a very high
excellence in their particular departments of in-
dustry. The association of freemasons, to whose
migratory labours it is generally supposed that
we are indebted for nearly all the rich and beau-
tiful ecclesiastical and domestic edifices which
were reared through Europe during the eleventh
and five succeeding centuries, evinced a purity of
taste and fertility of conception in architectural de-
sign, as well as a power of execution, which the
builders of modern times have vainly attempted
to rival. Nothing can exceed the workmanship
of the armourers, or of the goldsmiths and jewel-
lers, of the fifteenth century ; and carving in both
wood and stone was carried, about the same time,
nearly to equal perfection. The gorgeous silks
and velvets of the same period probably could not
be imitated by any artisans in the present day ; and
tapestries and other productions of the loom were
then wrought with an excellence which has never
been surpassed. The art of staining glass may
be mentioned as another in which modern artists

238 MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY,

are decidedly inferior to those which preceded
them some centuries back.

On the whole, however, manufacturing industry
has of late years, and especially in this country,
accomplished an extraordinary advance in its
productive capacities, and its importance as com-
pared with agriculture. In former ages every
village probably had, as now, its inferior handi-
craftsmen— its smith, mason, carpenter, tailor, and
shoemaker ; while the more important branches of
industry were carried on in towns, in which the
manufacturers of valuable goods clustered together,
for the purpose of mutual protection against the
tyranny of the great and little robbers of those
unsettled times, or along the course of such streams
as afforded the necessary aid of water-power. But
though the articles of clothing and ornament
which ministered to the luxuries of the wealthy,
were fabricated by artisans of this description,
the more homely wants of the humbler classes
were still chiefly supplied by the exercise of their
own rude industry. The coarse clothing of the
greater proportion of the people, woollens as well
as linens, were, till within a very recent period,
both spun and wove, or knitted, at home, by
the wives and children of the agricultural la-
bourers. Many objects of ornament and conve-
nience were made in the same simple manner by
the peasant and his family. It is chiefly within
the last fifty years, and since the introduction, and
especially since the improvements, of the steam-
engine by Watt, which led to the substitution of
this wonderful power for that of water, wind, and

ITS INCREASE AND RESULTS.

239

human or brute force, that manufacturing in-
dustry has developed itself to an extent by which
a great and striking change is being brought
about in the habits, the manners, the relations,
and the employments of our population. The num-
ber of persons at present engaged in the various
branches of manufacture in this country nearly
equals that of the persons employed in agriculture.*

« ANALYSIS OF OCCUPATIONS IN GREAT BRITAIN.
{From Marshall's Statistics of the British Empire.)

DESCRIPTIONS.

Number of Families.

Persons.

1821.

1831.

1831.

1. Agricultural occupiers
2. Agricultural labourers
3. Mining labourers . .
4. Millers, bakers, butchers
5. Artificers, builders, &c.

250,000
728,956
110,000
160,000
200,000
340,000
150,000
310,239
319,300

80,000
100,000
192,888

250,000
800,000
120,000
180,000
230,000
400,000
180,000
359,009
277,017

90,000
110,000
316,487

1,500,000
4,800,000
600,000
900,000
650,000
2,400,000
1,080,000
2,100,000
831,000

450,000
110,000
1,116,398

7. Tailors, shoemakers, hatters

9. Seamen and soldiers . . .
10. Clerical, legal, and medical

11. Disabled paupers ....
12. Proprietors and annuitants .

Totals

2,941,383

3,303,504

16,537,398

From this table it appears that the agricultural and
mining classes compose about 7-17thsof the whole popu-
lation; the manufacturing class 5-17ths, the commercial
class 2-1 7ths ; the professional class, including the army and
navy, and the non-producing class of proprietors and paupers,
making up, in nearly equal moieties, the remaining 3-17ths.
The decennial censuses that have been taken since the
commencement of the present century shew the great change
that has taken place in the employment of the people. In
1801, nearly one half the entire population of England was
engaged in agriculture. In 1831 the proportion had fallen
to about one-third.

'240 MANUFACTURES.

They are, for the most part, concentrated in large
and populous towns, many of which have grown
up with astonishing rapidity upon those points
where the abundance of coal and iron mines, water-
carriage, or other facilities are found for the fabri-
cation of any peculiar commodity. The existence
of this portion of society is closely connected
with the very variable condition of manufactures ;
and when war, impolitic restrictions on com-
merce, changes of taste and fashion, improvements
in machinery, or any of the other casualties to
which such trades are exposed, occasion a stag-
nation in the demand for their labour, large bodies
of men are liable to be thrown out of work, and
placed, for a time, in a state of suffering and idle-
ness, which, in the absence of wise precautionary
arrangements, cannot but threaten great danger to
the public peace. On the other hand, the agri-
cultural part of the population has certainly suf-
fered much from the failure of those occupations
which were formerly subsidiary to their principal
one, and afforded them the means of profitably
employing every idle hour, and nearly every mem-
ber of their families, male or female, young or
old. The loss of the minor domestic manufac-
tures, formerly carried on by the agricultural la-
bourer, has been a severe injury to his class, and
the public tranquillity has perhaps suffered like-
wise through the consequent deterioration of his
circumstances. These are undoubtedly evils, to
which the vast, and we believe, on the whole, bene-
ficial progress made by our manufacturing system,
has unquestionably exposed us. It remains for
the government to mitigate these evils, so far as

COMMERCE. 241

is practicable ; and especially by all such arrange-
ments as are fitted to encourage and facilitate the free
migration of labour, the free exchange of its pro-
duce, and consequently its profitable employment.*

3. The commercial class consists of persons
whose business it is to facilitate the operations
both of the agriculturists and manufacturers, by
supplying them with what articles they require,
and taking of them what they have to dispose of.
They are the agents in all the manifold exchanges
that are going on between the different classes of
producers and consumers ; conveying goods of all
kinds from place to place, so as to equalize the
supply with the demand ; purchasing whatever is
to be sold, and selling whatever is required to be
bought. Commerce divides itself, firstly, into the
foreign, and internal or home trade ; and the latter,
into the wholesale and retail trades. These again
branch out into almost numberless subdivisions,
characterized by the nature of the article dealt in,
or the particular line of business carried on.

There are several other classes which do not

* The picture drawn by Dr. Kay, in his valuable Tract,
of the moral and physical condition of the working classes
employed in the cotton manufacture in Manchester, together
with the facts brought to light by the late Committees of
the House of Commons on the employment of children in
factories, add some frightful features to the character of our
modern manufacturing system, — so frightful as to lead us
to regret that it was ever introduced, if we were not certain
that these horrors are by no means the necessary result of
the system, but chiefly of the terrible struggle it has for
years maintained under surprising difficulties, brought on by
unwise legislation, and, above all, by a restricted commerce
and an artificially appreciated currency. On these evils,
and their proper remedies, more hereafter.

1

242 WHOLESALE AND RETAIL DEALERS.

seem to be easily referrible to any of the three
principal heads ; as the persons engaged in mining
and quarrying, in fisheries, &c.

All these multiform subdivisions of employment
are wholly spontaneous, the offspring of no pre-
concerted arrangements of the statesman or the
legislator, but springing from that ever-active and
inquisitive spirit of enterprise and ardour for gain
by which individuals are urged to seize every open-
ing for the employment of their ability or capital
that promises remuneration. The result is incal-
culably beneficial to society, by reducing the cost
and improving the quality of all that it consumes.
If any saving can possibly be made in the cost of
producing any article, by a subdivision of the ne-
cessary operations, it is immediately effected by
the agency of this searching spirit; and the com-
petition of producers is sure very shortly to secure
all the benefit of the saving to the public at large,
in a proportionately reduced price of the article.

The vast utility, for example, of the wholesale
and retail dealers, who adjust the supply of com-
modities of all kinds with the utmost precision to
the demand, is obvious on the slightest considera-
tion. Acting under the influence of self-interest,
and with a view solely to his own profit, each,
knowing- the probable wants of his peculiar mar-
ket, is strongly interested in selling as much as he
possibly can, and yet equally interested in causing
nothing to be wasted through its remaining un-
sold. Each striving to carry away the custom of
his rivals, by tempting the public with newer,
better, more varied, or more alluring articles at

MR. OWEN'S LABOUR EXCHANGE. 243

the lowest price, they effect collectively the dis-
tribution of the whole wealth of society in the
most economical and most convenient manner
possible. And yet, because they make a profit on
what they sell, that is, get paid for their labour
and the time during which their capital lies locked
up in goods, and the risk it runs of damage, and
for their shop and warehouse rents ; because they
charge a profit on their sales sufficient to cover
these necessary expenses (and that it is barely suffi-
cient for this end their mutual competition secures),
they are described by Mr. Owen, and his benevo-
lent but equally unreasoning followers, as sucking
the marrow of the poor labourers, and interfering
hurtfully between the producer and the consumer,
to raise the cost of all things to the latter. Mr.
Owen has of late put his theory to the test of
practice, by endeavouring to dispense with these
intermediate parties, and bring producers and con-
sumers into contact with each other. By this
time, therefore, it is perhaps tolerably clear to
such of his disciples as retain the power of discri-
mination, which system is the more economical of
the two ; that which, if pursued to its necessary
consequences, would force every labourer to pro-
duce for himself almost every thing he needs, and
send us back to the caves and woods of our acorn-
eating ancestors, or that which has carried us for-
ward from those wilds and caves to the high pitch
of civilization and refinement this industrious com-
munity has, by the blessing of Heaven, attained.
With respect to Mr. Owen's clumsy contrivance of
labour-notes and a labour exchange, by which the
barbarizing tendency of his principle is meant to

R2

244 ALL SOCIETY A LABOUR EXCHANGE.

be concealed, it is evidently but a bank connected
with a large wholesale warehouse ; in which the
arbitrary valuation of a salaried clerk regulates the
terms of each sale and purchase, instead of the
unerring principles of competition among the
sellers and self-interest in the buyers. The scheme
of labour-notes, moreover, is founded on the
erroneous notion that labour is the just and true
measure of value. But can any plan be more
likely to discourage ingenuity, industry, and the
acquisition of skill, than one which determines the
reward of each man's labour, not by the intensity
of his application, or the amount of its produce,
but by its duration — thus giving to a slow, care-
less, and indolent labourer the same pay as to an
active, ingenious, and energetic one ?

The whole system of society as at present consti-
tuted is ONE GREAT LABOUR EXCHANGE;
in which the services of individuals are bartered
by voluntary and mutual agreement. The pro-
gress of knowledge has suggested a variety of
subdivisions, not only of the labour by which
commodities are produced, but likewise of the
labour required for exchanging them. An at-
tempt to get rid of these intermediate parties to
the exchanges of labour would put a stop to by
far the greater proportion of exchanges, which
could not by possibility be conducted between
the principals, and render their labour itself value-
less. Could the coal-miner of Newcastle directly
exchange the produce of his labour with the
corn-grower of Lincolnshire, the cheese-maker
of Gloucestershire, or the cloth- weaver of York-
shire ? And if there must be intermediate parties

UTILITY OF COMMERCE. 245

to carry on these and similar exchanges, expe-
rience and reason prove that they will be conducted
more cheaply and effectually by the competition
of private speculators, than by any organized con-
trivance for this purpose that the ingenuity of man
could frame. The idea of these visionaries is that
the profit made by the intermediate parties would
be saved to the principals. But in order to a
profit, there must be a capital. If the producers
of commodities are possessed of capital, they will
get as high a profit on its employment in the busi-
ness of production as the other parties get in the
business of exchange. If they have no capital,
they can certainly divide no profit, under any pos-
sible contrivance.

The vast utility of the class of retail dealers,
who are the immediate distributors of the prin-
cipal articles of consumption, must be apparent to
every one. Not less useful and important to so-
ciety, in its peculiar functions, is the class of
wholesale dealers or merchants; who are the pri-
mary agents in the exchanges that take place be-
tween producers who live at a distance from each
other, in different districts, countries, or perhaps
climates, and the general carriers of goods from
place to place throughout the world.

The advantages of commerce, that is, of an
interchange, between the inhabitants of different
places, of the goods with which their peculiar
circumstances of skill, position, soil, minerals, or
climate enable two communities to supply one
another more easily than each could supply itself,
need hardly, in this age and country, be dwelt
upon. It is the division of labour on a large

246 UTILITY OF COMMERCE.

scale, and applied to districts instead of indivi-
duals. Nature has suggested this territorial divi-
sion of labour even more broadly and obviously
than the personal. One district, for example,
possesses rich alluvial plains, fitted for growing
corn ; the soil of another is more favourable for
grazing cattle ; that of a third for pasturing sheep;
a fourth offers a bleak and bare surface, but is fer-
tile in mineral wealth — in coal, perhaps, and iron ;
a fifth is covered with timber, and a sixth is washed
by a sea abounding in fish. It must be impossible
for the inhabitants of these several districts to
have any continued intercourse without perceiving
the great mutual advantages they have it in their
power to secure, by applyingthemselves exclusively
to the production of those commodities for which
nature had adapted their district, and exchanging
them with each other. Whether the several places
between which such commerce is carried on happen
to be connected under the same government or not,
can evidently make no difference in the amount of
mutual benefit each derives from the intercourse,
except in as far as this circumstance may cause
artificial impediments to be placed in the way of
their intercourse, which would not have existed had
they been united under the same government. The
exchange, in reality, takes place between indivi-
duals, although the subjects of different states, and
would not be undertaken by each party if it were
not beneficial to both.

A strange notion seems to have prevailed till
towards the middle of last century, even among
those who were practically conversant with com-
merce, namely, that the commercial gains of one

UTILITY OF COMMERCE. 247

nation were always made at the expense of that
with which she traded ! Since foreign commerce
is as freely and voluntarily undertaken by indivi-
duals, as that between inhabitants of the same
state, and for no conceivable purpose on either
side but individual gain, it is wonderful that any
one should imagine that the intercourse which must
be profitable to the individuals who carry it on,
can be injurious to the nation of which either
party forms an unit. The profit, however, of the
merchants on either side constitutes evidently but
a very small proportion of the entire benefit de-
rived by the exchanging countries. If France
sends to England wine to the value of a million,
in exchange for an equivalent in hardware, the
merchants on either side may perhaps clear a pro-
fit of 50,000/. by the transaction. But, in addition
to this, twice as much is probably expended in the
employment of the shipping and internal carrying
trade of each country ; one or two hundred thou-
sand pounds are likewise put into the exchequer
of each ; and last, but by no means least, the
inhabitants of either country, who consume wine
or steel goods, are supplied with these commodi-
ties at perhaps one half the cost at which they
could have procured them of equal quality at home,
if indeed they could have procured them at all.
Many things, now considered of first necessity,
are not to be obtained without foreign commerce.
Tea, the favourite daily meal of perhaps every
family in the land, is grown in China alone, and no
attempts to raise it in other countries have been
successful. Cotton is the produce of a tropical
climate ; and if left to our own resources, we

248 UTILITY OF COMMERCE.

could not obtain an ounce of that material which
forms so cheap, healthy, and comfortable an article
of clothing for the great body of our population,
male and female ; as well as one of our principal
staples of export. Sugar, another absolute neces-
sary of life to the present generation, the example
of France proves that we might possibly grow at
home, but of a very inferior quality, and at about
treble the cost to us of what we procure from our
colonies in exchange for our hardware and
woollens. Cochineal, indigo, and the various
other substances used in dyeing are not the pro-
duce of Britain. Nearly every drug or balsam
employed in medicine is of foreign growth, and
could not be obtained by any efforts from this
country alone. The greater part of the timber
used in our houses and their furniture, is foreign,
and could not be raised here in sufficient quantity
to supply our purposes. The materials of our
soap and candles, which are as necessary to the
cottager as to the noble, are imported ; and if
prevented from importing them, none but the
wealthy could enjoy the means of lighting up their
houses during the long nights of our northern
winters. Oranges, so delicious to the sick, and
palatable to all, are purchased from abroad by our
hardware and cloths, and could not be procured
except by this mutual exchange. Tobacco, the
poor man's luxury, is only to be obtained by
foreign commerce. ' Our roast beef, the Eng-
lishman's fare, — would to God that every one of
our countrymen could command its daily enjoy-
ment ! — is indeed a native production ; but its
companion, plum-pudding, exclusively an English

UTILITY OF COMMERCE. 249

ish, derives its name and its excellence from the
produce of foreign climates. The raisins are
brought from Smyrna, the currants from the
Ionian Islands.'*

These familiar illustrations have been selected
to bring the fact clearly before the reader, that all
classes and conditions of men derive enjoyment
or benefit from the mutual exchange of the pro-
ducts of different countries and climates. If
foreign trade introduced only such things as are
enjoyed by the opulent and luxurious ; if it only-
enabled our modern Sybarites to clothe themselves
in silks instead of linens, and drink French wines
instead of British ale, it would not be deserving of
the high place it ought to hold in our esteem, as
the means of adding to the comfort and enjoyment
of mankind. But the few commodities we have
mentioned above constitute only a small part of
those imported from countries not under our go-
vernment, which are used by the great mass of
the people, and contribute to their subsistence, or
give additional value to their industry and skill.
Without foreign commerce we should be destitute
of a very large proportion of the necessaries and
comforts, as well as luxuries, which we now pos-
sess ; while the price of the few that might remain
to us, would, in most instances, be very greatly
increased. Nor are the benefits we derive from
an extended intercourse with the other branches
of the human family monopolized by ourselves.
The persons who receive our hardware, cutlery,
woollens, and cottons, in exchange for their sugar,

* ' Political Economy/ by T. Hodgskin.

250 UTILITY OF COMMERCE.

raw cotton, drugs, timber, &c. could not obtain
these necessary and valuable articles so cheaply
by any other means. ' It is as pleasant to the
inhabitants of Portugal, of Turkey, and of Spain,
to procure, by the cultivation of their own vines,
fig-trees, and olives, the instruments and clothing
manufactured in this country, of a superior quality,
by help of our fertile mineral wealth and mecha-
nical ingenuity, as it is for us to obtain, by
making these articles, the refreshing produce of a
brighter sun than ever shines over Britain.*'

* But the influence of foreign commerce/ it has
been well observed, ' in multiplying and cheapen-
ing conveniences and enjoyments, vast as it most

'" * Hodgskin's Political Economy, p. 160. Dr. Chalmers,
in his recent work on Political Economy, among many other
curious and amusing paradoxes, has attempted to prove
that it is 'a delusion' to suppose that foreign trade adds
anything to the wealth of a nation, or is productive of any
advantage ' beyond a slight increase of enjoyment, the sub-
stitution of one luxury for another.' The wine-trade he has
discovered only produces wine, the sugar-trade sugar, the
tea-trade tea, and so on. It is evident the same argument
would apply to our internal trade and commerce, and to
the division of labour itself. The shoe-maker only pro-
duces shoes, the clothier cloth, the cutler cutlery, &c. But
just as * trifles make the sum of human things,' so in the
aggregate, all the several branches of trade, foreign and inter-
nal, produce all that there is in the country of wealth, com-
fort, taste, splendour, civilization, — all that distinguishes
us from a horde of barbarians, clothed in skins, and toler-
ably provided with coarse food. Moreover, the extension of
commerce re-acts upon agriculture, and tends greatly to
increase the production of food likewise. Dr. Chalmers
himself admits that this was the case in former ages, and
his reasons for considering the effect to have ceased are very
inconclusive.

UTILITY OF COMMERCE. 251

certainly is, is perhaps inferior to its indirect in-
fluence, that is, to its influence on industry, by
adding immeasurably to the mass of desirable ar-
ticles, inspiring new tastes, and stimulating enter-
prise and invention, by bringing each people into
competition and friendly intercourse with fo-
reigners, and making them acquainted with their
arts and institutions. Adam Smith and Robertson
have both ably traced the economic change which
took place throughout Europe at the termination
of the middle ages, in virtue of the new tastes and
habits inspired in the owners and cultivators of the
soil, by the presentation to their notice of those
articles of splendour and luxury which manufac-
turers had produced and commerce brought to
their doors. The same effect continues in the
present day. It is a constant principle of human
nature that our wants increase with the means of
gratifying them. And well is it that we are so
constituted. Were man the sober, chastened, and
easily contented animal which moralists have
sometimes, with false views of human welfare,
attempted to make him, — did a mere shelter for
the weather, and a sufficiency of wholesome food
and coarse clothing, satisfy his wishes,

' Content to dwell in decencies for ever,'

his species would probably have remained for ever
in a condition little superior to that of the cattle
they have domesticated. Art, science, literature,
all the pleasures of refinement, taste, and intel-
lectual occupation, would have been unknown:
more than this, — the ingenuity by which the gifts
of nature and the enjoyments of mere animal exist-

252 UTILITY OF COMMERCE.

ence are multiplied and heightened, would never
have been called into action ; and the prospect
which, in spite of local and temporary checks,
seems to us continually brightening, of a pro-
gressive and indefinite amelioration in the circum-
stances of mankind, would have been closed at
once. But it is not so. Every augmentation in
the number and variety of the means of human
gratification has the certain effect of increasing the
number of human wants and desires, and of stimu-
lating industry and ingenuity to satisfy them by
increased labour or skill in the production of those
things, by exchange for which the desired objects
may be obtained. The improvement of our manu-
factures and the increase of our foreign and inter-
nal trade have not only a stimulating influence on
our native agriculture, and, therefore, add to our
supplies of home-grown food, — but by offering
novel gratifications to the inhabitants of other
countries, more fertile or less highly cultivated
than our own, they excite them to greater industry
in the creation of those agricultural products of
which we stand in need.

Few mistakes, therefore, can be more complete
than that into which those writers fall who under-
rate the advantages of foreign commerce, affecting
to treat it merely as the source of a supply of a
somewhat better description of consumable articles
than we could procure at home; and fail to per-
ceive that, without its aid, we should have remained
deprived of nearly all that excites our industry and
gratifies our desires, — of all the comforts, the
luxuries, the refinements, and of many things now
considered the necessaries, of civilized existence.

COMMON INTEREST OF PRODUCTIVE CLASSES. 253

These several productive classes, or * Interests,'
which it is sometimes the fashion to oppose and
contrast with each other, are far from being sepa-
rated by any broad line of demarcation. They
are indeed, on the contrary, closely entwined and
enlaced together, forming the warp and woof in
the vveb of society. Their interests, consequently,
are identical ; and any attempt to advance that of
one, at the expense of the others, must be equally
prejudicial to all. In fact, the business of each
branch is to supply the wants of the others, so that
any falling off in the means of one must cause a
proportionate defalcation in the occupation and
resources of the others. They are inseparably
connected, and depend upon or grow out of each
other. The agriculturists raise raw produce for
the manufacturers and merchants, while the latter
fabricate and import articles of necessity, conve-
nience, and ornament for the use of the former.
Whatever, consequently, contributes to promote or
depress the industry and enterprise of one class,
must have a beneficial or injurious influence upon
the others. * Land and trade/ to borrow the just
and forcible expressions of Sir Josiah Child, ' are
TWINS, and have always, and ever will, wax and
wane together. It cannot be ill with trade but
land will fall, nor ill with land but trade will feel
it.' Hence the injurious consequences that result
from every attempt to exalt and advance one
species of industry by giving it factitious advan-
tages at the expense of the rest.

It has been a question much disputed whether
any one of these branches of industry should hold a
higher rank in the general estimation than another.

254 PREFERENCE GIVEN TO AGRICULTURE

Many writers have contended for the pre-eminence
of agriculture over manufactures and commerce.
M. Quesnay and the French economists were
followed in this by Dr. Smith. But the reason
assigned by them for this preference, namely, that
in agriculture labour is most productive, as being
exclusively assisted by the powers of Nature, is an
evident fallacy. The manufacturer and the mer-
chant avail themselves of the useful qualities of the
mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms to the
same extent as the cultivator; and Nature affords
her aid as bountifully and as gratuitously to the
one as to the other.

Though these authors have failed in giving a
satisfactory reason for the rank they would assign
to agriculture above the other useful arts, it is
not, however, the less true that a marked pre*
ference has been awarded in all times and coun-
tries to this branch of industry ; and it is diffi-
cult to believe that so prevalent a feeling can
have its origin in a miserable fallacy. A little
reflection will enable us easily to account for it.
The true source of the peculiar veneration in which
agriculture has been always held, lies in the con-
sciousness that it is to this art man is indebted for
the staff of life, FOOD ; while the rest serve only
to minister to his convenience and luxury, and
multiply his means of enjoyment. However im-
portant to his comfort may be the greater number
of objects which commerce and manufactures
place at his disposal, — however justly he may
prize these departments of industry for their varied
and valuable gifts, — every one must feel that
he is yet more deeply indebted to that art which

AS THE SOURCE OF SUBSISTENCE. 255

furnishes him with the main support of his exist*
ence, — without which he could not survive the
day. He feels that he could spare the products of
the former arts, but not of the latter. Those sup-
ply him with luxuries and comforts, this with ne-
cessaries. Even if we must consider this a pre-
judice, it is at least a natural, and may well be a
general one. But it is not a prejudice ; in the
present circumstances of society it has a sound
and reasonable foundation. So long as there are
thousands of our fellow-creatures starving for
want of necessaries, the art which occupies itself
in supplying them will, in the estimation of every
friend to humanity, bear the palm over those which
are engaged in providing superfluities! While
there is FAMINE on the earth, every man of human
feelings will desire to encourage the manufacture
of corn in preference to that of cottons, silks, or
muslins, — to stimulate the production of bread,
even though at the expense of toys and trinkets.

But why should there be any lack of the neces-
saries of life? How is it that we boast of the
multiplied inventions and improvements of civili-
zation as having armed man with an immense
increase of productive power, — if it be true that
they have not yet enabled him to procure a suffi-
ciency of necessaries for the bare support of his
existence ? In a condition of barbarism, with
nothing to depend on but his natural resources,
his existence is necessarily precarious ; — hunger
and misery his occasional, perhaps frequent, visi-
ters. But every step that he makes in knowledge
and art, in the improvement of his faculties and
the enlargement of his resources, ought to remove

256 POPULATION AND FOOD.

him farther and farther from the reach of want.
And it would be strange, indeed, if, after ages
spent in successive victories over matter, and in
accumulating the means of yet further conquests —
after he has not only compelled whole races of the
inferior animals to his service, but taught the very
elements, each and all, to do his bidding, with
superior docility and far greater power, — when
invention after invention, one more perfect than
the other, have multiplied his powers of production
in every branch of industry to a considerable, and
in some to an almost incalculable extent; — it
would be indeed strange if, in spite of all this,
man were still unable to escape the grasp of want,
— still incapable of procuring a full sufficiency
even of the coarsest necessaries on which to main-
tain life.

If such should, indeed, be the condition of the
population of any country which has made a con-
siderable progress in the arts of production, the
simplest reflection will force upon us the con-
viction that gross mismanagement must prevail
either in the direction of its resources or the dis-
tribution of their produce.

We are thus brought to one of the most inte-
resting questions of political economy, — the ques-
tion indeed of highest importance to the welfare
of mankind ; and on which it has unfortunately
happened that the most false and ruinously perni-
cious opinions have been professed by nearly
every late writer on the subject, — the question on
the relations naturally subsisting between popu-
lation and food.

257

CHAPTER XL
POPULATION AND SUBSISTENCE.

History of the supply of Food to an increasing People. —
Early limitation of the numbers and resources of Man. —
Hunting State. — Pastoral State. — Agricultural Slate. —
Increased facilities for procuring Subsistence consequent
on every Improvement. — Culture of inferior Soils indica-
tive of increased, not of diminished Resources. — Sure
Resource of Migration. — Colonization. — Fast extent of
rich Soil yet uncultivated. — Unlimited capacity of the
Globe for the production of Food. — Misery the result of
Crime and Fol/y, not of any natural Law. — Food can
easily be made to increase faster than Population — as also
Capital of every kind. — Folly, mischief, and impiety of
the Malthusian Doctrine. — True direction of prudence to
the Increase of Food and Wealth^ not the limitation of
numbers and happiness.

WE repeat, this is infinitely the most interesting
problem in the whole range of the science of Po-
litical Economy. That science we defined as having
for its object tiie study of the circumstances which
determine the abundance and general distribution
among the members of a society of the neces-
saries, comfort?, and luxuries of life. ]3ut it is
obvious that of such circumstances the most
momentous by far must be those which determine
its supply of the MEANS OF SUBSISTENCE. No
abundance of conveniences or luxuries can com-

s

258 SUPPLY OF FOOD —

pensate a people for a deficiency of food ! no in-
terest is to be put for a moment in competition
with that of a full supply of the means of sub-
sistence for the entire population.

A deficiency in the means of subsistence is ac-
knowledged to be in the present age the only
obstacle of real importance that opposes itself to
the continual and increasing prosperity of the in-
habitants of the more civilized parts of the world.
This, then, is the great question that stands fore-
most in claiming the attention of the philosopher,
the legislator, the statesman, and the man of hu-
manity. What are the natural laws which determine
the supply of food ? Is there any reason why its
increase should present greater difficulties than that
of other objects of desire? Are there any artificial
obstacles imposed by conventional institutions to
its abundant production ? For if so, they should be
removed. Are there any means of encouraging
and accelerating its production ? For if so, they
should be adopted.

Now there is nothing intricate or mysterious in
the method by which man supplies himself with
food, or in the natural circumstances that determine
its abundance or deficiency ; — nothing that can
excuse or account for the extraordinary fallacies
which have been put forth on this subject, and the
frightful (it is difficult to refrain from saying the
inhuman and " impious) conclusions which have
been arrived at by some who have written volumes
upon it. I am anxious to preserve this little work,
as far as possible, from assuming a controversial
character; and would willingly therefore refrain
from characterizing, as they appear to me to de-

ITS HISTORY AND LAWS. 259

serve, the doctrines to which I allude, — and which
are so well known by the name of their leading
propagator, Mr. Malthus. But to treat lightly,
and as a mere venial error, the promulgation of
doctrines having so pernicious a tendency as these
would amount to a kind of misprision of treason
against humanity. None can doubt the benevo-
lent intentions of the gentleman I have named,
and of the greater number of his followers. But
good intentions are not enough to rescue from
deserved reprobation those who do their utmost to
spread opinions tending materially to influence
the happiness of millions of their fellow-creatures,
without such a severe and searching examination
of their truth, as must, in the instance before us, if
undertaken in a spirit of candour, have instantly
detected the palpable errors which lay on the very
surface of the argument.

In order to form a correct conception of the law
of relation between population and subsistence, the
first step, of course, should be to examine the
plain and obvious circumstances on which the
supply of food to an increasing people has always
depended.

The sacred writings inform us that all mankind
sprang from a single pair. But without recurring
to the evidence of divine inspiration, all historical
records unite in placing before us the fact that
the numbers of men have been for many a<?es past
continually on the increase, and lead us to believe
that his race was at some former period few in
number, confined within very narrow geographical
limits, and endowed with a very scanty knowledge
of the useful arts. His present numbers and ter-

s 2

260 HISTORY OF SUPPLY OF FOOD,

ritorial extension have been progressively reached,
as his knowledge, skill, and powers of production
accumulated.

Whether there ever was a time when the pro-
genitors of the now civilized nations of the globe
were ignorant of the arts of agriculture and the
domestication of cattle, is a question which, though
seriously mooted of late by a writer of eminence
in logic and theology,* is little worthy of investiga-
tion. Many savage tribes still existing offer an
example of the mode in which our ancestors must
have subsisted, if, as is probable, they once did
exist in this state of comparative helplessness.

* Dr. Whately, in his Introductory Lectures on Political
Economy delivered at Oxford, in 1830, argues in favour of
the supposition that man was created with an innate know-
ledge of certain of the arts of civilization ; and that the
savage tribes still met with who are ignorant of these
arts are not specimens of man in his primitive condition, but
in a state of deterioration. This is a strange idea to have
been seriously entertained by an acute reasoner. Man is
certainly not born at present with any such innate knowledge.
He acquires all he possesses only by instruction or invention.
It is easy to conceive how this same faculty of invention
may have suggested by degrees every step of the progress
from the extreme of barbarism to that of civilization. But
it is utterly impossible to conceive the creation of a being
endowed ab initio with a knowledge of the useful arts and
sciences, of any or all of them. It may be said that all
creation is an inconceivable mystery. True, and therefore
we refer to it only what is not to be accounted for in any
other way. Where secondary causes utterly fail, there we
necessarily resort to the action of the great First Cause.
But to attribute to the direct energy of the Deity, not merely
the creation of man with all his wondrous natural faculties,
but his instruction in the arts of milking cows, sowing corn,
and making ploughs and pipkins, is surely consistent neither
with sound philosophy nor rational theology.

MAN IN THE HUNTING STATE. 261

Their sustenance must have been confined to the
fruits and berries of the plain or forest, the flesh of
wild animals and fish, and the water of the spring.
But with the exception of the last, which alone
will not support life, these spontaneous gifts of
nature are very limited ; and as the numbers of a
society increased, there must have been felt a very
inconvenient scarcity of food, such as we know to
be habitually experienced by the savage tribes of
America or Southern Africa. In this condition
the horrors of want must have been frequent,,
even among a society which ranged over an extent .
of territory such as now could be made to support
many times the number it was then incapable
of sustaining. It has, indeed, been calculated,
on good authority, that one acre tilled accord- .
ing to good British husbandry will support as
many individuals as a thousand acres of .hunting
ground in the wilds of savage America. The only
resource by which such a people could escape the
thinning of their numbers by famine would be a.
spreading in search of new hunting grounds. But
with the feeble means they possessed for encoun-
tering the natural difficulties in the way of their
migration, this resource must have often failed
them. And even had they been able to extend
themselves over the whole habitable surface of
the globe, their numbers would soon have reached
the limit which the earth was capable of sup-
porting in this precarious manner.

When, however, a people had attained a know-
ledge of the art of domesticating animals, vvhose
milk or flesh supplies a wholesome and pleasant
diet, a great addition was made to their power of

262 PASTORAL STATE.

providing themselves with food from a limited
territory. A tract of land employed as pasturage
for herds of cattle and flocks of sheep might be
made to support, probably, not less than a hun-
dred times the population which could subsist on
its spontaneous supply of wild fruits and animals.
This pastoral condition, accompanied, for very
obvious reasons, with nomadic habits, still charac-
terizes the population of some extensive regions
of the earth.

But as the numbers of such a society increased,
they might not impossibly find themselves pinched
for want of a sufficient range of pasture land.
We have an example of this recorded in the sacred
history of the Jews. When Abraham and Lot
sojourned together ' between Bethel and Hai,'
having each large possessions of flocks and herds
and tents, and a proportionately large patriarchal
family, or ' tribe' — ' the land,' it is said, ' was not
able to bear them so that they might dwell toge-
ther/* Under these circumstances two resources,
as before, are open to such a people, — viz. either
to spread themselves over other distant lands yet
unoccupied, (which was the proposal of Abraham
to Lot, ' If thou wilt take to the left hand, I will
go to the right ; or if thou depart to the right
hand, I will go to the left;') or by the exercise of
their ingenuity to contrive means for making the
district they inhabit afford them more copious
supplies of food. To these, modern political eco-
nomists have added a third, namely, the keeping
their numbers sedulously within the limits of their

* Genesis, chap. xii.

AGRICULTURAL STATE. 263

existing means of subsistence by ' a prudential
abstinence from marriage.' Fortunately our an-
cestors in tlie earlier ages of the world did not
adopt this sage plan ; or the probability is, that
\ve, and the other civilized nations of the globe,
would never have existed at all ; and mankind
would have been confined, in local occupation, to
some one or two snug corners, — a rich island, or
a fertile valley, — and in numbers, to the few thou-
sands whom the pasture of this limited territory
could supply with milk, cheese, and cattle !

Where nature or accident interposed difficulties
in the way of the territorial extension of a growing
population, as would happen in the case of an
island or a valley surrounded by high mountains,
or a people already closely hemmed in by other
tribes equally tending to redundancy, — the latter
of the two natural resources we have mentioned
would probably be adopted. Under such circum-
stances the cultivation of the wild fruits of the
earth, the improvement of the pasture lands by
manuring and irrigation, and the invention and
practice, above all, of agriculture, would obviously
suggest themselves as means for attaining the
desired object of enlarging the supply of food to
meet the growing demand for it.

AGRICULTURE, like most subsequent inventions
and improvements in the useful arts, was doubtless
the offspring of the necessity which drives a people
to exertions, both corporeal and intellectual, for
their maintenance. By it, even in its most im-
perfect state, as practised by the least advanced of
agricultural nations, land of average fertility can
be made to support many times the number of

264 IMPROVEMENTS IN AGRICULTURE.

inhabitants that it will maintain under a system of
promiscuous pasturage.

The agricultural system, however, is rarely at
present, and seems seldom in any instance, to have
been adopted to the exclusion of the pastoral, but
only in aid of it ; as the growing wants of in-
creasing numbers might render it advisable to in-
close, break up, and cultivate fresh tracts of arable
land, — the remainder being reserved as pasturage
for the flocks and herds which the varied tastes and
wants of the society required to be maintained.

At first the richest and most prolific soils are
chosen for aration ; and the habitations of their
cultivators are permanently reared in the imme-
diate vicinity of these favoured spots. As the
habits of a purely pastoral tribe are necessarily
nomadic, so those of an agricultural people are,
for equally obvious reasons, settled and stationary.
The tents of the former are exchanged for houses
of timber, stone, clay, brick, or other accessible
material, when they betake themselves to the
inclosure, cultivation, and improvement of parti-
cular patches of soil. As the population quartered
on these spots increases, and requires larger sup-
plies of food, a fresh surface is broken up. And
when all the soils of the richest quality in the
occupation of a people, or tribe, are already in
tillage, soils of an inferior quality will be perhaps
resorted to. But, in the meantime, division of
labour is taking place, and improvements of va-
rious kinds are making as well in agriculture,
as in the other arts of production ; so that it will
probably happen that corn or other food may be
raised from these secondary soils with less trouble,

PRODUCTIVENESS OF SOILS. 265

that is to say, at a less cost of labour and capital,
than what, in the infancy of agriculture, were ex-
pended on the very first- rate qualities of soil to
produce the same return. So far, therefore, from
the recurrence to the cultivation of inferior sojls
being necessarily accompanied by, or attesting*
any diminution in the comparative abundance of
food, or any increasing difficulty in the means of
procuring it, (a doctrine laid down by a large sect
of political economists, as a fundamental proposi-
tion upon which to erect their science,) such a
step is, on the contrary, quite compatible with a
continual increase of the quantity, or improvement
of the quality, of the food at the command of each
individual, — and is to the full as likely to be
symptomatic of an increased as of a diminished
capacity for procuring food.

There have, in truth, been few grosser fallacies
promulgated by modern political economists, than
this doctrine of the ' decreasing fertility of the
soil.' The fertility — or productiveness — of soils is,
on the contrary, daily increasing, with every ad-
vance in the science of agriculture ; and not only
of agriculture but of every other useful art, since
every step made in such arts liberates more labour
to be employed, if needed, in the cultivation of the
soil without any diminution of the other comforts
at the command of a people. The very reverse,
therefore, of the doctrine we allude to, is the truth.
And how paradoxical its very enunciation ! These
writers would persuade us that it becomes every
year more difficult to produce food ! — that as the
productive powers of man advance, those of nature
decline ! — that as man's numbers increase, and his

266 FALLACY OF ECONOMISTS ON

ingenuity, and knowledge, and instruments of every
kind improve, his means of extracting a bare sub-
sistence from the bosom of the earth diminish !
As well might they tell us that, as the stream rolls
onward from its mountain springlet to the distant
ocean, the volume of its waters is lessened by every
tributary it receives into its bosom.

But it is insisted upon that there is an ' iron
necessity' which compels the expenditure of more
labour and more capital to produce the same re-
turns, as more food is wanted and fresh soils are
taken into cultivation ! What a contradiction this
to every known fact ! Why, have we not been con-
tinually taking fresh soils into cultivation in this
island for the last eight or ten centuries ? And
will any one deny that a quarter of corn can be
raised now at less cost of labour and capital than
in the time of Alfred ? If not, how does it happen,
that, whereas nearly the entire population was
then employed in agriculture, one third is at pre-
sent enough to supply the whole with food ? But
this is, in truth, the usual progress of nations as
they advance in numbers and civilization. The
proportion of their productive power employed in
the gratification of new and varied tastes, for com-
forts or luxuries, is continually increasing ; — every
improvement of agriculture and the subsidiary arts
enabling a smaller proportion to supply the whole
with food. This law is universal, and establishes
the very reverse of the proposition we oppose.

The writers to whom we allude attempt to draw
a broad line of distinction between manufactures
and agricultural produce, contending that the former
may be indefinitely increased without any increase

' DECREASING FERTILITY OF SOILS.' 267

in their cost of production; while the latter can
only be augmented by having recourse to poorer
soils at a continually increasing expense.* But it
seems to be forgotten by these economists that
manufacturing industry only works up the raw
produce of agriculture — that cotton, wool, and flax
are as much the produce of the soil as corn, cheese,
and mutton ; and that any supposed decrease in
the productiveness of soils must act to the full as
much in checking the supply of manufactures as of
food. In the second place, these so much re-
gretted and bemoaned obstacles to the extension
of agriculture, — in what do they really consist?
Why, simply, in the circumstance that all soils
are not of the very first quality, and, consequently,
that when the best of those close at hand are fully
cultivated, an increase of produce can only be ob-
tained by either going to a greater distance, or
cultivating the inferior soils at hand, at a greater
expense. But might we not as well complain that
food is not made to drop into our mouths while
we sit idle upon our haunches, as that we must go
a little farther to procure it when we want more
than the soils immediately within reach can supply?
Might we not as rationally regret that all men are
not six foot high, all trees not oak, and all flowers
not roses, as that all land is not fitted for the
growth of wheat ? The variety in the quality of
soils, far from being a disadvantage, appears to us
in the light of a most useful provision of nature,
having two very beneficial effects, — 1. The creation
of a valuable variety in the nature of their produce.

* See Malthus, Principles of Political Economy, and
M'Culloch, Idem, p. 443. Edition 1830.

268 MIGRATION.

2. The offering of an inducement to man to spread
himself over fresh and extensive districts in search
of the soils best suited to his purposes, instead of
concentrating his numbers in confined localities.

Indeed, under ordinary circumstances, the cul-
tivation of inferior qualities of soil may be de-
clared to be directly indicative of an increased
power of production, and an enlargement of the
resources of a people. If we take this step, it is
not (as the economists already referred to de-
clare) that we are driven to it by any stern ne-
cessity for procuring food at whatever increased
cost ; but on the contrary it can only be that we
are enabled by improvements in agriculture, and
its auxiliary arts, to procure it from the inferior
soils close to us at a less sacrifice, than the very
trifling one of either bringing it from, or removing
ourselves to, the soils of first quality which remain
yet uncultivated at a comparative distance. For it
must be recollected that, besides the cultivation of
the inferior soils, there is another easy resource
open to a nation whose numbers are increasing, so
as to press upon the limits of the subsistence im-
mediately within their reach, — the simple step,
namely, of migration ; of extending their territo-
rial occupation, and spreading themselves beyond
the geographical limits by which fortuitous circum-
stances may have up to that time circumscribed
their dominion. Few nations could have been
opposed by any great difficulties in this extension of
their territory ; none could ever have found such
obstacles insurmountable by a moderate exercise
of foresight and ingenuity. Some may have been
hemmed in by .natural limits, mountains, seas, or

COLONIZATION. 269

rivers. Some by neighbouring and closely-peopled
states. But abstracting the danger of hostile
collisions with their neighbours, which prudent
and conciliatory arrangements might always easily
obviate, no difficulties could oppose the migration
of their swarms, other than the more or less of dis-
tance to be traversed in search of an unoccupied
spot, and the necessity of preparing a sufficient
stock of food for maintenance of the swarm during
the journey, and until they had reduced their new
territory to cultivation and fruitfulness. These are
surely not such obstacles as a moderate exercise
of foresight could not always with the utmost
facility surmount.

Accordingly, we find this migratory process to
have been frequently adopted. Colonies have
been founded in various parts of the earth, by the
overflow of nations, whose numbers were increasing
inconveniently, as compared with the means of a
limited territory for maintaining them. And to
this natural and beneficial process it is owing that
there are few extensive regions of the earth, in
some corner or other of which something like a
human settlement has not been effected.

But yet, after all that has been done in this
respect, it is a fact that by far the greater portion
of the surface of the earth remains a wilderness,
contributing nothing to the support or benefit
of man, however teeming with fertility, and is still
open to his appropriation whenever he chooses
to make the slight exertion required for this pur-
pose. In every quarter of the globe, in Europe,
Asia, Africa, the Americas, Australia, lie vast

270 UNLIMITED CAPACITY OF THE GLOBE

tracts of rich and easily cultivable land, still un-
touched by man, and but nominally, if at all
appropriated, — tracts easily accessible, equally
fitted for pasturage and aration, and capable, if
reduced to cultivation according to the improved
methods now in use among civilized nations, of
supplying a sufficiency of food for the main-
tenance of certainly some hundred, probably
several thousand times the number of human beings
now existing on the globe.

With respect to the food-producing capacities
of our own country and its colonies, we may refer
to the calculations of a writer in the Quarterly
Review*, who estimates the cultivable extent of our
colonial territories at twenty-one millions of square
miles, each capable of supporting two hundred
inhabitants; i. e. in the whole 4200 millions of
persons, or about one hundred and seventy times
our actual numbers, at the present British standard
of maintenance ; so that if it were even supposed pos-
sible that our population should double its num-
bers in every generation, many generations must
pass away before there could be a greater scarcity
of food felt than at present; and this upon the
incredible supposition, that our agricultural skill
should in the mean time remain unimproved.

If it be asked what room there is for a similar
development of the other nations of the earth, we
answer, firstly, that there is but too much reason
to fear that their misgovernment, disturbances,
want of security for property, and frequent exposure
to the scourges of war, pestilence, and famine, will
yet for many generations to come prevent their
* Vol. xlviii. p. 60.

FOR THE PRODUCTION OF FOOD. 271

making much progress in population. But should
a more favourable state of things turn up, Europe
alone has, we are convinced, a sufficiency of sur-
face-soils to support, if duly cultivated, a hundred
times her present population ; and in Asia, Africa,
and the two Americas, not even excepting China
and India, the resources of the soil are as yet
hardly entered upon. Look, for example, at the
almost boundless plains of South America, which
intervene between the Andes and the Atlantic —
plains chiefly composed of deep alluvial soil, ferti-
lized and intersected in every direction by the
most magnificent navigable rivers and a rich maze
of tributaries. Mr. Alexander, in his Trans-
Atlantic Sketches, justly remarks : ' I often wished
that some of those who think that ere long the
world will be over-peopled, and that we shall
shoulder one another off it, or into the sea, could
view the vast solitudes of Guiana, and reflect that
nearly the, whole of the interior of the South
American continent, though capable of supporting
BILLIONS of inhabitants, is as yet almost entirely
in the keeping of nature.'

For the capabilities of North America we refer
to Mr. Stuart, who, in his late work on America,
quotes from the American Quarterly Review a
passage, the accuracy of which he confirms from
his own observation, descriptive of the great plain
which composes the northern portion of the basin
of the Mississippi. 4 It extends from the western
slope of the Alleghany to the sand plain at the foot
of the Rocky Mountains, a distance of about 1500
miles in length, and from the valley of the northern
lakes to the mouth of the Ohio, a distance of 600

272 UNLIMITED CAPACITY OF THE GLOBE

miles in width/ ' It is uniformly fertile, literally
all arable. There are no sterile plains, no rocky
or precipitous ridges, and scarcely any swamps, to
deform its fair surface. This uninterrupted fer-
tility arises from the decomposition of the great
limestone pan on which it rests.' * It is dry,
clean, and healthful. In addition to its unlimited
agricultural capacity, this great plain abounds in
mineral resources. Its coal-fields would cover half
Europe.' ' Iron, lead, gypsum, and saltpetre are
found in great abundance/ ' Here, indeed, " every
rood of land will support its man ;" for of such a
region, without barren mountain, or waste, where
all is fertile and healthful, where no timber lands
need be left for fuel, with mineral resources enough
to stimulate all the arts, and contribute to supply
all wants, who can say what is the limit of its
future population? Europe could seat all her na-
tions comfortably on this plain.'

Mr. Stuart describes all those portions of this
vast tract which he visited as consisting uniformly
of prairie land, thinly dotted over with timber,
like a nobleman's park in England; composed of
the richest vegetable soil, from three to forty feet
deep, and producing from thirty to fifty bushels of
wheat per acre, with oats and Indian corn in rota-
tion, for an indefinite succession of years without
manure. He describes second crops of wheat, self-
sown from the mere, droppings of the former crop,
as producing thirty-four bushels per acre ! and
with proper cultivation forty bushels are sure to
be obtained as an average annual crop.*

* Stuart: Three Years in America, vol. ii. pp. 387, 404.

FOR THE PRODUCTION OF FOOD. 273

A simple calculation will show us that the plain
thus described contains 900,000 square miles, or
576 millions of acres. Let us allow something
for the exaggeration of its description, and suppose
only 500 millions of acres to possess the qualities
attributed by these writers to the whole. Each
acre, producing annually forty bushels of corn,
would well support a family of four persons ; so
that here, in this one valley, there is ample room
for twice, the entire population of the globe to pro-
vide themselves with an abundance of the most
nutritious food. And this is but one half of the
basin of but one American river !

To return to the old world, look, we say, at
Asia Minor, Persia, Central Asia, and the vast ex-
tent of Asiatic Russia, — can it be doubted that
these districts, under a government which pro-
tected industry from unjust exaction, would afford
sustenance to very many times their present num-
ber of inhabitants ? Of the capabilities of Northern
Africa for colonization, an experiment is now, we
hope, in course of trial. It is known that a great
extent of its surface was once highly cultivated,
and supported a dense population. And we can
see no reason for believing, that, with the aid of
modern skill and science, it may not again be
brought to at least an equal state of fertility. Of
the central parts of that vast continent, south of
the Sandy Desert, too little is known for us to
speak with any confidence of its resources ; but
harassed and brutalized as its inhabitants are, for
the most part, by the odious traffic in slaves,
oppressed by predatory tribes, and subjected to
the tyranny of atrocious despots, it is impossible

274 UNLIMITED CAPACITY OF THE GLOBE

to believe that their numbers have as yet made
anything like an approach to the limits of the
capacity of the country for their support.

So far, therefore, from its being true, that the
population either of the British kingdoms, or of
the world at large, is already as numerous as can
be maintained off the soils which are at their dis-
posal, we believe it does not reach the one-thou-
sandth part of the number which these soils would
feed, were the agricultural skill, and science, and
other resources which the most advanced among
the nations even now possess, judiciously applied
to their cultivation ; and we can see nothing to
prevent those resources being, in the course of
time, themselves multiplied a thousand-fold by
future discoveries and improvements. It has been
calculated, as we have already said, that one acre
now may be made to maintain as many human
beings as could live upon a thousand acres of
hunting ground, in an age when man lived by the
chase alone. Can we presume to assert, that in
the progress of agricultural chemistry, the science
of manures, and vegetable and animal physiology,
other improvements may not carry us as far for-
ward again, so that, if need were, even the thou-
sandth part of an acre may support as many as
one acre does now ? Strange as this may sound
in the present state of our knowledge, things that
sounded as strange to our forefathers have already
been brought about.

But it is said, we must be brought to a stand-
still at length, for the surface of the globe will
afford elbow-room for but a limited number!
Dr. Chalmers seriously adduces this ultimate pro-

FOR THE PRODUCTION OF FOOD. 275

spect as an argument, and laments over the risk
of men becoming as thickly packed ' as mites in
a cheese !' Now, in the first place, the predicted
calamity does not appear to us so very tearful —
the mites, for aught we can see, have a very happy
time of it. In the next, we submit, that when
there appears any near prospect of such an over-
peopling as that — of a deficiency of standing-room
for the inhabitants of the world — it may be time
to consider the propriety of restraining the incli-
nations of young men and maidens to marry and
be given in marriage. And it ought to relieve
the anxiety of these philosophers for the fate of
such as may have their lot cast in those distant
times, that in the works of Mr. Malthus and Dr.
Chalmers, of which doubtless that remote pos-
terity will possess the ten-thousandth edition, they
are provided with a specific — infallible, by their
account, in its effect of * upholding a well-con-
ditioned state of society,' by checking the rate of
increase at any point where it may be considered
desirable— within * the limit' of comfortable arm's
length for example, or the proportion of square
feet of stowage that is allowed to each individual
on board a man- of* war ! The very confidence the
Malthusians possess in the excellence of their
specific ought to be enough to convince them, that
no ultimate injury need be apprehended from the
over-increase of population, with so obvious and
easy a resource at hand. But to persuade us to
have recourse to it NOW — when, in some quarters
of the globe, next neighbours are separated by an
interval of leagues, and the progress of civilization
is delayed, not by a redundancy, but a deficiency

T 2

276 NO CHECK TO POPULATION NEEDED.

of hands — when, as we have shown reason to be-
lieve, the earth is calculated to hold at least a
thousand times its present numbers without any
symptom of inconvenience either from want of
food or room — when, even were every nation
under the sun to he released from all the natural
and artificial checks on their increase, and to start
oil* breeding at the fastest possible rate, many,
very many, generations must elapse before any
necessary pressure could be felt — and when, un-
happily, the melancholy truth is, that there is little
probability of any number of nations, perhaps not
even of one, being placed for ages under such
favourable circumstances — in this, the actual state
of things — to bid mankind, or rather the peasantry
of Britain, on their peril, to refrain from marriage,
lest the world be immediately over-peopled ! — This
is indeed right midsummer madness — the ne plus
ultra of moonstruck, Lapulan philosophy. And
our only wonder is, that these expansive philan-
thropists— who would starve the present race of
man in their benevolent care for the comfort of his
posterity in the hundredth generation — do not
likewise preach a crusade against artificial fires,
as robbing the atmosphere of its oxygen ; stint us
of spring water, lest we drink the heavens dry, or
shrink the level of the ocean ; and call for a pro-
hibition of dark colours, as tending by their ab-
sorption to exhaust the sun of his light. Air,
light, and water — like the food-producing powers
of the earth — have their ultimate limits ; and we
are probably as near to the one as to the others.

It is evident, then, that there is not as yet, and

NO LIMIT TO THE SUPPLY OF FOOD. 2?7

never has been, any necessary bar or limit to the
supply of human food, and consequently to the
increase of human population. That locally and
temporarily such a limit has been continually felt,
as societies increased beyond their actual provi-
sion of the means of support, is consonant to the
supposed course of human progress which we have
just sketched out, and amounts to this truism, that
a growing society constantly needs an enlarge-
ment of its supply of food. The advantages man
has derived from the pressure of this necessity, in
continually ' sharpening his wits,' and urging him
to devise means for removing the local limit to his
supply of necessaries, are as obvious as they are
incalculable. But it is quite evident that this
continual 4 pressure of population against food/
was either caused by the natural unwillingness of
man to labour to produce more food than he had
occasion for ; or at the worst, by the unwise mis-
direction of his resources ; since it was at all times
open to him, by the exercise of a very slight de-
gree of foresight and industry, to enlarge his sup-
plies of sustenance as his numbers and wants
increased. And this by one of two alternatives^
either by taking into cultivation the inferior soils
which were under his hand; or, if he found it more
agreeable or more profitable, by sending out the
growing excess of his numbers to occupy, culti-
vate, and people, whatever unappropriated and
higbly fertile portions of the earth lay most con-
venient for his purposes.

We are far from denying that want and famine
have constantly been at work, thinning the ranks
of the great human family. Nay, it may be ad-

278 REAL CAUSE OF WANT.

mittecl that (in the words of the chief supporter of
the opposite doctrine, qualified as that doctrine
has been of late by successive recantations)

* there has never been a period of considerable
length, when premature mortality and vice, speci-
fically arising from the pressure of population
against food, has not prevailed to a considerable
extent."*

But what we maintain is, that this evil has ever
and everywhere been the consequence of the folly
or criminality of man, of his mistaken arrange-
ments or anti- social passions — usually of the op-
pressive extortion of his rulers, — NEVER, in any
one instance, of a necessity which could not have
been easily obviated by wise and prudent fore-
thought, in proportioning (not the number of
feeders to the supply of food, but) the supply of
food to the probable demand, — still less to any
inherent law of nature, such as Mr. Malthus and
his followers insist upon, rendering it the deplora-
ble destiny of man to wage an eternal and unsuc-
cessful struggle against famine.

Misery and vice enough, indeed, have there been.
/ But these evils have never been occasioned by

* the tendency of population to press against the
means of subsistence/ That tendency has been
productive of incalculable good, and of no evil
that might not with the utmost facility have been
avoided. There was always at hand more than
one simple, easy, and effectual resource for keep-
ing the means of subsistence level, at least, with

* Malthus's Letter to Senior, 1831. He should have
added a third qualification to make the assertion accord
with truth, viz., ' in some considerable quarter of the globe.'

THE MISDIRECTION OF MAN'S MEANS. 279

the wants of any possible population. The misery
and wo, the vice and starvation that have exhi-
bited themselves in such frightful frequency among
men, have been ever the effect of tyranny and
crime, of misgovernment, of the indulgence of
their evil passions ; of the misdirection of the
exertions of a people, not so much through their
own ignorance and mistaken views (for the in-
stinct which prompts the man, as well as the ant,
to secure himself from hunger by timely precau-
tions, might be safely trusted to accomplish that
end), as through the force or fraud of the powerful,
and the control of unjust or unwise institutions,
which have tied up the hands of millions, and
prevented them from helping themselves to the
abundance provided by a bountiful Creator as the
meet reward of their exertions ; which have con-
fined them by artificial restraints, enforced for
the benefit of the powerful few, till disease and
famine have thinned their numbers, or, like caged
rats, they have been goaded by despair and hun-
ger to prey upon each other.

Enough has been said, we think, to prove that
there OUGHT to be no deficiency of food in a
civilized community — that there CAN be none in
any whose home resources are well and prudently
managed, and where, when these incline to fail, a
provident use is made in time of the great natural
resource of emigration.

But it may be said, ' Man does not live by
bread alone $ ' there are many other things almost,
if not quite, as necessary to him : clothing, fuel,
shelter, and the decent comforts of civilized exist-

280 EVERY IMPROVEMENT IN THE ARTS

ence. The same argument, however, which we
have used with respect to food, applies equally to
all these things. In a community which has made
any considerable advance in the arts, there ought to
foe, and, in the absence of the grossest mismanage-
in ent of its resources on the part of those to
whom their direction is intrusted, must be, an
ample abundance, not merely of the necessaries,
but likewise of the comforts and conveniences of
life, for every individual member who has not by
his own vice, folly, or criminality, forfeited his
share. And, indeed, this follows so directly from
the mere definition of an advance in civilization,
that we are wrapped in astonishment at its ever
having been disputed.

The eifect of a continued improvement in the
Arts of production is to increase the productive
power of every individual, and consequently to
^augment the aggregate productiveness of a nation
An proportion to its 7iumbers. Whether the im-
provement be in agriculture or the other useful
arts, it tends directly to enable each individual in
ithe community to obtain an increased share of
fiome one of the necessaries, comforts, and luxu-
ries of life by the same expenditure of labour and
capital, or the same share as before at a less ex-
pense ; leaving him a surplus of means applicable
to the acquisition of some further gratifications.

It is not denied by any that the productive
powers of man, his skill, and knowledge, and arti-
ficial resources, have been continually on the in-
crease ; nay, that they have multiplied, within a
few years past, in an extraordinary degree. Those
pf nature, on the other hand, have surely under-

OUGHT TO IMPROVE THE CONDITION OF ALL. 281

gone no decay. On the contrary, every hour is
opening to us a knowledge of fresh natural powers
with which we were before unacquainted. There
is certainly no deficiency of space for the deve-
lopment of man's industry ; nor is there any lack
of water to turn his machinery and float his
shipping ; of winds to impel them over the ocean ;
of fuel to supply his furnaces and animate his en-
gines ; of mineral veins to afford him the metals,
or of rocks to yield him the stones lie employs in
the various arts. There is no deficiency, as we
have seen, of unoccupied soils, of the highest fer-
tility and easily accessible by him, on which to rear
innumerable flocks and herds, and to produce — if
he choose to cultivate them — infinite supplies of
cotton, silk, flax, hemp, indigo, and every other
raw material required for the fabrication of endless
comforts and luxuries, as well as of corn, wine,
oil, and every other vegetable substance which
he may be desirous of consuming as food. There
is therefore, in our conception, no discernible cause
why his capital, his wealth, and the abundance
of the necessaries, comforts, and luxuries of life
at his disposal should not, if he chooses, increase
as rapidly, at least, as his numbers : whilst every
improvement in his skill, and every addition to
his knowledge plainly puts it in his power to cause
all these means of enjoyment to increase in a still
faster ratio than his numbers, and consequently
to cause a continual augmentation of the average
share of each individual in the society.

It has been, however, urged by writers from
whom abler views might have been expected, and
repeated by others, who have learnt a parrot- lesson

282 MALTHUSIAN DOCTRINE —

from them — until the dogma has been received as
a fundamental axiom from which the main proposi-
tions of political economy are to be deduced — that
it is next to impossible to make the increase of
capital keep pace with that of population ; that the
latter has an inherent and perpetual tendency to
outstrip the former, and that this tendency can only
be counteracted, and the evils it threatens to pro-
duce obviated, by a prudential limitation of the
numbers of every society, so as to keep their rate
of increase within that of capital. Mr. Malthus,
as we have said, was the originator, and crowds
of disciples have been the zealous propagators, of
this signally absurd and mischievous fallacy. Ab-
surd, because resting on a theorem about the arith-
metical and geometrical ratios in which food and
population are declared to increase, announced
with a ludicrously imposing air of science, and, in
as far as it bears on the subject, directly the reverse
of the truth — since the tendency to increase, or
prolific powers, of the vegetables and animals
which form the food of man, greatly exceed, in-
stead of falling short of, his own powers of
increase. Mischievous, because the direct infer-
ence from this miserable dogma (an inference
which Mr. Malthus and his disciples lost no time
in drawing and promulgating by every means in*
their power) is, that human suffering is not the
consequence of human error, but the necessary
result of a law of God and nature ; — that no relief
afforded by legal or spontaneous charity to the
miserable can mitigate misery ; that the poor
have no claim whatever upon the assistance of
the rich ; that governments have no power what-

ITS FOLLY, MISCHIEF, AND IMPIETY. 283

ever over the physical welfare of their subjects ;
that all efforts to make food or capital keep pace
with population are vain and fruitless ; and that
the endeavours of man should be exclusively di-
rected to keeping his numbers within the limits
of the means he at present possesses for main-
taining them. The simple consideration we have
adverted to ought long since to have exploded
these anti-social and barbarizing errors. For
what composes the subsistence and the capital,
whose slow rate of increase is complained of as
limiting the numbers of mankind; what, but the
things we have spoken of — the corn, wine, oil,
hemp, flax, iron, and all the other joint products of
the labour of man and nature ? And if it be true
that there is, as yet, no symptom of deficiency on
the part of nature, every addition to the numbers
of man (supposing his skill and knowledge not to
deteriorate) must add proportionately to his power
of producing subsistence and capital of any and
every kind that he may desire. The increase of
population is pro tanto a direct increase of the
means of generating capital. And if the skill,
and knowledge, and industry of a people increase
at the same time with their numbers (and their
known tendency is to increase with rapidity, under
wise institutions), it is their fault, and theirs only,
if their capital, and subsistence, and the aggre-
gate of the means of enjoyment to be shared
among them do not increase, not only in the same,
but in a much larger, ratio than their numbers.

Should they, indeed, choose to be contented
with less ; should they prefer idleness and moderate
present enjoyment, to industry and a great increase

284 PRESSURE OF POPULATION ON FOOD,

of future enjoyment ; should their spirit of accu-
mulation and production flag through satiety, that
would be some reason for a diminution in the rate
of increase of capital and wealth, but not for such
a diminution as could ever be productive of pri-
vation or suffering ; since these would immediately
act as stimuli to a renewal of the efforts of industry.

We know, however, that the love of saving, and
the appetency for new and varied enjoyments, and
the readiness to invent new means of gratification,
have not experienced, nor are likely to experience,
any such relaxation. On the contrary, the ardour
of gain grows more intense by indulgence ; and
production is never likely to fall off through a
general unwillingness to consume.

But, in fact, capital, in the sense in which it is
employed by those writers who declare its deficiency
to be the main check upon the comfortable main-
tenance of an increasing population — namely, the
fund for the employment of labour and the sub-
sistence of the labourers — consists simply in FOOD,
or the means of obtaining food. We have already
shown how absolutely inexhaustible is the capacity
of the earth for supplying with food almost any
conceivable, certainly for many ages any possible,
multiple of the number of human beings now
existing on its surface, if they will only take the
simple, easy, and obvious means which a very
slight exercise of foresight and prudence would
place in their power for availing themselves of this
capacity. Those means — to quote the words of
the historian of the middle ages — are two ; 4 the
one by rendering fresh land serviceable — the other
by improving the fertility of that which is already

OWING SOLELY TO MISMANAGEMENT. 285

cultivated.1 The last is only attainable by the
application of increased skill or fresh capital to
agriculture ; the former is always practicable while
waste lands remain of sufficient natural fertility.*

Any inconvenient pressure, therefore, of popu-
lation against food can only be owing to want of
foresight and management on the part of the
people or their rulers. If improvements in agri-
culture or the growth of agricultural capital do not
take place fast enough to supply the growing popu-
lation from their home soils, there remains the
sure, and easy, and effectual resource of migration
to some of those other lands of extraordinary fer-
tility and unbounded extent which lie open to the
occupation of any portion of the family of man
throughout both hemispheres, and seem to re-
proach us for having so long neglected to avail
ourselves of the endless bounties which nature has
there lavishly poured out for our acceptance. Can
we then, under these circumstances, justify the
narrow and inconsiderate reasoning of those who
tell us that the world is already too fully peopled ;
that all the evils of society arise from this excess
of numbers ; and that no hope remains for miser-
able man except by such a cultivation of his
prudential faculties as will lead him to renounce,
till a late period of his life, if possible for his
whole life, that sacred, healthful, and blessed tie
which religion and society have substituted for the
vicious, promiscuous satisfaction of an irrepres-
sible instinct ! We will not go into the arguments
by which it has been proved that any attempt to

* Hallam,ni,p. 366.

286 MISCHIEF OF THE ' PRUDENTIAL CHECK.'

check or defer marriage only encourages vice ; or
those by which it may be easily shown that the
ties which the Malthusians reprobate are the source
of the largest supply of happiness which human
life affords. We content ourselves with having
proved the utter absence of a necessity for any
check whatsoever on the natural increase of
population ; and we leave it to others to calcu-
late the immense amount of crime, vice, and
misery, and the still more immense annihilation
of human happiness which would be brought
about were the advocates of the prudential check
upon marriage successfully to propagate their
doctrine, and induce large masses of people to
bend their energies and direct their prudential
efforts to the keeping down of their numbers, in-
stead of to the easy task of providing those num-
bers with increasing supplies of food, comforts,
and the means of enjoyment.

We likewise advocate prudence, and would wish
to inculcate it, by education, in every class. But
we differ wholly from Mr. Malthus, Dr. Chalmers,
and their disciples, as to the direction which a
wise, prudential foresight ought to take. They
would direct it almost exclusively to a limitation of
the number of consumers : we deprecate any inter-
ference with the natural increase of human beings,
which Providence has intended, and for whom He
Las provided ample means of subsistence and en-
joyment in this world ; not to speak of the awful
topic of the eternal happiness prepared for them
in another. And in lieu of the narrow, selfish,
niggardly, and, as we view it, criminal prudence
inculcated by these authors, we would urge the

TRUE DIRECTION OF PRUDENCE. 287

direction of man's foresight to the augmentation
of his resources, to the improvement of his skill,
the increase of his capital, the enlargement of the
field of his territorial occupation ; means, of which
some, if not all, are at all times within his power,
not only for removing to an indefinite distance
any pressure of population on suhsistence, but of
adding continually to the materials of happiness at
the disposal of every individual of his race, how-
ever rapidly their numbers may be increasing; and
the more rapidly they increase under such circum-
stances, the better.*

* The extraordinary hallucination of the writers I am
here opposing is well displayed in the economical works
of the eloquent Dr. Chalmers, who has done some service
to the cause of truth and humanity, by carrying the
Malthusian argument to that extremity in which its ab-
surdity and falsehood become glaringly manifest. Take,
as an instance of the perfect conviction which this beautiful
imaginative writer entertains upon the truth of a most self-
evident fallacy, the following passage from the Preface to
his last work, * The supreme Importance of a right Moral to
a right Economical State of the Community ; with Obser-
vations on a recent Criticism in the Edinburgh Review :' —
" That the rate at which population would increase, if the
adequate means of subsistence were at all times within
reach, greatly exceeds the rate at which the means of sub-
sistence can increase, with all the aids and practicable
openings which either the mechanical arts or the sound and
liberal policy of governments could afford to human labour,
we have long regarded as a position, founded both on the
widest possible experience and the clearest possible demon-
stration. This is the one doctrine — which, whether in re-
spect of evidence by observation, or of deduction from rea-
soning, is more like a TRUTH IN MIXED MATHEMATICS, than
any other doctrine in the philosophy of human affairs ! "

Now there are, as this author says, two modes of testing
the truth of this doctrine ; " deduction from reasoning,"

288 EXPANSION OF MAN OVER THE GLOBE.

If, indeed, there is any one desire or design
more manifest than another throughout the works
of nature, or more worthy of the benevolence of
nature's great Author, it is that there should be the
utmost possible multiplication of beings endowed
with life and capacity for enjoyment. We do not
see that nature has contented herself with esta-

and " observation." Let us try both. " Reasoning" in-
forms us, that since man can only double his numbers in
(to take the narrowest alleged period) twenty years, while
wheat can be multiplied in the same period by many more
million of times than our language has words to express or
than our paper could admit in ciphers ; " the rate at which
the means of subsistence can increase," infinitely exceeds the
rate at which population can or would increase under any
conceivable circumstances of plenty. " Observation," on
the other hand, informs us, that in America, Australia,
and perhaps some other parts of the globe, where a wise
system of institutions, and particularly of those laws by
which the occupation and cultivation of land is permitted,
place " adequate means at all times within reach of the
entire population," " the rate at which population in-
creases " does not at all " exceed the rate at which the
means of subsistence do increase ; " but that, on the con-
trary, the only complaint is that people do not increase fast
enough, and that there is a lack of consumers for the quan-
tity of food annually produced ; much of which is wasted,
because not worth the trouble of carefully gathering from
the overflowing fields. Here, then, the two tests appealed
to by Dr. Chalmers amply and undeniably disprove, instead
of supporting, that " doctrine" which he compares, in the
plenitude of his unaccountable blindness, to a truth in mixed
' mathematics. Ex uno omnes I And this doctrine has, it is
painful to know, long reigned triumphant among statesmen
and writers on national welfare ; has been received as the
axiomatic basis of whole systems of political economy, and
the justification of both public measures and private conduct
deeply affecting the very existence of the lower classes of
society and the first interests of humanity.

THE INTENTION OF THE CREATOR. 289

blishing little groups of organized beings in snug
corners, to thrive there in security and content,
through a nice adjustment of their numbers to the
food within their reach ; — whether proceeding from
a mysterious adaptation of their procreative powers
to their numerical state, as in Mr. Sadler's gra-
tuitous hypothesis, — or, from a self-regulating
power, dictated by instinct, or prudential intelli-
gence, according to Mr. Malthus's equally un-
necessary suggestion ? No ! abundance, extension,
multiplication, competition for room, is the order
of creation ; and the only limit to the increase
of each species, the mutual pressure of all upon
each other. But, if there is any one species of the
animate world, whose multiplication we may ven-
ture to suppose an especial object of the Divine
regard, can it be other than that which alone of all
He has endowed with a particle of His spirit —
with intellect, reason, speech, the faculty of m-
provement, and an immortal soul ? Whilst every
other species is taught to spread and multiply as
widely as its relative powers allow, is MAN alone,
though conscious of his sovereignty over all the
rest of living creation, to confine himself carefully
within a limited area, — alone to apply his energies
to prevent the increase of his numbers, the en-
largement of his resources, and the extension of
his dominion ? How blinded to the one grand
object of creation, — to the one supreme attribute
of the Deity, — to the one most elevating circum-
stance in the position of man on the globe, must
he be, who would so limit his expansion, and
annihilate the bright future of his race!

This monstrous doctrine we consider to be as

290 MALTHUSIAN DOCTRINE.

pernicious in its moral as in its economical ten-
dencies. By holding out to all, that improve-
ments of any kind are useless, and even mischie-
vous, for that ' every enlargement of our resources
only tends to land us in a larger, it is true, but a
more straitened population/* it directly discou-
rages all attempts at the amelioration of our con-
dition, whether public or private ; and fosters in
all classes a selfish and apathetic indolence, a
mean distrust of our own powers, instead of that
confident determination to employ them to the
utmost, which, under fair play, is almost certain
to overcome every obstacle. It gravely tells us to
cease our efforts for enlarging our resources, and
direct them wholly to limiting our wants !

Again : by this doctrine the wealthy and the
powerful are completely absolved from the duty of
contributing to relieve the distresses of their poorer
neighbours, either by direct charity, or a just and
wise attention to the economical means for im-
proving their condition ; since all such attempts
are declared to be not only fruitless but mis-
chievous. It directly frees a government from all
responsibility for the sufferings of the mass of the
community, by throwing the blame entirely on
nature and the improvidence of the poor them-
selves, and declaring the evil to admit of no
remedy from any possible exertions of the legis-
lature. We cannot imagine any theory more
destructive than this would be, were it generally
received, whether among the higher and more
powerful, or the lower classes themselves ; and
\ve must consider those who labour to propagate
* Chalmers' Political Economy

MALTHUSIAN DOCTRINE. 291

it, though including, we are well aware, many of
the most ardent and benevolent philanthropists of
the age, to be, unconsciously, the worst enemies
of their race. That the ground of their argument
is utterly untenable, we think we have said enough
to demonstrate, and to put the question for ever at
rest. They build all their theory on the assertion,
that population tends to increase faster than food
can be provided for its support. We affirm the
direct contrary, viz. that it is in the power of man,
by a judicious direction of his resources, to in-
crease his supplies of food so as to meet every
possible increase of his numbers : — at least until
the world is fully peopled, — a term from which we
are farther off now than we were at any former time
since the creation. They declare, that of the three
only elementary sources of human wealth, land,
capital, and labour, the last tends to increase so
rapidly as to occasion, by the effect of competition,
a distressing pressure upon the labouring class ;
and that the only remedy for this distress is a self-
imposed check on its supply. We assert that a
redundancy of labour can only be brought about
by mismanagement, so long as there is no defi-
ciency of the two other elements, capital and
land; — that the deficiency of land at present is
merely local, and confined, indeed, to the British
islands, and perhaps the Netherlands, and one or
two states of Germany ; — that there is no general
deficiency of land, or of space, through the world,
for the full development of labour, aided by all the
appliances which modern skill, industry, and inge-
nuity bring to their assistance, nor any appearance
of the possibility of such deficiency ; — that there

u 2

v-i/m* £>*j * ^ /^^/>. ,-JS ,.'J/ /X*.

292 MALTHUSIAN DOCTRINE.

can be no deficiency of capital while land and
labour are not wanting, and tbe saving principle
continues inherent in man's nature ; — that, conse-
quently, no limit can be assigned or anticipated to
our productive powers, judiciously exerted on that
vast and prolific field which nature, or rather we
would reverently and gratefully say, a beneficent
Creator, has spread out before us and called on us
to cultivate.

Spatium Natura beatis

Omnibus esse duditj si quis cognoverit uti.'

.;. . .-

:-

« "
A*«J~-$&L

— /X*v* /

-

f

'^ ..;

293

CHAPTER XII.
CAUSES OF POVERTY.

Mismanagement of resources, — Faulty Institutions. — Econo
mical structure and habits of Nations. — Errors in all.—
Precarious position of the bulk of the British people. —
History of the Labouring Class of Britain. — Liberty and
Pauperism coeval. — Origin, principle^ means and results
of the Poor-Law. — Prejudice against it. — Use confounded
with abuse. — Its maladministration. — Allowance System.
— Reform of the Poor-Law — Proposed Commutation of
Poor-Tax for compulsory Mutual Assurance Fund — Ne-
cessity of Poor-Law for Ireland. — General Scheme of
Emigration. — Summary of means for extinguishing Pan-
perism.

MISMANAGEMENT, then — tlie most gross and pal-
pable mismanagement of the resources at the dis-
posal of man, in his collective or individual ca-
pacity— is, we maintain, the sole cause of the
existence of want or poverty upon earth, and of the
dread array of physical and mental sufferings which
poverty and want engender. Calamity resulting
from casualties and disordered health is unavoid-
able ; — instances there will always remain, we fear,
of individual misery occasioned by individual mis-
conduct, (though a system of general education in
sound principles and virtuous habits will go far to
put an end to this source of evil ;) — but, unless
through ill-health, accident, or misconduct, misery
ought not to be found upon earth ! Happiness —
all the happiness, at least, which is directly or in-

294 PARADOX TO BE SOLVED.

directly derivable from an abundance of the neces-
saries and conveniences of life — ought to be within
the easy reach of every individual, even of the
lowest class, in every human society.

So great are the persevering industry and in-
ventive genius, — so strong the passion for accu-
mulation,— so endless and insatiable the desires of
man, that when the development of these qualities
is not impeded by the rapacity of power or the
trammels of officious legislation, his means for the
production of enjoyment (both skill and capital)
tend, as we have shown, to increase in a far more
rapid ratio than his numbers. So that, under in-
stitutions securing a judicious management of a
nation's resources, and an equitable distribution of
their produce, (abstracting the interference of ex-
ternal and extraordinary causes of reaction, such
as wars, pestilence, or famine,) the share of each
individual in the community is sure to be continu-
ally increasing.

Why such has not been the case hitherto in
most civilized communities — why the progress of
knowledge, the increase of the powers of man over
nature, and the augmentation of his means for
gratifying his desires, have not proportionately
added to the general happiness ; — why the mass of
mankind, the greater number of almost every
people under the sun, are yet insufficiently supplied
even with the means of satisfying their coarsest
wants; — why poverty is yet so general as to seem
the law of human existence rather than the excep-
tion;— why misery and its offspring, vice and
crime, yet wield their iron sceptre over a large
proportion of the human race; — why industry
still fails to secure its reward ; — why prudence is

FAULTY INSTITUTIONS. 295

yet no guarantee from distress ; — why, as wealth
increases, poverty does not diminish ; — why the
more men produce the less they usually have to
consume; — why the blessings of heaven are turned
into curses ; — why plenty seems to generate want,
and abundance is complained of as the cause of
privation; — why these strange anomalies exist, (as
it cannot be denied that they do exist) ; — what, in
short, is the nature of the mismanagement that occa-
sions the economical evils under which man so
cruelly suffers, and what are the means by which
they are to be cured — is the question we now ad-
dress ourselves to solve.

Laws for protecting the production, enjoyment,
and accumulation of property, and for regulating
in some degree its distribution, are essential, as
was shown in an earlier chapter, to the working of
every system of social welfare. But as society
complicates and subdivides itself, these laws, even
though they were originally adapted with the
utmost wisdom to its early condition, must, in
order to answer their end, be made continually to
yield and accommodate themselves to the altered
form and disposition of its parts. In point of fact,
however, the institutions of no nation ever pos-
sessed the perfection we have supposed. Far
from having been framed at the first in a compact
and well-ordered system with the view of securing
the greatest attainable benefit to the community
for which they were made, they have generally
consisted of a bundle of shreds and patches, the
work of accident, association, ignorance, force, or
cunning, to the full as much as of wise and well-
meaning deliberation for the common welfare.
The history of every nation exhibits a constant

296 STRUCTURE OF SOCIETIES.

series of struggles on the part of the people to
ameliorate their institutions, and accommodate
them to their wants — a struggle which has but
too rarely succeeded, being one of the simple
against the crafty, the weak against the powerful,
the industrious against the idle — a struggle of the
many whose interests are those of the community
at large, with the few who have acquired an in-
terest in institutional abuses — a struggle of those
who justly desire to enjoy the fruits of their labour,
with those who desire unjustly to enjoy the fruits
of the labour of others !

Hence it happens that few societies have ever
yet taken that form which, by doing justice to all
classes, would allow each to claim and receive its
due share of the general property and produce,
according to the principles of equity, and the mode
in which the efforts of unrestricted, unburdened
industry would spontaneously distribute them. The
varied circumstances that have affected different
nations in the past periods of their history have
impressed on each a form of social arrangements
more or less peculiarly its own. When one nation
has invaded another, the conqueror has generally
carried with him a predilection for the institutions
of his native state, and by his endeavours to im-
pose them on his new acquisitions, has created a
compound of the two. The maritime or inland
position of a country, the character of its climate,
and the nature of its principal productions, have
had a considerable influence on the institutions of
its inhabitants, by determining their pursuits, and
modifying their national character. The physical
and mental disposition which a people inherit from
their remote ancestry, and which has been by some

ECONOMICAL HABITS OF NATIONS. 297

considered to characterize separate races — must
in like manner have always exercised a very consi-
derable influence over their social arrangements.
The economical and political condition of every
nation is, in short, the compound result of acci-
dental extraneous circumstances and internal
character. Where the latter is deficient in energy
and the spirit of improvement, a people may re-
tain for centuries the same unvaried habits, laws,
and economical condition. When, on the con-
trary, these qualities are strongly developed, a
process of internal fermentation will be continually
going on, through the efforts of the people to avail
themselves of every opportunity for the ameliora-
tion of their circumstances; — changes will occur
in the form and character of their institutions,
more or less sudden and violent, or gradual and
gentle, according to the greater or less degree of re-
sistance, which accident, or the stubbornness of the
depositaries of power, may oppose to the natural
tendency of the society to improvement. The na-
tions of the East, and especially of the farthest East
— China and Japan — offer an example of the first
kind ; the western states of Europe of the last.
The former, though undeniably possessed at
an exceedingly early period of a very consider-
able knowledge of the arts and sciences, have stag-
nated for centuries in the same torpid and unim-
proved condition ; — the increase even of their num- ;
bers being checked by theunelastic nature of their
institutions, which forbid any enlargement of their
resources at all proportionate to that of their
wants. The latter, though dating their origin
from a comparatively recent period, and having
still more recently acquired that knowledge of the

298 ERRORS — GENERAL AND PECULIAR.

arts and sciences which the Orientals seem to have
possessed from the remotest ages, have yet made a
constant, and of late, in some instances, a rapidly
accelerated progress in the improvement of their
economical capacities — which, if not immediately,
must, before long, he followed by a parallel im-
provement in the economical condition of their
component members.

Meantime, even in the most advanced European
states, there is so much of evil yet remaining in the
texture of society, — and the institutions by which
that texture is fashioned still exhibit so wide a de-
parture from the principles of natural right which
we have shown to be necessary for securing the
greatest production and most equitable distribution
of the purchaseable means of enjoyment, — that
there is nothing to excite wonder in the continued
existence of want and poverty, in the midst of the
elements of wealth and abundance : the wonder is
that the evils, being so great and so capable of cure,
are so easily submitted to by intelligent communities.

Each country has some peculiar disadvantages
in the structure of its society, by which the im-
provement of its economy is more or less im-
peded. We have no intention of entering into an
examination of these defects or their remedies as
respects foreign nations; though what was men-
tioned in a former chapter on the influence of the
serf and metayer systems on the condition of the
people of those European countries where they
prevail, will suggest some of the most obvious and
fatal impediments to the progress of improvement
in that part of the world ; and whilst we confine
our examination to the economical structure of
this community alone, we shall have to comment

POSITION OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE. 299

on many errors which are common to the institu-
tions of other civilized nations.

At present, the great majority of the people of
the British islands consists of labourers for hire —
persons, that is to say, who depend for their daily
maintenance on the wages of their daily labour;
possessing very little property, other than a trifling
degree of acquired skill, and their manual strength.
The land from which raw produce may be obtained
by labour, the tools and machinery which are indis-
pensable to labour, and the stock of food on which
the labourers must be subsisted while at work, are
all appropriated by other classes. The circum-
stances under which this distinct appropriation
took place will have been gathered in part by the
reader from the historical sketch we lately gave
of the occupation of land, and the generation of
capital in this and other countries. It has been
the result partly of the natural laws of distribution,
which tend, as we have seen, to divide society into
classes pursuing different occupations, and en-
joying a great inequality of condition — partly of
circumstances connected with our political history
and institutions, influenced as both have been by
the peculiar national character. The effect —
whether good or bad on the whole, we will not
determine — has been to place the great body of
the people in an exceedingly precarious position.
The owners of land, and the owners of capital of
every kind, are removed from all danger, or dread,
of immediate want ; since, in case of the failure
of a profitable demand for what they bring into
the market, they are sure at least of being able to
exchange it for the means of subsistence. The

300 LEGISLATION FOR LABOURERS.

labouring class, on the contrary, on any failure of the
ordinary demand for the labour which is their only
property, have no resources to fall back upon, and
no other means of obtaining even a temporary
subsistence. It is impossible to deny that this
circumstance places them in a position of pecu-
liar hardship, leaving them almost entirely at the
mercy of the other classes, who have the power at
such times to withhold from them the necessaries
of life, or dole them out on almost any terms they
choose to make. It becomes, therefore, in such a
country, the imperative duty of the government
established for the advantage and equal protection
bf all, to keep an especial watch over the condition
of this class, and lend its aid to prevent thair
suffering, either from want or oppression, through
the peculiarly disadvantageous circumstances in
which they are placed.

The legislation of this country, with regard to
the labouring class, has been of a mixed and che-
quered character. One great benefit has un-
doubtedly been conferred on this class in the POOR-
LAW — the poor man's charter, as it has been most
justly called, It is equally certain that a series of
successive enactments have at various times coun-
teracted this benefit to a great extent ; while the
negligence of government in not taking measures
for securing the due administration of this law has
combined to oppress and injure the labouring
class.

Without meaning to deny that the statesmen
and legislators of Britain have at times been in-
fluenced by a benevolent and just regard for the
welfare of the great bulk of the people whose des-
tinies they commanded, yet it is impossible to

HISTORY OF THE LABOURING CLASS. 301

trace historically the various statutes that relate to
this subject, without being convinced that while
those which inflicted evil on the labouring class
were dictated by an unscrupulous and avowed
regard for the interests of the high and the wealthy,
those which have conferred benefits on the lower
orders originated, for the most part, in scarcely less
interested motives, and were extorted from the
fears, rather than conceded by the justice and bene-
volence, of the powerful.

The gradual transition of the labouring class
from a state of servitude to one of free labour for
money-wages was brought about, as in an earlier
chapter we remarked, by the force of circum-
stances, and in spite of the lords and masters of
those days, not with their good will. The almost
continual state of warfare, and the incessant strug-
gles of the kings with their nobles, made it a matter
of necessity for both contending parties to liberate
large numbers of villeins for the purpose of re-
cruiting their armies, and to conciliate their re-
tainers of every class by the concession of new
privileges and immunities. But even whilst this
process was going on, efforts were made at frequent
intervals to counteract its beneficial tendency, by
imposing severe restrictions on the freedom of the
labourer. Numerous statutes were passed, fixing
the rate of wages, and prohibiting the removal of la-
bourers from one place to another — directing how
they should be fed, clothed and lodged — in short, en-
deavouring, by a variety of legislative contrivances,
to maintain the conditions, while it was found ne-
cessary to abolish the name, of compulsory servitude.
These measures, however, met with constant
resistance from the sturdv natives. The insurrec-

302 LIBERTY AND PAUPERISM.

tion of Wat Tyler proved to the haughty barons
and their sovereign that the people of England,
once free, were not to be re-enslaved ; that they
were bent upon obtaining a recognition of their
right to liberty, and a mitigation of the oppressions
under which they laboured. Within the TA&&
century great advantages had been gained by the
labouring class. The race of villeins was nearly
extinct, and money-wages had almost quadrupled,
in spite of the statutes repeatedly enacted for the
purpose of keeping them down.

There was, however, this disadvantage incidental
to the change, that whilst, under the system of
feudal servitude, the lord was bound to maintain
and protect his dependents under sickness and
infirmity, — so, as this system declined, and men
ceased to be the property of their employers, they
were in impotence or old age left destitute of certain
support from any quarter, and forced to throw
themselves on the voluntary almsgiving of the
charitable. The free labourer now entirely de-
pended for his maintenance on the demand for his
labour. And at times when this was slackened by
casual circumstances, he was liable to suffer from
the difficulty of finding work.

It was thus that liberty and pauperism grew up
together ; and as a variety of political events
tended to increase the number of beggars and able-
bodied freemen, roving in search of work, it was
before long found absolutely necessary to check
the evils accruing from this state of things by
statutory measures for restraining mendicancy,
providing relief to the poor, punishing the idle,
and setting to work those who were willing to earn
their bread by their honest industry

ORIGIN OF BRITISH POOR-LAWS. 303

In the year 1376, complaint was made by the
Commons of the multitude of beggars and sturdy
vagrants that infested the cities and boroughs,
and in several succeeding years statutes were
passed to fix the limits within which the poor were
to be allowed to beg, to enforce the removal of
beggars to the place of their birth, and partly to
compel the maintenance of the impotent and the
employment of the able-bodied within certain dis-
tricts. In these statutes are contained the germs
of our present poor-law. But their operation was
ineffectual. Beggary and vagrancy continued a
growing evil for more than another century, during
which the legislature was frequently engaged in
fresh attempts to restrain them by inflicting punish-
ment on the idle vagabond, and affording relief
to the well-disposed poor, partly by voluntary,
partly by compulsory contributions.

None of these experiments, however, succeeded,
until at length, in the famous 43d of Elizabeth, the
preceding statutes were consolidated and method-
ized into a plain, simple, and effective provision
for securing the maintenance of the infirm poor,
and the employment of the able-bodied, within
the limits of their respective parishes, by a tax
upon the property of each parish. By means of
this statute it became possible effectually to pre-
vent both mendicancy and vagrancy, through the
provision of a sure resource for the destitute of both
classes. And the grievous nuisance which had so
long afflicted the country, and, by rendering pro-
perty insecure, had materially checked the deve-
lopment of industry and the accumulation of capi-
tal, was completely abated. A love of peace and a

304 PRINCIPLE OF THE POOR-LAW.

respect for the law, — of which they so directly, in
this instance, felt the benefit — supplanted among
the lower classes the spirit of ruffianism and out-
rage. Order and tranquillity reigned through the
land, instead of turbulence and crime; and the con-
sequent security of property encouraged the accu-
mulation and productive engagement of capital.
England henceforward began to develop her great
natural resources ; and the vast wealth, unrivalled
power, and solid greatness of the nation have
arisen from the concession of security and legal
protection to the class which forms the base of the
pyramid of society.

The benefits conferred by this immortal statute
have been frequently impugned ; — but, in our opi-
nion, only by persons who take a very narrow,
false, and unphilosophical view of the principle it
consecrates, of the means it employs, and of the
effects it has, by the evidence of all history, pro-
duced.

The principle of the poor-law is the maintenance
of the peace and security of society by the sup-
pression of mendicancy, vagrancy, and petty
plunder, which no other course can by possibility
prevent. It is not to be looked upon as a mea-
sure of charity, so much as one of police. Un-
doubtedly, charity, even heathen humanity — but
Christian charity most especially, — must render it
imperative on the wealthy to provide for the neces-
sities of the poor; and the only mode of duly
apportioning the distribution of charity to the wants
of the necessitous, and its burden to the respective
means of the wealthy for contributing to it, is a

POOR-LAW A MEASURE OF POLICE. 305

legal and methodical system of levy and relief.
Justice, again, no less than chanty, calls for the
enactment of such a law in every country where
society is in a complicated and artificial state ;
— where the law, by appropriating every inch of
the national soil, (the common gift of Heaven
to such as are born into existence upon it,) has
prohibited the poor man from supporting himself
by the sweat of his brow off the land of his birth.
This is the birthright of every individual — and
the law cannot with justice deprive any one of
this natural right, unless it afford him at least
an equivalent in its place. The state has no
claim to the allegiance of those citizens upon
whom it confers no advantages. An individual
to whom the law extends no protection in the
extremity of distress is absolved from all duty of
obedience to the law. It is the very first duty of
a government to secure the means of subsistence
to every well-disposed and well-conducted member
of the community over whose welfare it presides.

But putting humanity and justice out of sight,
mere worldly policy renders a poor-law one of the
wisest and most necessary of institutions. There
can be no real or permanent security for property
where the body of the people have no security for
life. There can be no tranquillity in a state while
large numbers are exposed unrelieved to the
agonies of want. There can be no respect for
the laws among those who feel no benefit from
the laws. There can be no extensive accumula-
tion or profitable investment of capital — there can
be no large development of industry, wealth, or
civilization, in a country where the poor have no

306 POOR-LAW — ITS MEANS AND END.

direct stake in the maintenance of order, — where
they are constantly in a precarious, often in a des-
titute, and therefore desperate condition. The
principle of the poor-law, then, is not mere cha-
rity, not justice only — but plain practical policy
likewise — the policy of preventing crimes against
property, and the terror, annoyance, and injury
to the peace and order of the community which
mendicancy and vagrancy necessarily occasion
wherever there. is no public provision for the poor.

The means brought into action by the poor-law
for the purpose of effecting its object, have been
as much mistaken and misdescribed as its prin-
ciple. Those means are not, as is often stated,
the support of the idle, improvident, and vicious,
at the expense of the industrious, frugal, and vir-
tuous : (this, on the contrary, is a true description
of the system of mendicancy which the poor-law
is intended to supersede). They are, simply, 1 . the
necessary and methodical relief of the sick, maimed
and impotent, whom casualty, and the want of re-
latives capable of maintaining them, (for where
there are such relatives, the law throws on them
the burden of relief,) have reduced to a state of
destitution. 2. The employment in productive
industry of those able-bodied poor persons, who,
being unable to find work for themselves, through
extraordinary circumstances, would otherwise be
driven by want to prey upon society.

Still greater, if possible, is the prevailing mis-
apprehension and misrepresentation of the results
produced by the English poor-law. Those results
may be tested by a comparison of the condition
of this country, where a poor-law has been in com-

POOR-LAW — ITS EFFECTS. 307

plete operation for upwards of two centuries — as
respects wealth,, tranquillity, tlie orderly disposition,
moral habits, physical comforts, and general hap-
piness of its labouring class, — with that of other
countries in which no such system has been in
operation.

Those who declaim against a poor-law as neces-
sarily demoralizing the lower classes, destroying-
all their industry, energy, enterprise, providence,
and independence, and annihilating their kindly
sympathies, are bound to explain how it has hap-
pened, that, after living for two entire centuries
under the influence of this demoralizing law, the
English people still show themselves, to say the
least, as moral, as industrious, as energetic and
enterprising, as provident, as independent in spirit,
and as kind and compassionate in feeling, as any
people on the face of the globe. Those who in-
veigh against a poor-law as unfavourable to the
growth of capital should inform us how it is that,
during this same period, under its obnoxious poor
law, England has accumulated the extraordinary
mass of capital which covers her surface with the
multiplied means of production and enjoyment,
and which so peculiarly distinguishes her from
every other country of the earth.

If it were possible to be astonished at the suc-
cessful promulgation of any doctrine, however re-
pugnant to common sense, to humanity, to ob-
servation, and to reasoning, we should acknow-
ledge unfeigned astonishment at the opposition
which has for years past been urged, and is still as
zealously maintained as ever, against the prin-
ciple of the English poor-law. We can only refer

x 2

308 PREJUDICE AGAINST POOR-LAWS.

this extraordinary opposition to that passion for
the paradoxical and extravagant, by which many
reasoners are led to give credit to a proposition
because it is incredible, and to assent the more
readily to the truth of a matter, the more impos-
sible it appears. The arguments by which it is
supported prove that it has its origin in two main
fallacies, which, gross as they are, and easily de-
tected, yet, partly from their superficial and plau-
sible character, and partly, I fear, from the coun-
tenance they hold out to the selfish feelings of our
nature, have acquired such an influence over many
minds as utterly to incapacitate them from taking
any clear or comprehensive view of the question.

The first of these fallacies is that imaginary
chimera which passes under the name of its prin-
cipal patron Mr. Malthus, — the doctrine, namely,
that there is no room in the world for any addi-
tional number of human beings ; that poverty and
want are owing to no other cause than the in-
crease of population beyond the possible means of
obtaining subsistence ; and that the only mode,
therefore, by which these evils can be effectually
relieved, is by a reduction of the numbers of the
people, or, at least, by putting a check upon
the rate of their increase. It follows of course,
from these premises, that not only all legal and
compulsory relief, but all voluntary and private
charity to the poor is useless, — nay, rather, inju-
rious— since the evil proceeding solely from a
limitation of the means of subsistence, what is
given to one beggar, must be taken from some
other, or from some more deserving industrious
character, elsewhere, and the mass of misery

USE CONFOUNDED WITH ABUSE. 309

rather increased than diminished. This, in fact,
is a conclusion at which Mr. Malthus himself has
necessarily and directly arrived, though some of his
followers, with obvious inconsistency, while they
deprecate a public provision for the poor on the
ground of the insufficiency of the means of sub-
sistence, encourage their support by private charity,
which must evidently draw its resources from the
same inadequate fund.* We have sufficiently ex-
posed, in the last chapter, the utter baselessness
of this fallacy ; we have shown that nothing but
the mismanagement of the resources of a people
by the governing body, can prevent their means of
procuring subsistence from increasing in a faster
ratio than their numbers. And the direct infer-
ence from this is, that so long as misery and pri-
vation are the result of such mismanagement, its
authors are bound to provide for its relief.

The second fallacy on which the opponents of
a poor-law ground their argument, is the confound-
ing of the use with the abuse of the system.
Superficial observers, who contemplate the opera-
tion of the poor-laws as at present administered
through the greater part of England, are naturally
struck by the glaring evils which they engender ;
and, looking no further into the matter, are
strongly impressed with a prejudice against such

* The benevolent Dr. Chalmers has, more perhaps than
any other disciple of Mr. Malthas, fallen into this palpable
inconsistency. His whole system rests upon the asser-
tion that the means of subsistence are necessarily within
the demand for them ; and yet he dwells with fond and
eloquent enthusiasm on the virtue and benefits of private
charity, which obviously under such circumstances can only
take from the necessities of one, to relieve those of another.

310 MAL-ADMINISTRATION OF POOR-LAW.

a law, as encouraging improvidence, and destroy-
ing all desire of independence among the poor.
Those, however, who are not content to take up
hasty impressions from first appearances, and who
examine the history of the English poor-law, and
the origin and real nature of its injurious practices,
soon discover that these have been engrafted upon
it but a few years since ; that, instead of being a
necessary accompaniment of the law, they are a
direct breach both of its spirit and letter ; that,
for two entire centuries, the law worked admi-
rably, unproductive of any of the evils now so
universally and so justly complained of; and that
it would have continued to work on equally well,
had it not been shamefully perverted by those who
are entrusted with its local administration, free
from the control of any higher authority, into an
instrument lor lowering wages, and depressing the
condition of the labouring class — for raising rents
and benefiting landlords and employers, at the
expense of the labouring class itself.

Instituted at the beginning of the seventeenth
century, by the wisdom of the greatest statesmen
this country ever produced, the English poor-law
undeniably fulfilled, up to the close of the
eighteenth century, the great objects it was in-
tended to secure, and without any counter-
balancing evils. The evils now so generally and
justly complained against were unheard of until
within the last few years. Their appearance has
been coincident in time with a fundamental change
in the administration of the law, — the introduction
of a practice contrary to the letter and spirit of
the law, — the practice (called the allowance sys-

MAL-ADMINISTRATION OF POOR-LAW. 311

tern) of taking upon the poor-book labourers
working for private employers, and giving them
relief proportioned to their families. This practice
is, indeed, aptly fitted to produce all the evils
which are wrongly attributed to the law itself. It
tends directly to discourage industry and put a
penalty on providence, to force the spread of pau-
perism, to augment the rates, and to give a pre-
mium to the increase of an already redundant
population. Under these circumstances, igno-
rance or prejudice alone can persist in referring to
the original poor-law, evils which history and ob-
servation clearly prove to have been occasioned
only by its recent and most unwarranted abuse.

This abuse it would be easy for the legislature
to correct, and thereby to put an end to the great
and general mischief which flows from it. Indi-
vidual magistrates and vestry-men have been
hitherto left without check or control in the exer-
cise of their authority, to interpret the poor-law at
their discretion, and to expend the vast sum which
they levy in its name from the industry of the
country, in almost any manner and upon any ob-
jects they please. Had such unlimited power not
been abused, it would have been, indeed, surprising.

The magistracy, in the rural districts especially,
is composed almost wholly of landed proprietors,
who have a direct interest in keeping clown the
wages of agricultural labour; since in proportion as
wages are low, Cfcteris paribus, will rents be high.
The same motives, therefore, which induced the
landowners of old to frame statutes regulating
wages and otherwise interfering with the free dis-
posal of labour, has in a later period dictated the

312 ALLOWANCE SYSTEM.

allowance system, and other contrivances of the
present administrators of the poor-laws for
keeping the labouring class in a condition ap-
proximating to compulsory servitude. Under
a system of free labour, every average labourer,
whether single or married, receives the full
current rate of wages ; which can never fall
much below a sufficiency for the support of a
considerable family, or the supply of labour could
not be kept up. But by forcibly metamorphosing
the whole labouring population into paupers, as is
now done in many parishes, by the refusal of
work to all that are not on the parish books, each
individual labourer is paid according to his
strict necessities only. The man with a large
family alone receives the necessary maintenance
for such a family ; the married man without chil-
dren receives just enough for the maintenance of
two persons ; and the single man is paid for his
labour, only a bare sufficiency for his own subsist-
ence. By this contrivance of paying wages
out of poor-rate, (commonly called the allowance
system,) it is obvious that the whole labouring
population is kept up to its full numbers, and main-
tained at the lowest possible expense to those who
employ and profit by its industry. And as rent
consists of the surplus beyond the expenses of
cultivation, the gain resulting from this injurious
practice falls to the share of the landowners, who
are themselves for the most part the parties who
originated and still enforce the abuse.

It was a resolution passed by the landowners of
some of the southern counties assembled atquarter^
sessions, towards the beginning of the present

ALLOWANCE SYSTEM. 313

century, which first introduced and sanctioned this
abominable practice ; the direct and avowed object
of these gentlemen being to relieve their tenants
from the necessity of raising the wages of their
labourers in proportion to the great rise that had
at that time taken place in the prices of agri-
cultural produce. It is evident that whatever
was by this contrivance cut off from the aggregate
remuneration of agricultural labour went to swell
the rents of the proprietors. What the labouring
class lost, the landed interest pocketed. This
conduct of the magistracy is the more indefen-
sible, because the practice they have thus intro-
duced, and indeed enforced, is wholly unauthorized
by the letter, and directly opposed to the spirit, of
the law they are sworn to execute. The statute
of Elizabeth requires parishes to "set to work
such as exercise no ordinary or daily trade whereby
they can maintain themselves ;" but nothing in
it can be construed to countenance or permit the
application of parish funds to the support of those
persons who are labouring daily for the benefit of
private employers, and ought to be supported un-
questionably by those employers alone. By this
execrable system, not only is the aggregate ex-
pense of maintaining the labouring population
materially lowered, to the grievous injury of that
class; but a large portion of this unfairly dimi-
nished expense is, moreover, fraudulently thrown
upon the owners of property contributing to the
poor-rate, who do not employ, and therefore do
not benefit by the labour they have to pay for.
The clergyman, householders, and tradesmen of

314 REFORM OF POOR-LAW ABUSES.

many parishes are equal sufferers from this abuse
with the labouring population itself.

The " labour-rate" lately introduced into our
legislation is a contrivance for perpetuating and ex-
tending all the injustice of this system, and all its
most mischievous consequences. It may in fact
be characterized as a direct attempt to restore the
serfship of the feudal ages. It goes to tie down
the settled labourers of every parish in a state of
compulsory servitude to the owners and occupiers
of the soil, and strikes at the root of that freedom
of contract between employers and the employed,
which all history as well as reason proves to be
the indispensable condition for the full develop-
ment of industry.

The evils resulting from the maladministration
of the poor-law might without much difficulty be
corrected by the organization of a due system of
supervision from some central authority, a branch
of the general government, and authorized to en-
force a complete uniformity of practice. This,
together with a legislative prohibition, under penal-
ties, of the ' allowance system/ would soon re-
store the poor-fund to its proper uses, put an end
to its misappropriation, check the wasteful and cor-
rupt extravagance of those who now administer it,
and place the labouring class once more in a con-
dition to profit by the exercise of their spontaneous
industry and foresight. The obstacles to a com-
plete and speedy purification of the English poor-
law exist only in the interested opposition of those
who have contrived, and continue to cling to the
existing abuses, and the prejudiced opposition of

REFORM OF THE POOR-LAW. 315

such theorists as blindly confound the abuse of
the law with its principle, and, under the influence
of that extraordinary delusion which Mr. Malthus
has propagated, would sweep away the entire sys-
tem of poor-law as an evil not to be tolerated in
any form.

That some parts of the statutory poor-law are
capable of improvement, we are far from denying.
The law of settlement, indeed, requires a com-
plete revision. The extremely unequal pressure
of the poor-rate is another grievance of great
magnitude. There are parishes in which it has
completely absorbed the whole net produce of the
land, whilst in others it amounts to a very insig-
nificant proportion of the rental. It presses with
peculiar severity upon property in land, and tends
materially to impede the extension of cultivation,
and the application of capital to the growth of
raw produce. The amount of poor-rate borne by
property engaged in manufactures especially, is
very disproportionate to that which is paid by
property of equal value embarked in the cultiva-
tion of land.

It has been proposed to equalize this pressure
by substituting for the parochial poor-rate a ge-
neral national tax. But this is open to many ob-
jections. It would alter to a very great extent
the value of all estates in the kingdom which have
been bought and sold on terms calculated upon
the existing parochial burdens. A still more fatal
objection occurs in the enormous abuses that would
unquestionably arise in the discretionary distribu-
tion of a sum of seven or eight millions of public
money by any authorities that could be appointed

316 PROPOSED COMMUTATION OF POOR-TAX

for the purpose. If the present mode of distribu-
tion is full of abuse, when the distributors are for
the most part the very persons who contribute
most largely to the fund, and feel very sensibly
every increase of its amount, what must we not
expect from a system which would allow every
overseer to dip his hand into the public purse?
Under such a system, it is little doubtful that the
expenditure would materially increase, and the
evils of pauperism be aggravated.

It appears to the writer of this work, (and he
has long since recorded his opinion, and his rea-
sons for it in detail,) that it is highly desirable, and
might be contrived without difficulty, to substitute
by degrees for the present mode of raising the
poor-rate, a general compulsory contribution by
the employers of labour to a fund for assuring
their labourers against destitution; a measure
which would throw the expense of maintaining
the aged, impotent, and destitute poor precisely
upon those persons who have profited by their
labour, or that of their natural protectors, while
capable of work. An outline of this plan is given
below.*

* 1. Let every person who hires the services of another,
whether as a servant, workman, or labourer, and whether the
employment be given by the day, week, month, or year, be
required to pay a proportionate contribution to the Assu-
rance Fund of the district in which he resides, to be lodged
there in the name of the servant, &c. ; proper precautions,
such as will readily suggest themselves, being taken to
identify the individual, and prevent imposition.

2. Let the contribution be of such amount as, according
to the tables of the best Friendly Societies, will suffice to
assure to the servant, &c., supposing the payment to begin
upon his attaining the age of 20 years, if a male, say,

FOR A MUTUAL ASSURANCE FUND. 317

The cost of the labour employed in any country
must always be considered as including the neces-

6s. weekly pay in what is called in the tables of Friendly
Societies, bed-lying sickness,

3s. weekly, in walking sickness,

85. weekly annuity, after GO years of age,

£10 on death, to be commuted for a proportionate pension
to the widow and children, if any.

The contribution for female servants, and young persons
of both sexes under 20 years of age, to be such as will
assure one-half these advantages to them, previous to their
attaining the full age of 20.

The above rate of pay is taken as affording a bare sufficiency
for the maintenance of the individuals, and therefore cor-
responding to the parish allowance which it is intended to
supersede. The contribution, according to Mr. Becher's
tables, necessary to assure this scale of payments, will be
about four-pence per week for male servants, two -pence for
females, and about three-half-pence each for young persons
between 10 and 20 years of age. But it may be said, that
labourers occasionally waste some days unemployed, either
from want of work, or idleness ; and during these the con-
tribution will not be coming in. In order, therefore, to cover
completely this deficiency, and any other that can be sup-
posed to occur, let us make the contribution half as large
again, viz. 6cl. per week, or one penny per day, for male ser-
vants, one halfpenny for females, and young persons. If
in the working of the scheme this is found to be more than
sufficient to secure the amount of relief I have taken as a
scale, it will be easy to increase the relief, or diminish the
contribution, as may be thought best.

A fixed rate of payment per head is considered as infinitely
better than a per centage on wages, the object being to pro-
vide a bare maintenance similar to that now obtained from
the poor-rate. By this, likewise, far greater simplicity and
facility in the accounts is afforded, with less risk of fraud;
and all necessity is removed of an inquisition into the nature
of the contracts between employers and labourers, which
would lead to interminable embarrassments, and'give occa-
sion to much subterfuge.

318 PROPOSED COMMUTATION OF POOR-TAX.

sary support of that part of the labouring- popula-
tion which, from age, infirmity, or accident, are

3. The servant, &c. removing to another district, may
have his assurance follow him to that in which he goes to

. reside ; satisfactory vouchers heing transmitted of his being
the person so provided for. A certificate, for instance,
would be given him, containing the amount lodged in, his
name, with a description of his person, age, &c., similar to
the ' signalemenf of the passport system. In equivocal
cases, direct correspondence between the districts would
settle the question of identity ; and, indeed, there would be
little temptation to commit frauds, since it is only in case of
sickness, or old age, that payments could be claimed, and
then to no greater extent than the individual may, in the
absence of a certificate, claim from the parish as casual poor.

4. Since the fixed amount of contribution here stated will
not cover the cost of assuring the necessary relief to those
servants, &c. who are more than 20 years of age at the insti-
tution of this plan, the contribution paid into the district
fund by the employers of all such servants, &c. should not
be invested in an assurance, but allowed to accumulate in
their names, in the manner of an ordinary deposit in a
savings bank. On the occurrence of sickness, casualty, or
old age, the usual allowance of 6s., 3*., and 3s., would be
made to such servant, &c. until the deposit lodged in his name
were exhausted; after which the servant would be passed to
liis parish, as at present, and supported out of the ordinary
poor-rate. Whatever sums remain unclaimed in the names
of such persons at their decease, should be reinvested in
those of their widows or children, if any. If none, they should
be placed to the credit of the poor-rate of the parish from,
which the contribution proceeded.

By this means the number of persons who would continue
to possess a claim on their parishes for relief, as well as the
amount of their individual cost on the occurrence of age or
casualty, would continually and rapidly decrease, and be
finally extinguished after the lapse of a generation. It
might be advantageously required that every householder
in the kingdom should likewise be made to contribute to
the same fund a similar tax for every member of his house-
hold— not working as the servant or labourer of another

UNEQUAL PRESSURE OF POOR-RATE. 319

unable to support themselves. Equity, therefore,
would require that those who, for the sake of profit,
hire a certain portion of the stock of labour in the
country, should pay for it an equal proportion of
the whole cost of maintaining that stock to the
country at large. Certainly it is unjust that a
capitalist, a manufacturer for example, who re-
quires the services of any number of labourers,
should be permitted to hire them for the bare cost
of their maintenance while in health and the prime
of life, — and, after reaping a profit from their exer-
tions, shift upon the public at large the burden of
maintaining them, so soon as accident, sickness,
or the exhaustion of their strength, in the course
of nature, after a life of toil, deprive them of their
value as instruments of gain. Now the plan
proposed accomplishes the desirable object of
throwing the burden of supporting the aged and
infirm part of the labouring population, on the
employers of labour, exactly in proportion to the
amount of labour they purchase from the able-
bodied.

This would seem to be an improvement on the
poor-laws completely in harmony with their spirit
and intention ; such, indeed, as we may venture to
suppose would have been adopted by the profound
and sagacious statesmen to whom we owe that
institution, had the necessary machinery existed in
their days, which »ve have now at our disposal, for
accurately distributing the burden upon this prin-

party. Even the wealthiest are sometimes reduced to
pauperism, and it is only just that they likewise should con.
tribute their quota to the maintenance of the fund to which
they may, at some time or other, be indebted for sustenance.

320 PROPOSED COMMUTATION OF POOR-RATE.

ciple, in saving banks, annuity tables, and correct
calculations on the value of lives, and of assurance
against the contingencies of disease and accident.
For the fundamental principle of the English poor-
law clearly is, and it has always been so considered
by the highest judicial authorities, that those par-
ties who have had the benefit of the labourer's
strength and skill, should be at the expense of
his maintenance and that of his family, when
rendered incapable of labour by illness, age, or
accident. The throwing the relief of their own
poor on such small territorial divisions as parishes,
which at that time were rarely subdivided into
separate estates, affords a strong presumption that
the object in view was to place the burden as nearly
as possible on the particular individuals who had re-
ceived the benefit, or at least on the property upon
which it had been bestowed. And the plan an-
swered this end with tolerable exactness whilst land
was almost the sole property in the country, its
cultivation the sole employment, and husbandmen
the only labourers. But since the vast advances
made by our manufacturing industry, which has at
length assumed such colossal importance as to
rival agriculture in the magnitude of its capital,
and the numbers to whom it gives employment; —
since also the management and occupation of
land is widely different from what it was in the
reign of Elizabeth ; — a corresponding alteration
has been long required in the machinery of the
poor-law, to adapt it to these altered circumstances,
and preserve its principle and spirit entire. At
present, for example, a manufactory may be started
in an agricultural district; and, after a continuance

FOR A MUTUAL ASSURANCE FUND. 321

of some years, on the occurrence of any of those
capricious fluctuations to which that branch of
industry is peculiarly liable, the business may be
closed, and the crowded population which the de-
mand for their labour has created or introduced,
thrown entirely for support upon the cultivators of
land in the parish. The manufacturer, who has
probably realized large profits from the employ-
ment of these families, by merely quitting the spot,
or closing his factory, escapes all share in the
charge of their maintenance, which he alone, not-
withstanding, has, for his own private interests,
brought upon the common property of the neigh-
bourhood. Such a state of things is as contrary to
tlie evident intention of the poor-law, as it is to
reason and equity ; and in as far as it can be cor-
rected by a better distribution of the burden of
maintaining the poor, few will dispute the expe-
diency of doing so without loss of time.

It is maintained, therefore, that the measure we
propose would be no anomalous innovation or
violent change in the poor-law, but strictly such
improvement as, in the progress of time, it ought
to have already received from the increased lights
and resources of the present age, in order to pre-
serve its original character under the altered cir-
cumstances of society.

To the poor themselves it would be no injury,
but the contrary. It would relieve them from the
humiliation and debasement that attaches to the
present mode of relief. They would feel that in
applying, in sickness or old age, to the appropriate
fund, they were only claiming a portion of their
fair earnings which had been withheld from them

Y

322 COMPULSORY MUTUAL ASSURANCE FUND.

for their own benefit, — or rather that they were
receiving, at the time they most needed it, an
addition to the wages they formerly earned, re-
served, with all its accumulated interest, for this-
special purpose, by the paternal foresight and
benevolence of the state. This would be making
the poor-law intelligible to them, and putting it
on that footing which must lead them to respect
and feel grateful to its authors and dispensers. At
present the only feeling they have on the subject is
a vague agrarian notion of property having been
cnce in common, and of the modicum to which
the law gives them a right being intended as a
poor and meagre apology for depriving them of
the remainder.

Indeed one great advantage which we should
expect from the adoption of this plan is that it
will assimilate the poor-rate to a general benefit
society. It will methodise and guarantee provi-
dence. It will compel the thoughtless and ex-
travagant to contribute while they are able to
that fund upon which they fall back for mainte-
nance whenever their means of self-support are
exhausted. In manufacturing districts, it is well
known, that however high wages may be, they are
spent as soon as got, generally in riot and dissi-
pation. And the consequence is, that upon the
first reverse, through any of the casualties to which
manufacturing industry is exposed, the labouring
population are reduced to the extremity of want,
and become a grievous burden upon the parish
rates. Our plan would appropriate a small pro-
portion (and a very small proportion indeed will
be amply sufficient) of the wages paid for labour

COMPULSORY MUTUAL ASSURANCE FUXD. 323

in times when it is in request, to form a fund for the
support of the labourers and their families in pe-
riods when the demand for labour will not absorb
the supply, as well as in sickness and decrepitude.

Will it be objected that the benefits which are
acknowledged to result from every voluntary sys-
tem of mutual assurance, whether against fire,
casualty, old age, or want of employment, disap-
pear when the contribution is made ^compulsory?
We cannot see why this should be so. What is all
government, with its machinery of taxation, for
legislative and executive purposes, but a great
system of compulsory mutual assurance against the
evils of internal disorder and external violence?
If individuals may justly be taxed by the state to
maintain a fund for securing them from robbery
and violence, may not a tax with equal justice be
levied for the object of securing them from want
and starvation ? The tax, indeed, is imposed now,
but frequently on the wrong parties, and always
in a form which gives it a false character. Oar
object is to shift it upon the right shoulders, and
make it appear that which it is, or ought to be, a
mutual assurance of the members of society against
destitution.

Other objections to such a scheme may pro-
bably be urged by those who now employ labour
without paying their fair share of the cost of keep-
ing up its supply. The manufacturer will per-
haps declare that a tax on wages would so increase
the cost of his article as to prevent his successful
competition with foreign rivals in the markets of -
this or other countries. But in the first place it
may be answered, that the tax will not in reality -

3*24 COMPULSORY MUTUAL ASSURANCE FUND.

fall upon the employer, except when wages are so
low as to bear no reduction, but will at all other
times be borne, as in justice it should be borne,
by the labourer himself. And, secondly, when
wages are so low that they cannot be reduced by
the amount of the tax levied on employers, it is
evident that the cost of supporting the infirm
and aged portion of the labouring class engaged
in manufactures must, even at present, be borne
by some party. If by the manufacturers them-
selves, they can lose nothing by being required to
make the same payment under a new name ; — if
not by them, then it is clear that they are now
shifting most unjustly upon some other parties this
portion of the cost of the stock of labour they con-
sume; and that they cannot complain of being
made to take it upon themselves. In truth, manu-
factured commodities which are worked up under
the present system at an expense in labour below
the aggregate cost of maintaining the labouring
population, (the deficiency being made good from
a tax on land and houses,) are exported and sold to
foreigners at a price below their real cost to this
country, and therefore at a continual loss to the
British community at large, though the merchants
and manufacturers may realize a profit on the
business. Such a trade is in the situation of one
maintained only by a bounty, and the sooner it is
stopped the better for the nation.

There exists a precedent for a tax on wages in
the sixpence per month levied on the employers
of merchant seamen. But the extraordinary cir-
cumstance of this impost is, that instead of going
to maintain a fund for the relief of these same

NECESSITY OF POOR-LAW FOR IRELAND. 325

seamen in casualty and old age, it is appropriated
to the exclusive support of the decrepit seamen of
the navy alone in Greenwich Hospital. This in-
justice has excited much attention of late ; and
there is some prospect, we believe, of the fund
being applied to its legitimate purposes. It will
then form an excellent model for imitation with
respect to all modes of employing labour, whether
by sea or land.

But no improvement in the administration or
letter of the English poor-law can be effectual
towards either diminishing the burden of the
rate, or ameliorating the condition of the poor,
until the same system of compulsory relief has
been extended to Ireland ; and the funda-
mental institutions of the British islands in this
respect completely assimilated. The existing ano-
maly is most injurious to both.

In truth, as has been already observed, since
the Irish Channel has been bridged over by steam-
boats, the two islands are virtually united, and the
absence of a poor-law in the one affects the con-
dition of the whole labouring class in the other,
disturbs the natural relation of its demand and
supply of labour, and utterly perverts and poisons
the action of the English poor-law. The labourers
of the three kingdoms now compete in one com-
mon market ; and those on whom the law throws
the maintenance of the surplus in one portion of
the empire, practically have to support the sur-
plus of the whole. The British labourers are
driven out of the employment which would other-
wise be open to them by the immigrating herds of

326 POOR-LAW FOR IRELAND,

starving Irish, and forced back upon their parishes
to be maintained there at the expense of British
landowners in unproductive idleness ! Our agri-
culturists are scarcely yet awake to the extraordinary
injury they suffer through this most unjust in-
equality in the conditions of landownership in the
two islands. Nothing, however, can well be
clearer than that they are virtually supporting the
Irish poor — that a very large portion of the
<£6,000,000 per annum which is now deducted
•out of the net value of their estates by the poor-
rate, is indirectly transferred to the pockets of the
Irish landowner, through his exemption from the
charge of supporting his portion of the poor of
the empire.

The continually increasing demand for labour
in our large towns forms the natural vent for the
-surplus population of our rural parishes. But
this vent is kept constantly choked by the bordes of
starving Irish whom the absolute destitution which
awaits them in their native country urges over
here, prepared to undertake the hardest work for
far less wages than our parishes are by law com-
pelled to give, their settled poor for doing nothing.

Let our landowners abstract in imagination
from the labouring population of Great Britain
the thousands of Irish who have been thus forced
to leave their native soil and settle in this country,
— and say whether in their absence there would
be any redundancy in a single parish. Had the
hundred thousand Irishmen, for example, who are
said to be settled in the metropolis, remained at
home, (and if the law of Ireland had been assi-
milated to that of England, and subsistence and

POOR-LAW FOR IRELAND. 327

employment secured to them there, few, if any,
would have come over,) could there have boon
at present any redundancy of labourers in the
rural parishes of Kent, Sussex, Surrey, and the
other metropolitan counties ? It is quite cle.ir
that whatever is paid from the rent of land in
England for the support of a supposed redundancy
of labour, is chiefly paid in consequence of tli3
absence of a provision for the poor in Ireland ; —
that the Irish landlords, in fact, virtually quarter
tht'ir poor upon our rates to the extent of some
two millions per annum. To that amount, at least,
English property now pays an Irish poor-rate !

But even this is by no means the whole injury
that is inflicted on the agricultural interest of
England by its exclusive taxation to the support
of the surplus population of the empire. While
our farmers are thus indirectly maintaining the Irish
poor as well as their own, they are met in every one
of their own markets and undersold by Irish pro-
ducers of corn, meat, bacon, butter, &c., raised off
land which is exempt from poor-rate, and at a rate
of wages which the absence of any legal protec-
tion to the poor keeps clown to one-third of what
.the poor-law maintains in England*. Thus the
British agriculturist suffers under a double disad-
vantage. The Irish landlord has his estate cul-
tivated free of poor-rate, and at a dry potato rate
of wages, and yet commands the markets of Eng-
land, whose home-grown produce before it is

* The average wages of labour in Ireland seem to be
about sixpence a-day. In England the average rate of
v/ages for agricultural labour cannot be less than one and
sixpence, but is probably nearer two shillings per day.

328 POOR-LAW NECESSARY FOR IRELAND,

brought to market must pay a heavy poor-rate
(swollen, as has been shown, by the immigration
of the Irish poor), and a rate of wages which
the law justly and properly keeps from sinking
below a sufficiency to support the labourer on a
\vheaten diet ! How long will the landowners
of Britain tolerate this frightful injustice? Their
tenants are fully alive to the injury they endure
from the unfair competition in their own markets
of Irish produce raised on such unequal terms.
The agricultural labourers of England are equally
aware of the hardship inflicted upon them by the
competition of Irish to whom the law denies any
resource in their native country. The struggles
of which we frequently hear between bodies of
English and Irish labourers in this country arise
from this feeling. Will our legislators wait till
these classes are forced to take into their own
hands the redress of this crying grievance, and by
their own efforts attain a wild but effectual justice ;
or will they wait till the rental of England is
wholly absorbed by the poor-rate, the English
labour market completely glutted by Irish labour-
ers, and the English provision market with Irish
produce ? The time is fast approaching when this
happy consummation will have arrived.

But if it be absolutely necessary for the welfare
of England that its poor-law should be extended
to Ireland, the measure is certainly no less indis-
pensable for the sake of Ireland itself. In the
present circumstances of society, a poor-law is
required in every country where want is found to
exist, on the plainest principles of justice, humanity,
and general policy. Justice demands it, because

POOR-LAW NECESSARY FOR IRELAND. 329

the prevailing want may be shown to proceed from
the imperfection of the existing institutions, which
ought, therefore, to provide some relief to the evils
they themselves cause ; — because it is essentially
unjust to punish attacks upon property if you offer
no alternative for the preservation of life. Hu-
manity requires it, because while the wealthy are
rioting in luxurious indulgences, the poor ought
not to be permitted to starve ; — because the relief
of the necessities of the indigent cannot safely be
trusted to the voluntary charity of the rich ; be-
cause the selfish and hard-hearted ought to be
made to contribute from their superfluity as well
as the benevolent; because private charity will
often overlook the really deserving, to lavish its
assistance on the clamorous impostor. System
and organization are as essential to the attainment
of the object aimed at, in the distribution of relief,
as in the collection of the fund to be distributed.

Finally, a poor-law is expedient on the ground
of policy, because it is utterly impossible without
such an institution to put down vagrancy and
mendicancy, two of the greatest nuisances from
which society can suffer — to prevent great waste
of the powers of labour — to secure property from
continual depredation — to preserve any chance of
peace and tranquillity in a country where the great
body of the people are placed in a most precarious
condition, and liable to be suddenly deprived, in
considerable numbers, of their sole means of liveli-
hood. To refuse temporary relief and employ-
ment to persons so circumstanced, is to render
riot and outrage almost inevitable ; and if su(n\
cient force be not provided to repress such dis-

330 POOR-LAW NECESSARY FOR IRELAND;

turbances, must at least spread over the land a
body of vagrants, driven by necessity to beg or
plunder a maintenance.

Let those who are prejudiced against a poor-
law compare the social condition of England
under the operation of such a law with that of
Ireland without any such institution — compare
the comfort of the labouring class, the security of
property, the respect for the laws, the general tran-
quillity, the development of industry, and the ac-
cumulation of wealth in the one, with the extreme
destitution, idleness, and lawlessness of the same
class, the continual turbulence, the insecurity of
property and even of life, the stagnation of industry,
the waste of productive capacity, and the absence
of accumulated capital in the other.

We repeat, there can be no security for property
where the body of the people have no security for
life. In a country where, as in Ireland, hundreds
of families are at times thrust out from their little
farms (their only means of subsistence) into abso-
lute destitution, at the mandate of a careless,
hard-hearted, or absentee landlord, — where mil-
lions more know that they are hourly exposed to
the same fate — can we expect that acts of outrage
and vengeance will not take place, and combina-
tions of the people to resist the law under whose
sanction such oppression is perpetrated upon them ?
Who will say that the peasantry ought not to
combine for such an object ? Allegiance is only
due where protection is afforded. What are all
institutions but combinations of the many to resist
the oppressions of the few ? AVe shudder at the
cruelty of the Whilefeet; but if we listen to them,

POOR-LAW NECESSARY FOR IRELAND. 331

they will justify their deeds by that which is ac-
knowledged to justify the cruelties of war — self-
defence — the first natural law — that of self-preser-
vation. They have, in truth, this plea to urge.
So long as the law drives the peasantry of Ireland
to desperation by denying them a right to the
continuance even of existence, so long will the
law be more justly blamed for the excesses into
which wretches in this situation are urged by de-
spair and ignorance, than the unfortunates them-
selves— 4 more sinned against than sinning.'

The disturbances which have long desolated
Ireland, and prevented the expansion of its vast
natural resources, are clearly proved, by the late
investigations of Parliamentary Committees, to
liave been the struggles of a starving people for
the occupation of land, as the only means of sub-
sistence. Whiteboys, Terry-alts, Black-feet, La;ly
Clares, and all the other many-titled combinations
that have for years past succeeded each other
in the disturbed provinces, have been simply asso-
ciations of the peasantry for the purpose of ena-
bling themselves to live by their labour off the
land of their native country — to conquer that right
which the law of Ireland denies, and has always
denied, to them. They accomplish this end rudely
and imperfectly, it is true. Their means are
savage and detestable, and the punishment they
inflict seldom alights on the real culprits. But is
it net necessarily so when the lowest class of any
country is driven by oppression to redress its own
grievances, and take the law into its own hands ?
It is to be deplored that there is, and lias always
been, a general organization of the people against

332 POOR-LAW NECESSARY FOR IRELAND.

the law ; but can anything else be expected from
them when the law is, and is felt by the mass of
the people to be, against them — a tyranny which
men must combine against in the very instinct of
self-preservation ? Nor will these disturbances
be ever quelled until justice be done to the op-
pressed peasantry of Ireland — until the power of
the landlords over the soil of the country is limited,
as it is in England, by a due regard to the secu-
rity of the people born and reared upon it — until
the RIGHT of the peasantry to be saved from star-
vation— to be assisted to a position in which by
assiduous industry and prudence they may main-
tain themselves in existence, is conceded to them
— until the law shall have provided for their relief
in the extremity of destitution, and for their in-
dustrious and productive employment whilst they
are able and willing to work.

Even if the internal resources of Ireland for
the employment of her population were exhausted,
it would still be evident that out of the large
surplus of her produce now exported for the bene-
fit of her landowners, a portion ought to be al-
lotted for the temporary sustenance of her starving
poor, and to defray the cost of their removal to
other lands, where they will be able to maintain
themselves in ease and plenty. But it is scarcely
doubtful that Ireland possesses within herself the
means of fully and profitably employing the whole
of her labouring population. It is the absence
of tranquillity, owing to the want of a legal pro-
tection for the destitute, which, by checking the
economy and productive investment of capital,
alone produces the apparent redundancy of labour.

POOR-LAW NECESSARY FOR IRELAND. 333

Let the government raise a fund by taxation of
the landlords of Ireland, for the employment of
her surplus of labour in opening up systematically
and scientifically the vast undeveloped resources
of that country, and in a very short period it is
probable that the redundancy will disappear; the
spell which now freezes up the productive capa-
cities of that island being broken, the process
will thenceforward carry itself on ; increasing
tranquillity will encourage the growth of capital,
and its migration from England ; all the existing
labour will then be spontaneously absorbed, and
the poor-rate (so much dreaded by the Irish land-
lords) reduced to a very trifling burden, — far more
than compensated to them by the improved value
and greater security of their estates. In fact, it
would be easy to show that the amount of assess-
ment on Irish property necessary for the beneficial
employment of the whole surplus of labour would
scarcely, if at all, exceed the sum which is now
annually levied from the same fund by sturdy
beggars and idle vagrants, and consumed unpro-
ductively, with a mischievous instead of a bene-
ficial result. If what is at present extorted by
mendicancy and intimidation, and wasted in the
support of filth, idleness, vice, and impudence,
were both levied in a systematic manner by the
machinery of a poor-law, and expended with judg-
ment and economy in the employment of the poor,
on roads, canals, drainages, embankments, and
other general improvements of the surface of the
country, property to an immense amount would in
a few years have been created, and a stimulus
given to the spontaneous creation of a far larger

334 GENERAL SCHEME OF EMIGRATION".

amount ; and this at no sacrifice whatever, but
with the gratuitous production of vast collateral
advantages, which must arise to the landowners,
the government, and the body of the people, from
the tranquillization and improvement of the coun-
try*.

It is doubtful, we say, whether there would be
any real surplus of labour in Ireland, were her
capacities allowed a full and fair developement.
It is still more questionable whether there would
be any real surplus in Great Britain, were the
provision of certain relief and employment at
home to check the continual immigration of
destitute Irishmen into this island, by whom our
native population are undersold in their own la-
bour-market, driven out of all the lower classes of
employment in the great towns and manufacturing
districts, and compelled to throw themselves for
support upon their parishes. But this, at least,
is certain, that if there be a redundancy — so long
as there is in any parish of the kingdom a real and
permanent surplus of labourers, for whom no pro-
fitable employment spontaneously offers itself, it is
madness to continue to support these persons in
idleness, or to employ them on useless and un-
profitable work here, while there exists a vast,
insatiable, and continually increasing demand for
labour in our colonies — in what is merely another
part of the empire, separated from our home
parishes only by a few weeks' voyage over the
Atlantic, in a country peopled partly already by
our own emigrants, enjoying the same climate, lan-

* See t Plan of a Poor-law for Ireland,' with a review of
the arguments for and against it. — Ridgway} 1833,

GENERAL SCHEME OF EMIGRATION." 335"

guage, religion, and laws as the mother country,
supplied from thence with all the comforts and
luxuries of civilization, and to which our own
capitalists are continually migrating, impelled by
the desire to increase their profits, and improve
their circumstances, and checked only by tlia
difficulty and great cost of procuring labour. Under
such circumstances, a general scheme for the en-
couragement, or rather the carrying on of Emigra-
tion, ought to be an essential part of the machinery
of the poor-law. It is neither just nor politic to
tax property in this country, to maintain in idleness
within their parishes a number of hands who
would be secure of full and well-paid employment
in another part of his Majesty's dominions. If
they choose to remove there, the means of doing
so should be found them. If they do not, such re-
fusal must prove that they are yet capable of main-
taining themselves in this country, and do not need
relief. It is neither just nor politic towards the
persons taxed, or towards the poor men themselves,
upon whom the tax is expended, at a great cost to
maintain them barely alive and under a strict
workhouse, not to call it prison, discipline in this
country, when a small part of the same expenditure
would remove them to a spot where their circum-
stances would be greatly improved. In the inte-
rests of both parties, it were best that emigration
should be resorted to for the disposal of the surplus
labour, wherever any exists. Nor do we see any
valid objection to its being made optional to pa-
rishes to offer this species of relief to those who
apply, on the plea of being unable to find work in
this country. The expense to the parish, as well

336 GENERAL SCHEME OF EMIGRATION.

as the loss sustained by parting with labourers
really wanted, would effectually prevent this power
from being abused to the extremity of injuriously
depopulating any district, by overseers or vestries.
The able-bodied pauper, on his side, could have no
right to complain of the refusal of other relief,
when he is offered a free passage for himself and
his family, to another part of the empire, where
industry and prudence are sure to obtain, not
merely a living, but positively an independence
in no long time. As to the outcry which would be
raised by some ultra-sentimentalists against such
a proposition, as a violent rending of ties, a sen-
tence of banishment, a deportation, and so forth,
it is enough to point out to the attention of these
persons the thousands of the wealthier classes who
are every year voluntarily expatriating themselves,
for the same all-sufficient motive, — the desire of
improving their circumstances. It can surely be
no hardship on a starving pauper to require him
to take that step for securing to himself a com-
petent maintenance, which his betters are taking
continually for the mere augmentation of their
income.

It is more than probable, that an extensive
scheme of emigration, carried on by government,
for removing the surplus population of this country
to the colonies as fast as such a surplus appeared
in any quarter, might easily be made to pay its
own expenses ; either through a slight tax levied
On the immigrating labourers* themselves for a
term of years, and readily paid by them out of the
high wages they receive there ; — or by the pro*
ceeds of the sales of government lands, or from

MEANS FOR EXTINGUISHING POVERTY. 337

other sources of colonial taxation. But even if
this were found impracticable, it will always re-
main by far the cheapest mode of disposing of
such supernumerary labourers, to undertake the ex-
pense of removing them at once, rather than to
maintain them here in idleness, or useless employ-
ment, acquiring habits of vice, crime, and impro-
vidence, from their exposure to the demoralizing
influence of pauperism.

It is to be hoped that the government of this
country will, before long, be induced to adopt some
general and comprehensive scheme of this kind.
Its attention has for some time been laudably
turned to the subject, but it may be regretted
that a rigid and, we think, short-sighted parsi-
mony has hitherto prevented any efforts in this
direction being made upon a scale at all commen-
surate with the importance and expediency of the
measure. While twenty millions are unhesitatingly
offered for the promised redemption from slavery
of the West Indian negroes, it is pitiable to see
the same government scruple to lay out as many
thousands in promoting the liberation of the na-
tive poor of this island from a state of degradation
and wretchedness, little, if at all, inferior to that
of the slaves themselves.

It is the duty — we maintain, the very first duty
— of a government (having the power, as we have
proved that the government of this country has) to
secure to every able-bodied and industriously dis-
posed labourer the means of living by his industry,
If these means are not to be obtained in this
island, they are certain of being secured to him
by his removal to those outlying but integral por-

338 MEANS FOR EXTINGUISHING POVERTY.

tions of our territory, where labour is in great de-
mand, subsistence plentiful, and the fruits of in-
•dustry large and abundant. The government
which enforces his maintenance in useless labour
.or idleness at home, instead of effecting his re-
moval to where his labour would be so beneficial
to the community as well as to himself — neg-
lects its duty both to the individual and to the
community. Were such a general scheme of colo-
nization adopted as we have here shadowed out,
.the relief of this country from the burden of poor-
rate would be great and immediate. Industrious
pauperism would be no longer known, and poverty
banished from the face of the country, or confined
at least to the maimed, the infirm, and the decrepit,
from whom the mutual assurance fund suggested
above would remove the disgrace and demoraliza-
tion of pauperism.

Emigration is a certain and effectual resource
against any extension of pauperism and any re-
dundancy of labour. \Ve do not, however, mean
that it is to be only employed as a last resource,
when all others fail. On the contrary, we think
a vent of this kind should always be kept open,
an 1 within reach of every labouring man in this
— indeed, in every civilized country — of which he
may easily avail himself whenever the means of
gaining an industrious livelihood fail him in his
native land. This would leave no palliation for
crime, no necessity for the severe and brutalizing
discipline of the workhouse, no excuse for that
mischief- working, however well-meant, charity
which encourages idleness, vice, and imposture.

But though we are of opinion that emigration

REMOVAL OF LEGISLATIVE RESTRAINTS- 339

should be made available at all times and under all
circumstances to the destitute — we think it exceed-
ingly doubtful whether there is any one country
in Europe whose internal resources for the employ-
ment and comfortable maintenance of its popula-
tion would be found deficient, if it were not for the
imposition and continuance of legislative shackles,
which cramp the exertions of its inhabitants, and
interfere with the natural, that is, ihefree direction
of their industry, and the natural and equitable
distribution of its produce.

Every civilized state offers examples of such
artificial, needless, and injurious restraints. We
must confine our attention to those which deform
our own legislature, and of these we can only
afford space to expose the most prominently
mischievous. We shall class them for considera-
tion into

1. Restraints on agriculture. 2. On commerce.
3. On manufactures. 4. Excessive and misdirected
taxation. 5. Restraints on the just distribution of
wealth.

340

CHAPTER XIII.
RESTRAINTS ON AGRICULTURE

Tithe System — Local Taxation — Restrictions on Inclosure.

OF the restraints imposed by the laws of this
country on the free development of its agriculture,
the most injurious, undoubtedly, is the Tithe System.
A tax upon agriculturists, the amount of which in-
creases vvith the productiveness of agriculture,
must evidently operate as a constant check upon
all attempts to increase that productiveness. The
fallacy which so long blinded the defenders of this
species of impost to its obnoxious character, lay
in their assuming that the tax, being only one-
tenth of the produce, would leave the remaining
nine-tenths to the cultivator, and so afford an amply
sufficient inducement, to the utmost exertion of
his industry. They altogether overlooked that
the profit, or ' increase,' — that is, whatever surplus
of the gross produce remains after repaying the
expenses of cultivation, — is all that falls to the
share of the cultivator ; and that this itself in
general barely amounts to a tenth of the gross pro-
duce. So that the tithe is a tax of at least 100
per cent, on the net returns of the process of cul-
tivation. In case of the tillage of the poorer soils
this tax would swallow up the entire profit ; and
must, therefore, act as a complete interdict on their

TITHE SYSTEM. 341

cultivation. There is a very large proportion of
the land of this country, which would return a pro-
fit of from five to fifteen per cent, upon the capi-
tal that might be expended in its conversion from
pasture or a state of waste to arable, or its improve-
ment by manuring, &c. if already in tillage. But
so long as the gross produce of such expenditure is
liable to a tax of 10 per cent., it is evident that a
complete bar is placed to all such employment of
capital, however desirable in a national and eco-
nomical point of view. The tithe- tax thus acts
directly as a penalty on the cultivation and im-
provement of land, and the growth of food. A
thousand pounds expended in the employment of
labour and machinery in the manufacture of cloth,
or gloves, or silks, pays no tithe. The same sum
laid out in the employment of labour and ma-
chinery in the growth of corn, butter, meat, and
the primary necessaries of life, pays a tax of 10
per cent, on the gross return. And this most op-
pressive and most odious of all possible taxes
has been levied nominally for the support of a reli-
gious establishment! Could any better means
have been devised by the arch enemy of mankind
for exciting hostility to the establishment, and
bringing religion itself into discredit ?

Within the last year or two public opinion has
begun to express itself strongly on this ill-con-
trived system, — adopted in its origin, almost of
necessity, from the penury of our forefathers, — but
the maintenance of which, up to the present day,
and in this enlightened country, is a disgrace to
the age and nation. A general commutation of
tithe into a fixed territorial impost has at length

342f' TITHE COMMUTATION.

been determined on by the Government, intro-
duced by them to the legislature, and vvill be ac-
ceded to, we must hope, for its own sake, by the
Church, A commutation for land offers by far the
roost advisable mode of investing this claim,
though there are considerable practical difficulties-
in the way of such a change.

Unfortunately this measure has been delayed
by the impolitic resistance of the Church, to a
period when, from the feelings of animosity that
have been kindled upon the subject, it can neither,
perhaps, be delayed with safety, nor settled with
justice to both parties, nor in that calm and tempe-
rate spirit of deliberation which is so greatly de-
sirable where such large and important interests
are at stake.

It is of considerable moment that the real
incidence of tithes, that is to say, the party upon
whom the tax really falls, should be thoroughly
ascertained before any change is adopted in the
present system. The general belief is, that the
tithe is paid exclusively by the land-owner ;
that it is a simple deduction from rent, and would
be added to rent if abolished. This opinion arises
from the knowledge that lands, now tithe-free,
let for a rent which exceeds the rent of tithe-
able land of equal quality, by exactly the amount
of the tithe that would be due from them. And
if any single estate were exempted from tithe,
no doubt the benefit would wholly go to the land-
lord, because any increased productiveness of that
single estate consequent upon its exemption from
the tax now levied on its gross produce, could in
DO perceptible degree influence the prices of tli3-

TITHE COMMUTATION. 343

produce markets. But if all the land now subject
to tithe were at once exempted, or the tithe on
all commuted, (which is the same thing as respects
its influence over cultivation,) the increased ap-
plication of capital and labour to this land which
would follow its release from a tax on the gross
produce, must so increase the stock of corn and
other agricultural produce in the markets as to
lower prices. The fall of prices would both lower
the rent of lands now tithe- free, and prevent the
rent of the land now tithed, from rising to the ex-
tent of the tithe at present raised from them. The
landlords of both classes of estates, therefore,
would suffer from a commutation. This, however,
is what would occur only in case the whole of the
agricultural produce consumed in the country were
home-grown ; in which case alone its prices are
determined by the cost of production in this-
country, of which tithe is an element. But when,
as has happened for some years past, a consi-
derable proportion of the corn consumed is im-
ported, the price is determined by the cost at
which it can be imported ; and in this case the ad-
ditional produce which would be raised at home
if the tithe were abolished or commuted, instead of
lowering prices materially in our markets, would
only come into use in place of an equal quantity now
imported from abroad, and which an inconsider-
able fall of the average price would probably keep
out of the market. Under these circumstances,
therefore, the tithe may be said to be chiefly,
though certainly not altogether, paid at present by
the landlord ; and, consequently, would in that
proportion go to him if remitted. Should any

344 LOCAL TAXATION.

alteration be made in the terms on which foreign
corn is admitted, having the effect of lowering
prices in this country, the loss would fall wholly
upon the landlords, whom the present duty on im-
ported corn, averaging as it has done, since 1828,
6s. 3d. per quarter, (or about 10 per cent, on the
prices of this period,) just compensates in the
aggregate for the payment of tithe. Whether they
have a right to claim this compensation is another
question, which we will not here attempt to de-
termine.

These difficulties, however, should not prevent
an immediate commutation of tithe — the most in-
jurious and detestable of all possible taxes, since
it operates as a penalty on the cultivation of the
soil, and on the growth of food and the raw mate-
rials of industry, and inflicts an artificial steriliv
on a large portion of the surface of Britain.

The amount of Local Taxation, levied chiefly
on land, in the shape of poor, county, highway,
and church rates, acts as another hurtful restraint
on the application of industry to agriculture, in as
far as these imposts press with greater severity on
that than on any other branch of industry.

It appears from a parliamentary document, that
the total sum levied as poor-rate and county-rate
in England and Wales, in the year ending 25th
March, 1826, was 6,966, 157/., of which there was
levied,

From Land alone . . 4,795,4821., or J^l T°Sether

10UO 702

From Manorial Profits'! 14 > ^ooo

(which may be consider- > 96,882/., or r^,, 1
ed as landed property). J J of the whole.

LOCAL TAXATION. 345

From Dwelling-houses . 1,814,22s/., or -*5L of the whole.

1000

From Mills, Factories, &c. 249,5657., or _?L

The highway and church rates being levied on
the same assessment must be supposed to press in
the same unequal proportions on these different
classes of productive investments.

The Highway-rates of 1825-6 amounted to . 1,121,8347.
The Church-rates of the same year, to . . . 564,3887.
Which added to the Poor and County rates, as

above, viz., 6,966,1577.

Make a Total of Local Taxation of . . , 8,652,3797.
of which it appears that the agriculturists paid
more than seven-tenths — the owners of dwelling-
houses more than five-twentieths, the owners of
mms and factories only one twenty-seventh part,
while the proprietors of capital invested in stocks
in trade, the funds, mortgages, annuities, and
personal wealth of all description, paid actually
nothing whatever. But these taxes are levied for
purposes of general public advantage, for the pre-
servation of internal tranquillity and the security of
property, through the suppression of mendicancy,
vagrancy, and the crimes which unrelieved misery
would be sure to engender — for the maintenance
of the buildings consecrated to the national wor-
ship— for the necessary expenses of the local judi-
catures, and judicial proceedings, — and for the re-
paration of roads which are used by all classes of
the people. These objects being equally bene-
ficial to all, there can be no good reason why the
owners of all property, however invested, should
not contribute in equal proportions towards their

346 REFORMS IN LOCAL TAXATION.

attainment. The total exemption of all personal
property from contribution offers a premium to
tho unproductive employment of capital; while
the unequal pressure of these imposts on different
productive investments must evidently act as a
factitious discouragement to the employment of
labour and capital in that branch of industry which
is most heavily burdened. And the placing no
less than seven-tenths of a tax of this magnitude,
levied for general national purposes, upon agri-
culture only, iscaa extraordinary instance of im-
policy, since (as we remarked in the case of
tithes) it operates as a penalty on the productio'n
of the first necessaries of life, for a people but*
scantily supplied with them.

If the plans were adopted which we suggested
in the last chapter, for raising the necessary fund
for the maintenance of the infirm poor, and such
as are temporarily thrown out of employment, by a
compulsory subscription from wages, and for ex-
porting all the permanent surplus of labour to the
colonies at their expense, — the amount of the
poor-rate would be greatly reduced, and its pressure
completely equalized upon all property, since it
would then enter in equal proportions into the ele-
mentary cost of all commodities. For the church-
rate, it is to be hoped, that, having relieved the
Irish from this payment, Government will shortly
see the expediency of placing the maintenance
of ecclesiastical buildings upon the church esta-
blishment, in England likewise. The highway-
rate is comparatively trifling, and its levy and ap-
plication is at the present moment undergoing
the revision of the legislature. The coiuitv-rate

^-RESTRICTIONS ON INCLOSURE. 347

might by some very simple corrections be imposed
with greater fairness than at present upon the pro-
perty for the protection of which it is chiefly
raided.

The enormous expense of the act of parliament
which is now required for enclosing waste land
in which various parties are interested, is ano-
ther serious obstacle in the way of the improve-
ment of land in this country, and the increase
of its productiveness. The cost of an enclosure
act, and the accompanying expenses of survey
and applotment, &c., rarely falls within a thou-
sand pounds, and often exceeds five times that
sum. It is obvious that the enclosure and effec-
tive tillage of many small tracts of waste land
must be prevented by the necessity of incurring
this heavy outlay for merely obtaining the per-
mission of the legislature. A general enclosure
act, containing some simple and cheap machinery
for determining the propriety of such a step, and
adjudicating the respective claims of the parties
interested, would tend materially to encourage the
application of capital and labour in this most be-
neficial direction. The fact, that upwards of 4000
private enclosure bills have been passed within
the last half century, strongly demonstrates the
expediency of a general act for the purpose of
saving the necessity of this awkward and expen-
sive local legislation. Can anything be more
strongly condemnatory of the present system of
legislation, or rather of the want of system which
characterizes our legislation, than the fact of 4000
acts of parliament having been passed in so short

348 RESTRICTIONS ON INCLOSURE— •

a period for permitting and regulating the improve-
ment of as many separate tracts of land in this
little island ? The fact would be almost incredible
to one who was a stranger to the temporizing and
patch-work policy of our legislation — which pos-
sesses no contrivance for permitting a common
to be enclosed, a highway diverted, a man and
wife divorced, a name changed, or a foreigner
naturalized, without the setting in motion of King,
Lords, and Commons, and all the cumbrous ma-
chinery of a legislative enactment.

In a former chapter it was shewn that the im-
provement of waste land by the assiduous industry
of individuals who were permitted to enclose small
tracts, and to appropriate the entire produce of
the improvements they effected, had been, in every
age and every country of the earth, the primary,
though simple, means by which the vast districts
now cultivated for the use of man were rendered
productive — the first and indispensable step to
the creation of all the wealth and refinements of
civilised existence. The very foundation of the
right to property in land lies in the expediency of
encouraging these invaluable efforts for the deve-
lopment of its productiveness. It is evident then
that the legal claims of individuals, however ac-
quired, to an exclusive property in tracts of waste
land, ought not to be permitted to prevent the
continuance of this salutary and important pro-
cess— but should be made to give way before the
prior and superior right of the community to
make the most of the resources which Providence
has placed at their disposal in the productive ca-
pacities of their native soil. A wise and prudent

THEIR REMOVAL NECESSARY. 349

government would remove every difficulty in the
way of the improvement of land, and facilitate by
every practicable means the enclosure and high
cultivation of tracts of land by the enterprise, in-
dustry, and capital of individuals. That the same
spirit which originally brought into cultivation
our oldest and richest crofts still prevails among
the peasantry of this country, is proved by the
patches which we see cribbed in defiance of the
law from the margins of every highway, and the
sides of every common throughout the country,
and the high state of productiveness to which
these little gardens are brought, in spite of the
general poorness of their soil, and the insecurity
of their tenure. But instead of forbidding such
encroachments, as they are called, the law ought,
we consider, to sanction and encourage them.
Instead of confining the industrious cottager to
the scanty margin of the public road, or the ob-
scure angle of the common, all that portion of
our waste lands which is capable of cultivation
ought to be placed at the disposal of those who
are willing to cultivate and improve it, under such
conditions only as will secure to the present legal
owners a fair compensation proportioned to the
value they derive from it in its actual state. Some
general system of this kind, by the establishment
of local commissioners, might be easily contrived ;
— and the result would, we think, be to draw
forth a vast amount of industry which is now re-
pressed for want of a vent, and greatly to increase
the extent of land in cultivation.

For though it may be true, as we believe it is,
that the system of cultivation by large farms and

350 RESTRAINTS ON INCLOSURE —

liirecl labour, is the most productive, in the case of
lands long placed under tillage — we think it qui-te
certain that the reduction of waste land to tillage
ab initio is best accomplished by the patient exer-
tions and persevering industry of the cottier pea-
sant, working on his owrn account on his own
little patch of soil. He puts into his labour twice
the exertion of even the free hired labourer of
the capitalist-farmer, four times that of the con-
strained serf or slave. He will force a rich crop
from a soil which would not repay the large farmer
for the cost of tillage — much less afford him that
profit on his outlay, the prospect of which alone
will induce him to attempt its cultivation. The
numberless experiments that have been made of
granting small lots of land to poor men in this
country — still more, perhaps, the success of the
pauper colonies of the Netherlands, where a
meagre and hungry sand has been by this pro-
cess brought into the condition of a garden— prove
to demonstration this important fact. It is
pleasing to find the allotment system making
its way into nearly every parish in the king-
dom under the wise and humane influence of the
landowner, who undoubtedly best consults his
own interest by encouraging the spontaneous ex-
ertions of the peasantry to maintain themselves
by their own industry, instead of depending on
parochial relief. But the letting to poor labourers,
as yearly tenants, of tracts of land already in culti-
vation by farmers, is not nearly so fertile a source
of increased productiveness, as would be the per-
mission to the same class to enclose, cultivate,
and appropriate in fee, upon easy and fair terms,

NECESSITY OF THEIR REMOVAL. 351

tracts of land now in a state of waste. The exer-
tions of the cultivator will be proportionate to tli3
security be has of reaping their fruits. And to
call forth his full energies, he must have, not a
mere temporary tenure of his allotment — but such
a permanent hold of it, as will give him a complete
conviction of the undisputed enjoyment of all its
improved produce, and inspire that strong in
terest in its improvement, which attaches univer-
sally to whatever we can call exclusively our own.

In Ireland, especially, might this system be
adopted with the greatest prospect of advantage.
There vast tracts of waste land are met with, pro-
ducing next to nothing — while in their immediate
contiguity are hordes of poor and wretched objects
supported in idleness by the charity of their neigh-
bours, who are themselves scarcely in better circum-
stances. The Irish cottier, who holds his acre only
from year to year — or, as in the common case of the
conacre, for a single crop, — at the will of a superior
who takes care to leave him but a bare subsistence
for his labour, — has little inducement to put forth
his natural energies in the improvement of his
holding. We cannot wonder at the low state of
agriculture in the populous parts of Ireland under
such a system: but give to these same cottiers
a permanent interest in the soil, — and their habits
of idleness and carelessness will give place to
activity, ingenuity, frugality, and steady industry.

Whenever the Irish cottier has been permitted
to settle in this manner on a tract of mountain or
bog -land, the result has uniformly been what we
here anticipate. On Mr. Gascoigne's property,
and again on Lord Headley's, tenants dispossessed

352 RESTRAINTS ON INCLOSURE.

from farms which they were unable to manage,
were provided for in this manner, and according
to the evidence of Mr. Barrington, the landlords
have thereby greatly improved the value of their
estates. The tenantry themselves were saved from
destitution, and the tranquillity of the neighbour-
hood preserved*.

It should ever be borne in mind by legislators,
that the law which secures a property in land is
an artificial restraint on the free enjoyment by
every individual of those gifts which the bounty
of the Creator has provided for the satisfaction of
his wants ; — this restraint is just only to such ex-
tent as it can be proved necessary for the general
welfare, and wherever it is found to go beyond
that point, its modification is required by the same
principle which alone sanctions its establishment.

* See Mr. Barrington's evidence before the Committee
on the State of Ireland in 1832. Qq. 132-7.

353

CHAPTER XIV.
RESTRAINTS ON MANUFACTURES.

Taxes on raw materials. — Excise duties. — Factory-bill.

THE legal restrictions which interfere with manu-
facturing industry in this country are chiefly of a
fiscal character.

Direct taxation has always heen an unpalatable
and unpopular mode of raising the public revenue.
And governments have, in consequence, gene-
rally resorted to the imposition of customs and
excise duties upon imported or home-made com-
modities. The tax being levied upon the producer
or importer is charged by him, of course, upon
the purchaser, who in reality pays it, but in so
indirect a manner, as to be unconscious of the
nature of the payment without a process of reflec-
tion that does not readily present itself to ordi-
nary minds. Through this contrivance the Go-
vernment of Great Britain has raised and spent
enormous revenues which the nation would cer*
tainly never have consented to pay in direct con-
tributions from their purses.

Whatever injury results from the people being
thus blinded to the excessive expenditure of their
government may, perhaps, be counterbalanced
by the facility afforded to the collection of the

2 A

354 RESTRAINTS ON MANUFACTURES.

necessary revenue. The system, therefore, would
be harmless on the whole, if the articles taxed
were solely luxuries, consumed by the wealthier
classes ; in which case the effect of these duties
would be nearly the same as of a direct tax on
wealth. They would have little or no influence
on wages or profits, and consequently on national
industry. A very considerable proportion of our
customs and excise duties, exceeding, according
to Sir H. Parnell*, £27,000,000, are of this com-
paratively innoxious character.

But there are some duties which, by their inter-
ference with the manufacture either of articles of
the first necessity, or of such as are fabricated in
this country for exportation, exercise an injurious
influence on these important branches of industry.
Such are

1. The taxes on the raw materials of our prin-
cipal manufactures. Sir H. Parnell estimates the
amount of taxes annually levied on the materials
employed in manufactures, buildings, ship-build-
ing, &c., at upwards of £6,000,000.

* The levying of so large a sum on articles
that require capital and labour to give them utility
and value, must strike every one as being a most
serious obstacle in the way of remedying the diffi-
culties which press at this moment the heaviest
on the country, namely, the want of employment
lor capital and labour. The repealing, therefore,
of the whole of these taxes is a measure particu-
larly called for under the present state of our ma-
nufactures, and of the labouring class.'f

* Financial Reform. Chap. IV. f Pamell, p. 19. Ed.
1832.

TAXES ON MANUFACTURE. 355

Since the first publication of Sir H. Parnell's
valuable work, steps have been taken, in con-
formity with his recommendations, for the aboli-
tion or lightening of some of these injurious
imposts. The duties on hemp, which is exten-
sively used in the manufacture of linen, sails, and
cordage — on barilla and ashes, on a large number
of drugs and dyes used in various branches of
manufacture, on coals and culm carried coastwise,
on tiles, on leather, and on soap, have been either
completely abolished or greatly reduced. The
duty on thrown silk still remains. And the heavy
duty on timber, — but especially the arrangement of
that duty, whereby North American timber, very
deficient in strength and durability, is forced into
general use in place of that from the north of
Europe, which is not only procurable at a less
expense, but is likewise of infinitely better quality
— continues to disgrace the statute-book, and con-
demn our public and private buildings to prema-
ture decay.

2. Of taxes imposed directly on the manufac-
ture of articles of prime necessity, or exportation,
Sir H. Parnell justly stigmatises the heavy duties
on paper, glass, and printed calicoes. The latter
has lately been materially reduced.

* The duty on paper has an injurious effect on
many other trades besides that of the paper -maker.
The limited consumption which it occasions in-
jures the makers of machinery, type-founders, ink-
makers, printers, engravers, booksellers, book-
binders, stationers, paper-stainers, and several
other trades. But the greatest evil of all is the
high price of books which it gives rise to. This

2 A 2

356 RESTRAINTS ON MANUFACTURES.

places a great obstacle in the way of the progress
of knowledge, of useful and necessary arts, and of
sober and industrious habits. Books carry the
productions of the human mind over the whole
world, and may be truly called the materials of
every kind of science and art, and of all social im-
provement.'*

In addition to the increased cost of these manu-
factures occasioned by the amount of the tax col-
lected from them, the necessarily severe and vexa-
tious regulations under which the duties are col-
lected, have most injurious consequences.

' By the Excise laws prescribing the processes
of fabrication, the manufacturer cannot manage
his trade in the way his skill and experience point
out as the best ; but is compelled to conform to
such methods of pursuing his art as he finds taught
in Acts of Parliament. Thus the unseen injury
arising from Excise taxation, by its interference
with the free course of manufacture, is much
greater than is suspected by the public. The con-
sequence of the activity and invention of the manu-
facturers being repressed, is, that the consumers of
their goods pay increased prices, not only for the
duties imposed on them, but for the additional ex-
pense incurred by absurd and vexatious regula-
tions ; and, in addition to this, the goods are
generally very inferior in quality to what they
would be if no duties existed. 'f

In the same way the mode of levying the duty
on malt inflicts a greater injury on the agricul-

* Parneil, p. 28. f Ibid. p. 26.

TAXES ON MATERIALS OF MANUFACTURE. 357

tural interest and the manufacturers of malt, as well
as on its consumers, than can be measured by the
amount of the tax collected. " The severe and
vexatious excise regulations, at one and the
same time, have the effect of unnecessarily fetter-
ing the operations of the maltster — of deteriora-
ting the quality, and adding to the price of his
malt — and of putting him wholly in the power of
the pettiest officer of excise."* In consequence of
this system, and perhaps of the too heavy duty
levied on an article which can scarcely be called a
luxury, the consumption of malt had been sta-
tionary for the last forty years, until the late
Beer Act gave a temporary stimulus to the con-
sumption of brewers' beer, at the expense, we fear,
of much of the morality and happiness of the
working classes, who have been induced to con-
sume it in tippling- houses rather than at home in
the midst of their families. The malt-duty should
be taken off; and if no other means could be de-
vised for making up the deficit in the revenue, it
were better that a beer-duty be reimposed in its
place.

It is to be hoped that the further repeal of the
taxes on manufactures, and the materials of manu-
factures, will be proceeded in, until the whole are-
removed, and that artificial obstacles of this nature
will no longer be allowed to impede the employ-
ment of British capital and labour, in working up
the produce of British industry into articles for
sale in the home or foreign markets.

Direct interference of government with manu-

* Edinburgh Review, vol. xliv., p. 373.

358 FACTORY BILL.

factures, for other than fiscal purposes, has long
since been happily disused and discredited in this
country. The Factory Bill, however, just passed,
is to a certain extent a revival of exploded and con-
demned principles — necessitated, perhaps, by the
peculiar circumstances of the times, which, keep-
ing the labouring class in an unnatural state of
depression, and forcing an extraordinary competi-
tion among manufacturers, have led some of the
neediest and least conscientious among them to
exact from the children they employ a greater
amount of labour than is compatible with their
health or happiness. In a more natural state of
things, which afforded a competent remuneration
to the labour of the working class, such interfe-
rence of the legislature would be unnecessary, and
the health of children might be left with safety to
the natural guardianship of their parents.

In other countries, the law continues still to
meddle injuriously with many processes of manu-
facture, for purposes of supposed public ad vantage.
The mischief of all such interference was, however,
justly exposed in the work of M. Chaptal, Minister
of the Interior under Napoleon, published in 1819;
and the following passage from that work evinces
a creditable acquaintance with the true principles of
commercial and financial policy.

" A government that knows its real interests
will endeavour to favour production ; its wealth
is proportioned to the quantity of taxable produce
within its reach. It is less by the amount of taxa-
tion, than by the mode in which the taxes are
levied, that a nation is oppressed. When the ma-
terials of industry are taxed, the source of repro-

FINANCIAL MAXIMS. 359

duction is dried up, and the public prosperity must
languish." " Imposts should be placed, not on
the first necessaries of life, but on superfluities."
" To protect property, to facilitate the supply of the
materials of industry, to favour production in every
shape, is the sum of the duties of government in
relation to commerce. By attempting to interfere
with the processes of fabrication, to influence the
supply of markets, or to regulate commercial trans-
actions, it can only hamper industry, and injure its
own interests."*

* Chaptal, De 1'Industrie Francaise, tome xi., p. 218.

360

CHAPTER XV.
RESTRAINTS ON COMMERCE.

Restrictions on Exchanges. — Fallacy of the Arguments
against Free Trade. — History of the Protecting System. —
Ruinous policy for a Commercial State — Depresses Indus-
try and discourages Production. — Taxation no ground for
protection — Nor the absence of reciprocity. — Trueprinciple
and limits of protection. — Colonial System. — Advantage of
Colonial over Foreign Trade. — Real use of Colonies.-"
Should be considered as extensions of cultivable Territory,
and the Trade with them assimilated to the Home Trade. —
Colonization. — Corn Laws. — In principle unjust and im-
politic, except to a very limited extent. — Present System.
— Its removal should be preceded by a removal of the re-
slramts on Agriculture. — Absenteeism. — Conclusion.

OF all the faults which have been committed by
the legislature of this country, few have proved so
injurious to the successful prosecution of the na-
tional industry, as the restraints which it has im-
posed on the freedom of commercial exchanges.

In a former chapter, we endeavoured to exhibit
the vast benefits that flow from commerce, through
its enabling the inhabitants of every district or
country to avail themselves of the advantages they
possess of climate, situation, or soil, favourable
to the production of particular commodities, for

FREE TRADE. 361

procuring such other things as they cannot so
readily produce at home, at the least possible sa-
crifice of labour, time, or capital — in one word, at
the least cost.

But the benefit thus arising to a people from the
satisfaction of its wants at the cheapest possible
rate has long been, and still is, stoutly denied.
It has been contended that the importation of
foreign commodities prevents the employment of
so much native industry as would be required
to fabricate these goods, or some substitutes
for them, at home ; and that this injury is in no
degree compensated by the comparative cheapness
of the foreign commodities to the consumer. This
argument rests upon several great, and equally
fatal errors.

1. The attention is confined to the effect of
the importation of a superior foreign article on
those persons in the importing country who are
already engaged, or would, but for such importa-
tion, engage themselves, in the fabrication of the
commodity in question or its substitute. It is
altogether overlooked that the importation is only
an exchange of some product of home industry
for some other of foreign industry ; and that
to prevent the importation of the one, is to
prevent the production and exportation of the
other. In fact, it is not the foreigner that * pro-
duces,' in the English market, foreign silks, gloves,
or corn — their real producer is the English manu-
facturer and trader, who makes and exports cloth,
cotton, or hardware, and brings back in exchange
for these articles, the gloves, silk, or corn.
These things are as certainly produced in the may-

362 FALLACY OF ARGUMENTS

kets of England by the employment of English
labour, skill, and capital alone, as "if they were
raised and fabricated directly upon the surface of
this island. Their equivalents must be first pro-
duced here, and then exported in exchange for them,
or their introduction would be impossible ; for cer-
tainly foreigners never send us their goods, ex-
cept in return for an equivalent, and we can of
course export nothing which is not the produce
of British industry. Every obstacle, therefore,
placed in the way of the importation of any foreign
article is precisely to the same extent an obstacle
to the exportation of an equivalent of British ma-
nufacture. And the injury sustained by the con-
sumers of the articles so ' protected/ as it is called,
in their higher price or inferior quality, is wholly
uncompensated by any advantage whatsoever to
any one. The effect of all protecting duties is to
diminish the general productiveness of the national
industry, by confining it to such employments as
are less productive of value than those which,
without such interference, would be undertaken.

The reasoning, indeed, on which that interference
is grounded directly denies the benefit resulting
from the division of labour and exchange of its pro-
duce. If true with respect to nations or districts,
it must be equally true with respect to individuals.
It would go to make every producer fabricate all the
articles he consumes, on the ground that it injures
him to be supplied with anything fabricated by
another party.

2. The mistake has arisen in a great degree from
the natural shortsightedness of those who, accus-
tomed, from their own * practical ' experience, to

AGAINST FREE TRADE. 363

consider the employment given by a customer to the
capital and labour of a producer as bis only source
of gain and maintenance, look upon such employ-
ment as an end rather than a means, and imagine
every change which lessens the quantity of labour
and capital employed in producing a commodity
to be injurious instead of beneficial.

It is, in fact, precisely the same vulgar error
which leads to the outcry against improved
machinery, viz. because it effects a saving in the
labour or capital expended in any branch of pro-
duction ; as if this were no benefit, but the con-
trary. It is forgotten in both cases, that though
the change may for a time derange the industry
of some parties, — may throw out of work the
labourers, and reduce the value of the capital em-
ployed in the particular branch of industry it super-
sedes, it must cause at least an equal demand for
labour and capital in some other branch ; so that the
body of labourers and capitalists, or the producers
as a whole, cannot lose, while the greater cheap-
ness of the article to all its consumers is a clear
additional gain to the community. But in truth an
increase of the aggregate demand for the produce
of industry always follows every increase in the
facilities for production ; the desires of man uni-
versally expanding with his means for satisfying
them.

3. And thus a third fallacy is involved in the
usual arguments against free trade. It is taken
for granted that there will be the same demand
for the inferior and dearer home-made article as
for the better and cheaper foreign product ;
whereas it is precisely the superior cheapness and

364 PROTECTING SYSTEM —

quality of the latter that creates a demand where
none would otherwise exist, and stimulates exertion
to procure the means of satisfying it. And since
it has been shown that, to satisfy this demand, an
equivalent of home manufactures must be exported,
it is evident that the admission of foreign goods,
by tempting customers, is the cause and origin of
an increased demand for goods of home make.

It is also the cause of great improvement in
their quality, by rousing the emulation of the na-
tive manufacturer, and offering him models for
imitation. In fact, to prevent the introduction of
foreign fabrics to compete with our own, is to offer
a premium to sloth and negligence; and experience
has proved that such competition is always followed
by a rapid improvement in the home-made article.

* The history of the protecting system shows that
it had its origin at a period when nothing was known
by statesmen and legislators of sound principles of
trade. It seems to have been introduced into
European policy by M. Colbert. Before his time
Holland supplied all Europe with manufactures,
and received in payment for them the raw produce
of her poor neighbours. M. Colbert, overlooking
the fact, that manufactures cannot be established
in a country until it has acquired a considerable
capital, and until the people of it have become rich
enough to be able to buy them, sought to force the
growth of manufactures in France, merely by
issuing his famous tariff of 1667, by which the im-
portation of all manufactures into France was pro-
hibited. The failure of his theory is amply at-
tested by experience.* France, ever since that
period, has been paying for the manufactures used

ITS HISTORY AND MISCHIEF. 365

by her (taking price and quality into considera-
tion) from half to twice as much more as England
and Holland have paid for similar articles, and her
establishments have continued of the most wretched
description till within a few years. They are now,
in consequence of the high prices and limited con-
sumption which are the effects of protection, greatly
depressed below what they would be if no protec-
tion had ever existed, for France is a country pos-
sessing great natural advantages for carrying on
manufactures.

' Immediately after the appearance of the tariff of
1667, the Dutch retaliated by prohibiting the im-
portation of the wines, brandies, and other produc-
tions of France*. This commercial warfare pro-
duced open hostilities in 1672, and a war that
lasted six years ; and it is to commercial prohi-
bition and retaliation that most of the wars in
Europe, since 1667, are to be attributed.

4 England followed the example of Holland in
prohibiting French productions ; and from that
time has been amongst the foremost of nations in
loading her commercial legislation with all kinds
of mischievous and erroneous regulations.

4 As this system of protection has been steadily
acted upon by all nations since 1667, on a most
mistaken notion, which has been generally enter-
tained, that the protection of trade was a necessary
part of the duty of the executive government,
when it is considered, on the one hand, what the
consequences would have been throughout the
world of allowing trade and manufactures to take
their natural course in supplying every country
* Richesse de la Hollande, vol. i., p. 345.

366 PROTECTING SYSTEM —

with every article of production of the best quality,
and at the lowest possible price, and in advancing
universal wealth and civilization ; and on the other,
what the consequences have been of the numerous
wars which the system of protecting trade and
manufactures has given rise to, we cannot avoid
coming to the conclusion, that those statesmen
who invented this system, and who have supported
it, and do still support it, deserve to be classed
among the greatest enemies to the civilization and
happiness of mankind.'*

Few political errors have, indeed, occasioned
more mischief than this. The regulating mania
which it inspired, has tormented industry in a
thousand ways to force it from its natural channel.
It has falsely taught nations as well as individuals
to regard the welfare of their neighbours as incom-
patible with their own. It has fostered a spirit of
artifice and conspiracy of class against class, and
interest against interest, — each trying to gain
legislative favour at the expense of the rest. The
prices of most articles have been forcibly en-
hanced by protecting duties or legislative mono-
polies. By this awkward system of each robbing
each, all parties have been losers, and the sum of
national wealth, comfort, and prosperity propor-
tionately lessened.

We must refer to the remainder of the chapter
of Sir H. Parnell's excellent work, from which we
have extracted the above, for an account of the
partial and imperfect steps that have been taken
of late years by the government of this country
for the correction of this mischievous error.
* Parnell, p. 75.

ITS FALLACY AND MISCHIEF. 367

Certainly it would be impossible to conceive a
more suicidal policy for a great manufacturing and
commercial country like this, than a system which
strikes at the very root of all commercial and
manufacturing inclustry. No conduct was ever
so fitted to produce an effect the very reverse of
the object aimed at, as that of the politicians who,
at a time when wages and profits are ruinously low,
would continue these restraints on the profitable
employment of capital and labour, for the declared
purpose of encouraging their employment. They
forget that labour and capital are set in motion,
not for the mere pleasure of the toil or expendi-
ture, but for the sake of their returns. The
higher their returns, the greater the inducement
to the employment of the labour and the capi-
tal. The less the returns, the less the in-
ducement to set capital and labour in motion.
Now, to prevent the production of any article at
the least possible sacrifice is directly to lessen the
attainable returns to labour and capital, and,
therefore, to check, not to encourage, their em-
ployment. The circumstance of the existing glut
of labour and capital seeking vainly for profit-
able employment, instead of being, as is pre-
tended, a ground for excluding foreign manufac-
tures with the view of encouraging our own, is, on
the contrary, in a great degree caused by the opera-
tion of this restrictive system, and is the strongest
argument for encouraging our home manufactures
by admitting, on the lowest terms consistent with
purposes of revenue, those foreign productions
for which a demand exists in this country, and to
procure which an equivalent must be exported of

368 INJURY OF PROTECTING SYSTEM.

those national products which can be disposed of
abroad. The difference of energy between the
demand for the foreign product, and that for the
inferior British substitute, is the cause and the
measure of an increased demand for the produce of
British industry on the part of our merchants, who
cannot import without exporting. Had the legis-
lature completely shut out all foreign productions
from this island, and forced its inhabitants to con-
tent themselves with objects directly created by
their own industry, does any one believe that the
industry, the productiveness, the wealth, or the
power of the nation would have attained to one-
fourth of their present developement ? Our wishes
repressed by a prohibition on their gratification —
all the stimulus to industry, enterprise, and inge-
nuity removed, which proceeds from the excite-
ment of new and varied wants, — we should have
stagnated in the torpid condition of those nations
among whom commerce is nearly unknown, and
who have remained for as many thousands of
years unimproved, as we have spent centuries in
passing, chiefly through the instrumentality of our
commerce, from the depths of barbarism to the
high station we now occupy at the head of the
civilized world.

To whatever extent this principle of exclusion
is carried, it must, in a proportionate degree,
depress industry and discourage production. " In
all cases where high duties are imposed to afford
protection, foreign commerce must, in the nature
of things, be diminished to a greater extent than
domestic industry is encouraged."* And as is
* American Anti-Tariff Memorial. 1828.

INJURY OF PROTECTING SYSTEM. 369

remarked in the same document, it is with singular
inappropriateness that this destructive prohibitory
policy has been denominated a "protecting"
policy ; its effect being to lessen the productive-
ness of industry, and to destroy, not to create
wealth.

Every manufacture has its proper position, as
every agricultural product has its proper soil.
The attempt to establish manufactures of every
kind indifferently in every country is like an
attempt to grow in one spot the vegetable pro-
ductions of every soil and climate. By a vast
expense in glass-houses and fuel, you may succeed
in rearing some weak and puny specimen of a
tropical fruit in Norway or Iceland ; — and in the
same manner by prohibitions and bounties you
may raise some faint imitation of a foreign manu-
facture in a country unsuited to its production.
But in either case there is a waste of all the trouble
and expense which the effort has cost, beyond
what would have served to produce the fruit or
the fabric in all its perfection, by exchanging for
them with the inhabitants of those countries to
which they are suited, such objects as you enjoy
from natural circumstances an especial facility for
producing.

It is not by legislation that industry is to be
encouraged. Freedom is the element it loves.
In that, its native climate, it expands its spreading
branches, and matures its rich and abundant fruits.
In the sickly and confined atmosphere of the le-
gislative forcing- frame it loses its health and
vigour, decays, and before long expires.

2 B

370 TAXATION NO ARGUMENT AGAINST FREE TRADE.

Of the arguments which are brought against
the principle of free trade by those who cannot
venture to deny the simple axiom that every im-
portation causes a correspondent exportation, we
know only of the following :

1. 4 That the producers of such a highly taxed
country as this ought to be protected from the
competition of comparatively untaxed foreigners.'
But if the taxes of this country are levied equi-
tably from all classes, it is clear that the producer
of the article which would be exported to pay for
the imported commodity is as much burdened by
the national taxation as the producer of the article
which the latter would supersede. If, in spite of
this taxation, he can find a foreign market for his
goods, to stop him from doing this because ano-
ther manufacturer, not more heavily taxed, labours
under greater natural disadvantages, is about as
wise as it would be to tie up the legs of all sound
men because some are lame ; it is to choke up
one of the main sources of the national revenue,
namely foreign commerce, and by so doing to in-
crease the general pressure of taxation, the weight
of which is the professed reason for the restriction.
If the taxes are not levied equitably, the jemedy
is to equalize them, not to make the imposition of
one injustice the defence for another.

2. ' That one country loses by the importation
of the goods of another, unless there is a recipro-
city in the free admission of her goods on the
same terms into the latter.* This fallacy is easily
seen through. A. will not send goods to B. except
in exchange for goods or cash. If the admission

RECIPROCITY ARGUMENT. 371

of goods from B. into A. is prohibited, and does
not take place by smuggling, (which in nine cases
out of ten is really the case, though these trans-
actions, not appearing on the face of statistical
documents, are overlooked in the arguments of
the sticklers for reciprocity,) the goods B. receives
must be paid in the precious metals — say in gold,
as the cheapest of conveyance. But it cannot be
profitable for any merchant in A. to export gold
in purchase of foreign goods, unless at the same
time he, or some other merchant, finds it profitable
to import an equal quantity of gold in exchange for
goods of home production from some other country,
say C., into which the goods of A. find their way.
If the goods of A. could not buy this quantity of
gold somewhere, its exportation to B. would
speedily raise its value in A. so high, that it would
be no longer profitable to export it for the goods
of B. The whole process may be looked upon as
one transaction. Gold is an article of merchan-
dise, and must, in the long run, preserve the same
value in relation to goods throughout all countries
that deal together. The merchants and producers
of this country, as a body, could not find it pro-
fitable to send out gold in payment of goods,
unless it were equally profitable to purchase gold
with goods. In fact, however, very little gold is
employed for this purpose. The circulation of
bills of exchange representing goods, settles the
mutual commercial balances between different
countries. If A. imports from B. more goods than
it sends there, B. is paid by goods sent from C.,
which receives from A. more than it sends. Any
impediments, therefore, placed in the way of the

372 PROTECTION TO COLONIES.

mutual interchange of goods between nations is
as injurious to the country imposing the restric-
tion, as to that whose productions are prohibited
or heavily taxed; every prohibition, or tax, upon
importation acting precisely to the same extent as
a prohibition, or a tax, upon exportation. If
France excludes our iron, France suffers from
this unwise policy quite as much as England. If
England exclude the timber or the grain of the
north of Europe, England is certainly as large a
loser as Norway or Poland. On whichever side
the restriction is imposed, there is sure to be a re-
ciprocity of injury : and the benefit of every relax-
ation, from whichever side it proceeds, is sure to
be enjoyed by both.

The argument for the prohibition of foreign
importation, with the view of encouraging native
industry, is extended to our colonies, and it is
urged that, to encourage and protect colonial
industry, we ought to exclude or place under re-
strictive duties such foreign articles as we could
obtain from them. To the extent to which the
doctrine is usually carried by its supporters — and
has, indeed, been carried into practice in our
* colonial system ' — its unsoundness is made pal-
pably manifest by the same considerations which
exhibit the fallacy of the home protective system.

To a certain limited extent, the argument as to
the expediency of encouraging the production
within our own territorial limits of the commo-
dities required for the satisfaction of our wants, is
sound and perfectly admissible. Until nations
are perfectly convinced of their community of

TRUE PRINCIPLE AND LIMIT OF PROTECTION. 373

interest — until all mutual jealousy and animosity
is extinguished — until the possible occurrence of
war and the interruption which it places in the
way of foreign commerce be prevented, it will
be safer for a nation to produce within its own
limits the commodities it requires. The exchange
of such productions cannot be impeded by the
commercial jealousy or political hostility of other
states, and this security is worth some sacrifice.
But the amount of the sacrifice is the entire ques-
tion. It may be worth while to levy duties of
five, ten, fifteen, or even twenty per cent, on fo-
reign articles for this object ; and as the revenue
derived from this source will save the necessity of
imposing an equivalent of taxes in some other
form, the imposition of custom- duties on foreign
imported commodities is, on this ground, the most
advisable of all means of raising a revenue. It
does not burthen industry more than any other
tax, and it affords the additional advantage of
securing to a certain extent the trade and industry
of the country from being injured by the folly or
violence of other governments. But, if carried
far, the duties are, in the first place, evaded by the
smuggler, in which case the expected revenue is
lost, and all the manifold evils of this demoralizing
trade substitute themselves for the benefits of a
legitimate commerce. In the second place, we
lose the stimulus which would be applied to industry
by the offer of new and varied gratifications to the
ever- expanding wants of consumers.

The restrictions imposed upon this principle on
foreign importations have for their object the
' protection,' not of producers, but of consumers.

374 COLONIAL SYSTEM.

The producers, as a body, it has been shown, are
losers by every such impediment to free exchange.
But the consumers require to be protected from
the chances of having their supplies cut off by
foreign interference.

The encouragement which may be legitimately
afforded to colonial industry upon the principle
above stated, is somewhat less than that which
native industry can claim, inasmuch as the hold
retained by the mother country over its colonial
possessions, and the security from an interruption
of their mutual intercourse, is less than in the
case of the home trade.

The benefits arising from the possession of co-
lonies have been as much underrated by one class
of politicians as they have been overdrawn by
another. It is strange that those economists who
deny that the commercial intercourse with a colony
offers any advantages whatever beyond that car-
ried on with independent states, should overlook
this essential distinction between the two, that the
one is almost wholly at the mercy of foreign
governments, which, from motives of caprice,
hostility, or false views of policy, may prohibit
the entry of our vessels or produce into their states ;
while the other is secure (so long as the colony
remains attached to the mother country) of being
carried on upon the terms which the common
government considers to be most conducive to
their common interest. Here is undeniable ground
for awarding a preference to colonial over foreign
trade.

On the other hand, the advocates of the co-
onial system have in general greatly overstated

TRUE VALUE OF COLONIES. 375

their case — arguing as if the loss of a colony
would of necessity be followed by the loss of all
the trade previously carried on with it. That trade
might, it is quite evident, be carried on under the
same circumstances, with the same, or any other
similarly situated country, as an independent state.
It is only the uncertainty — or, it may be said,
(under the existing prejudices in favour of the
protective system,) the improbability — that an in-
dependent state would admit, or continue to admit,
the same free intercourse, or reciprocity of duties,
which can be commanded from the colony, that
gives a superior value to the trade with the latter.
This advantage clearly has its limits, and may be
bought too dear. It has been calculated (with
what correctness it is not easy to determine) that
the British colonies have, since the beginning of
this century, put the mother country to an expense
in the cost of their establishments, and of the wars
entered upon for their protection, exceeding the
entire amount of her exports to them during the
same time ! Were the trade as valuable as its most
zealous advocates pretend, it would be dearly pur-
chased at the tithe of this cost.

But there are advantages of another kind arising
from the possession of colonies, which, though they
have hitherto been imperfectly appreciated, will be
found, if fairly balanced, to outweigh every other;
namely, the certain and extensive field they offer
for the profitable employment of the capital and
labour of the mother country, whenever their
competition at home is such as to depress the rate
of profits and wages. Viewed in this light, colonial
possessions appear of inestimable value.

376 REAL USE OF COLONIES —

All old states are sooner or later liable — unless
the increase of their wealth and population has
been kept down by the desolating scourge of war,
by tyranny, misgovernment, or natural calamities
— to experience an irksome and injurious limitation
of their territorial extent. Those parts of their
surface which are sufficiently fertile or favourably
situated to repay the expense of cultivation with a
fair profit, being fully occupied, they cannot raise
additional raw produce at home except at a sacri-
fice of capital and labour, which, if submitted to,
must eventually lower profits and wages in every
branch of industry. In a former chapter we have
traced this natural and constant tendency in the
growth of population and wealth to require a con-
tinual enlargement of superficial area for its deve-
lopment. If facilities are wisely afforded to such
expansion by colonization, this tendency is incal-
culably beneficial, leading to the spread of human
happiness, civilization, and refinement, over the
wide wastes of the world. If these precautionary
measures are neglected, and the restraints which
every system of civilized society necessarily im-
poses on spontaneous migration are unmitigated,
the most distressing consequences generally ensue.
No country, perhaps, has suffered more from such
deficiency of superficial extent than Britain, espe-
cially since the peace put a stop to the great de-
mand and consumption of her produce which was
occasioned by the war expenditure, and turned the
balance in favour of supply and accumulation.
At the same time, no country ever possessed such
vast opportunities of territorial expansion as are
afforded in her extensive, fertile, and favourably

COLONIZATION. 377

situated colonies. The real worth of these pos-
sessions, if concealed from our own eyes, is, at
least, duly appreciated by foreigners. Mr. Rush,
the late minister of the United States in London,
thus justly and forcibly expresses the precise
views we are endeavouring to urge on this subject —

4 Britain exists all over the world in her colonies.
These alone give her the means of advancing her
industry and opulence for ages to come. They
are portions of her territory more valuable than if
joined to her island. The sense of distance is de-
stroyed by her command of ships ; whilst that
very distance serves as the feeder of her commerce
and marine. Situated on every continent, lying
in every latitude, these her out-dominions make
her the centre of a trade already vast, and per-
petually augmenting ; — a home trade, and a fo-
reign trade, for it yields the riches of both, as she
controls it at her will. They take off her redundant
population, yet make her more populous; and
are destined, under the policy already commenced
towards them, and which in time she will far more
extensively pursue, to expand her empire, com-
mercial, manufacturing, and maritime, to dimen-
sions to which it would not be easy to affix limits.'

The productive powers of Britain notoriously
are, at present, and have been for years past, in a
state of unnatural congestion ; while, so far from
there having been any indisposition to consume,
millions have, at the same time, been in want of
the mere necessaries of life. But why this ano-
maly ? Simply because we have confined our
growing energies too closely within the narrow
limits of this little island, and have been slow to

378 COLONIZATION A CURE

avail ourselves of the prodigious facilities for en-
larging the superficial area of our industrial pur-
suits which are afforded by our colonies.

In confirmation of this view of one of the main
causes of our present unsatisfactory position, let
us examine what is the nature of the additional
powers of production which we have so abundantly
acquired, and what the objects of which we con-
tinue to be in want, notwithstanding these aug-
mented resources.

The inventions which of late years have been
brought to light in this country, and which distin-
guish it so much from every other, have reference
almost exclusively to manufactures — to that branch
of industry which supplies its population directly,
or indirectly by foreign exchange, with clothing
and a variety of objects, which, though they have
become from habit more or less accessary to our
comfort, cannot be reckoned among the necessaries
of subsistence. It is the production of these things,
of secondary rather than of first-rate importance,
that has been advanced by the spinning- jenny,
the power-loom, the stocking-frame, and the other
wonderful machinery which that wonderful auto-
maton, the steam-engine, sets in motion. And,
accordingly, there exists an abundance of these
things — an abundance notoriously complained of
as an evil, under the denomination of glut.

But the things of which, in spite of so many
improvements, we experience a deficiency, are the
primary necessaries of subsistence — the products
of agricultural, not of manufacturing industry.
There is an abundance — nay, there is an acknow-
ledged superabundance — of cottons, and cloths,

FOR OUR ECONOMICAL EVILS. 379

and cutlery, and brass furniture in the country;
but there is a sensible want of good wheaten bread,
and cheese, and bacon, and fresh meat. The
prices of the former objects have fallen in some
cases to one-fourth, in others to one-tenth, of what
they were half a century ago ; while the prices
of the principal articles of subsistence — of /bod, in
short — have very considerably risen during the
same period. And since the labouring class can-
not live upon hardware or calicoes — and that the
being able to procure clothing or conveniences of
better quality than before is but a poor compensa-
tion for an emptier stomach — their condition re-
mains unimproved, or rather has deteriorated in
its primary feature, their command over the means
of subsistence.

Now let us suppose, for an instant, that our
means of self-supply of agricultural produce had
advanced as rapidly as our capacity for supplying
ourselves with manufactured articles, — either by
reason of extraordinary improvements in agricul-
ture, rivalling those which have so augmented our
manufacturing productiveness — or through a mi-
raculous increase in the fertility of our soils — or
the gradual accession of a large extent of new and
rich land to our coasts. It will be evident to all
who think upon the subject, that in this case the
main evils of our present economical condition
could not by possibility be in existence. The
comparative cheapness of raw produce, especially
of food, consequent on its increased production at
a rapidly diminishing cost, would not only have
afforded an abundance of the necessaries of sub-
sistence to our whole working population, but,

380 COLONIZATION A CURE

enabling them to spare a far larger proportion of
their earnings than they can at present for the
purchase of clothing and superfluities, would have
multiplied the demand for these secondary objects,
and added greatly to the remuneration of capital
and labour employed in their production; while
this thriving condition of our manufactures must
react upon, and secure a full remunerative de-
mand to the agriculturists. Profits and wages
would be high in every business ; all our productive
interests would be in a state of sound and growing
prosperity.

Now though improvements in agriculture do
not occur fast enough to meet the demand of our
increasing population and wealth from the cultiva-
tion of our home soils, — and though it is idle, of
course, to expect a miracle to augment the natural
fertility of these soils, or annex any considerable
tract of rich land to our coasts, — yet the same be-
neficial consequences which would flow from these
hypothetical circumstances, were they really to
take place, must follow from our cultivation of the
rich soils that are separated from Britain by the
Atlantic, and fully to the same extent as if these
soils were attached to our coast, but for the single
circumstance of the cost of conveying their raw
produce, and the British manufactures we should
exchange for them, across the intervening ocean.

This cost, however, is to be calculated to a
nicety, and will be found a mere trifle in compa-
rison of the enormous sacrifices of capital and
labour that we are daily making for want of such
a field for their profitable investment. This cost,
moreover, is diminishing daily. We may shortly

FOR OUR ECONOMICAL EVILS. 381

expect to see the Atlantic practically reduced to
one- third of its width by steam navigation. The
cost of conveying flour from Quebec to Liverpool
or Manchester is even now scarcely more than that
of its land carriage a century back for a distance
of fifty miles. By further improvements in com-
munication (which are perhaps advancing with
greater rapidity than any others) we may reason-
ably expect our North American colonies to be
every year approaching still nearer to our great
manufacturing districts, and the intercourse between
them to be attended with no greater difficulty or
expense, perhaps even with less, than that which
could take place between Lancashire and any tract
of rich land we might suppose to be added by a
miracle to the Norfolk or Essex coast. Let but
our redundant capital and labour take that direction,
and let the intercourse be as free between Lanca-
shire and Canada as it would be between Lanca-
shire and Essex, and the double object will be an-
swered of increasing our supplies of food at home
(now unquestionably deficient, as compared with
commodities of secondary importance) and of
opening new avenues for the profitable employ-
ment of our surplus labour and capital in agri-
culture, manufactures, and, let us add, commerce
likewise — since our own merchants, shipping, and
seamen, would be exclusively engaged in this
trade.

And herein is seen an additional superiority of
the trade with a colony over that with an inde-
pendent country. Were corn to be freely im-
ported from Poland or the United States in ex-
change for our manufactures, we not only, as has

382 COLONIAL V. FOREIGN TRADE.

been urged, become dependent in some degree for
the first necessaries of life on the will of the go-
vernments of those countries, who may at any
time interfere with our supply, but we become de-
pendent also for that supply upon the rate at which
capital, population, and the agricultural art may
happen to advance among their inhabitants, — a
rate which we can do nothing to accelerate. If
the advance of their productive capacities do not
keep pace with our own, we carry on what may be
called a losing trade with them, — we are conti-
nually exchanging larger quantities of the produce
of our industry for less quantities of theirs.
Moreover, though our manufacturers may be be-
nefited by such a trade, our agriculturists would
not profit from it in any degree, but would rather
be falling back than advancing in their circum-
stances. The system of supply by colonization,
on the contrary, offers a direct enlargement of
the means for employing our agricultural as well
as manufacturing population, the skill and capital
of our farmers, as well as of our artisans and
manufacturers ; and thus gives a double stimulus
to the national industry ; at the same time that,
instead of causing us to depend for our increased
supply of food, and other agricultural produce, on
the slow increase of the productive capacities of
foreigners, and on their arbitrary commercial re-
gulations, we at once employ our own capital and
our own people, with all their known and tried
resources of skill, genius, enterprise, and perse-
verance, in its provision — while we ourselves re-
gulate the terms of its admission.

If we will only consider a fertile and favourably

CORN-LAWS. 383

situated colony, like the Canadas for example, in
the light of an addition to the territorial extent of
Great Britain, which is in truth its virtual character,
we must recognize at once its prodigious value as
a field for the utilization of British labour and ca-
pital, and a market for British manufactures. All
that is required for the development of its advan-
tages, is their due appreciation by the nation and
the government — that the trade between the mother
country and such of its dependencies as are most
fitted for this purpose, be placed upon the footing
of the coasting trade — and that an extensive and
methodical system of colonization be organized by
government, which should duly prepare the colo-
nies for the purpose, by ordering the appropriation
of their lands in the manner most conducive to
their effective cultivation and settlement, and assist
the emigration of the surplus labourers of this
country (who, from the very circumstance of their
redundancy, are too poor to find their own way
over), regulating their numbers, and directing
their course to the places where they are most
wanted.

The foregoing considerations are closely con-
nected with the question as to the expediency of
our present system of duties on the importation of
corn.

The argument in favour of a free importation is,
indeed, far stronger as respects this article than any
other, for the plain reason that every impediment
placed in the way of such importation creates an
artificial obstacle to the supply of food to the
people. The exclusive burdens on agriculture are
pleaded as a justification for such duties. These

CORN-LA.WS.

burdens ouglit to be equalized, as has been shown
in a former chapter. Certainly the imposition of
one impediment to the supply of food for a hungry
community can be no good reason for adding an-
other ! The production of food is an object of such
paramount importance, that it is difficult to justify
any artificial restrictions either on its growth at
home or supply from abroad. Whether it be pro-
duced directly by the employment of our labour
and capital upon our ploughed lands and threshing-
floors, or indirectly by their employment in our
manufactories and shipping, (that is, in working
up and exporting goods for which foreigners will
give us food,) can be of no importance whatever to
the food-consuming public, as a whole, so that they
procure it at the cheapest possible rate. All their
interest lies in procuring the greatest possible
quantity of it at the least expense of their labour
and capital. To give an artificial preference to
its production from our home soils is only to re-
quire its production by a greater sacrifice of the
capital and labour of the community than would
be sufficient to obtain it by importation.

The claim sometimes put forward by the land-
owners of this country to a monopoly of the supply
of the corn required for the entire community, is
an instance of the same spirit that dictated the
ancient law by which the inhabitants of every
manor were compelled to take their corn to the
lord's mill to be ground (where of course a heavy
tax, called multure, was imposed), — or that which
appears from the capitularies of Charlemagne to
have been a grievous source of oppression in the
feudal ages, namely, the compelling travellers to

IMPOLICY OF CORN-LAWS IN PRINCIPLE. 385

go out of their way in order to pay toll at a par-
ticular bridge, when they could cross the river
more conveniently at another place.

The impolicy of taxes on the raw materials of
industry is generally acknowledged: but a tax
which raises the price of corn is much more re-
prehensible on the same ground, since this article
of prime necessity enters as an ingredient into the
wages of labour, and therefore affects not one or
two only, but every branch of industry. Were the
price of corn to fall, the money wages of labour
in every department of industry might be lowered
without injury to the labourers ; and since wages
compose by far the larger proportion — three-
fourths at least, on the average, of the cost of every
commodity — a fall in the price of com tends to
lower the necessary cost of nearly every other
commodity, including, of course, those consumed
by the agricultural classes themselves, who are
thus great losers by the artificially high prices
which they are endeavouring to maintain.
. They suffer likewise in another manner from
this unwise policy. The land, as we have seen,
pays the greater part of the poor-rate of this
country, out of which are supported in unproduc-
tive idleness large numbers of the unemployed
population. Now it is certain that thousands of
these would be set to work instantly, and their
parishes relieved from the expense of their gratui-
tous maintenance, if the products of their labour,
in cloth, cottons, or hardware, were permitted to
be exchanged abroad for the corn which they
require for their sustenance. The present con-
sumption of home-grown corn by this surplus

•2 c

336 IMPOLICY OF CORN-LAWS IN PRINCIPLE.

population does not create a beneficial demand
on the home grower, but just the contrary. It
is a portion of his produce which he is by law
compelled to give away for nothing. Were foreign
corn freely imported in return for the labour of
this surplus, the landed interest of England, in-
stead of losing a beneficial demand, would escape
from an oppressive tax. They would shift the
maintenance, of this surplus of labourers from
themselves upon the foreigner.

The plain fact is, that in this country there are
thousands of able-bodied labourers, supported in
idleness on the compulsory charity of the proper-
tied classes, eating into instead of adding to the
resources of the land, while there exist all the
appliances of knowledge, capital, and mineral
wealth lying equally idle within their reach, and,
on the other side of the Atlantic or the Baltic, cus-
tomers anxious to give food in exchange for the
product of their industry ; — the only impediment to
the beneficial application of these productive re-
sources being a legislative interdict on that ex-
change : which interdict is kept up for the sup-
posed benefit of the parties who are exclusively
burdened by law with the maintenance of the
redundant population I Nothing more need be
said in illustration of this suicidal policy. The
question is simply, whether our surplus labouring
population shall be allowed to support themselves
by working for the Americans, Prussians, &c.,
who are quite ready to employ and feed them ; or
forced to throw themselves on their parishes to be
maintained gratuitously at the cost of the land
and other property of this country.

IMPOLICY OF CORN-LAWS IN PRINCIPLE. 387

At present other nations retaliate upon us for
excluding their raw produce, by excluding our
manufactures. But suppose that a mutual relaxa-
tion on our part and that of America in the
customs duties levied on the respective products
of each, should cause a new annual importation of
corn into this country from America to the value
of five millions, and an equivalent export of cot-
tons, cloths, and cutlery to America from hence, —
can it be questioned for a moment that the effect
would be to give a great increase of employment
to the labouring and capitalist interests of England,
and to relieve the landed interest of the burthen
of supporting a large surplus population ? *

* A pamphlet has lately appeared from the pen of Mr.
Barton, in which an attempt is made to prove that high
prices of corn are beneficial, and low prices injurious to the
body of the. people, from a comparison of statistical docu-
ments, which seem to show that the average mortality has
constantly declined, throughout decennial periods, as corn
rose in price, and increased as prices fell. Now without
dwelling upon the extreme variations which have occurred
in the value of money during the periods from which Mr.
Barton's facts are taken, and which greatly invalidate any
conclusion whatever drawn from a comparison of prices, it
is enough that Mr. Barton himself brings forward another
series of results from statistical calculations, which, at the
same time that they account for his first results, directly
refute the conclusion he has drawn from them. He shows
that the average of marriages, as well as of deaths, has in-
creased in the periods of cheap corn, and fallen off in the
periods of dear corn. Now this increase of marriages will
itself account for the increase of deaths ; because the imme-
diate consequence of an increase of marriages is an increase
in the proportion of infants to the entire population ; and
from the known large proportion of deaths which occur
among infants as compared with adults, an increased ave-

2c 2

388 • COLONIAL CORN SHOULD BE

It is true that the argument already adverted to,
in favour of encouraging the production of commo-
dities at home, lest this country be rendered too
far dependent on foreigners for its supply, applies
to the article corn, as to others. It is indeed
stronger in the case of this necessary of life than
in that of other things which may be spared on an
emergency. But the evils of a constant limitation
of the stock of food for a growing population per-
haps more than compensate the risk of an occa-
sional scarcity ; which could never be carried to
any extreme length, since the desire to sell on
the part of those foreigners who habitually supplied
our markets would be as great as our desire to
buy, and must prevent their governments from
taking such steps as would materially interfere
with a trade so valuable to them.

At all events, to whatever extent the validity of
this argument may be admitted as against the free

rage of deaths during these periods must exhibit itself : while
this increase of marriages, indicating, as Mr. Barton him-
self acknowledges, a feeling of plenty among the labouring
population, effectually disproves the alleged coincidence
of an increase of general privation. Mr. B. ought to
have distrusted inferences which went to establish so para-
doxical a proposition as that the cheapness and abundance
of the necessaries of life tended to abridge the lives and
deteriorate the condition of their consumers. He challenges
any refutation of his argument. The remarks here made
upon it, are offered in a spirit of respect for his benevolent
intentions by one who is a fellow-labourer with him in the
advocacy of colonization, as a sure means of relieving want;
but who cannot exclude from his view another resource al-
most equally effective, and which, indeed, ought to form an
element in every scheme of colonization, viz., the importation
of food in exchange for manufactures.

ADMITTED FREE OF DUTY. 389

importation of foreign- grown corn, its force is ma-
terially lessened, and, indeed, disappears almost
wholly, in the case of corn grown in our colonial
possessions, by the application of British labour
arid capital. We have allowed the propriety of
fiscal restrictions to a moderate extent on foreign
commerce ; and it is because we maintain a colony
to be the very opposite, in every respect, of a
foreign country — to be properly considered as an
outlying province of the parent state, an integral
portion of the empire, or a member of the same
federal union — that we are anxious to see our
colonial not merely distinguished from our foreign
commerce by its lower scale of duties, but placed
upon the same footing with our home trade by the
abolition of all duties on articles of first-rate im-
portance, the growth of our colonies, and measures
taken for facilitating the supply of our most urgent
wants from their inexhaustible soils. The truth is,
we are at present stinting our population in the
prime necessaries of life, and keeping down the
wages of labour and the profits of capital in this
country to the minimum level, by confining our
superabundant capital and labour to the cultiva-
tion of our home soils, and our hungry population
to their scanty produce — which, through the li-
mited extent and fertility of our island, cannot be
increased to meet the increasing demand — whilst
we have millions of acres of the richest possible
soil courting our ploughs in our transmarine de-
pendencies; in districts enjoying the healthiest
climate, subject to our government, attached to
our laws, and asking only to be peopled by the
overflow of our population, and to have their vast

390 EXISTING CORN-DUTIES MODERATE.

resources developed for the common advantage,
by the profitable application of our redundant
means. By treating the most fertile and accessible
of our colonies as an extension of our home terri-
tory, we should obtain all the advantages derivable
from an unlimited command of fertile land, secure
a considerable rise in the real wages of our la-
bourers, and in the profits of our capitalists, and
render the improvements that for years past have
been daily taking place in our productive capa-
cities, what they ought to be — and but for the
limitation of the territorial surface to which they
have been confined, would have always been — a
source of continual improvement in the condition
and means of enjoyment of every class of society.

We have hitherto argued the question of corn-
laws solely with reference to their principle.
Whether the present scale of duties on foreign
.corn is injurious from its varying character or
excessive amount, is quite another consideration,
and much more open to doubt.

It appears that the present duties on wheat
have not prevented the importation since the last
alteration of the corn-laws of a quantity equal to
one-twelfth of the entire consumption of England,
and that though the rates of duty paid have varied
from Is. to 28s., the average upon this very large
quantity is only 6s. 8d. It would seem from this
that the present rate of duties is not very burthen-
some upon the consumer ; and it is doubtful whe-
ther it would be an improvement to exchange this
varying duty, averaging only 6s. 8d, for a fixed
duty of more than the same amount ; while it is
certainly out of all question that any proposal fora

CORN-LAWS. 391

lower rate of duty would be listened to at present
by the legislature. On this ground we are by no
means confident that any great advantage is to be
gained by hastily unsettling the present system, so
far as relates io foreign corn. That system having
been acted on since 1815, has placed the agricul-
ture of the whole island in a false position ; has
encouraged the investment of much capital in the
tillage of poor soils, and the growth of a large
agricultural population upon them. To repeal
therefore, or to lower the corn duties suddenly,
would do much mischief by throwing a large por-
tion of the home soils out of cultivation, and of the
agricultural labourers out of work. When, how-
ever, the impediments are removed, which we have
noticed as barring the profitable employment of
productive industry in agriculture, — when tithes
are commuted — accommodation afforded to farm-
ers by a better banking system — the working of
the poor-laws improved, and their cost reduced, —
our labouring population restored to their moral
and industrious habits — Ireland pacified, and her
vast agricultural resources developed by a law
compelling the employment of her able-bodied
poor — when also a system of colonization has
applied our agricultural skill, labour, and capital
to the cultivation of our colonial soils; — the dimi-
nished cost of raising corn within our own terri-
tory will lower its price without loss to the grower,
who will by degrees become able to compete with
the foreigner; and the corn-laws may then be
repealed without injury to any one. Those who
wish for cheap bread should call for such measures

392 CORN- LAWS.

as may enable it to be raised cheaply by British
industry from British soils.

On the whole, the conclusion is, that absolute
freedom of commerce, in the present state of so-
ciety, would be unsafe. Freedom is the true prin-
ciple towards which we should be always approxi-
mating in practice ; but until nations are fully
awake to their community of interest, and are
linked together in the bonds of a fraternal or fe-
deral union — until commercial jealousies have dis-
appeared, and the chances of war are materially
reduced — it will be a prudent course for every
state to give a moderate encouragement to the
supply of its own wants from its own resources,
by imposing duties on such foreign commodities
as can be almost, though not quite, as cheaply
produced at home as they can be procured from
abroad. The only question is as to the extent of
these duties. With respect to articles of small
bulk, the smuggler determines the limit. The duty
must never be such as to throw the trade into his
hands. With regard to articles not liable to con-
traband introduction, the duty must be regulated
by balancing its disadvantages, viz., injury to con-
sumers, and discouragement to industry, against
its advantages, consisting in security for a constant
supply and uninterrupted trade, and (a considera-
tion not to be overlooked) the easy collection of
a considerable revenue.

That sound ideas are beginning generally to
prevail in other countries as well as our own, on
this momentous subject, is a source of great satis-
faction. As an instance, we may quote a passage

ABSENTEEISM— ITS EFFECTS, 393

from a petition presented on the 10th July last,
from the prudhommes of Lyons to the Minister
of Commerce ; in which the government of France
is urged to abolish all impediments to the importa-
tion of raw materials, and of those articles which
France is unable advantageously to create, and,
4 by enfranchising that country from the trammels
of legislative monopoly, to consolidate the peace of
the civilized world.'

' Commercial freedom is equally demanded by
those who produce and by those who consume; —
a freedom gradual in its introduction, — gradual
in order that no branch of industry may be sud-
denly compromised, — that those especially which
are most menaced by a change of legislation may
have time to conform themselves, by prudential
preparations, for a state of liberal intercourse,
which is felt to be alike the want and the interest
of nations*.'

When the governments of Britain and of France
have adopted the maxims of a liberal commercial
policy, it cannot be long before the benefits that
must flow from the change will lead other states to
follow their example.

The disputed question of the effects of Absen-
teeism is connected with that on commercial re-
straints, and, therefore, comes properly into dis-
cussion in this place. The moral benefit whick
the residence of landlords upon their estates tends
to confer on society has been conceded by those
who at first denied that residence was any ad-

* Globe Newspaper, 20th July, 1833.

394 ENGLISH ABSENTEEISM.

vantage whatever, and consequently that absen-
teeism could be any injury. The economical con*
sequences of absenteeism, — so far as relates to
England — consist, it appears to us, simply in such
as may flow from the landlord's income being ex-
pended in the employment of one branch of indus-
try rather than another, or of the inhabitants of a
town rather than of a country district. If an Eng-
lish landlord reside in London, and expend there
his rental drawn from Yorkshire, the tradesmen,
&c., of London gain all that the tradesmen, &c., of
Yorkshire lose. If he reside abroad, his rental
must be remitted indirectly in British manufac-
tured commodities, and its expenditure, therefore,
gives the same aggregate employment to British
labour and capital, as if he resided in the country
and spent it on British goods of a different kind.
To put an extreme case, were even the whole rental
of the kingdom spent abroad, there would still be
as much employment afforded to British industry
as before. Ruin would no doubt fall upon the
tradesmen of London, of our watering-places, and
of many country towns and villages; but Man-
chester and Sheffield, Leeds and Liverpool, would
gain in exact proportion to the loss sustained by
the other places. The rental could not be re-
mitted except in the form of British manufactures
fabricated at some of these places. It is not meant
-to deny that great injury would result from the
absenteeism of all our landed proprietors, but the
injury would be of a moral and social rather than
an economical nature.

The case of Ireland, however, differs from that
of Britain in this remarkable point, that, while the

IRISH ABSENTEEISM. <395

latter exports solely manufactures, the exports of
Ireland consist almost solely of food — corn, but-
ter, pork, beef, &c. In her case, therefore, that
portion of the raw produce of the soil which ac-
crues to the landlord as rent, will, if he is an
absentee, be directly exported, as the only means
of remitting his rent, instead of being consumed
by manufacturers at home while working up
goods for exportation, as in England. The Eng-
lish absentee landlord may be considered as
feeding and employing, with the surplus produce
of his estate, that portion of our manufacturing
population which is engaged in fabricating the
goods that are sent abroad to pay his rent. The
Irish absentee, on the contrary, can only have
his rent remitted in the shape of food: there
is no secondary intervening process whatever;
and the more food is in this way sent out of the
country, the less, of course, remains behind to
support and give employment to its inhabitants.
If these were all fully fed and employed, no harm
would result from the exportation of food : as is
the case, for example, with some parts of North
America. But so long as the people of any
country are, as in Ireland, but half employed and
half fed, — so long, to export food from thence will
be to take away the means existing in the country
for setting them to work and improving their con-
dition. Should the Irish absentee landlord return
to reside at home, a considerable portion of the
food now exported to pay his rents would be
transferred by him to Irish tradesmen, artisans,
and labourers, whom he could not avoid employ-
ing to satisfy a variety of wants. Ireland would

396 ABSENTEEISM— ITS EFFECTS.

profit pro tanto by the additional employment and
subsistence afforded to her inhabitants. As it
is, she loses, by the absence of her landlords,
exactly what she would gain by their return. The
remedy is, — not an absentee tax, which would fall
heavily on some whose estates are the best managed,
and the population upon them the best conditioned
in the island, while it spared those resident gentry
who neglect the poor upon their property as
much as if they resided at the antipodes : — the
real remedy is a poor-law — which (like the law of
England) should compel every landlord, resident
or absent, to provide subsistence and employment
for the poor settled on his estate, before he touches
any rent whatever.

The English absentee may be charged with un-
fairly escaping his just share of the general taxa-
tion. The only way to remedy this inequality is
by the substitution of a direct tax on income for a
portion of the taxes which, in this country, are so
largely levied upon expenditure. Of this more
hereafter.

397

CHAPTER XVI.

RESTRAINTS ON THE INSTRUMENT OF
EXCHANGE.

Injury of restrictions on the Instrument of Exchange. — Credit
always employed as a medium for circulating values to a far
greater extent than Coin. — Credit should be free to take
what form convenience may dictate, — Just limitations of
Currency. — The object, convenience, security, and stability
of Value — To be obtained either, 1 . By complete freedom of
note issue — 2. By a National Bank. — Vices of the English
System. — Bank of England Monopoly. — Variationsin Valut
of the Standard. — Proposed measure of Variations. — Their
injustice and enormous extent of late years. — Suggestions
for improvement of Monetary System. — Weights and Mea-
sures*— Usury Laws.

. MONEY is the instrument by which all exchanges
of goods are effected. Any saving in its cost is as
advantageous to the productive classes among
whom these exchanges take place, as an equivalent
saving in the cost of their instruments of produc-
tion, and goes equally to augment the net returns
of industry ; and any restriction on such improve-
ments is to the full as injurious as a restriction on
improved machinery or on free exchange.

In an early chapter we spoke of the great pro-
bability that from the very first commencement of

398 RESTRAINTS ON CREDIT.

exchanges, credit^ or the faith of one man in the
engagements of another, has been largely em-
ployed as the medium of commercial transactions.
The first man who said to another, ' Give me a
meal to-day, and I will give one to you or to your
friend to-morrow/ originated the system of credit.
Want of confidence alone between man and man
even now necessitates the use of money of intrinsic
value, which is, indeed, a comparatively clumsy
contrivance, and but a form of barter.

The inconvenience of a metallic medium for the
exchange of commodities is such, that, if we were
confined to it, all commerce would soon be at a
standstill. Nearly all the entries in all the ledgers
of all the trading classes in the civilized world
relate to transactions on credit. The dealings for
cash are comparatively insignificant. And if it
were attempted to carry on all dealings by means
of cash only, not only would all the precious
metals in the world be insufficient to effect one-
thousandth part of our daily exchanges, but direct
barter would in most cases be found positively the
more convenient method of the two.

Whether the credit given by one party to another
for a fixed value to be paid within a limited period,
take the form of an entry in a ledger, or of a bill
of exchange — which may be considered as a simi-
lar entry made upon a loose leaf for the purpose of
rendering the credit it records transferable from
one person to another — or of a promissory note
payable on demand to the bearer, which differs
only from a bill of exchange in having no time to
run and requiring no indorsement to render it
transferable, — it is obvious that any restraints

CREDIT SHOULD BE FREE. 399

upon the free use or circulation of credit in any
shape among producers must have an injurious
effect upon commerce, whose benefits are precisely
proportioned to the degree in which it facilitates
exchanges. It would seem that were government
to confine its interference to enforcing the fulfil-
ment of contracts, it might safely be left to con-
tracting parties to judge of the degree of credit
they should give to each other's engagements, and
to adopt that mode of circulating such engage-
ments which experience would prove to them to
combine the greatest security with the greatest
cheapness and convenience.

Where this freedom has been wisely permitted
to the public, the result has been the establishment
in commercial countries of banks of issue, that is,
of parties who make it their business to facilitate
the circulation of credit, by lending or exchanging
their credit, which being well-known and gene-
rally acknowledged, will circulate freely through-
out a considerable district, for the credit of private
parties which would not be taken so readily or
generally, but with which they, the bankers, take
care to become acquainted. This is a simple step
in the division of labour, quite analogous to the es-
tablishment of the class of merchants or carriers,
in the business of circulating goods of all kinds
more rapidly, conveniently, and cheaply, than
could be done by their producers. The banker's
profit is as fairly earned as that of the merchant or
carrier ; and, where both trades are free, it is
certain that competition will keep the profits of
each within the limits of what is justly due to him
as the returns of his labour, skill, and capital ; the

400 . OBJECT OF RESTRAINTS.

remainder of the saving effected by these several
contrivances becoming, as happens with all im-
provements in productive industry, a clear benefit
to the public. Mr. Dyer, the principal manager
of the Manchester Joint-stock Bank well observed
before the committee of the Bank Charter of 1832,

4 I think merchants ought to be allowed to
devise the best instrument for conducting the trade
of the country which they can invent/

* The whole question turns upon what credits it is
proper to allow to be circulated as the best instru-
ment for conducting the business of the nation,
both public and private. In deciding this question
security to the public, and steadiness of value as a
purchasing power, should be had in view above all
other things/

In fact, the only justification for any interference
of government with the free circulation of what-
ever form of money or of credit the ingenuity and
sagacity of commercial men would spontaneously
adopt, must consist in the greater convenience or
security which some legislative regulations may
be proved to confer on the instrument of exchange.
We have seen that experience suggested and has
confirmed the expediency of a government taking
into its own hands the exclusive coinage of me-
tallic money, in order to prevent the inconvenience
of a mixed coinage, consisting of pieces of every
variety of denomination, weight, and fineness, and
the risks to which the public would be exposed of
their adulteration. Now, to a certain extent, a
similar interference may be, and probably is,
equally expedient with respect to paper or credit
money. It may be convenient to confine the cir-

CONVENIENCE AND SECURITY. 401

dilation of a paper currency to certain denomina-
tions, and it may be wise to adopt regulations for
securing the public from being imposed upon by
worthless paper-money, as well as by false coin.
The most obvious modes of effecting these objects
would seem to be for Government either 1. to as-
sume to itself, as in the case of coin, the exclusive
power of issuing that kind of paper-money which
experience proves to be most current as a medium
of exchange, namely, promissory notes payable on
demand ; in other words, to establish a National
Bank, or paper mint office; or 2. to content itself
with limiting the denominations of paper-money,
and requiring from all such banks as issue it some
unquestionable guarantee for the fulfilment of their
engagement to pay their notes on demand. Either
of these plans, perhaps, would be equally effective
for attaining the desirable objects of convenience
and security from imposition.

But there is another quality, fully as desirable
as either of these in the construction of an instru-
ment of exchange — namely, stability of value as a
purchasing power. Whatever is employed as the
medium for the exchange of equivalent objects
must be itself equivalent to each. If no time
were consumed in effecting exchanges, — if there
were no interval between the sale of one object
and the purchase of another, any variation from
time to time in the value of the medium would
be of no consequence. If its value were double
to day what it was yesterday, the only conse-
quence would be that all goods equally would
sell at one half the nominal value or price of the
day before; half the quantity of money would

402 WITHOUT STABILITY OF VALUE

effect the same amount of exchanges, and the
relative position of producers on either side would
remain unchanged. But this condition is wholly
incompatible with the use of a medium of exchange.
That medium must remain some time in the pos-
session of one of the exchanging parties before he
realizes or exchanges it in turn for goods. In the
case supposed, of a doubling in its value between
one day and another, the parties in whose pos-
session the money remained during the night
would find themselves the next morning able to
command with it double the value in goods which
they gave for it the day before. But the possi-
bility of such a change would prevent those who
hold money from parting with it, and render it
unserviceable as a circulating medium. On the
other hand, if, in the same interval, a fall had
taken place of one half in the value of the
medium, (and it must be equally liable to fall as to
rise in value,) its holders would find themselves
unable to command the next morning more than
half the quantity of goods which it would have
purchased the night before. And the possibility
of this must indispose persons who hold goods
from parting with them for money, and equally
prevent its circulation as a medium of commerce.
In point of fact, money does not only remain for
a few hours or days in the possession of parties,
but contracts are entered into on credit for the
payment of sums of money at very distant terms; —
many for a perpetuity of periodical payments ; —
and any change that takes place in the value of
the medium employed in the interval between the
engagement and its fulfilment, whether a day, a

MONEY IS A MERE FRAUD. 403

month, a year, or a century, is as complete a
derangement in the terms of the contract as that
just supposed.

Money, indeed, is only employed as a medium
for the exchange of values, on the presumption of
its remaining invariable in its value; without which
it cannot be a true measure of the value of the
objects for which it is exchanged. A medium for
the exchange of values, which itself varies in value,
is as false and fraudulent a measure of value, as a
foot-rule which should vary in length would be of
length, or as a pound would be of weight, if itself
varied occasionally in weight.

A variation in the value of money is as trea-
cherous and as destructive to commercial security,
which is the foundation of all commercial improve-
ment, as a variation in weight, length, or capacity,
of the standard measures of each. Invariability
in respect to the quality it is employed to measure
is absolutely indispensable to every standard mea-
sure. Stability of value is the first and most es-
sential requisite of the instrument employed for
the exchange of values.

Unfortunately there are great practical diffi-
culties in the way of obtaining such an invariable
instrument. The precious metals which have been
generally used in all ages and by all nations as
the instrument of exchange, from their possessing
some peculiar qualities fitting them for this office
in greater perfection than any other commodity,
are by no means invariable — it is doubtful whether
they are less fluctuating in value than many other
commodities. The paper-money which represents,
and is payable in the precious metals, must vary

2 D 2

404 PRINCIPLES OF MONETARY VALUE.

in value exactly with them ; and paper-money not
payable in metal, but issued solely on the credit of
its being taken in payment of taxes by the state
that issues it or declares it a legal tender, is
equally variable in value, according to the amount
issued as compared with the exchanges it is re-
quired to effect. Money of all kinds, like every
thing else, varies in value according to the relations
of its supply and demand.

On this account, when a government sets about
the regulation of the monetary system of a country,
the very first object for consideration should be
the means of rendering its money as invariable in
value as possible. Unhappily this has been wholly
neglected by governments in general, and more
especially by that of this nation, which, standing
at the head of the commerce of the world, should
have set the example to all others of an attention
to this object of vital importance to a commercial
state. Indeed, far from having endeavoured to
secure a permanency of value for the money of
this country, the government of Britain has, by a
series of ill-considered interferences at various
times with its paper-issue, produced the utmost
fluctuation in that value, and consequently, thrown
all the commercial relations of its subjects into
the most deplorable embarrassment and confusion.

It is true that this mismanagement has been
owing in a great degree to the general ignorance
of the just principles of monetary value. But
it is unfortunate that where such gross ignorance
existed, any interference should have been at-
tempted. Had commerce been left to supply
itself in perfect freedom with its own instrument,

NO ONE OBJECT CAN MEASURE VALUE. 405

the instinct of self-preservation, even in the ab-
sence of sound theoretical views, would have pre-
vented the occurrence of a tithe of the mischief
which has arisen from legislative interference
grounded on false principles.

In an earlier part of this little work, it was
shown that exchangeable or commercial value is
solely relative, and means, when used in a general
sense, the command of one object over the mass or
aggregate of others in the general market of ex-
changes— in the short phrase of Adam Smith, its
'. purchasing power/ To be invariable in value is,
therefore, to preserve the same relation to the mass
of other commodities in general estimation ; and
in order for any particular commodity to possess
this quality, it must increase in quantity — or, at
least, in the facilities for its production — with the
aggregate or average of other commodities ; in
which case alone any fraction of it will continue to
command the same fraction of the aggregate of
goods. It is improbable that any one commodity
should possess this quality ; and certainly it is im-
possible to foretell of any one that the facilities for
its production will always preserve the exact level
of the average of other commodities — and march
in complete uniformity with the general progress
of improvement in the arts of production. No
single commodity, therefore, can be depended on
as a true measure of value.

But the next best thing to obtaining a perfect
measure of value, is to obtain a means of ascer-
taining the variations of the imperfect measure we
may be compelled to employ for want of a better.
Now the variations in value of any commodity

406 PROPOSED MEASURE OF CHANGES

might, it would seem, be ascertained approxima-
tively, and with quite sufficient accuracy for all
practical purposes, by comparing it with the great
bulk of other commodities ; — by placing gold, for
example, on one side, and on the other a large list
of the commodities in general use, which may be
taken to represent fairly enough the entire mass of
goods. Take, for instance, a price-current, con-
taining the prices of one hundred articles in general
request, in quantities determined by the propor-
tionate consumption of each article — and esti-
mated (as they are under the standard of this
country) in gold. Any variations from time to
time in the sum or the mean of these prices
will measure, with sufficient accuracy for all prac-
tical purposes, the variations which have occurred
in the general exchangeable value of gold.

It is quite indifferent whether the change has
been brought about by circumstances immediately
affecting the production of gold or of goods ; —
whether the real costs of producing the one or the
other have increased or diminished. The change
in the relative facility of producing gold and goods,
in either case, occasions a change in the value of
gold — and, consequently, in this country, of money
— equally unjust and unfair upon debtors" or cre-
ditors, both parties having contracted to pay or to
receive money upon the faith of money continuing
to remain invariable in value, — that is, in its rela-
tions to the mass of other commodities.

On these grounds it has been proposed to cor-
rect the legal standard of value (or, at least, to
afford to individuals the means of ascertaining its
errors) by the periodical publication of an authentic

IN THE STANDARD OF VALUE. 407

price-current, containing a list of a large number of
articles in general use, arranged in quantities cor-
responding to their relative consumption, so as to
give the rise or fall, from time to time, of the mean
of prices; which will indicate, with all the exactness
desirable for commercial purposes, the variations
in the value of money ; and enable individuals, if
they shall think fit, to regulate their pecuniary en-
gagements by reference to this Tabular Standard.
' Here, then, though the law continued to main-
tain the metallic standard in all contracts which did
not contain a special agreement to the contrary, it
would be open to parties to avail themselves, if
they chose, of the comparatively invariable standard
which the table would afford them, by declaring
that their agreement should have reference to the
tabular standard, or be corrected from time to time
by it. The publication of such a table of reference
in an authentic form would entirely obviate the dis-
advantages attendant on variations in the value of
the metallic standard in all future contracts. The
extent of those variations would be openly de-
clared and easily ascertained. There would be no
longer any deception or jugglery in the standard
of value to be dreaded by those who enter upon
money engagements. Such persons as continued
to regulate their contracts by the metallic standard
would do so with their eyes open to its possible
fluctuations ; and their acquiescence in the chances
attendant on its use might thenceforward be fairly
implied from its voluntary employment. Those,
on the other hand, who wished to employ money
in their contracts as a correct measure of value,
and to run no risks of its variation either way,

408 LATE. CHANGES IN VALUE OF MONEY.

would have it in their power to confer on the sum
specified an uniformity and permanency of value,
by changing its numerical amount in proportion
to the change in its power of purchase'

The extent to which the value of money has
fluctuated in this country, effecting by each change
a proportionate injury on either the debtor or cre-
ditor interest, is frightful to contemplate. It has
varied in the proportion of two to one within a
very few years past*. And all this time the legis-
lature assumes it to be invariable, and enforces its
employment as the sole measure of the value of
other things and of all pecuniary and commercial
obligations !

The extent of injury that has been thus inflicted
upon different parties may be approximatively esti-
mated, by considering the amount of pecuniary
obligations at all times outstanding in this great
commercial country. These, including the national
debt and all other public as well as all private

* From tables of average prices drawn up by the Board
of Trade, and printed in the Appendix to the Report of the
Select Committee on the Bank Charter, 1832, it appears
that on a comparison of the prices of the principal necessa-
ries of home production, viz. wheat, meat, coals, iron, cheese,
and butter, in the years 1819 and 1830, the average fall in
that interval had been thirty-five per cent. In the principal
articles of foreign importation, viz. sugar, coffee, hemp, cotton,
tallow, oil, timber, and tobacco, the fall had been near forty
per cent. This relates to raw produce only. But the reduc-
tion in manufactured goods has been much greater; on the
average, certainly not less than sixty per cent. On the whole,
therefore, the gross average fall in the prices of the principal
articles of consumption, raw and wrought, can scarcely have
been less than fifty per cent. In other words the ' purchasing
power' of money has doubled between 1819 and 1832.

THEIR EXTENT AND SEVERITY. 409

engagements for the payment of fixed sums of
money, can hardly fall short of from three to four
thousand millions. A rise of one-fourth in the
value of money, therefore, occurring within the
mean duration of these engagements, must defraud
the debtor interest to an amount about equal to
that of the entire national debt. A depreciation
to the same extent must rob the creditor interest of
the same vast sum. Changes to this extent, and
more, have occurred within the last half century, and
will, no doubt, occur again, unless some means like
that just pointed out are taken to obviate them, or
at least to prevent any unforeseen and conse-
quently unfair injury resulting from them — by ex-
posing them, as they occur, to the public.

The great pressure which is now felt from the
excessive burden imposed by taxation on the
springs of our productive industry, is owing to the
gradual rise during the last fifteen years in the
value of our standard metal, gold. The currency
has been on the whole appreciated nearly one hun-
dred per cent, since the greater portion of our debt
was incurred, and the present scale of our national
expenditure fixed. Consequently, the burden of
taxation is nearly double what it was at that time.

It is no answer to this to say, that the change
has not proceeded entirely from a falling off in
the supply of gold, but, in part, from the increased
supply of goods of all kinds, through the increased
productiveness of the labour, skill, and ingenuity
of all nations, and especially of our own, exercised
during a lengthened peace. Undoubtedly, our
resources have increased since the war through
these causes, but is that any just ground for a

410 INJURY TO DEBTOR INTEREST

parallel increase in our burthens ? If our money
obligations are to represent, not a fixed quantity
of goods in the lump, but a fixed proportion of
the produce of our industry, the main inducement
to industry is destroyed — the great principle is
violated which gives to the industrious the sole
property in the returns of their own industry. The
creditor interest, both national and private, is in
that case fastened upon the productive interest with
a claim exactly parallel to that of the tithe-owner
on the agriculturist, — of the metayer landlord on
his tenant, — of the serf-master upon his slave. It
is a claim the amount of which increases with the in-
creasing exertions and productiveness of the debtor.
The injustice and impolicy of such an interpretation
of all pecuniary liens upon industry are obvious.
It must both check the desire to improve, and
diminish the means of improvement. The pro-
ducing classes — the owners of labour, land, and
capital, — have a right, founded on the simple
principles of natural justice, to share amongst
themselves exclusively the increased produce which
arises from their own increasing numbers, skill,
ingenuity, exertions, and productive powers. The
non-producing classes, who are their creditors for
fixed sums of money, have no equitable title to any
increase in the average quantity of commodities
which these fixed sums command, since they con-
tribute nothing towards such increase.

Take the case of a public debt. Suppose an in-
dustrious people to have pledged their resources to
the payment of a debt of a thousand millions of
money to certain parties. Is it just that this sum
should be interpreted to mean — not a fixed com-

OF A RISE IN VALUE OF MONEY, 411

mand over commodities at large according to their
estimation in money at the time of the contract — -
but a fixed proportion of the aggregate produce of
the industry and ingenuity of the increasing com-
munity,— so that the debt should be continually in-
creasing in value with the numbers and industrial
exertions of the people ? Suppose a national debt
had been incurred in the time of Alfred reaching to
one-fourth of the gross produce of the country in
those days. Would it be just that the owners of this
debt should claim a right to one-fourth of the gross
produce of the country in the present day. And
yet the argument we are contending against — viz.,
that a fall in general prices, when occasioned by a
general increase of productiveness, is no injury to
the producing, that is, the debtor class — would
strictly lead to this inference.

Or, in the case of private engagements ; — say
B. borrows for a term of A. fixed capital at the in-
terest of 100/. a year, with which and his labour he
produces goods worth 200/. per annum. B. gets
100/. as the remuneration for his labour. Prices
fall 50 per cent., and he obtains but 100/. for his
goods. He has still to pay 100Z. per annum to A.
from the produce of his industry. And he clears
?iothmg by his labour ! Is this just ?

Take a mixed case: — A. is taxed 100Z. a year,
and by his labour and capital together contrives
to make goods which he sells for 300/. Prices
fall 50 per cent. He gets but 150Z. for his goods,
and after paying his taxes, has but 50/. left for his
entire profits and wages. It is true this 50Z. will
command twice the quantity of goods which 50£.
did before ; but it will only command one-half 'the

412 EVILS OF A VARYING STANDARD

quantity of goods which was commanded by the
2002. of wages and profits he shared before. And,
on the other hand, the 1001. he continues to pay
the tax-gatherer, commands just twice the quantity
of commodities that it did before. The relative
positions of tax-payer and tax-receiver, or of
debtor and creditor, are completely altered. And we
must recollect that the aggregate injury thus in-
flicted on debtors for the benefit of their creditors,
has practically been brought about by the increased
aggregate productiveness of the former !

Can anything be more monstrous and insuffer-
able than a monetary system which thus dimi-
nishes the returns of industry with every increase
of its exertions ? — which actually enforces a con-
stant penalty on the productive classes for every
augmentation in their productiveness ? — which for-
cibly causes a reduction in wages and profits with
every increase in the produce of labour and capital?
And yet such is our monetary system in the nine-
teenth century !

This all-important question was of little com-
parative moment in former days, and t until the
present practice was established of contracting
fixed money engagements, — perpetual, or for very
long terms, and of large amount. In other coun-
tries it is still of comparatively little consequence.
But in this, where our national and private money
engagements reach to so vast an extent, it has
become a question of vital interest, and its solution
ought not to be delayed an instant longer than
is necessary for patient investigation and correct
decision.

The existence of a great commercial country

TO BOTH CREDITORS AND DEBTORS. 413

like this, with an enormous public debt, an im-
mense national expenditure, and a system of private
credit — the extent of which is measured in thou-
sands of millions — depends on the soundness of its
monetary system.

Those who, under such circumstances, would
stifle inquiry into the faults of our existing system,
and forbid all attempts at their correction, on such
futile pleas as ' the risk of agitating the subject,'
act like one who lets a mortal disease prey upon
his frame rather than risk the agitation of his
nerves by the sight- or the report of his physician.
Let us not knowingly hug falsehood to our bosom
in a matter of such portentous moment. Our legal
and established measure of value is a false and
fraudulent one. It cheats the productive classes
most cruelly and unjustly for the benefit of the
non-productive classes. It is a robbery of the in-
dustrious on account of the idle.

This, at least, has been its operation of late
years, owing to the facilities for producing gold
not having kept pace with those for the production
of the bulk of commodities. But the tables may
be any day turned upon the creditor interest;
and if by the discovery of any peculiarly rich
mines of this metal — its supply were greatly to
outstrip that of other goods, the owners of money
claims would suffer in turn as unfairly and unjustly
from the consequent fall in the value of money, as
their debtors are made to suffer now from the
opposite circumstance. It is for the true interest
of both parties that means should be adopted to
render the standard by which their engagements
are measured invariable. It is for the interest of

414 CHANGES IN VALUE OF MONEY

industry and commerce that the risk of an unfore-
seen change in the value of the standard should not
be superadded to the other elements of uncer-
tainty to which all industrious and commercial
speculations are more or less exposed,

Besides the great and progressive increase in the
general value of money which has taken place within
the last twenty years, through causes affecting the
comparative supply of the precious metals and
other goods, — frequent and extensive fluctuations
have both within this and former periods been occa-
sioned in the value of money in this country through
the mismanagement of its paper-money by those
parties upon whom the legislature has unwisely
conferred a more or less exclusive power of issuing
it. A history of the mismanagement of the paper
currency of this country during the last half
century, chiefly by the great central source of
issue, the Bank of England — countenanced, and,
indeed, often goaded on to misconduct by the go-
vernment of the day, — would be too lengthened to
find a place here. We must be contented to refer
our readers to a publication which treats of this
subject*, and in which the great leading error is
shewn to lie in the constitution and exclusive privi-
leges of that monstrous monopoly. The Bank
has at times, either for its own purposes or at the
solicitation of the minister of the day, to favor his
financial operations, put forth such an excess of
paper as greatly to lower the value of money ; and
afterwards when, as a necessary consequence, a
drain of bullion had for some time set in upon the

* An Examination of the Bank Charter Question.
Murray. 1833.

THROUGH FLUCTUATIONS OF BANK PAPER. 415

Bank, threatening to exhaust its coffers, and break
down its credit, its issues have been suddenly con-
tracted, and prices sunk to such a degree, as to
scatter ruin through the whole productive and mer-
cantile community. These oscillations in the value
of money have been repeated three or four times
even within the last twenty years. The manoeu-
vres of the Bank of England have been the secret
spring of all those see- saw alternations of surprising
prosperity and unexpected ruin, which through a
long period of internal and external tranquillity,
have upset the deepest calculations of our traders
and producers, perplexed our wisest statesmen, and
shaken almost to dissolution the very bonds of
society. We do not mean to attribute blame to
the directors of that establishment. As the ma-
nagers of a great company associated only for
purposes of private gain, their first duty was to
exercise their enormous power over the circulation
so as to secure the largest profit to their consti-
tuents, the Bank proprietary. And they were in
no degree bound to sacrifice this object to what
they might believe to be the interest of the public.
That they have fulfilled this duty most faithfully is
made evident by the fact that appears from their
own returns to the committee of the House of
Commons of last year; namely, that they have
divided amongst their shareholders, since the year
1797, no less a sum than 17,318,070Z., in addi-
tion to the annual dividend of seven per cent, on
their capital stock. Through all the ups and
downs, which, since 1780, have kept the currency
of this country in a state of almost perpetual fluctua-
tion,— a fluctuation caused by the operations of
this all-powerful company, — the Bank itself has

416 BANK OF ENGLAND MONOPOLY.

escaped unharmed in every instance from the sea
of troubles it had itself stirred up, — has been found,
indeed, after all of them, not only to have avoided
damage, but to have considerably improved in its
circumstances, while the destruction in every other
quarter was universal. The very stoppage of that
establishment, in 1797, was the source of the most
enormous gain to it in the course of the subsequent
period of restriction on cash payments.

The cause of all the mischief that has resulted
to the public interests from these fluctuations, was
the conferring a monopoly of the supply of the
circulating medium of this great commercial state,
(for the body that commands the supply of the me-
tropolis commands that of the kingdom,) on a few
private individuals, not responsible to the public,
and whose interest in the matter is directly at vari-
ance (as the above facts demonstrate) with that of
the public*.

* That this monopoly has been renewed for a long term
of years in the first session of a reformed and professedly
reforming parliament, is an anomaly — not to say a dis-
credit to the age and country — which will before long, I
conceive, be duly appreciated. There was clearly no reason
for hurrying on the consideration of this question. In the
present confessedly imperfect state of our knowledge on the
subject of currency, to tie down the country for ten years
certain to an avowedly faulty system — a system repudiated
long since by every statesman of note among the Whigs,
and by many among the Tories — a system so exfacie un-
principled as a private monopoly of the supply of the pabtt»
lum vilaf to a commercial state, money — was surely a rash
measure, — not to use a stronger epithet. The check of pub-
licity imposed by the new charter, it is to be feared, is very
insufficient for its avowed object. The public have a right
to instant information of the changes that are at any time in-
tentionally made in the quantity, and consequently the value,

PLANS FOR A STEADY CURRENCY. 417

It is of essential importance to the public that its
supply of money should be steadily and accurately
proportioned to the demand for it as the instrument
for effecting commercial exchanges ; without which
it cannot remain invariable in value. Two modes
might be adopted for securing this steadiness in the
supply of paper-money.

1. The principle of free competition among
private issuers — that principle which so admirably
performs the office of securing a steady and effective
supply of all other goods in almost exact propor-
tion to the demand for them*. In Scotland, the

of the circulating medium. No twenty-four merchants
should be permitted to retain for weeks the exclusive know-
ledge of a circumstance which must affect the prices of all
markets and the value of all property, funded or otherwise.
But even were publication rendered immediate, the Bank
has bought the right to work the circulation for their own
profit, in utter disregard of the benefit of the public ; and
the directors are bound to pursue the interests of their
constituents, let the nation suffer as it may.

* All-important as is the due supply of money to the com-
merce of Britain, it is yet not more important than the due
supply of the necessaries of life, bread and meat for example,
to the vast population of Britain's metropolis. But what
would be the reply to any one who — insisting on the disturb-
ances and convulsion, the suffering and danger, that must
ensue from any considerable deficiency of these necessaries
to such a vast population, and on the ruinous waste which
any excess must occasion— should, with a view to secure the
precise and equable adjustment of the supply to the demand
throughout the year, propose to charter a company, or ap-
point a government board, with the exclusive privilege of
supplying London with bread and meat ? Would it not be
answered, that the proposed method is exactly the one most
likely to occasion inequality in the supply — that the neglect
or mistakes, the indiscretion, or ignorance, or fraud, of the
few individuals to whom the management of this important

2 E

418 FREEDOM OF ISSUE.

freest competition among note-issuing banks is
found to afford a currency of unquestionable secu-
rity. Its value is, of course, necessarily liable to
vary with that of the money of England, whose
markets must exercise a paramount influence over
those of the north.

2. Were government to take to itself the sole
supply of paper- money with a view of securing the
steadiness of its value, it is probable that by bending

"business must be intrusted, might, and in all probability
would, occasionally compromise the existence of a million
and a half of people, and bring upon this mighty centre of
wealth and industry all the evils of alternating scarcities and
gluts of provisions ? Would not the proposer of this scheme
be referred to the fact of the mode in which this great popu-
lation is supplied with its daily food, — quietly and effectually
—-without bustle, without organization, or even combina-
tion— without excess, as without waste — the supply so
equably adjusted to the demand, that the prices of butcher's
meat and bread do not perhaps suffer. a variation of the
fraction of a farthing throughout the year, which may not be
accounted for by causes .affecting the original sources of
supply. And what is it that performs this daily miracle, —
which only does not excite our continual admiration and
astonishment because it is self-effected, with all the order,
ease, and certainty, of a great natural process ? Why, the
principle, of competition ; — the free rivalry of thousands of
individuals, each acting in his own sphere, each actuated by
the unerring instinct of self-interest, to sell as much as he
can, and yet to provide no more than he can dispose of
without loss — to keep the supply full, but to prevent excess.

Now is there anything to prevent this simple principle
from working quite as beneficially in the supply of this great
metropolis with money, as with the necessaries of subsist-
ence ? If freedom of butchering and of baking be the means
of ensuring an exactly adequate supply of bread and meat
to this vast market — why would not freedom of banking be
the means of affording to it an equally regular, safe, suffi-
cient, and methodical supply of money ?

NATIONAL BANK. 419

its efforts honestly and exclusively to that object, —
ni the adjustment of the supply to the demand, it
might be successful. It is objected that so vast
a power over the monetary system of the country
is liable to be abused by an unscrupulous minis-
ter, or by one even of upright intentions, who at
a crisis of emergency might think himself justi-
fied in breaking in upon the sound principle of
currency to rescue the state from a position of em-
barrassment and difficulty. It would not, however,
seem to be difficult so to hedge round the exercise
of this power by the checks of responsibility to
parliament and the public for the observance of
the very plain and simple rules which would be
sufficient for the purpose, as to prevent its abuse.
This would be the .plan of a national bank, — a
plan which besides the steadiness of value it may
be expected to confer on the circulating medium,
has other great advantages to recommend it ; viz.
its complete security from commercial panic ; and
the profit which it will bring in to the public, from
the interest of the notes it circulates.

Either of these two systems, then, would bid fair
to secure the great requisites of a sound credit cur-
rency— viz. convenience, cheapness, unquestionable
security, and steadiness of value. The system we
have unfortunately adopted secures none of these
advantages. By establishing a single source of
issue (for the metropolitan district, which com-
mands and regulates the rest) we do not obtain
that security for a steadiness of supply which a
national establishment might afford, because the
monopoly is conferred, not upon a body of public
officers bound to look to no other end than the

2 E2

420 FLUCTUATIONS IN THE CURRENCY

public welfare, but on a body of private money*
dealers associated for no other purpose than that
of working the currency in such a way as shall
realize the greatest amount of profit to themselves,
and having a direct pecuniary interest in creating,
not in preventing fluctuations. Nor do we render
the source of supply independent of government —
as the frequent instances of misconduct to which
the bank has been instigated by the minister of the
day abundantly proves. At the same time, we
deny ourselves the advantage which competition
would afford to the public of security for a full
supply of the most convenient circulating medium
at the lowest possible charge ; and we equally lose
the advantage that might result from restriction
of security against excessive issue. We have
contrived a system which exposes us to all the
contingent evils of both the others, while it de-
prives us of all their advantages. We farm out
the exclusive supply of our circulating medium
to an irresponsible private company, and we ex-
pect that they will not employ their power, as all
other monopolists have ever employed similar
exclusive privileges, in working the supply up and
down so as to profit from its oscillations at the
expense of the public ! We sell the management
of the currency to a joint-stock body of money-
dealers, and flatter ourselves they will use it for
our interest instead of their own !

An ill-considered and faulty monetary system
most seriously and severely affects the condition
of industry.

What, in fact, are the chances to which a farmer,
trader, merchant, or manufacturer, has been ex-

PRESS HEAVILY ON INDUSTRY. 421

posed of late when investing his capital in some
productive occupation — exposed, too, during a pe-
riod of profound peace, which should have been
attended by complete security ? The natural cir-
cumstances likely to affect the demand and supply
of the article in which he speculates, he is prepared
for, and calculates upon. But besides these una-
voidable contingencies, his best-laid plans have
been liable to complete overthrow by the hidden
circumstances that were constantly at work to alter
the value of the money in which he makes his en-
gagements. First, the gradual but relentless rise
in the value of the metallic standard since 1810 has
been working against him throughout. Next, there
have been the frequent cross fluctuations in the
value of that same standard, arising from casual
circumstances temporarily affecting its relative de-
mand on the continent and in this country — an
altered balance of trade — a sudden importation of
foreign corn — a revolution in a foreign state
causing a hoarding of coin — preparations for war,
occasioning a demand for gold to fill the military
chests. For these latter fluctuations we are indebted
to our peculiar standard — gold ; which from its
superior portability is employed in preference to
silver, in the settlement of commercial balances.
Thirdly, is to be superadded the results of the mis-
management of our paper circulation at home
by those who have become possessed of a su-
preme power to contract or expand it, as they
please, to almost any extent. Under the joint
action of these several causes, we have seen, within
a few years past, prices fall and rise alternately by
twenty per cent, at a time — all debts forcibly aug-

422 SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENTS

mented and lessened in proportion, and all money
contracts substantially violated — one class de-
frauded to enrich another, and the whole course
of business repeatedly deranged. No one en-
gaged in trade has been able to calculate the
amount of his income for a single year — no man
could feel any confidence of getting back the
capital he had embarked in any productive employ-
ment which required time for its accomplishment.
The different branches of business have been
merely different games of chance ; and confusion,
dismay, and panic — such, perhaps, as were never
witnessed in any country not overrun by a vic-
torious enemy, nor devastated by some great natural
calamity — have been created in this, year after
year, by sudden variations in (that of which the
very essence ought to be absolute invariability) the
value of money.

And yet we boast of the security of our property,
and the protection afforded by our laws to the gains
of industry ! It seems to us quite evident that our
radically defective system of banking and currency
can no longer be tolerated after the light has once
been let in upon it ; — that the monopoly of the
Bank of England, upon which the whole awkward
and ruinous structure rests, can be borne with no
longer than the law, as at present unhappily fixed,
renders imperatively necessary. In principle it is
directly opposed to all sound theory. In practice,
it has been productive of the most disastrous results
to the commerce and industry of the nation ; and,
from its nature, it must continue to produce those
results until a better system is substituted. The
great question is, what that system ought to be ?

IN" OUfc MONETARY SYSTEM. 423

Without going at large into the reasons which
support their expediency, and which are to be met
with in detail in the work already quoted, the
author will place here a summary of the altera-
tions in our monetary system as now established
by law, which he considers essential for placing it
on a sound, safe, and useful footing.

1. The substitution of the ancient silver stand-
ard in use previous to 1773, for the far more vacil-
lating and inconvenient gold standard first esta-
blished as the sole legal standard of value in 1816.*

2. The abolition of the monopoly of the Bank
of England, and the substitution either of a system
of freedom of competition among note-issuing
companies of such breadth and credit as would
secure the confidence of the public, as in Scot-
land ; — or, if the danger of so great and sudden a
change from the present system, and other argu-
ments in its favour already noticed, should render
unity of issue preferable — the establishment of a
National or State bank — disconnected with pri-
vate banking or other business, and managed by a
board of parliamentary commissioners, who should
be appointed in such a mode as may remove them

* The rejection of silver as our standard of value in con-
junction with gold has raised the value of the standard by
the extent of the difference now existing between the market
and the Mint price of silver, or by about eight per cent.
This is a perfectly gratuitous and uncalled-for enhancement
of the national and all private money-burthens. It was
pleaded in 1819, that we were bound to restore the ancient
standard at whatever sacrifice. But the ancient standard,
which was silver, has not been restored, and the omission of
silver has augmented unnecessarily and unjustly the sacri-
fice that has been forced upon us.

424 WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.

most effectually from tlie influence of the minister.
The notes of this bank should be legal tender,
accepted of course in payment of taxes ; and their
value preserved at par with the standard, either
by convertibility into ingots, according to the plan
of Mr. Ricardo, at the source of issue — or by
making it the duty of the board to regulate their
circulation from time to time by the price of the
standard metal in the bullion market.

3. The issue of paper by banks in the country,
if permitted at all, should only be allowed on the
deposit of securities to its full amount, in guarantee
of its payment.

4. A tabular statement of the average price of
the mass of commodities should be published at
proper intervals, by competent authority, as a
measure of exchangeable value, by reference to
which the public may be enabled to detect, at a
glance, all future variations in the value of the
legal standard.

These improvements combined, will, we are in-
clined to think, — and these only, — afford to this
great, industrious, and commercial people, what it
has a right to demand of a government which un-
dertakes to regulate by restraints the instrument of
exchange — a sufficient ample supply of & perfectly
secure circulating medium ; and, if not complete
invariability in its value, as near an approximation
to this important quality as is obtainable, together
with the means of detecting and guarding against
injury from such variations as are inherent in every
standard measure of value which consists of but a
single commodity.

USURY LAWS. 425

A bad system of weights and measures is an
injury to commerce, very similar to a bad instru-
ment of exchange or measure of value. There is
much room for improvement in our present system,
and it is to be hoped that this will not long be neg-
lected. The proposal made by Mr. Vernon to
direct the sale of all grain by weight instead of
measure, is very deserving of attentive considera-
tion.

In commenting upon the existing restrictions on
the instrument of exchange, the usury-laws are not
to be overlooked. Their absurdity and mischief
are, however, now so generally recognized, and
the probability of their speedy repeal is so great,
that it is needless to dwell upon the subject.

426

CHAPTER XVI.

RESTRAINTS ON THE CIRCULATION OF
LABOUR.

Law of Settlement. — To be counteracted by giving facilities
to Migration*

THE law of parochial settlement in its present form
operates very perniciously in preventing the free
migration of labourers from one part of the king-
dom to another, according to the shifting demand
for their labour. It ties them down in masses to
particular and very narrow localities ; where they
are certain of a maintenance, although unable to
find employment, and consequently indisposes them
to seek it. It equally prevents the employment of
industrious workmen in parishes where they have
no settlement, by forcing the employers within
those localities to find work for their settled la-
bourers, however idle and unworthy. The evil
has been increased of late in many places by the
introduction of the labour-rate. Were this system
rendered general and permanent, as some persons
wish, the mischief would soon reach its climax ;
every labourer would be adscript to the soil, and soon
assume the idle, sulky, and hopeless character of
the serf. Industry would have received her death-
blow.

It is, perhaps, more easy to find fault with the

MIGRATION SHOULD BE AIDED. 427

law of settlement than to correct it. Some system
of settlement is obviously indispensable in a poor-
law. It has been strongly urged that birth alone
should be permitted to confer a settlement. But
this will leave the greatest evil of the present law,
unchanged. Labourers would still cling to the
place of their birth, and refuse to leave it in search
of employment. The principle of the Scotch law,
which makes industrious residence for a certain
number of years give a claim to settlement, seems
to be preferable, though not wholly without its dis-
advantages. It is remarkable, that in Belfast and
other towns of the north of Ireland, where the in-
habitants have been forced to adopt a voluntary
poor-rate, this is the principle on which they have
found it advisable to- limit the claims upon their
funds.

The tendency of every settlement -law must be
in some degree lo check the spontaneous migration
of labourers. Though it cannot be removed so
long as the poor-law remains, its influence may be
effectually counteracted by an improvement in the
mode of employing and treating parish paupers.
When an improved administration of the poo»r-law
shall have drawn a broad line of distinction be-
tween these and independent labourers — when
parish work has become, as it ought always to be,
the most irksome and the worst paid of any — and
independent labour, as a consequence of this and
other improvements, is more amply remunerated —
there will, probably, be no further stimulant needed
to induce the labourer to quit his parish in search
of work, nor any difficulty in his obtaining it.

But though it may be expected from a labourer

428 SUPPLY AND DEMAND OF LABOUR

unable to procure employment within the parish
where he resides, that he should seek it elsewhere
within a moderate distance, the very poverty under
which most labourers in such circumstances are
suffering, must, generally, prevent their having the
heart or the means to travel any great distance for
this purpose. Still less can it be expected that
any number of labourers in this situation should
possess the means of removing themselves and
their families to other and distant countries, how-
ever strong the inducement offered by the demand
for labour and high wages there, or however
anxious their wish to avail themselves of this mode
of bettering their condition. On this account, it
is highly desirable that parishes should be em-
powered to defray out of their rates the cost of the
emigration of such of their settled poor as are
willing to accept aid of this nature. And, indeed,
as has been already noticed, it would be well to go
farther, and permit parishes to refuse more than
temporary relief to able-bodied paupers who are
unwilling to emigrate ; under such securities against
the abuse of this power as may be readily devised.
The destitute labourer who applies to his parish for
work and relief to save him from starvation, can
have no ground of complaint if he is offered a con-
veyance to those parts of his Majesty's dominions
where work is plentiful, and wages high — where
every industrious labourer can command all the
comforts and many of the luxuries of life, and look
forward to still brighter prospects.

It is to be hoped that before long a compre-
hensive and well-organized scheme of coloniza-
tion will be established by government, such as

TO BE ADJUSTED BY EMIGRATION. 429

has been already more than once alluded to in this
work, having for one of its principal objects to pro-
vide for the regular and methodical conveyance of
the surplus labour of this country to supply the
deficiency in our colonies. Were the expense
shared between the parishes and the government,
the former would enter most readily into the scheme,
since they would be able to get rid of able-bodied
paupers that are now a permanent incumbrance,
for less, perhaps, than one year's cost of their
maintenance here in idleness*. The government,
on the other hand, would be secured in the full
ultimate repayment of its advances for this purpose,
from numerous sources which the process would
create, such as the increasing price and sales of
waste lands, and the increased revenues which may
certainly be anticipated, both in the colony and
mother country, through the enlarged commercial
intercourse between them that must follow every
addition to the population of the former. If these
sources of repayment were doubted, (though we
cannot see how they can be doubted,) a system of
indenture might be adopted, which would secure
the repayment by every labourer, within a limited
period, of a moiety of the cost of his emigration,
out of the surplus of his earningsf.

* Under judicious arrangements, the cost of emigration
is absolutely insignificant when compared to that of keep-
ing them at home. Mr. More O'Farrell relates the case of
an Irish landlord, who, in 1831, sent twelve families, in
1832 fifteen families to Quebec, at an average cost of only
2/. 10*. per head, including passage, provisions, clothing,
and from 10*. to 20s. put into the pocket of each on their
arrival. They have done well. See Report of Committee
on Agriculture, qu. 10718.

f See, for a detailed plan and calculations of its expense,
the Quarterly Review, vol. xlvi. p. 372.

430 • COLONIZATION.

We repeat that since the necessary machinery
of the poor-law, and other circumstances in our
artificial and complicated social position, unavoid-
ably tend to check the free circulation of labour to
meet the demand for it, there arises a strong
necessity for the adoption of measures of a nature
to counteract this tendency, by facilitating the
adjustment of the supply to the demand. And
above all other contrivances for this end, we look
forward earnestly to the adoption of a permanent
and general scheme of colonization. Nothing is
wanting, we are confident, but candid inquiry to
remove the prejudices with which this subject has
been unfortunately surrounded, and to convince the
public of its paramount importance to the interests
of individuals, of communities^ and of mankind at
large. The time cannot be far distant when the
noble scheme of a systematic emigration from all
the over-peopled parts of the earth to the under-
peopled, preserving health to the mother countries
by moderate depletion, and invigorating infant
colonies by the infusion of full-grown labour, will
be recognized as the true political wisdom of all
advanced states, and generally adopted by them ;
when an increase of population, instead of being
deplored and discouraged by short-sighted states-
men and philosophers, will be hailed with delight
as the means of adding to the sum of human hap-
piness, and of extending the empire of civilization
over the globe.

431

CHAPTER XVII.
EXCESSIVE AND MISDIRECTED TAXATION.

History and Progress of Taxation in Britain. — Limited only
by the resistance of the people. Funding system. — Its
errors. — Pressure of the National Debt on Productive
Industry. — Financial mismanagement. — Extravagance.—
Misdirect ion of Taxation. — True principles of Taxation.—
Expediency of commuting the Taxes on Industry and the
Comforts of the Poor for an Income Tax.

A PHILOSOPHICAL history of taxation would
form an interesting and important work. Here
we can find room only for a glance at the subject.
In feudal times the monarch's own lands fur-
nished his domestic articles of consumption ; and
the ordinary expenses of the state were defrayed
partly by fines and forfeitures casually accruing to
the exchequer, partly by customs duties on mer-
chandize. The expenses of wars and other extra-
ordinary emergencies were either provided against
beforehand by the accumulation of treasure during
peace, or by subsidies, aids, and temporary imposts.

Early in the thirteenth century we find England
already fertile in taxes. The 1 5ths and 20th s seem
to have commenced under Henry III. In 1225, a
15th of all moveables both of the clergy and laity
was granted to the king; war horses, armour,
ready money, and apparel being alone excepted.
The valuation, which was made by the chief men in

432 PROGRESS OF TAXATION

each township, and levied by the sheriff, seems to
have been moderate. But when it is considered
that in those times almost all the capital of the
country consisted in moveables, it will appear that
these levies of 15ths and 20ths not unfrequently
repeated, must have borne almost as heavily on the
productive resources of the people as the taxes of
the present day. At a later period, (in the be-
ginning of the 14th century) direct taxes were
levied bearing a still higher proportion to the
income of those charged with their payment ; and
the duties were equally exorbitant. In 1208, par-
liament, among other grievances, remonstrated
against the 405. a sack upon wool ; and stated
that the wool of England amounted to almost
half the value of the land, and the duty on it to
one-fifth of the whole value of the land. The
insatiable avarice and oppressive tyranny of the
Tudors caused the constant imposition of fresh
taxes. In 1531 a moiety was taken of all the
goods and lands of the Church, and yielded nearly
half a million, equivalent to five millions of the
present currency. And it has been computed
that the lands of the monasteries and other re-
ligious foundations seized by Henry VIII. would
now be worth six millions annually.

But the growing spirit of the people of England
at length roused itself against the arbitrary im-
position of such severe burthens. Hampden's re-
fusal to pay his assessments of shipmoney was the
spark which lighted a wide flame of resistance ;
and the success of the Great Rebellion demon-
strated to kings the danger of pushing their ma-
chinery of extortion beyond what the patience of

LIMITED ONLY BY RESISTANCE. 433

an industrious and well-disposed, but spirited people
will bear.

The lesson, however, then read to governments
does not appear to have caused any material light-
ening of the national burthens in the subsequent
reigns. It would seem, indeed, that even in this
nominally self-taxed country, the only real limit
at any time existing to the amount of taxation
imposed upon the people has been that of their
patience under the infliction. And it may well be
doubted, whether the much vaunted constitutional
check upon the extravagance of government
which is supposed to reside in the exclusive pre-
rogative of the Commons to grant or withhold the
supplies — so jealously guarded as the corner-
stone of our liberties, — has practically operated
to any great extent as a protection to the people
from excessive taxation. It is remarkable, that
every formal recognition of this principle of self-
taxation has been followed by an increase of
taxes. The expenditure of the Protectorate aver-
aged twice as much as that of the preceding
reign. And the taxes which are at present
considered most onerous, — the house and win-
dow duties, the excise on malt, hops, glass, spirits,
&c. as well as that fatal financial invention,
the national debt, commenced with the glorious
Revolution, and the concession of the Bill of
Rights. The total expense of king, government,
army, and navy during the reign of James II.,
was considerably under 2,000,OOOZ., whilst the
revenue spent by William III. in the first twelve
years after the revolution, namely from 1688 to
1700, was 65,987, 566/,, or an average of five

2 F

434 INJURY OF OVER-TAXATION.

millions and a half! We think we can perceive
symptoms of a similar tendency to profusion in
the present day. Certainly enormous grants of
money have been made in the first session of this
reformed parliament, such as an unreformed house,
— more doubtful of the confidence of the people —
would scarcely have ventured upon.*

The only real limit to the extravagance of
parliament has been all along, and still is, that
which checked the rapacity of the Tudors and
the Stuarts, namely, the resistance of the people
— the open threat of refusal. The people have
continually been made to pay all that they have
been willing to pay without breaking out into
absolute rebellion.

We need scarcely observe on the injustice and
impolicy of taxing a nation beyond the fair value of
the services rendered by its government. What-
ever sums are needed to defray the necessary
expenses of the state for the due administration of
justice, the defence of the country against foreign
foes, and the protection of persons and property —
are expended productively, and in a manner highly
conducive to the national welfare. But all beyond
this is so much taken from productive to be ex-
pended in unproductive channels of employment —

* The phenomenon is common to other countries as well
as England. In France, the taxes raised by Louis XVI. did
not reach 24,000,000/. a year. The National Convention
increased the expenditure to 200,000)000/. in 1793. The
expenditure of Charles X. was about forty millions ; that
of their Citizen King sixty-four. The explanation seems to
be, that a popular government can venture to take more from
the people than an unpopular one j and that every govern-
m^ut takes as much as it dares*

FUNDING SYSTEM. 435

so much abstracted from the industrious and eco-
nomical to be wasted by the idle and extravagant.
If left in the pockets of the people, that sum
would have germinated and borne a crop of future
wealth. When given to sinecurists, undeserving
pensioners, or overpaid placemen, it is consumed
by them in a way which leaves nothing behind,
but an increased appetency for further plunder
of the public.

One reason for this customary extortion on the
part of the taxing engine, is the circumstance that
no gauge exists for measuring the capacity of the
country for bearing taxation other than its willing-
ness to contribute taxes. No pains has ever been
taken by the legislature to ascertain the real tax-
able income of the country, and thus afford a
test of the comparative pressure of the national
burdens from time to time. It is most discredit-
able to the government upon whom the duty
naturally devolves of instituting such inquiries,
that statisticians who are desirous for any useful
purpose to form an estimate of the aggregate
property, rental, or income of the country, are
forced, even at present, to have recourse to the
property-tax returns of the date of 1815. No
time should be lost in taking the necessary steps
to remedy this deficiency of the most elementary
information from which a just scheme of taxation
can be framed.

Since the revolution, as we have said, a new ele-
ment has been introduced into the system of taxation
of this and other countries ; the funding system. By
it the revenues of future years are expended in an-
ticipation, and posterity charged with the cost of

436 NATIONAL DEBT ;

measures executed by the government of the day.
This is, at best, a very questionable method of
defraying the necessary expenses of extraordinary
emergencies. The right of existing generations
so to burthen the industry and property of their
successors, is very doubtful. It has been strongly
argued that the sums necessary for even the most
extraordinary expenditure should be, in wisdom
and justice, always levied within the year. But
if it be admitted as a good principle to spread
the burthen of such extraordinary costs over
several years, it by no means follows that it should
be made perpetual. On the contrary, such a sys-
tem is evidently indefensible. If it had been pur-
sued in the past ages of our history, we should
now be paying the expenses of the wars of the
Plantagenets, the Tudors, and the Stuarts, as well
as of the Hanoverian dynasty. The injury which
results from thus anticipating the resources of a
country is apparent from the consideration that
the capital contributed to loans is expended un-
productively — in purchasing stores, or providing
the instruments of war, — that is, on perishable
commodities. The whole debt was irredeemably
spent as soon as it was raised ; so that had it
been levied at once by a direct tax on the then
existing property of the country, it would have
left just as much disposable and productive wealth
behind : but it would have left this national capi-
tal free from the enormous charge upon its net
annual returns which now constitutes the National
Debt — the interest of the sum then taken up and
consumed. This interest, or a large proportion of
it, at least, had it been left in the hands of the

ITS PRESSURE ON INDUSTRY. 437

owners of the national capital and labour by whom
it has been always paid, would have been by them
accumulated in a productive shape, and would hav6
formed a substantial addition to the aggregate
receipts of the productive classes, in place of, as
now, a grievous subtraction from them ; — it would
have formed a plus instead of a minus quantity
in the sum of the national wealth.

This is the great evil which has arisen from the
funding system ; and had it not been for the won-
derful energies of the country in accumulating
new capital, in spite of this continual abstraction
from the only fund out of which capital is ever
accumulated, viz. profits and wages, general po-
verty and ruin must have been its result.

It is often argued that there is no positive di-
minution of the national wealth occasioned by the
payment of 28,000,OOOZ. a year to the national
creditor; — that 'it is, in fact, only a transfer of
so much money from the pockets of one part of
the public into the pockets of another part of it :
so that no public benefit could arise from a re-
duction or abolition of the debt*.' This, how-
ever, is a very narrow and short-sighted view of
the effect of the debt. The interest of the debt,
like all taxes, can only be paid out of the three
sole sources of the national income, rent, profits,
and wages. Its abstraction leaves, therefore,
so much the less behind to be divided among the
classes concerned in production ; and by diminish-
ing to that extent the net returns to industry, it
lessens protanto the inducement to industrious ex-
ertion, at the same time that it lessens to the same
extent the means remaining in the hands of the
* Parnell, p. 276.

438 NATIONAL DEBT ;

productive classes for giving effect to their industry.
They may, it is true, borrow these means from
such among the national creditors as choose to
save a portion of their income. But they must
pay an interest upon those loans, and this forms
a new deduction from their net returns, and a
proportionate discouragement to production.

Again, it is said, that the public derives some
advantage from the debt, by its affording with
very little trouble and expense the opportunity
of investing money in stock with the certainty
of receiving the interest upon it on a fixed day,
and with the power of getting immediate pos-
session of the principal whenever it may be
wanted*. But this advantage would be as fully
derived from the investment of an equal capital
in a productive instead of an unproductive
manner. Let us, for example, suppose the capi-
tal of the debt, instead of having been spent on
wars, had been expended (as it probably would
have been, if left in the hands of its original
owners) in productive speculations ; — such as
canals, railroads, docks, harbours, shipping ; — in
enclosing and reducing to cultivation the wastes
of this island, of Ireland, or of our colonies ; —
many of these investments would offer securities
as readily available in the market when their
owner wished to realize or change the disposition
of his capital, as the funds. But in what a dif-
ferent position would the resources of the nation
stand, if the twenty-eight millions for the interest
jof the debt, instead of being a charge upon the
annual produce of industry, were, as in the sup-
posed case it would be, an addition to it !
* Parnell, p. 277.

ITS PRESSURE ON INDUSTRY. 439

Although the immense efforts that have been
successfully made in the last forty years to extend
industry and increase production have enabled HS
to bear up against the pressure of the funding sys-
tem without being absolutely crushed by it, yet it
by no means follows that they have tended to coun-
teract the evils of that system, still less to convert
them into an advantage, as some writers para-
doxically contend'1'". The plain fact is that the
interest of the debt is a subtraction to its whole
extent from the net annual returns to capital and
industry invested in productive occupations, un-
compensated by any circumstance attending its
mode of levy or expenditure.

* Mr. M'Culloch says, "The increased exertion and
parsimony which were produced by the taxes during the
.war, make it extremely doubtful whether the capital of the
country would have been materially greater than it is,
had the general tranquillity been maintained from 1793 to
the present time." (Wealth of Nations, vol. ii. p. 180, note
of the Editor.)

We think it more than doubtful whether excessive taxation
has any such good effects as are here attributed to it. Parsi-
mony it produces doubtless — that is, a forced privation of
enjoyment — but we do not see how the taking away one
half of a man's income can lead him to make a more
profitable or productive use of the remainder. The in-
creased productiveness of the country is, in our opinion,
owing rather to the improvements in machinery and the
processes of production consequent on increased knowledge
and intercourse, than to the stimulus of excessive taxation.
We do not observe that the excessive taxation of the
Hindoos renders them more industrious ; but just the con-
trary. The doctrine is a dangerous one, and we believe
false. Necessity is not the only stimulus to exertion — nor
even the strongest. The desire to gratify new tastes, the
anxiety to accumulate wealth, — the emulation of display, —
are more powerful incentives to industry, ingenuity, and
perseverance, than want and privation.

440

ERRORS OF THE FUNDING SYSTEM.

We continue to bear it, it is true, but with diffi-
culty and much suffering. And, as Sir II. Parnell
justly remarks, " if the expenses of future wars
are to be provided for by fresh loans, and if each
war add some hundred millions to the debt, and
some ten or fifteen millions of permanent taxes to
those we now have, no new efforts to extend in-
dustry and production will be able to counteract
the effects of the kind of taxes which must, under
such circumstances, be imposed. There must be
a limit somewhere to taxation, beyond which, if
it be carried, national decay must follow, and
surely a debt of nearly 800,000,OOOZ., requiring
28,000, OOOZ. of taxes for interest, must have
brought the country a long way in the course of
approximating to that limit*."

* Parnell, p. 278. The following table shows the con-
comitant increase of taxation and of the public debt since
the Revolution.

Years.

Taxes raised in
Great Britain.

National Debt.

Interest on
Debt.

£.

£.

£.

1688

2,000,000

1710

5,020,000

50,000,000

3,230,000

1750

8,525,540

72,178,000

2,425,000

1780

10,265,405

142,113,264

4,933,000

1790

16,815,895

228,231,228

9,767,333

1800

34,069,457

451,699,919

17,381,561

1805

50,555,190

549,137,068

22,141,426

1810

67,825,595

631,369,168

24,246,946

1815

71,153,142

848,284,000

31,576,074

1820

55,063,093

848,394,804

31,157,846

1825

52,919,280

843,391,875

28,060,287

1830

50,414,928

. ,

29,118,858

i 1831

46,424,440

28,341,416

FINANCIAL EXTRAVAGANCE. 441

The evils of the funding system were enhanced,
and the pressure of the debt enormously increased,
by the careless and unscientific manner in which
the loans were contracted. Instead of simply
borrowing the sum required at the current rate of
interest, and retaining the power of paying off the
principal, or reducing the interest, whenever money
could be borrowed on lower terms, our finance
ministers, including Mr. Pitt, from the accession
of George II. down to the close of the late war,
created a vast nominal debt, nearly double of the
sum actually borrowed, and bearing a low rate of
interest ; thus putting it out of the power of suc-
ceeding governments to reduce the interest of the
debt (which, in fact, is the debt itself) as the current
rate of interest fell in the market. In consequence
of this fatal blunder we are now annually paying
at least a third more to the national creditor than
would have been owing to him had the loans been
contracted for at the market-rate of interest. In
other words, a perpetual charge of near ten
milloiis per annum has been entailed on the nation
by this single mistake of our finance ministers, — a
signal instance of the mischief that may result
from mismanagement of public business.

Another equally ruinous error was the borrow-
ing upon interminable, instead of terminable anmnV
ties. Had the latter principle been adopted, and
annuities terminable in thirty or fifty years been
sold instead of perpetual stock, half the debt would
by this time have expired, and the remainder
would be in a course of gradual extinction.

The rise in the value of money, already com-
mented upon, has, likewise, tended very consider-

442 MISDIRECTION OF TAXATIONS

ably to enhance the pressure of the debt since it
was incurred ; — an evil which should have been
foreseen and provided against at that time.

When to the effect of all these multiplied errors
of our financiers in augmenting the direct burden
of taxation, we superadd that produced by their
needless and unprincipled extravagance — espe-
cially during the late war, in subsidizing foreign
powers, keeping up excessive and unnecessary
establishments, military, naval, and diplomatic, in
every quarter of the globe — providing by pensions,
sinecures, and overpaid and useless places, for the
scions and dependents of the nobility, or of such
as possessed parliamentary interest — and building
tasteless and useless palaces for the sovereign — -it
becomes evident that much more than half of our
existing taxation is surplusage, the result of unne-
cessary expenditure beyond the legitimate wants
of the state, or of financial errors — in one word,
of the mismanagement of past governments.

But neither the nominal amount of taxation,
nor even the value it commands, will afford a true
measure of its pressure upon the resources of the
nation. The misdirection of taxation has inflicted
to the full as much injury as its excessive amount.

We have already, in treating of the impolicy and
injurious tendency of taxes on the materials of
manufacture, adverted to the principles on which
taxation ought to proceed, in order to place the
least possible difficulty in the way of the increase
of the national wealth.

The leading general principle should be to tax
wealth, after it has been created, not farther than
is unavoidable during any of the stages of its

PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION* 448

creation. The latter policy, which has been fol-
lowed in many parts of our present financial sys-
tem, is like that of plucking unripe fruit, or cutting
green corn. It is to divert the sources by which
the industry of the nation is nourished, and to
destroy the germs upon whose fructification its
income depends. Of this mischievous nature, be-
sides the taxes already mentioned, are those on
marine and fire insurances, a portion of the stamp
duties, the duty on advertisements, and that on
newspapers.

Customs duties, not so high as to encourage
smuggling, when levied on articles of import, not
used as the materials of subsequent industrious ope-
rations, nor entering into the category of necessa-
ries of subsistence for the labouring population,
form one of the most legitimate sources of a
national revenue, — certainly the most easy of col-
lection, and the most willingly paid. But heavy
duties on articles in such general use, and ap-
proaching so closely to the character of neces-
saries, as tea, coffee, sugar, currants and raisins,
and some others, are not only destructive of the
comforts of the people, but actually less pro-
ductive sources of revenue than they would be if
materially lightened.

Excise duties, if levied solely on articles of
luxury, as spirits, (we cannot admit malt, beer, or
soap into this list,) are perhaps advisable ; as are
certainly the assessed taxes on servants, carriages,
horses, dogs, and sporting licenses. The window-
tax and house-tax are so unpopular that the go-
vernment will be compelled to take them off;
although, if fairly levied, they were by no means

444 A GRADUATED INCOME TAX.

the most objectionable imposts on tlie statute-
book.

The taxes we have mentioned fall upon the con-
sumers of luxuries, that is, upon the wealthy. And
inasmuch as they are more readily and willingly
paid, they are preferable to a direct tax upon in-
come. But since such taxes on the expenditure of
wealth are not found sufficient to provide the whole
of the necessary revenue, it is surely far more ad-
visable to supply the deficiency by a direct tax on,
income or property, than to continue those ob-
noxious imposts by which the production of wealth
is impeded, and the poorer classes oppressed. A
tax on income has the great advantage over all
other taxes of making the absentee who consumes
his income abroad on untaxed commodities, and
the miser who hoards his income without spending
it at all, contribute something at least towards
the expense of protecting their property ; an ex-
pense which is now unjustly placed upon others.

The only true justice in taxation is that every
one be made to pay in exact proportion to his
means ; — and this is to be more accurately effected
by a tax on income than any other. Such a tax
admits of graduation, which is essential to the
adjustment of taxation to the facility of payment.
To a man who expends an income of 200/, a-year
it will certainly be a far greater sacrifice to pay a
given percentage on his expenditure, than to one
who expends an income of 2000/., and the latter
suffers more from such a tax than one who ex-
pends 20,000/. per annum. Taxes on expendi-
ture, or indirect taxes, press on this account with
the greatest severity on the least wealthy classes.

OBJECTIONS REFUTED, 445

The principle of graduation was admitted in the
income-tax levied during the war; from which all
incomes below a certain amount were exempted.
It is clear that the same principle which wholly
exempts the lowest class of incomes, requires the
partial exemption of the class only a little removed
above them, and so on, in a progressive scale.
The same principle has long been recognized and
acted upon in the assessed taxes, on houses, win-
dows, horses, carnages, servants, &c. as well as
in the stamp duties. Far from being a novelty,
therefore, (as might be supposed from the outcry
raised against the proposition when applied to a
property tax,) it is the established principle of all
our direct taxation.

It is objected that a graduated income-tax may
be so framed as to reduce all incomes to one
level ; but this is an objection only to an exces-
sive and too rapid graduation. It might as rea-
sonably be objected to the principle of taxation
itself, that, if carried to excess, it would absorb
all property.

The argument sometimes urged against a pro-
perty-tax, that it will check the accumulation of
wealth and drive capital abroad, vanishes when it is
recollected that it would be imposed in substitution
of other existing taxes on industry and expendi-
ture, which are much greater impediments to the
employment of capital and the accumulation of
wealth in this country.

Not the least of the advantages of a property-
tax is, that it would probably lead, before long, to
the extinction of a part of the national debt, accord-
ing to some such plan as that of Mr. Heathfield.

446 COMMUTATION OF TAXES

It would be difficult to imagine the relief that
must be afforded to the productive industry of
Britain by the removal of a large portion of this
heavy burden upon its annual returns.

On these grounds it is to be hoped that the
present liberal and enlightened government will,
without delay, introduce a system of direct taxation
in lieu of the malt and house taxes, and others
which still press on productive industry or the
comforts of the poor. Lord Althorp and some of
his colleagues have lately expressed themselves
favourable to the principle of such a mutation of
taxes, and we are sure that it is a change most
anxiously desired by the great body of the people.
The details of the tax, — the proportions in which
it should press on income from permanent and
from perishable property, from capital embarked
in trade, or in professional skill, &c. — and the
question as to its scale of graduation — are subjects
on which we cannot find space to enter.*

The sooner such a commutation takes place the
better. The masses are become aware of the dis-
proportioned pressure of the existing taxation upon
them. The simple and undeniable proposition
that taxes on articles of consumption are paid by
the consumer, makes itself easily sensible to their
capacity. They are no longer unacquainted with
the amount of the taxes paid by them on many
of the principal articles of their consumption, —
articles approaching to the character of neces-
saries of life — malt, hops, tea, sugar, coffee, cur-

* Mr. Sayer's volume " On the Justice and Expediency
of an Income or Property-tax," contains valuable materials
for the decision of these points.

REQUIRED BY THE PEOPLE. 447

rants, soap — and these taxes cannot much longer
be maintained at their present rate. It would
be the part of a wise government to anticipate the
wants of the people it rules over, and not, as has
been too much the practice hitherto, to delay just
and reasonable improvements until they are ex-
torted by the threatening attitude of an exasperated
people. 4' Early reforms," said Mr. Burke, " are
arrangements between friends ; — late reforms are
capitulations with an enemy."

The general anxiety lately evinced for a reform
in parliament was founded on the expectation that
it would immediately lead to a great reduction, —
if not in the amount of taxation, — at least, in its
pressure on the industrious classes. But direct
retrenchment has been already carried almost to
the extreme margin of security for the efficient
discharge of the public services. There remain
scarcely any means of lightening the pressure, but
by a shifting of a part of the burden from the
shoulders of the poor and the industrious to those
of the wealthy and the idle. The repeal of the
property-tax in 1815, was a flagrant abuse of
their power by the higher classes. Now that the
power has left them, and been transferred to the
middle class, the balance must be restored, and
the injustice redressed.

448

CHAPTER XVJII.

RESTRAINTS ON THE NATURAL DISTRIBU-
TION OF WEALTH.

UNDER this head we class all defects in the laws
relating to property, by which its possession or
enjoyment by the rightful owners are rendered
insecure.

The delay, the expense, and the uncertainty of
obtaining justice in our courts in cases of disputed
property, are too notorious to require illustration.
They amount, in too many instances, to a com-
plete denial of justice, and must go far to damp
that sense of security for the full enjoyment of
wealth, which is the principal stimulant to its
production and accumulation.

One of the most obnoxious parts of the present
system, is the extreme difficulty of recovering
debts of small amount. It was to remedy this
evil that Lord Brougham's bill for the establish-
ment of courts of local judicature was introduced
in the last session ; and the rejection of this va-
luable measure by the House of Lords was one of
the most impolitic and unwise steps they have for
some time taken.

To Lord Brougham the nation looks in confi-
dent anticipation that he will redeem his pledge of
prosecuting this and other equally expedient re-
forms in the law of property, undeterred by factious

LAW REFORMS. 440

opposition, and untired by repeated failure. His
labours in this department have already produced
valuable fruit; but his is not a mind to be satisfied
with partial improvements. The late and the still
sitting commissions of inquiry into the state of the
laws cannot fail to be productive of great eventual
good. Their task, we hope, will not be confined
to consolidation and simplification merely, but
will admit of radical amendments. The laws that
relate to entail, primogeniture, and inheritance re-
quire revision — more especially in the case of
Scotland. The general registration of landed pro-
perty and of all claims upon it, as proposed in a
bill which was likewise thrown out in the past
session, is highly desirable. And an accurate
registration of births, deaths, and marriages is much
needed, not merely for statistical purposes, but for
furnishing authentic evidence in cases of disputed
property.

A reform of the criminal law is no less expedient
in an economical point of view, than of the law of
property. The very greatest of all impediments to
the accumulation of wealth and the zealous put-
ting-forth of industry is an inadequate protection
of life and property against fraud or violence.
Our system of police in the rural districts, and,
with the exception of the metropolis, in most
towns, is exceedingly defective. In fact, it has
deteriorated, instead of improving, from the date
of its original institution by our Saxon ancestors.
The mode of appointment and the execution of
the duties of the magistracy — especially in corpo-
rate towns — requires, and, we hope, is on the
point of receiving early revision. And the whole

450 LAW REFORMS.

system of secondary punishments, including the
treatment of prisoners in the penal colonies, the
hulks, and the jails and penitentiaries, has long
called for that reform which it will, probably, be-
fore long receive.

The attention of the government has been very
properly directed for some time to these points ;
but it is not enough for government to be willing
to introduce improvements of this nature, unless
they are supported by the good sense of the com-
munity. There is a spurious and overstrained
humanity abroad, which lavishes its sympathies
upon the criminal, and neglects the interests of
the virtuous and irreproachable portion of society
which is his prey. There are philanthropists who
seem to desire an almost complete impunity for
offences, and to forget altogether that punishment
must be dreaded in order to operate as a pre-
ventive to crime, and must be severe in order to
be dreaded. The punishment of death has been
already removed from many offences hitherto
capital ; and this relaxation might perhaps be
carried still further with advantage ; — but unless
there is at the same time an increased severity in
our secondary punishments, — some of which have,
till lately, partaken of a character the very reverse
of penal — the convict being placed in a better
situation than he occupied before his offence —
the safety of society will be fearfully endangered.

451

CHAPTER XX.
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.

WE have thus run over, as fully as our limits per-
mitted, the most prominent artificial impediments
which either the officiousness of legislation, or its
inadequate accommodation to the changing cir-
cumstances of society, has opposed in this country
to the development of its industry, the increase of
its aggregate wealth, and the just and natural dis-
tribution of that wealth among those who contri-
bute to its production. These legislative blunders
will amply account for the present strange, and
indeed paradoxical, situation of so ingenious, en-
terprising, and laborious a people. Every step
towards their correction will, we are confident,
act like the removal of a heavy weight from the
springs of industry. Each succeeding step will be
rendered more easy of execution ; and when they
are all completely surmounted, it is impossible to
doubt that the mass of physical suffering and
unmerited privation we now see constantly around
us will have wholly disappeared.

When our agriculture has been relieved by the
permanent fixation of tithe on an equitable basis,
the extinction of church-rate, the reduction and
improved levy of poor-rate, and other local taxes,

2G 2

452 CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.

and the facilitation of inclosures ; when our com-
merce and manufactures are wholly freed from the
shackles of the system miscalled ' protective/ and
our countrymen no longer prohibited from making
the most of their superior skill, ingenuity, know-
ledge, and mineral resources, and procuring the
produce of much labour in other countries by a
comparatively small outlay of their own ; when a
revision of our monetary system shall have fur-
nished to commerce a just and unvarying measure
of value and instrument of exchange ; when free-
dom has been given to credit, and the last of the
great legislative monopolies, those of banking and
the manufacture of credit money, is abolished ;
when the bulk of taxation is shifted from the
shoulders of the productive to those of the unpro-
ductive classes, from industry upon wealth ; when
justice is rendered cheap, certain, and easy of
access, and property further secured by the im-
provement of our criminal and civil judicature ;
when the abominable abuses of the poor-law are
corrected, and idleness and vice no longer forced
by premium, but repressed by punishment; finally,
when our colonial possessions are viewed in their
true light, and treated as so many additions to the
cultivable territory of the three kingdoms — so
many landed estates at the command of any British
subjects who choose to make use of them — so
many rich and unlimited fields for the profitable
employment of British industry and capital in the
growth of raw produce to be exchanged for the
manufactures of the mother country ; and when
methodical arrangements are established on this
principle for facilitating the removal of any local

CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. 453

redundancy of labour in these islands to those
parts of the empire where, for ages to come, it
must always be deficient ; THEN will remunerative
employment be secured to every British subject
who is able and willing to work ; then industry,
being certified of its full and meet reward, will
put forth its utmost energies ; wealth will be
created in greater abundance and in more whole-
some proportions to the wants of consumers,
among whom it will distribute itself more accord-
ing to the principles of natural justice. Indus-
trious pauperism will then be extinguished, and
poverty confined to the sufferers from unavoidable
casualty or wilful misconduct. Then will this
country present a spectacle, such as the world
never yet saw, of a dense, thriving, and happy po-
pulation, blessed with a copious supply of the ne-
cessaries, comforts, and luxuries of life — combining
all the intellectual refinement, polish of manners,
and assiduous cultivation of art and science, which
are now the peculiar characteristics of old and
populous states, with the ample remuneration for
the inferior kinds of labour, which has been
hitherto confined to the new and thinly-peopled.
Then will other nations — among whom yet more
barbarizing errors than deform our own statute-
books are still prevalent — learn to reform their
institutions likewise, after our example, and at the
sight of our increasing prosperity. Then will the
true principles of political economy, as deduced
from the natural laws of social welfare, be univer-
sally recognized and followed as beacon-guides to
the certain, continuous, and indefinite increase of
public prosperity and individual happiness.

454 CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.

These principles we have shown to be simple,
obvious, and easily put in practice. They are
— briefly enumerated — just and cheap govern-
ment, affording a certainty of protection to the
person, and to property acquired by honest ex-
ertion or legitimate succession ; freedom of in-
dustry and exchange ; a due enlargement of the
cultivable territory at the disposal of an increasing
population ; and a systematic prevention of pau-
perism, by the removal of any local surplus of
labour to localities where it is deficient.

Simple and obvious principles these, yet hitherto
neglected, or at much pains counteracted, as if on
purpose to derange and disturb the natural pro-
gress of improvement. Simple as they are, we
are confident they will prove sufficient, if honestly
acted on, to redeem man effectually and perma-
nently from economical misery, and secure to him
the constant and unlimited enlargement of his
means of gratification. It is in his power, we have
fully shown, by a wise prudential arrangement of
the resources he has at his disposal, in every corner
of the inhabited globe, continually to advance in
the acquisition of social well-being. It is in the
power of the government of every community, ap-
pointed to watch over and promote its welfare, by
a wise and prudent disposition of the means it
is entrusted with, to command and maintain this
advance ; and without any approach to an equali-
zation of property, (which would, indeed, be re-
pugnant to the first principle of improvement,) to
equalize, at least pretty generally, the happiness
of individuals ; to secure, at least, to the lowest
class, and even to the poorest individual of that

CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. 455

class, an ample supply of necessaries and comforts,
in return for the not immoderate exercise of his
industry, and the discharge of the duties he owes
to society.

The elements of production are unlimited. Land
of ample fertility we have proved not to be want-
ing. Capital will always, under security for its
enjoyment and free use, spring up to meet the
demand for it. Labour can never, by its deficiency,
occasion distress. Skill, knowledge, art and sci-
ence are daily improving in an accelerated ratio.
All then that can be wanting, besides protection
from force and fraud, is a judicious adaptation of
these boundless means to their great end, the
boundless augmentation of the wealth and hap-
piness of society, individual and collective.

The writer is sensible of having touched very
cursorily on many subjects of vast importance, and
which may seem to require a more lengthened in-
vestigation. His object, however, has been, with-
out dwelling too much on doctrinal refinements, to
give a general and rapid, but yet, he hopes, a clear
and succinct sketch of the true laws of social eco-
nomy ; to show that there is nothing in them,
when rightly understood, mysterious or abstruse ;
and, in opposition to the narrow, disheartening,
and, as he is convinced, utterly false doctrine of a
modern school of economists — as to the existence
of an iron necessity and unavoidable natural ten-
dency to deterioration in the condition of the mass
of mankind, through a decrease in their means of
subsistence accompanying their increase in num-
ber— to vindicate the scheme of Providence and
the nobility of man, by proving that the ordained

456 CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.

multiplication of his race has no such tendency ;
but, on the contrary, that, coupled with the pro-
gress of invention and civilization, it has a direct
tendency to multiply, without any visible limit,
the comforts of existence procurable by an amount
of labour at all times undergoing an indefinite
diminution ; in short, that HUMAN HAPPINESS MAY,

BY AN EASY EXERCISE OF HUMAN FORESIGHT, BE
MADE CONTINUALLY TO INCREASE, NOT ONLY IN THE
PROPORTION, BUT BEYOND THE PROPORTION, OF ANY
POSSIBLE INCREASE OF THE HUMAN FAMILY.

Doubtless, in order to realize these bright pro-
spects, there should be a 'moral improvement going
on at the same time in the habits, disposition, and
feelings of the people. But we are convinced that
such improvement will be the certain accompani-
ment of an amelioration of their economical con-
dition. Poverty is the fruitful parent of vice and
crime, and the despair and negligence which a
hopeless state of suffering engenders are utterly
destructive of moral and orderly habits. Though
the scope of our little work has been necessarily
confined to economical ameliorations, we are far
from shutting our eyes to the imperative necessity
of concomitant reforms in our systems of moral
and religious instruction. A general scheme of
national education — of education, not merely in
the elements of literature, but in the useful handi-
crafts, arts, and sciences ; and still more in habits
of moral discipline, of self-control, of benevolent
sympathy, and virtuous conduct, is indispensable,
as was observed at the commencement of this
volume, to enable a community even to make the
best use of the economical resources they have at

CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. 457

their disposal, and certainly to secure to them that
happiness which no abundance of physical enjoy-
ments will afford, so long as the moral temper is
in a diseased state.

The tendency of public opinion at present de
cidedly points towards such an object. Nor will
it, we trust, be long before steps are taken for its
attainment by those who have the power to carry
into effect the measures of great public benefit
which they may be willing to introduce. Reform
in our moral will then accompany — we do not
agree with a respected fellow-labourer in the good
cause, that it must necessarily precede* — the re-
form of our economical condition. Both may
well make progress together, each aiding and
accelerating the advance of the other — both con-
spiring to the same great end — the enlargement
of the sphere of human happiness.

* Dr. Chalmers, on the Expediency of a good Moral pre-
ceding a good Economical Condition of Society. Edinburgh,
1833.

THE END.

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