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a people their industry will be increased in the same proportion, unless their forces are exceeded, and then the operation is indeed very different.

It follows, from this, that both rent and taxes, to a certain degree, increase the wealth of a people, by augmenting their industry. As rent is not compulsive, it never can in general be carried beyond the point that augmented industry will bear; but taxes are not either regulated by the industry of the individual, or of the community; they may therefore be carried too far, and when they are, the people become degraded, disheartened, their independent spirit is lost and broken, and industry, in place of increasing, as it did in the first stages of taxation, flies away.

The government, in this case, generally becomes more severe, and certainly more obnoxious. The broken spirit of the people makes submission a matter of course, so that there is no effectual resistance made to its power. Incapacity to pay comes at last, and defeats the end; but, between incapacity and resistance, the difference is very wide.

As calculators have been predicting the moment of a total stoppage to the increase of revenue for nearly half a century; as ministers, themselves, have never ventured to lay on a new burthen, except when forced to it by necessity. {92} As taxes have been laid on at random, in a manner similar to that in which the streets and houses of old cities were built, without regularity or design, and as the effects predicted have not taken place, it is fair to conclude, that the subject is not well understood. If it were, the evil would be in the way to be obviated; but still the conclusion would be the same, that increased taxation tends to bring on discontent, and to drive men and capital from a country. The degree of tendency, and the rapidity of its operations, are a question; but respecting the tendency itself there can be no question.

Two things more are to be observed, relative to the effects of taxation, as tending towards decline. The first is, that the taxes are levied by and expended on men, who, having income only for their lives,

—- {92} Mr. Pitt seems an exception to this; but the establishment of a sinking fund, at the end of the war, was as necessary for his administration as any of the loans, during the war, were for Lord North; and both measures required new taxes. -=-

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generally leave families in distress. Those who lose their parents when young are often left destitute, and those who are farther advanced are frequently ruined by being educated and accustomed to a rank in life that they are not able to support. This is a very great evil, and is renewed as it were every generation. As the revenues of a country increase, this evil increases also: for, except what goes to the proprietors of money in the stocks, all the public revenue, very nearly, goes to people whose income perishes with themselves. To begin with those who collect the taxes, custom-house officers, excise men, collectors, and clerks of every rank and demonination sic, there is not one in ten who does not die in indigence; and if he leaves a family, he leaves it in distress.

It is no doubt the lot of the great bulk of mankind, that is to say, the labouring part of the community in every country, to leave children unprovided for; but then they are left in a rank of society that does not prevent their going to work or to service, which is not the case with the vast number left by those who enjoy, during life, a genteel and easy existence under government.

The education of such persons is either neglected entirely, or ill fitted for the line of life into which they are to go. If the sum-total of human vice and misery was to be divided into shares, and if it were calculated how much fell to each person, there is not a doubt but at least a double portion would fall to the lot of those unfortunate persons who are left by parents enjoying offices for life; who are generally obliged to expend their income as they earn it. As, according to the natural chance of things, a number of such persons must leave young families, the seeds of misery are continually sowing a-fresh, to the great detriment of society. This evil depends in a great degree upon the habits and nature of the people, which augment or diminish it; and, in commercial nations, the evil is far the greatest. Where commerce does not flourish, persons belonging to the revenue-department are seldom highly paid, and they by no means consider themselves as a class of persons distinguished above the general run, or obliged to live more expensively; but, in a manufacturing country, to live without working, implies a degree of gentility that is extremely ruinous to those who enjoy that fatal and flimsy pre-eminence. [end of page #109]

A manufacturer, who is getting a thousand pounds a year, will, perhaps, not assume so much importance as a man in office who does not get one hundred pounds; and the former, as well as his family, knowing that they are beholden to industry for what they have, do not think themselves above following it. {93}

Unfortunately, it also happens, that, in all sorts of occupation where trust is reposed and punctuality required, more than in ordinary business, it is rather late in life before those employed rise to situations of considerable emolument. When they are old, their families are generally young; thus it is, that the persons who are the most unfit to marry late in life are generally those who do so. This order of things cannot easily be changed. In the rate of payments governments are regulated by the service done, and by the dependence that can be placed on the person employed, who, on the other hand, follows the natural propensities of human nature. When young, and on a small allowance, a revenue-officer remains single; but when it is necessary to become serious, attentive, and confidential, and when he finds he has the means, he betakes himself to a domestic life, which is the most natural to men arrived at a certain time of life, and the best fitted for those who are to be depended upon for the correctness of their conduct. It is impossible to prevent this natural state of things; and if let go uncorrected, if not counteracted, the consequences are very pernicious. It is to this, in a great measure, the augmentation of vice and mendicity sic is to be attributed in nations, as they become wealthy and great.

Perhaps more depends upon the manner of taxation than the amount; at least it certainly is so in all countries where the amount is not very high. In America, for example, the amount is of no importance; the manner might be of very pernicious consequence. In France, before the revolution, the taxes were more oppressive, from the manner of levying them than from their amount. The same thing might be said

—- {93} This is a very important part of the consideration; but, as education and it are connected, and that comes into the Fourth Book =sic—there is none.=, the whole consideration is left till then; not only the national prosperity is injured, but the feelings of humanity are hurt, and the sum of human misery increased by this consequence. -=-

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of almost every country in Europe, England and Holland excepted. At present, the case is greatly altered, in many countries, by the increase: yet, still, one of the principal evils arises from the manner of levying the taxes; the restraints imposed by them, the inconveniency, the vexation, and, finally, the misery and ruin they, in many cases, occasion.

Of all the examples, where taxation contributed most to the fall of a country, Rome is the greatest. The luxury of the imperial court, and the expenses of a licentious and disorderly army, added to the ignorance of the subject, rendered the taxes every way burthensome. From the fall of Rome, to the time of Louis XIV. the splendour of courts, and their expenses, were objects of no great importance. We are but lately arrived at a new aera in taxation; for, though taxation has been the occasion of much discontent at all times, it was carried to no considerable length, in any country in Europe, except in Spain and Holland, till within this last century.

Indeed, when we consider the great noise that has often been made about raising an inconsiderable sum, it is impossible not to be astonished at the reluctance with which people pay taxes, when they feel that they are paying them, and are not accustomed to the feeling.

Taxation is, then, to the feelings of men, disagreeable; to their manners hurtful; they are also, in their operation, to a certain degree, inimical to liberty. The ultimate consequence of this is, that persons and property have both of them a tendency to quit a country where taxes are high, and to go to one, where, with the same means, there may be more enjoyment.

Taxes may be called a rent paid for living in a country, and operate exactly like the rent of houses or land, or rent for any thing else; that is, they make the tenant remove to a cheaper place, unless he finds advantages where he is to counterbalance the expense.

Unfortunately, the persons who have the greatest disposition to quit a country that is heavily taxed are those, who, having a certain income, which they cannot increase, wish to enjoy it with some degree of economy. They are, likewise, the persons who can remove with the greatest [end of page #111] facility. Thus, people whose income is in money are always the first to quit a country that is become too dear to live in with comfort.

Many circumstances may favour or counteract this tendency, such as the difficulty of finding an agreeable place to retire to, where the money will be secure, or the interest regularly paid; but, an inquiry into that will come more properly when we examine the external causes of decline.

Though the increase of taxes, by augmenting the expense of living, and of the necessaries of life, is little felt by the labouring class, their wages rising in proportion; yet a most disastrous effect is produced on the fine arts, and on all productions of which the price does not bear a proportional rise.

Where taxes are high, and luxury great, there must be some persons who have a great deal of ostentation, even if they have little taste. A picture or a jewel of great value will, very certainly, find a purchaser, but that will only serve as a motive for bringing the fine painting from another country, where the necessaries of life are cheaper, and where men enjoy that careless ease which is incompatible with a high state of taxation.

When Rome became luxurious, to the highest pitch, there were neither poets, painters, nor historians, bred within its walls; buffoons and fiddlers could get more money than philosophers, and they had more saleable talents. Had Virgil not found an Augustus, had he lived three centuries later, he must either have written ballads and lampoons, or have starved; otherwise he must have quitted Italy.

When Rome was full of luxury, and commanded the world and its wealth, there was not an artist in it capable of executing the statues of its victorious generals. {94}

Some Greek island, barren and bare, would breed artists capable of making ornaments for imperial Rome.

—- {94} They were obliged to cut the heads off from ancient statues, as their artists were only sufficiently expert to carve the drapery of the body. -=-

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It is an easy matter, in a rich country, to pay for a fine piece of art, But a difficult matter to find a price for the bringing up a fine artist. {95}

The fine arts have not, indeed, any intimate or immediate connection with the wealth or strength of a nation. The balance of trade has never been greatly increased by the exportation of great masterpieces of art, nor have nations been subdued by the powers of oratory; but the knowledge and the arts, by which wealth and greatness are obtained, follow in the train of the finer performances of human genius.

Where money becomes the universal agent, where it is impossible to enjoy ease or comfort for a single day without it, it becomes an object of adoration, as it were. To despise gold, which purchases all things, is reckoned a greater crime than to despise him to whose bounty we are indebted for all things; consequently, ambition, without which there never is excellence, is, at an early period of life, bent towards the gaining a fortune. A man, indeed, must either be of a singularly odd and obstinate disposition, or very indifferent about the opinion of others, and even about the good things of this world, (as they are termed,) to persevere in obtaining perfection in science or art, while without bread, when he might, with a tenth part of the care and study, live in affluence, and get money from day to day. There are few such obstinate fools; and without them, in a wealthy country, there can be found few men profound in science, or excelling in any of the arts.

The augmentation of taxes, by rendering the produce of industry dearer than in other countries, tends to cut off a nation of that de-

—- {95} This is liable to some exceptions. Natural genius may make a man excel; but, even then, it is ten to one if he is not compelled to labour in order to get bread, in place of trying to obtain fame. It was thus the great Dr. Johnson, with a genius that might have procured him immortal fame, drudged, during life, on weekly or daily labours, which will soon be forgotten. Even his dictionary, wonderful as it is for a single man, is not worthy of the English nation, and Johnson's name is little known beyond the limits of his own country. His genius was great, but his labours were little. His mind was in fetters; it was Sampson grinding at the mill to amuse the Philistines; not Sampson slaying lions, and putting to flight armies. -=-

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scription, from the markets in poorer countries. If all other countries are poorer; and the taxes lower; it has a tendency to shut it out from all the markets in the world.

An operation, that, at the same time that it renders people less happy, less contented, and more indifferent to the fate of their country, and at the same time tends to shut them out from foreign markets, is certainly very hurtful to any country, but particularly so to one, the greatness of which is founded on manufactures and commerce.

It would be useless to enlarge on so self-evident a consequence; yet, even in this case, we shall find something of that mixture of good, along with the bad, which is to be found in all human things.

As exertion originates in necessity or want, which it removes, taxation has the effect of prolonging the operation of necessity, after it would otherwise have ceased, and of rendering its pressure greater than it otherwise would be; the consequence of this is a greater and larger continued exertion on the part of those who have to pay the taxes. Human exertion, either in the way of invention or of industry, is like a spring that is pressed upon, and gains strength according to the pressure, until a certain point, when it gives way entirely.

Those investigators, who have calculated the effect of such and such a degree of taxation, of national debt, &c. have all erred, in not making any, or a sufficient, allowance for the action of this elastic power. Mr. Hume and Mr. Smith, certainly, both of them, men of profound research, have erred completely in this. The former, in calculating the ultimatum of exertion, at a point which we have long since passed; and, the latter, in reasoning on the taxation at the time he wrote, as if nearly the utmost degree, though it has since trebled, and the difficulty in paying seems to be diminished; at least it appears not to have augmented.

To fix the point at which this can stop is not, indeed, very easy; particularly, as the value of gold and silver, which are the measures of other values, do themselves vary. Thus, for example, a working man can, with his day's wages, purchase as much bread and beer as he could have done with it forty years ago. Though the national debt [end of page #114] is five times as great as it was then, at the present price of bread, it would not take twice the number of loaves to pay it that it would have required at that time.

The depreciation of money, then, as well as the continuation and augmented pressure of necessity, counteract, to a certain degree, and for a certain time, the natural tendency of taxes; but that counteraction, though operating in all cases, in its degree and duration, must depend upon particular circumstances; and though, perhaps, it cannot be, with much accuracy, ascertained in any case, it is impossible to attempt resolving the question in a general way; we shall, therefore, return to the subject, when we apply the general principles to the particular situation of England.

One conclusion, however, is, that as taxes, carried to a great extent, are very dangerous, though not so if only carried to a certain point; as that point cannot be ascertained, it ought to be a general rule to lay on as few taxes as possible; and the giving as little trouble and derangement to the contributor as may be, is also another point, with respect to which there cannot be two different opinions. [end of page #115]



CHAP. IV.

Of the interior Causes of Decline, arising from the Encroachments of public and privileged Bodies, and of those who have a common Interest; on those who have no common Interest. {96}

From the moment that any particular form of government or order is established in a nation, there must be separate and adverse interests; or, which is the same thing, bodies acting in opposition to each other, and seeking their own power and advantage at the expense of the rest.

In a country where the executive government is under no sufficient control, its strides to arbitrary power are well known; but, in a government poised like that of England, where there are deliberative bodies, with different interests, acting separately, and interested in keeping each other and the executive in check, it is not from the government that much danger is to be apprehended.

It is not meant to dwell on this particular part of the subject. As those governed hold a check on the executive power, which alone can be supposed to profit by oppression, there is a means of defence, in the first instance, and of redress, in the second, which diminishes greatly, if it does not entirely do away all danger from encroachment.

Another thing to be said about this government is, that government and the subject never come into opposition with each other, except where there is law or precedent to determine between them.

The danger, then, of encroachment on that side, is not very great, and it is the less so in this country, that, when there have been contests, they have always ended in favour of the people; whereas, in most

—- {96} The public certainly has a common interest, but it feels it not, and even those who have separate interests make part of that very public.—This will be exemplified, in a variety of instances, in the course of the present chapter. -=-

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other countries, they have terminated in favour of the executive power.

It is not so, however, with many other of the component parts of society. Those deliberating bodies, who have separate interests, and all those who live, as it were, on the public, and have what they call, in France, l'esprit du corps, for which we have no proper expression, though it may be defined to be those who have a common interest, a fellow feeling, and the means of acting in concert, are much more dangerous.

In nations where the executive power has no control, the progress of public bodies is less dangerous than where the power of the king is limited. It is always the interest of the sovereign, who monopolises all power, and those around him, to prevent any man, or body of men, from infringing on the liberty of the subject, or becoming rivals, by laying industry under contribution, so we find that, in every such nation, the clergy excepted, all public bodies are kept under proper subjection. {97}

—- {97} In all countries, those who have the care of religious matters must necessarily have some control over the minds of the people, which they can to a certain degree turn either to a good or a bad purpose. It is, therefore, impossible that the government and clergy can, for any length of time, act in opposition to each other: one or other of the two must soon fall, and there have been instances of the triumph of each. We have sometimes seen kings triumph over the clergy, but not very often; and we have frequently seen governments overturned by their means: except, therefore, in a state of revolution, they must mutually support each other. This is the natural state of things; but, in Roman Catholic countries, priests have a superior sway to what they have in any other, for several reasons that are very obvious. In the first place, the sovereign of the nation is not the head of the church; and, in the second, by means of a very superior degree of art and attention, during the dark ages, when the laity were sunk in ignorance, the catholic clergy contrived to entail the church property, from generation to generation, upon the whole body: at the same time, enjoining celibacy, by which all chance of alienation, even of personal property, was done away. As to the means of acquiring property, and of augmenting it; they were many, and, in every contest with the secular authority, they had a great advantage, by speaking, as it were, through ten thousand mouths at once, and giving the alarm to the consciences of the weak. In countries where the protestant religion has been established, the case is widely different. Gothic darkness was nearly fled before the reformation: besides this, the clergy are like other men, with regard to the manner of living; they are fathers and husbands, and, as such, liable to have all the property that is their own alienated, as much as any other set of men [end of page #117] whatever. The reformers, who were neither destitute of penetration nor zeal, and who knew all the abuses of the church of Rome, in matters of regulation as well as of opinion, were very careful to settle the new order of things on such a plan, as to be free from the evils which they had experienced, and against which they had risen with such energy and zeal. -=-

The simple state of the case is, that the interest of the people is that of the sovereign; and, except in cases where there is a profound ignorance of what is good for the nation, every wise sovereign takes the part of the people. But, under a limited monarchy, or in a democracy, the case is different. There, those bodies, which an arbitrary monarch would reduce to obedience at once, stand upon prerogative themselves; they form a band in the legislature, and act true to their own interests; so that the sovereign himself is compelled to admit of abuses, which he is willing but not able to remedy.

It is a great mistake, and one of the greatest into which people have of late been apt to run, that the government and people of a country are of opposite interests; and that governments wish to oppress the people, and rob them of the means of being affluent and happy: the very contrary is the case; all enlightened monarchs have acted quite differently.

Alfred the Great, Edward III. Queen Elizabeth, and nearly all her successors have endeavoured to increase the wealth and happiness of the people in England. Henry IV. of France, even Louis XIV. Peter the Great of Russia, Catherine, and indeed all his successors, as also the Kings of Prussia, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and other sovereigns, who know how to shew their disposition, have tried to enrich their people, and render them happy. The great study of the English government has always been directed to that end, and the Romans extended their care even to the nations they subdued. Though there are many sovereigns who have not known how to do this, and therefore have either not attempted it, or erred in the mode they have taken; yet, with very few exceptions indeed, sovereigns have been found to wish for the prosperity of the nations over which they ruled.

In all human institutions there is much that is bad, and something [end of page #118] that is good; and the best, as well as the worst, are only combinations of good and evil, differing in the proportions. In mixt governments, or in limited governments, the people can defend their rights better against the sovereign than against those bodies that spring up amongst themselves: whereas, in pure monarchies, they have only to guard against the encroachments of the sovereign; and he will take care to prevent them from being oppressed by any other power.

This tendency to destruction, from encroachments of public bodies in established governments, is more to be dreaded in limited monarchies, and in democracies, than in pure monarchies; but we have had little occasion to observe the progress in governments of the former sort, excepting the clergy, though the military and the nobles generally play their part.

In Rome, the military never were dangerous, while the armies were only raised, like militias, for the purpose of a particular war; but, when they became a standing body, they were the proximate efficient cause of destroying liberty, though this was only the prelude to that decline which afterwards took place.

In limited monarchies, the lawyers are the greatest body, from which this sort of danger arises, and the reasons are numerous and evident.

United in interest, and constantly occupied in studying the law of the country, while the public at large are occupied on a variety of different objects, and without any bond of union, there can be nothing more natural than that they should contrive to render the business which they alone can understand, of as much importance and profit as possible.

In the criminal law of the country, where the king is the prosecutor, and where the lawyers are not interested in multiplying expense or embarrassment, our laws are administered with admirable attention; though, perhaps, in some cases, they are blamed for severity, they are justly admired over the world for their mode of administration.

It is very different in cases of property, or civil actions, where it is man against man, and where both solicitor and council sic are interested in the intricacy of the case. Here, indeed, the public is so glaringly imposed upon, that it would be almost useless to dwell on the sub-[end of page #119] ject, and, as a part of the plan of this work is to offer, or point out, a remedy, it may be sufficient, in this case, to go over the business once, and leave the examples till the relief is proposed.

At present, it is, however, necessary to shew why, as things are constituted in mixed governments like this, no remedy is to be had. The public only acts by representatives; and, in the House of Lords, the law-lords, who have l'esprit du corps, may easily contrive to manage every thing. One or two noblemen excepted, no one either has, or pretends to have sufficient knowledge to argue or adjust a point of law. Indeed, it is no easy matter to do so with effect, for, besides that, the law-lords have ministers on their side, or, which is the same thing, are on the side of ministers, the speaker is himself at the head of the law. The other members who look up to the law-lords, and who are generally very few in number on a law-question, generally give their assent. In the House of Commons, in which there are a number of lawyers, they are still less opposed. The country gentlemen profess ignorance. They think that to watch money-bills, the privileges of the house, the general interests of the nation, roads, canals, and inclosures, is their province. The mercantile, and other interests, composed of men getting money with great rapidity, consider the abuses of law as not to them of much importance; they do not feel the inconvenience, and have neither time nor inclination to study the subject. {98}

The prerogative of the king to refuse his assent, might, perhaps, be expected to come in as a protection, but here there is least of all any thing to be expected. In the first place, it is thought to be wise never to use that prerogative, and, in the second place, the lord-high-chancellor is the king's guide in every thing of the sort, insomuch, that he is styled the keeper of the king's conscience.

With power, influence, and interest on one side, and nothing to oppose it on the other, (for the common proverb is true, as all common

—- {98} The law is the widest, and the shortest, and the nearest road to a peerage. A Howe, Nelson, and St. Vincent, play a game, partly of skill, and partly of chance, for title; they must have luck and opportunity. The others are sure with fewer competitors to have more prizes. -=-

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proverbs are, that what is every body's business is nobody's,) the lawyers must encroach on the public, and they have done so to a most alarming degree.

In this case, it is not, as in others, where the great cut out work for and employ the small. No. The great generally (indeed almost always) begin with the advice and by the means of an attorney, who is only supposed to understand law-practice. The proceeding does not originate with the council, who could form some judgment of the justice of the case, so that a mean petty-fogging attorney may, for a trifle, which he puts into his own pocket, ruin two ignorant and honest men; he may set the ablest council to work, and occupy, for a time, the courts of justice, to the general interruption of law, and injury of the public.

This is, perhaps, one of the greatest and most crying evils in the land, and calls out the most loudly for redress, as the effects are very universal. In a commercial country, so many interests clash, and there are such a variety of circumstances, that the vast swarms of attorneys, who crowd the kingdom, find no difficulty in misleading one of the parties, and that is the cause of most law-suits.

As commercial wealth increases the evil augments, not in simple proportion, but in a far more rapid progression; first, in proportion to the wealth and gain to be obtained, and, secondly, according to the opportunities which augment with the business done.

In addition to the real dead expense, the loss of time, the attention, and the misfortune and misery occasioned by the law, are terrible evils; and, if ever the moment comes, that a general dissatisfaction prevails, it will be the law that will precipitate the evil.

The mildness of the civil laws in France, and the restraints under which lawyers are held, served greatly to soften the rigours of the revolution for the first two years. Had they possessed the power and the means they do in England, the revolution must have become much more terrible than it was at the first outset.

The lawyers owe all their power to the nature of the government. An arbitrary monarch will have no oppressor but himself, but here the [end of page #121] different interests are supposed to be poised; and when they are, all goes right, but, when they happen not to be so, the most active interest carries the day.

Though the law is the greatest of those bodies that is of a different interest from the public at large, yet there are some others deserving notice, and requiring reformation. It is the interest of all those who are connected with government to do away abuses that tend to endanger its security, or diminish its resources.

As the public revenue is all derived from those who labour, and as it can come from no other persons, if the prosperity and happiness of the subject were a mere matter of indifference, which it cannot be supposed to be; still it would be an object for government to preserve his resources undiminished. It was our lot, in another chapter, to mention the enormous increase of the poor's rate, which was in part attributed to the general increase of wealth; mal-administration is, however, another cause, and, the public is the more to be pitied, that the parish-officers defend their conduct against their constituents at the expense of their constituents.

In an inquiry after truth, it should be spoken without fear of offending; and, in this case, though the feelings of Englishmen may, perhaps, be hurt, and their pride wounded, it must be allowed, that if it were not for the mock-democratical form of administrating sic the funds for the maintenance of the poor, they would never suffer the extortion, and the bare-faced iniquities that are committed. {99} The ship- money, the poll-tax, the taxes on the Americans, and others, that have caused so much bloodshed and strife, never amounted to one-tenth, if all added together, of what the English public pays to be applied to maintain the poor, and administered by rude illiterate men, who render scarcely any account, and certainly, in general, evade all regular control. Those administrators, though chosen by the people, always, while in office, imbibe l'esprit du corps, and make a common cause.

—- {99} In Brabant and Flanders the people were very jealous of their liberties. They were, however, most terribly oppressed by the churchmen and lawyers. -=-

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The repairs of highways, bridges, streets, and expenses of police in general; whatever falls on parishes, towns, or counties, in the form of a tax or rate, is generally ill-administered, and the wastefulness increases with wealth. The difficulty of controling or redressing those evils proceeds from the same spirit pervading all the separate administrations. Government alone can remedy this; and it is both the interest and duty of the government to keep a strict watch over every body of men that has an interest separate from that of the public at large. Similar to the human body, which becomes stiff and rigid with age, so, as states get older, regulation upon regulation, and encroachment on encroachment, add friction and difficulty to the machine, till its force is overcome, and the motion stops. In the human body, if no violent disease intervenes, age occasions death. In the body politic, if no accidental event comes to accelerate the effect, it brings on a revolution; hence, as a nation never dies, it throws off the old grievances, and begins a new career.

The tendency that all laws and regulations have to become more complicated, and that all bodies, united by one common interest, have to encroach on the general weal, are known from the earliest periods; but we have no occasion to go back to early periods for a proof of that in this country. As wealth increases, the temptation augments, and the resistance decreases. The wealthy part of society are scarcely pressed upon by the evils, and they love ease too well to trouble themselves with fighting the battles of the public. Those who are engaged in trade are too much occupied to spare time; and, if they were not, they neither in general know how to proceed, nor have they any fund at their disposal, from which to draw the necessary money for expenditure.

It sometimes happens, that an individual, from a real public spirit, or from a particular humour or disposition, or, perhaps, because he has been severely oppressed, musters sufficient courage to undertake the redress of some particular grievance; but, unless he is very fortunate, and possesses both money and abilities, it is generally the ruin of his peace, if not of his fortune. He finds himself at once beset with a host of enemies, who throw every embarrassment in his way: his friends [end of page #123] may admire and pity, but they very seldom lend him any assistance. If some progress is made in redressing the grievance, it is generally attended with such consequences to the individual, as to deter others from undertaking a similar cause. Thus the incorporated body becomes safe, and goes on with its encroachments with impunity.

Much more may be said upon this subject; but, as it is rather one of which the operation is regulated by particular circumstances, than by general rules, the object being to apply the result of the inquiry to England, we shall leave it till we come to the application of it to that country, only observing, that the church, the army, and the law, are the three bodies universally and principally to be looked to as dangerous; and each of them according to the situation and the form of government of the respective countries, though, in England, the church has less means than in any country in Europe of extending its revenues or power, the law and corporate bodies the most; and, under arbitrary governments, the church and the military have the most, and the law and corporate bodies little or none. [end of page #124]



CHAP. V.

Of the internal Causes of Decline, arising from the unequal Division of Property, and its Accumulation in the Hands of particular Persons.— Its Effects on the Employment of Capital.

In every country, the wealth that is in it has a natural tendency to accumulate in the hands of certain individuals, whether the laws of the society do or do not favour that accumulation. Although it has been observed in a former chapter that wealth follows industry, and flies from the son of the affluent citizen to the poor country boy, yet that is only the case with wealth, the possessor of which requires industry to keep it; for, where wealth has been obtained, so as to be in the form of land or money at interest, this is no longer the case. {100}

In America, and in countries that are new, or in those of which the inhabitants have been sufficiently hardy, and rash to overturn every ancient institution, precautions have been taken against the accumulation of too much wealth in the hands of one person, or at least to discourage and counteract it; but, in old nations, where we do not chuse sic to run such risks, the case is different. The natural vanity of raising a family, the means that a rich man has to accumulate, the natural chance of wealth accumulating by marriages, and many other circumstances, operate in favour of all those rich men, who are freed from risk, and independent of industry. In some cases, extravagance dissipates wealth, but the laws favour accumulation of landed property, and counteract extravagance; the advantages are in favour of all the wealthy in general, and the consequence is, that from the first origin of any particular order of things, till some convulsion takes place, the division of property becomes more and more unequal.

Far from counteracting this by the laws of the land, in all those

—- {100} Amongst the Romans, in early times, property in land was by law to be equally divided; but that absurd law was never strictly attended to, and when the country became wealthy was totally set aside. -=-

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countries, the governments of which took strength during this feudal system, there are regulations leading greatly to accelerate the progress. The law of primogeniture has this effect; and the law of entails, both immoral and impolitic in its operation, has a still greater tendency.

These laws only extend to agricultural property; but commerce, which at first tends to disseminate wealth, in the end, has the same effect of accumulating it in private hands.

Industry, art, and intelligence, are, in the early ages, the spring of commerce; but, as machinery and capital become necessary, a set of persons rise up who engross all the great profits, and amass immense fortunes. {101}

The consequence of great fortunes, and the unequal division of property, are, that the lower ranks, though expensively maintained, become degraded, disorderly, and uncomfortable, while the middling classes disappear by degrees. Discontent pervades the great mass of the people, and the supporters of the government, though powerful, are too few in number, and too inefficient in character to preserve it from ruin.

The proprietors of land or money should never be so far raised above the ordinary class of the people as to be totally ignorant of their manner of feeling and existing, or to lose sight of the connection between industry and prosperity; for, whenever they do, the industrious are oppressed, and wealth vanishes. {102}

It requires not much knowledge, and little love of justice, to see that there must be gradations in society, which, instead of diminishing, increase the general happiness of mankind; but when we

—- {101} Invention has nearly the same effect in commerce that the introduction of gunpowder and artillery have on the art of war. Wealth is rendered more necessary to carry them on. Every new improvement that is made, in either the personal strength and energy of man becomes of less importance.

{102} Some of the greatest proprietors in this kingdom, much to their honour, are the most exemplary men in it, with respect to their conduct to their tenantry; but though the instances are honourable and splendid, they are not general; nor is it in the nature of things that they can be general. In France, matters were in general different; and the inattention of the nobility to their duty was one cause of the revolution; they had forgot, that, if they neglected or oppressed the industrious, they must ruin themselves. -=-

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find that the chance of being born half an hour sooner or later makes one man the proprietor of 50,000 acres and another little better than a beggar; when we consider that, by means of industry, he never may be able to purchase a garden to grow cabbages for his family, it loosens our attachment to the order of things we see before us, it hurts our ideas of moral equity. A man of reflection wishes the evil to be silently counteracted, and if he is violent, and has any disposition to try a change, it furnishes him with arguments and abettors.

When the Romans (with whose history we are tolerably well acquainted) {103} grew rich, the division of property became very unequal, and the attachment of the people for their government declined, the middle classes lost their importance, and the lower orders of free citizens became a mere rabble. When Rome was poor, the people did not cry for bread, but when the brick buildings were turned into marble palaces, when a lamprey was sold for fifty-six pounds, {104} the people became a degraded populace, not much better, or less disorderly than the Lazzeroni of Naples. A donation of corn was a bribe to a Roman citizen; {105} though there is not, perhaps, an order of peasantry in the most remote corner of Europe, who would consider such a donation in ordinary times as an object either worthy of clamour or deserving of thanks. {106}

The Romans, at the time when Cincinatus held the plough, and the conquerors of nations roasted their own turnips, would have thought themselves degraded by eating bread obtained by such means; but it was different with the Romans after they had conquered the world.

In a more recent example, we may trace a similar effect, arising from a cause not very different.

—- {103} We know better about the laws and manners of the Romans 2000 years ago, in the time of the first Punic War, than about those of England, in the time of Henry the Fourth. They had fixed laws, their state was young, and the division of property tolerably equal.

{104} See Arbuthnot on Coins.

{105} Do not the soup-shops of late invention, and certainly well intended, bear some resemblance to these days of Roman wretchedness and magnificence.

{106} It is to be observed, these donations were not on account of scarcity, but to save the people from the trouble of working to earn the corn; they were become idle in body and degraded in mind. -=-

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The unequal division of property in France was one of the chief causes of the revolution; the intention of which was, to overturn the then existing order of things. The ignorance of the great proprietors concerning of their true interests, and the smallness of their numbers, disabled them from protecting themselves. The middle orders were discontented, and wished for a change; and the lower orders were so degraded, that, at the first signal, they became as mutinous and as mean as the Plebians at Rome, in the days of its splendor. {107}

That this was not alone owing to the unequal division of property is certain, there were other causes, but that was a principal one. As a proof that this was so in England, where property is more equally divided than it was in France, the common people are more attached to government, and of a different spirit, though they are changing since the late great influx of wealth into this country, and since difficulties which have accumulated on the heads of the middle orders, while those who have large fortunes feel a greater facility of augmenting them than at any former period.

In those parts of this country, where wealth has made the least progress, the character of the people supports itself the best amongst the lower classes; and the inverse progress of that character, and of the acquisition of wealth, is sufficiently striking to be noticed by one who is neither a very near, nor a very nice observer.

Discontent and envy rise arise from comparison; and, where they become prevalent, society can never stand long. They are enemies to fair industry.

Whatever may have been the delusive theories into which ill- intentioned, designing, and subtile men have sometimes deluded the great mass of the people, they have never been successful, except when they could fight under the appearance of justice, and thereby create discontent. The unequal division of property has frequently served them in this case.

—- {107} The Parisian populace were the instruments in the hand of those who destroyed the former government, as the regular army is in the hands of him who has erected that which now exists. -=-

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while it increased the ignorance, and diminished the number of the enemies they had to encounter.

As this evil has arisen to a greater height in countries which have had less wealth in the aggregate than England, it is not the most dangerous thing we have to encounter; but, as the tendency to it increases very rapidly of late years, we must, by no means, overlook it. A future Chapter will be dedicated to the purpose of inquiring how this may be counteracted in some cases, in others modified and disguised, so as to prevent, in some degree, the evil effects that naturally arise from it.

Of all the ways in which property accumulates, in particular hands, the most dangerous is landed property; not only on account of entails, and the law of primogeniture, (which attach to land alone,) but because it is the property the most easily retained, the least liable to be alienated, and the only one that augments in value in a state that is growing rich.

An estate in land augments in value, without augmenting in extent, when a country becomes richer. A fortune, lent at interest, diminishes, as the value of money sinks. A fortune engaged in trade is liable to risks, and requires industry to preserve it: but industry, it has been observed, never is to be found for any great length of time in any single line of men; consequently, there are few great monied men, except such as have acquired their own fortunes, and those can never be very numerous nor overgrown.

Besides our having facts to furnish proofs that there are no very great fortunes, except landed fortunes; it can scarcely have escaped the notice of any one, that no other gives such umbrage, or shews the inferiority men sic who have none so much. {108}

That there is a perpetual tendency to the accumulation of property, in the hands of individuals, is certain; for, amongst the nations

—- {108} If a man has wealth, in any other form, it is only known by the expenditure he makes, and it is quickly diminished by mismanagement; but the great landed estate, which is seldom well attended to, is mismanaged to the public detriment without ruin to the proprietor. -=-

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of Europe, those who are the most ancient, exhibit the most striking contrasts of poverty and riches.

Nations obtaining wealth by commerce are less liable to this danger than any others; at least we are led to believe so, from the present situation of things: we are, perhaps, however, not altogether right in the conclusion.

In France there were, and in Germany, Russia, and Poland, there are some immense fortunes, though general wealth is not nearly equal to that of England: so much for a comparison between nations of the present day. Again, it is certain, there were some fortunes in England, in the times of the Plantagenets and Tudors, much greater than any of the present times. {109} England was not then near so wealthy as it is now, and had very little commerce: it would then appear, that whether we compare England with what it was before it became a wealthy and commercial nation, or with other nations, at the present time, which are not wealthy, commerce and riches appear to have operated in dividing riches, and making that division more equal, rather than in rendering their accumulation great in particular hands, and their distribution unequal.

Before we are too positive about the cause, though we admit this effect, let us inquire whether there are not some other circumstances that are peculiar to the present situation of England, that may, if not wholly, at least in part, account for it.

The form of government in England is different from that of any of those countries. It is also different in its nature, though not in its form, from what it was under the Plantagenets and Tudors. Court favour cannot enrich a family in this country, and the operation of the law is tolerably equal. As neither protection, nor rank, in this country, raise a man above the rest of society, so the richest subject is obliged to obtain, by his expenditure, that consideration which he would ob-

—- {109} Two centuries ago, land was sold for twelve years purchase, and the rents are five times as great as they were then; 10,000 L. employed in buying land then would now produce 5000 L. a year. Had the same money been lent, at interest, it would but produce 500 L. The land, too, would sell for 140,000 L. The monied capital would remain what it was. -=-

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tain by other means, under another form of government, {110} and he is as much compelled to pay his debts as any other man.

It is not, however, the great wealth of one individual, or even of a few individuals, that is an object of consideration. It will be found that the great number of persons, who live upon revenues, sufficiently abundant to exempt them from care and attention, and to enable them to injure the manners of the people, (being above the necessity of economy, feeling none of its wants, and contributing nothing by their own exertion to its wealth or strength,) is a very great evil, and one that tends constantly to increase.

But if this progress goes on, while a nation is acquiring wealth, how much faster does it not proceed when it approaches towards its decline? It is, then, indeed, that the extremes of poverty and riches are to be seen in the most striking degree.

The higher classes can never be made to contribute their share towards the prosperity of a state; where there are no middling classes to connect the higher and lower orders, and to protect the lower orders from the power of the higher, a state must gradually decline.

It is in the middling classes that the freedom, the intelligence, and the industry of a country reside. The higher class may be very intelligent, but can never be very numerous; and being above the feeling of want, except in a few instances, (where nature has endowed the wealthy with innate good qualities,) there is nothing to be expected or obtained of them, {111} towards the general good.

From the working and laborious classes, again, little is to be expected. They fill the part assigned to them when they perform their duty to themselves and families; and they have neither leisure, nor other means of contributing to general prosperity as public men;

—- {110} In France, the richest subject under the crown was a prince of the blood, &c.

{111} In this case, the English form of government is good, because, it not only hinders any man from forgetting that he is a man, but whenever there is any ambition, no one in this country can rise above the necessity of acting with, and feeling for, their inferiors, of whom they sometimes have to ask favours, which they never do under a pure monarchy. -=-

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they, indeed, pay more than their share of taxes in almost every country; {112} but they cannot directly, even by election, participate in the government of the country.

If any number of persons engross the whole of the lands of a nation, then the labourers that live on those lands must be in a degraded situation; they then become less sound and less important members of the state than they would otherwise be.

Necessity does not act with that favourable impulse on people, where property is very unequally divided, that it does where the gradation from the state of poverty to that of riches is more regular.

As the action of the body is brought on by the effect produced on the mind; and as there is no hope of obtaining wealth where it appears very unequally divided, so also there is no exertion where there is no hope. {113}

Where there is no regular gradation of rank and division of property, emulation, which is the spur to action, when absolute necessity ceases to operate, is entirely destroyed; thus the lower classes become degraded and discouraged, as is universally found to be the case in nations that have passed their meridian; the contrary being as regularly and constantly the case with rising nations.

Besides the degradation and listlessness occasioned in the lower ranks, by an unequal distribution of property, the most agreeable, and the strongest bond of society is thereby broken. The bond that

—- {112} This is less the case in England than in any other country.

{113} It is strange how possibility, which is the mother of hope, acts upon, and controuls, the passions. Envy is generally directed to those who are but a little raised above us. They are reckoned to be madmen who envy kings, or fall in love with princesses, and, in fact, they are such, unless when they belong to the same rank themselves.

Love, for example, which is not a voluntary passion, or under the controul of reason, ought, according to the chances of things, sometimes to make a sensible and wise man become enamoured of a princess, but that never happens. It would appear, that, in order to become the object of desire, there must be a hope founded on a reasonable expectation of obtaining the object. This can be but very small in the lower classes, when they look at the overgrown rich, and have no intermediate rank to envy or emulate. -=-

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consists, in the attachment of the inferior classes, to those immediately above them. Where the distance is great, there is but little connection, and that connection is merely founded upon conveniency, not on a similarity of feeling, or an occasional interchange of good actions, or mutual services. By this means, the whole society becomes, as it were, disjointed, and if the chain is not entirely broken, it has at least lost that strength and pliability that is necessary, either for the raising a nation to greatness, or supporting it after it has risen to a superior degree of rank or power.

Amongst the causes of the decline of wealthy nations, this then is one. The great lose sight of the origin of their wealth, and cease to consider, that all wealth originates in labour, and that, therefore, the industrious and productive classes are the sinews of riches and power. The French nation, to which we have had occasion to allude already, was in this situation before the revolution. Rome was so likewise before its fall. We are not, however, to expect to find this as a principal cause in the fall of all nations; many of them fell from exterior and not interior causes. Venice, Genoa, and all the places that flourished in the middle ages, fell from other causes. Whatever their internal energy might have been, their fate could not have been altered, nor their fall prevented. The case is different with nations of which the extent is sufficiently great to protect them against the attacks of their enemies; and where the local situation is such as to secure them from a change taking place in the channels of commerce, a cause of decline which is not to be resisted by any power inherent in a nation itself.

In Spain and Portugal the internal causes are the preponderating ones, and, in some measure, though not altogether so, in Holland. If England should ever fall, internal causes must have a great share in the catastrophe. In this inquiry, then, we must consider the interior state of the country as of great importance.

When property is very unequally divided, the monied capital of a nation, upon the employment of which, next to its industry, its wealth, or revenue, depend, begins to be applied less advantageously. A preference is given to employments, by which money is got with most ease and [end of page #133] certainty, though in less quantity. A preference also is given to lines of business that are reckoned the most noble and independent.

Manufacturers aspire to become merchants, and merchants to become mere lenders of money, or agents. The detail is done by brokers, by men who take the trouble, and understand the nature of the particular branches they undertake, but who furnish no capital.

The Dutch were the greatest example of this. Independent of those great political events, which have, as it were, completed the ruin of their country, they had long ceased to give that great encouragement to manufactures, which had, at first, raised them to wealth and power in so surprising a manner. They had, in the latter times, become agents for others, rather than merchants on their own account; so that the capital, which, at one time, brought in, probably, twenty or twenty- five per cent. annually, and which had, even at a late period, produced ten or fifteen, was employed in a way that scarcely produced three.

If it were possible to employ large capitals with as much advantage, and to make them set in motion and maintain as much industry as small ones are made to do, there would scarcely be any limit to the accumulation of money in a country; but a vast variety of causes operate on preventing this.

Whatever, therefore, tends to accumulate the capital of a nation in a few hands (thereby depriving the many) not only increases luxury, and corrupts manners and morals, but diminishes the activity of the capital and the industry of the country. {114}

In all the great places that are now in a state of decay, we find families living on the interest of money, that formerly were engaged in manufactures or commerce. Antwerp, Genoa, and Venice, were full

—- {114} It is a strange fact, that when this country was not nearly so far advanced as it is now, almost all the merchants traded on their own capitals; they purchased goods, paid for them, sold them, and waited for the returns; but now it is quite different. They purchase on credit, and draw bills on those to whom they sell, and are continually obliged to obtain discounts; or, in other words, to borrow money, till the regular time of payment comes round; they may, therefore, be said to be trading with the capital of money-lenders, who afford them discount. -=-

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of such, but those persons would not have ventured a single shilling in a new enterprise. The connection between industry and revenue was lost in their ideas. They knew nothing of it, and the remnants of the industrious, who still cultivated the ancient modes of procuring wealth, were considered as an inferior class of persons, depending upon less certain means of existence, and generally greatly straitened for capital, which, as soon as they possessed in sufficient quantity, enabled them to follow the same example, and to retire to the less affluent, but more esteemed and idle practice of living upon interest.

In countries where there are nobility, the capital of the commercial world is constantly going to them, either by marriage of daughters, or by the other means, which rich people take to become noble. Even where there are no nobility, the class of citizens living without any immediate connection with trade consider themselves as forming the highest order of society, and they become the envy of the others. There appears to be no means of preventing capital, when unequally divided, from being invested in the least profitable way that produces revenue. When more equally divided, it is employed in the way that produces the greatest possible income, by setting to work and maintaining the greatest possible quantity of labour.

If there is not sufficient means of employing capital within a nation or country that has a very unequal division of wealth, there are plenty of opportunities furnished by poorer nations. Accordingly, every one of the nations, states, or towns, that has ever been wealthy, has furnished those who wanted it with capital, at a low interest. Amsterdam has lent great sums to England, to Russia, and France. The French owed a very large sum to Genoa at the beginning of the revolution. Antwerp, Cologne, and every one of the ancient, rich, and decayed towns had vested money in the hands of foreign nations, or lent to German princes, or to the great proprietors of land, on the security of their estates. The American funds found purchasers amongst the wealthy all over Europe, when they could not find any in their own states; and, it is probable, that the far greater portion of their debt is at this time in the hands of foreigners.

Thus it is that wealthy nations let the means by which the wealth [end of page #135] was acquired go out of their hands; each individual in a new state, or in an old, follows his own interest and disposition in the disposal of his property. In the new state, the individual interest and that of the country are generally the same; in the old one, they are in opposition to each other, and that opposition is greatly increased by the unequal division of property. The middling class of proprietors never seek the most profitable employment for their money; the very wealthy are always inclined to seek for good security and certain payment, without any consideration of the interest of their country.

To counteract the tendency of property to accumulate, without infringing on the rights of individuals, will be found desirable. In the Fourth Book sic—there is none., a mode of doing this shall be attentively taken into consideration.

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CHAP. VI.

Of the Interior Causes of Decline, which arise from the Produce of the Soil becoming unequal to the Sustenance of a luxurious People.— Of Monopoly.

It has already been mentioned, and we have seen, in the case of Rome and Italy, that the country which was sufficient to maintain a certain population, when the manners of the people were simple, becomes incapable of doing so, when wealth has introduced luxury.

The case of the Romans, though the most clearly ascertained of any, and the circumstances the best known, is only in part applicable to an inquiry into the effects of luxury at the present day. The nature of luxury, the nature of the wants of man, and the diffusion of that luxury, its distribution amongst the different classes, are so unlike to what they were, that the comparison scarcely holds in any single instance.

A most enormous increase of population (a forced population as it were) in a small country, together with large tracts of land converted from agriculture to the purposes of pleasure were the principal causes why Italy, in latter times, was incapable of supplying itself with corn. Wherever wealth comes in more easily and in abundance, by other means than by agriculture, that is to a certain degree neglected. To cultivate ceases to be an object where it is more easy to purchase. This certainly is, at all times, and in all places, one of the consequences of an influx of wealth, from wheresoever it comes, or by whatever means it is acquired; though, in Italy, it was felt more than perhaps in any other part of the world. The manner in which wealth comes into a nation has a great effect on the consumption of produce, owing to the description of persons into whose hands it first comes. In Rome, the wealth came into the hands of the great. The slaves and servants, though more numerous, were, perhaps, fed in the same manner with the slaves in earlier periods, though probably not with so much economy. In a manufacturing country, [end of page #137] the greatest part of the wealth comes first into the hands of the labouring people, who then live better and consume more of the produce of the earth; not by eating a greater quantity, but by eating of a different quality.

In every manufacturing or commercial country, wealth displays itself in general opulence amongst the lower orders, and the means of supplying that greater consumption is the same as it was in Rome. The money that arrives from other countries enables the community to purchase from other countries the deficiency of provisions, and prevents the evil effects from being felt at the moment.

When, in course of time, there comes to be a difficulty of obtaining the supply, from the want of produce in the country itself, then the decline begins; and as no wealth, arising either from conquest, colonies, or commerce, bears any great proportion to the daily food of a people, its effect is soon felt in a very ruinous and terrible manner.

England is the greatest country for extensive commerce that ever existed, yet the amount of the whole of its foreign trade would not do much more than furnish the people with bread, and certainly not with all the simple necessaries of life. If, therefore, a country, such as this is, were unable to furnish itself with the necessaries of life, the whole balance of trade, now in its favour, would not be sufficient to supply any considerable deficiency.

The desire of eating animal food, in place of vegetables, is very general and, amongst a people living by manufactures, will always be indulged. If the country was fully peopled, before animal food was so much used; that is, if the population was as great as the vegetable produce of the country was able to supply; as the same quantity of ground cannot feed the same number of people with animal food, there will be a necessity of importing the deficiency.

The change that this produces, when once it begins to operate, is a most powerful and effectual cause of decline; and, without the intervention of conquest, or any violent revolution, would of itself be sufficient to impoverish, in the first instance, and, in the second, to depopulate a country.

We find every country that was once wealthy, but that has fallen [end of page #138] into decline, is thinly peopled; and if it were not for the want of information, from which the cause may be traced, a deficiency of food might most probably be found to be one of the most efficient.

Flanders, which is one of the most fertile countries in Europe, and has experienced a partial decline, is probably not near so fully peopled as it once was. Its present population would not support those armies, or give it that rank amongst nations which it at one time maintained. It is true there have been persecutions and emigrations, which must have reduced the population of the country for a time, but not to an extent that would account for such a diminution in its numbers, as there is reason to think has taken place.

Ghent, a town of an amazing size, could, at one time, send out fifty thousand fighting men. It certainly could not now (that is to say, at the time the French subdued the country) have furnished one-fourth part of the number. Ghent is not the only town in this situation, the others have all fallen off in the same manner. When manufactures declined, the people did not go to live in the country, for that also is thinly inhabited, the richness of the soil being taken into consideration.

The peasants of that country lived much better than their French neighbours; they apparently brought up their children with more ease, and fed them more fully; but the country was not so populous, in proportion to its fertility.

In southern climates, where the heat of the sun is great, and vegetation difficult, unless the crop is of a nature to protect the ground from its effects, natural grass is never luxuriant; and the cattle are neither so large nor so fat as in more northerly latitudes. Corn, on the other hand, which rises to a sufficient height, before the hot season, to protect the ground from the rays of the sun, is a more profitable crop; and, indeed, the only one that could (potatoes excepted) support a great population.

In such countries, scarcely any degree of general affluence would enable the labouring classes to eat animal food. No degree of wealth, that can well be supposed, would enable the inhabitants of the southern parts of France, or of Spain, to live on butcher-meat, which, [end of page #139] if it became to be in general demand, would be dearer than poultry, or even than game. The absolute necessity of living on vegetables, or rather the absolute impossibility of contracting a habit of living on animal food, must, then, in those countries, counteract the taste, and prevent depopulation being produced by that cause.—But it is very different with more northerly countries, where it is almost a matter of indifference, in point of expense, to an individual who enjoys any degree of affluence, whether he lives on vegetable or animal food, and where he gives a decided preference to the former. {115}

It is probable that nature (so admirable in adapting the manners of the inhabitants to the nature of the country) has made heavy animal food less congenial to the taste of southern nations than to those of the north. There is, indeed, reason to believe it is so, but, whether it is or not, as natural philosophy is not here the study, but political economy, the fact is, that if southern nations had the same propensity, it would be impossible to indulge it to an equal extent.

As wealth and power are intimately connected with population, and depend in a great measure upon it, wherever they are the cause of introducing a taste that will, in the end, depopulate a country, they must, in so far, undermine their own support, and bring on decay. This is a case that applies to all northern nations, and particularly to Britain; in order, therefore, to treat the subject at full length, it will be better to enter into the minute examination when we come to apply the case directly to this country, and seek for a remedy.

—- {115} The proportion between the prices of bread and butcher meat will help to a conclusion on this subject. The warmer and dryer the climate, the cheaper bread is in proportion. At Paris, which is a dry, but not a very warm climate, the proportion, in ordinary times, was as four to one. A loaf of bread of four pounds, and a pound of meat, were supposed to be nearly the same price, but the meat was generally the higher of the two. In England, the proportion (before the late revolution in prices) was about two to one, and, in Ireland, where the soil and climate are more moist, and better for cattle, flesh meat was still cheaper, in proportion. The poverty of the people, indeed, prevented them from living on animal food, but buttermilk, (an animal production) and potatoes, a cheaper vegetable, are their chief sustenance. -=-

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Though this cause of depopulation, arising from wealth, increasing the consumption of food, is peculiar to northern nations, yet there are others that have a similar effect, that fall more heavily on the inhabitants of the south.

Rest from labour is, in warm climates, a great propensity, and easily indulged. In no northern nation could there be found so idle a set of beings as the Lazzeroni of Naples. If the nations of the north have a desire to indulge themselves in consuming more, those of the south have a propensity to be idle, and produce less, the effect of which is in nearly the same; for, whether they produce any thing or not, they must consume something. The same listlessness and desire of rest, that produces idleness and beggary amongst the poor, makes the rich inclined to have a great retinue of servants, and, as those servants are idly inclined, they serve for low wages, on condition of having but light work to perform. Thus it is that the fertility of the soil, and the other natural advantages are destroyed by the disposition of the inhabitants.

It does not appear, however, that this disposition was indulged or encouraged to any hurtful extent, until wealth had vitiated the original manners of the inhabitants. The Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, all of them performed works requiring great exertion. They encouraged industry and arts, and became great, wealthy, and populous; but, when once they fell to decline, the same fate attended the descendants of them all. {116}

Of all the countries that were once great, and have fallen to decay, Italy has retained its population the best; but, for this, there is an evident cause to be found in the natural fertility of the country, and the resource still drawn from foreigners, who have never ceased to visit that once famous seat of arts and military glory.

The number of horses and of domestic animals maintained by the

—- {116} After the Augustan age, the populace of Rome seem to have degenerated with great rapidity, as the donations of corn clearly prove. Had the tributary countries not furnished the means of providing food, the Goths would have been saved the trouble of sacking the city, as the people must have perished for want. -=-

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fruits of the earth, but producing nothing, as they increase, in every country where wealth prevails, may be considered as a cause of depopulation, confined to no part of the world. Thus we find either the same cause acting throughout, or different causes producing the same effect in different countries; thereby reducing them all much more nearly to an equality than we could at first imagine.

It has been observed, that when wealth comes to the working orders, and makes them indulge in animal food, it produces a greater effect, with respect to the consumption of produce, than if the same wealth came into the hands of the rich; this is, however, in some degree, compensated by their not keeping pleasure horses, the greatest of all consumers of the produce of the earth. One horse will consume as much as a family of four persons living on corn, and the ordinary vegetables used in England; and as much as two families, living as they do in Ireland or Scotland, on oat-meal, milk, and potatoes.

As we find depopulation one of the effects that is universally occasioned by decline, it must originate in some cause equally general, and that cause must be one attending the state of wealth and greatness, for it does not appear to be a necessary effect of decline. We can very easily conceive a people, degraded and numerous, reduced to live poorly, as they do in Naples, Cairo, and some other particular spots: but taking the whole of those countries together, we find evident marks of a falling off in population; and we find it not progressive, but of long standing. Those countries seem to have found a new maximum of population, far inferior to the former standard, immediately after they ceased to be wealthy and flourishing.

Perhaps it was from this cause that the idea of sumptuary laws originated; for though, in some cases, the pride of being distinguished might occasion the sovereign to enact, or the higher orders of society to solicit them, yet they were always considered as tending to prevent ruinous extravagance. When states become very wealthy, they may consider such regulations as ridiculous, and perhaps they may neither be necessary nor effectual; yet, nevertheless, there must be some cause for the general opinion of their utility. Though it is not the fashion of the present times to hold an opinion as good be-[end of page #142] cause it is general, and its prevalence in ignorant times is considered as a mark of its being erroneous; yet, observation and common sense have never been wanting at any period, and it is from those sources that such maxims and opinions arise. Any man who had travelled, first through Italy and Spain, and then through England and America, would be very likely to invent sumptuary laws, if he had never heard of such a thing before. In the application of sumptuary laws, as a device, for preventing decline, the traveller might, perhaps, be very whimsical; sometimes forbidding what would never be attempted; but there would be nothing at all ridiculous in his general intention. {117}

It will certainly be found that, in all the causes of the decay of nations, the increase of consumption, and decrease of production, takes the greatest variety of forms, and disguises itself the most; it is, therefore, one that is much to be guarded against, particularly as its effects seem to be difficult to remedy.

As the manner in which a country acquires riches has a considerable influence on the habits of the people, a country acquiring riches by conquest, or colonies, must naturally expend it in splendour and magnificence.

Merchants are less splendid than conquerors and planters. Their ostentation is of a different sort; and, as the fortunes made in that way are rather more equally divided, they cannot launch out quite so far. Besides, merchants are seldom entirely independent of credit and industry; at least, when acquiring their fortunes they were not so; and, therefore, whether the necessity continues or not, the habit, once contracted, is never quite effaced.

Manufacturers, again, are still less splendid than merchants. With them, the gifts of fortune are more equally divided than with either of the other three, and they seldom arrive at more than an ordinary degree of affluence; which affords the means of gratifying personal wants, of living with hospitality, ease, and comfort.

—- {117} If, for example, it were a law at Manchester or Birmingham, that no man should keep above fifty servants in livery, or burn more than three-dozen wax-lights at a time, it would be like mockery, and would be perfectly useless; at Rome it would be very useful. -=-

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The greatest part of manufacturing wealth, and that, indeed, is divided with a pretty equal hand, is that which goes to the working people, who spend nearly the whole on personal enjoyment.

The quantity of food that an individual may consume is nearly limited by nature; but the extent of ground on which that food grows depends chiefly on the quality. Thus, for example, it will require nearly ten times the number of acres to maintain one hundred people, who live on animal food, that sic it would require to supply the same persons living on vegetables; and, as wealth increases, animal food always obtains the preference. This is evident, from so many proofs, that it scarcely needs illustration. In London, which is the most wealthy part of England, there is more animal food consumed than in any other part, in proportion to the numbers; and, in the country there is always less than in the towns. In the country, and in the towns of England, there is more than in any proportional part of Scotland, or in France, or, indeed, any part of Europe. Expensive as animal food is here, still it bears less proportion to the wages of labour, or the general wealth, than in any other country. In every country, as riches have increased, the consumption of the produce of the earth has augmented.

The Dutch seem to have been well aware of the danger of wealth making the people consume too much. A man in moderate circumstances loses his credit there, who roasts his meat instead of boiling it. It is reckoned wastefulness, and, as such, is the occasion of confidence being withdrawn from him: it has nearly as bad an effect on a man's credit, as if he were seen coming from a gaming-house.

It will, perhaps, be said, that the parsimony of the Dutch is ridiculous, but we ought not to attribute this merely to parsimony, but to a feeling similar to what we have very properly in England when we see bread wasted. It arises from a feeling of the general want, not of the particular loss, which is totally a different thing. If a man give away imprudently, that loss is to himself, not to the community. As there cannot be givers without receivers it is a change of hands, but there ends the matter. A habit of wasting is another [end of page #144] thing, it is a general loss, and, therefore, hurts the community at large as well as the individual.

When this augmented consumption takes place, to any great extent, it is the infallible cause of depopulation. How nearly depopulation and decline are connected with each other is very easily and well understood; indeed, it is impossible not to see their intimate connection. {118}

While the exports of a country amount to a great sum, a few millions can be spared for the importation of provisions, without any great difficulty; but the evil may increase imperceptibly, till it becomes impossible to remedy it. The distress that must be occasioned, in such a case, is beyond the power of calculation; for though, in times of plenty, animal food is preferred, whenever there comes any thing like want, that can only be supplied by corn, and there is no wealth sufficient, in any country, to procure that for a number of years, to any great extent. {119}

It is calculated, by the author of the notes on Dr. Smith's Inquiry into the Wealth of Nations, that, if the supply of corn were to fall short, one-fourth part, in England, for a number of years running, there would be no means of finding either corn to buy, ships to transport it, or money to pay for it, without totally deranging the commerce of the country.