But the throats of the rich ought not to be cut,
nor their magazines plundered; because, in their persons, they are trustees for those who labor, and their hoards are the banking-houses of these latter.
nor their magazines plundered; because, in their persons, they are trustees for those who labor, and their hoards are the banking-houses of these latter.
Edmund Burke
?
?
?
120 LETTER TO WILLIAM ELLIOT, ESQ.
they might still stand, though some of their conclusums should taste of the prejudices of country or of faction, whether political or religious. Some degree
even of corruption should not make me think them
guilty of suicide; but if we could suppose that the
Aulic Council, not regarding duty or even common
decorum, listening neither to the secret admonitions
of conscience nor to the public voice of fame, some
of the members basely abandoning their post, and
others continuing in it only the more infamously
to betray it, should give a judgment so shameless
and so prostitute, of such monstrous and even portentous corruption, that no example in the history of human depravity, or even in the fictions of poetic imagination, could possibly match it, -- if it should be a judgment which, with cold, unfeeling cruelty, after
long deliberations, should condemn millions of innocent people to extortion, to rapine, and to blood, and should devote some of the finest countries upon earth
to ravage and desolation, - does any one think that
any servile apologies of mine, or any strutting and
bullying insolence of their own, can save them from
the ruin that must fall on all institutions of dignity
or of authority that are perverted from their purport
to the oppression of human nature in others and to
its disgrace in themselves? As the wisdom of men
makes such institutions, the folly of men destroys
them. Whatever we may pretend, there is always
more in the soundness of the materials than in the
fashion of the work. The order of a good building
is something. But if it be wholly declined from its
perpendicular, if the cement is loose and incollerent,
if the stones are scaling with every change of the
weather, and the whole toppling on our heads, what
? ? ? ? LETTER TO WILLIAM ELLIOT, ESQ. 121
matter is it whether we are crushed by a Corinthian
or a Doric ruin? The fine form of a vessel is a matter of use and of delight. It is pleasant to see her decorated with cost and art. But what signifies
even the mathematical truth of her form, -what
signify all the art and cost with which she can be
carved, and painted, and gilded, and covered with
decorations from stem to stern, -- what signify Ali
her rigging and sails, her flags, her pendants, and
her streamers, --what signify even her cannon, her
stores, and her provisions, if all her planks and timbers be unsound and rotten?
Quamvis Pontica pinus,
Silvoe filia nobilis,
Jactes et genus et nomen inutile.
I have been stimulated, I know not how, to give
you this trouble by what very few except myself
would think worth any trouble at all. In a speech
in the House of Lords, I have been attacked for the
defence of a scheme of government in which that
body inheres, and in which alone it can exist. Peers
of Great Britain may become as penitent as the sovereignl of Prussia. They may repent of what they have done in assertion of the honor of their king, and in
favor of their own safety. But never the gloom that
lowers over the fortune of the cause, nor anything
which the great may do towards hastening their
owll fall, can make me repent of what I have done
lby pen or voice (the only arms I possess) in favor
of the order of things into which I was born and in
which I fondly hoped to die.
In the long series of ages which have furnished
the matter of history, never was so beautiful and so
august a spectacle presented to the moral eye as Eu
? ? ? ? 122 LETTER TO WILLIAM ELLIOT, ESQ.
l ope afforded the day before the Revolution in France.
I knew, indeed, that this prosperity contained in itself the seeds of its own danger. In one part of' the
society it caused laxity and debility; in the other
it produced bold spirits and dark designs. A false
philosophy passed from academies into courts; and
the great themselves were infected withl the theories
which conducted to their ruin. Knowledge, which
in the two last centuries either did not exist at all,
or existed solidly on right principles and in chosen
hands, was now diffused, weakened, and perverted.
General wealth loosened morals, relaxed vigilance,
and increased presumption. Men of talent began to
compare, in the partition of the common stock of
public prosperity, the proportions of the dividends
with the merits of the claimants. As usual, they
found their portion not equal to their estimate (or
perhaps to the public estimate) of their own worth.
When it was once discovered by the Revolution in
France that a struggle between establishment and
rapacity could be maintained, though but for one
year and in one place, I was sure that a practicable'
breach was made in the whole order of things, and
in every country. Religion, that held the materials
of the fabric together, was first systematically loosened. All other opinions, under the name of prejudices, must fall along with it; and property, left unldefended by principles, became a repository of spoils to tempt cupidity, and not a magazine to furnish
arms for defence. I knew, that, attacked on all sides
by the infernal energies of talents set in action by
vice and disorder, authority could not stand upon
authority alone. It wanted some other support than
the poise of its own gravity. Situations formerly
? ? ? ? LETTER TO WILLIAM ELLIOT, ESQ. 123
supported persons. It now became necessary that
personal qualities should support situations. Formerly, where authority was found, wisdom and virtue were presumed. But now the veil was torn, and, to keep off sacrilegious intrusion, it was necessary that
in the sanctuary of government something should be
disclosed not only venerable, but dreadful. Government was at once to show itself full of virtue and
full of force. It was to invite partisans, by making
it appear to the world that a generous cause was
to be asserted, one fit for a generous people to engage in. From passive submission was it to expect
resolute defence? 'No! It must have warm advocates and passionate defenders, which an heavy, discontented acquiescence never could produce. What a base and foolish thing is it for any consolidated
body of authority to say, or to act as if it said, " 1
will put my trust, not in my own virtue, but in your
patience; I will indulge in effeminacy, in indolences,
in corruption; I will give way to all my perverset
and vicious humors, because you cannot punish me
without the hazard of ruining yourselves. "
I wished to warn the people against the greate, t
of all evils, --a blind and furious spirit of innovation, under the name of reform. I was, indeed, well
aware that power rarely reforms itself. So it is, undoubtedly, when all is quiet about it. But I was in
hopes that provident fear might prevent fruitless
penitence. I trusted that danger might produce at
least circumspection. I flattered myself, in a moment like this, that nothing would be added to malke
authority top-heavy, -- that the very moment of aii
earthquake would not be the time chosen for addill
a story to our houses. I hoped to see the surest oe' l
? ? ? ? 104 LETTER TO WILLIAM ELLIOT, ESQ.
rleforms, perhaps the only sure reform, -the ceasing
to do ill. In the mean time I wished to the people
the wisdom of knowing how to tolerate a condition
which none of their efforts can render much more
than tolerable. It was a condition, however, in which
everything was to be found that could enable them
to live to Nature, and, if so they pleased, to live to
virtue and to honor.
I do not repent that I thought better of those to
whom I wished well than they will suffer me long
to think that they deserved. Far from repenting, I
would to God that new faculties had been called up
in me, in favor not of this or that man, or this or
that system, but of the general, vital principle, that,
whilst it was in its vigor, produced the state of things
transmitted to us from our fathers, but which, through
the joint operation of the abuses of authority and liberty, may perish in our hands. I am not of opinion that the race of men, and the commonwealths they
create, like the bodies of individuals, grow effete and
languid and bloodless, and ossify, by the necessities
of their own conformation, and the fatal operation of
longevity and time. These analogies between bodies
natural aud politic, though they may sometimes illustrate arguments, furnish no argument of themselves. They are but too often used, under the color of a
specious philosophy, to find apologies for the despair
of laziness and pusillanimity, and to excuse the want
of all manly efforts, when the exigencies of our country call for them the more loudly.
How often has public calamity been arrested on
the very brink of rtmill by the seasonable energy of
a single mall! Have we no such man amongst us? I
amn as sure as I am of my beinlg, that one vigorous
? ? ? ? LETTER TO WILLIAM ELLIOT, ESQ. 125
mind, without office, without situation, without public
functions of any kind, (at a time when the want of
such a thing is felt, as I am sure it is,) I say, one
such man, confiding in the aid of God, and full of
just reliance in his own fortitude, vigor, enterprise,
and perseverance, would first draw to him some
few like himself, and then that multitudes, hardly
thought to be in existence, would appear and troop
about him.
If I saw this auspicious beginning, baffled and frustrated as I am, yet on the very verge of a timely grave, abandoned abroad and desolate at home, stripped of my boast, my hope, my consolation, my
helper, my counsellor, and my guide, (you know ill
part what I have lost, and would to God I could clear
myself of all neglect and fault in that loss,) yet thus,
even thus, I would rake up the fire under all the
ashes that oppress it. I am no longer patient of the
public eye; nor am I of force to win my way and
to justle and elbow in a crowd. But, even in solitude, something may be done for society. The
meditations of the closet have infected senates witlh
a subtle frenzy, and inflamed armies with the brands
of the Furies. The cure might come from the same
source with the distemper. I would add my part to
those who would animate the people (whose hearts
are yet right) to new exertions in the old cause.
Novelty is not the only source of zeal. Why should
not a Maccabacus and his brethren arise to assert the
honor of the ancient law and to defend the temple
of their forefathers with as ardent a spirit as call
inspire any innovator to destroy the monuments of
the piety and the glory of ancient ages? It is not
a hazarded assertion, it is a great truth, that, wllen
? ? ? ? 126 LETTER TO WILLIAM ELLIOT, ESQ.
once things are gone out of their ordinary course,
it is by acts out of the ordinary course they can alone
ble reestablished. Republican spirit can only be combated by a spirit of the same nature, --of the same nature, but informed with another principle, and
pointing to another end. I would persuade a resistance both to the corruption and to the reformation
that prevails. It will not be the weaker, but much
the stronger, for combating both'together. A victory
over real corruptions would enable us to baffle the
spurious and pretended reformations. I would not
wish to excite, or even to tolerate, that kind of evil
spirit which evokes the powers of hell to rectify the
disorders of the earth, No! I would add my voice
with better, and, I trust, more potent charms, to
draw down justice and wisdom and fortitude from
heaven, for the correction of human vice, and the
recalling of human error from the devious ways
into which it has been betrayed. I would wish to
call the impulses of individuals at once to the aid
and to the control of authority. By this, which I
call the true republican spirit, paradoxical as it may
appear, monarchies alone can be rescued from the
imbecility of courts and the madness of the crowd.
This republican spirit would not suffer men in high
place to bring ruin on their country and on themselves. It would reform, not by destroying, but by
saving, the great, the rich, and the powerful. Such
a republican spirit we perhaps fondly conceive to
have animated the distinguished heroes and patriots
of old, who knew no mode of policy but religion and
virtue. These they would have paramount to all constitutions; they would not suffer monarchs, or senates, or popular assemblies, under pretences of dignity
? ? ? ? LETTER TO WILLIAM ELLIOT, ESQ. 127
or authority or freedom, to shake off those moral
iiders which reason has appointed to govern every
sort of rude power. . These, in appearance loading
them by their weight, do by that pressure augment
their essential force. The momentum is increased
by the extraneous weight. It is true in moral as it
is in mechanical science. It is true, not only in
the draught, but in the race. These riders of the
great, in effect, hold the reins which guide them in
their course, and wear the spur that stimulates them
to the goals of honor and of safety. The great must
submit to the dominion of prudence and of virtue,
or none will long submit to the dominion of the
great. Di's te minorern quod geris, imperas. This is
the feudal tenure which they cannot alter.
Indeed, my dear Sir, things are in a bad state. I
do not deny a good share of diligence, a very great
share of ability, and much public virtue to those
who direct our affairs. But they are incumbered,
not aided, by their very instruments, and by all the
apparatus of the state. I think that our ministry
(though there are things against them which neither
you nor I can dissemble, and which grieve me to the
heart) is by far the most honest and by far the
wisest system of administration in Europe. Their
fall would be no trivial calamity.
Not meaning to depreciate the minority in Parliament, whose talents are also great, and to whom I do not deny virtues, their system seems to me to
be fundamentally wrong. But whether wrong or
right, they have not enough of coherence among
themselves, nor of estimation with the public, nor of
numbers. They cainot make up an administration.
Nothing is more visible. Many other things are
? ? ? ? 128 LETTER TO WILLIAM ELLIOT, ESQ.
against them, which I do not charge as faults, but
reckon among national misfortunes. Extraordinary
things must be done, or one,of the parties cannot
stand as a ministry, nor the other even as an opposition. They cannot change their situations, nor can
any useful coalition be made between them. I do
not see the mode of it nor the way to it. This aspect of things I do not contemplate with pleasure.
I well know that everything of the daring kind
which I speak of is critical: but the times are critical. New things in a new world! I see no hopes
in the common tracks. If men are not to be found
who can be got to feel within them some impulse,
quod nequeo mzonstrare, et sentio tantum, and which
makes them impatient of the present, -- if none can
be got to feel that private persons may sometimes assume that sort of magistracy which does not depend
on the nomination of kings or the election of the
people, but has an inherent and self-existent power
which both would recognize, I see nothing in the
world to hope.
If I saw such a group beginning to cluster, such
as they are, they should have (all that I can give)
my prayers and my advice. People talk of war or
cry for peace: have they to the bottom considered
the questions either of war or peace, upon the scale
of the existing world? No, I fear they have not.
Why should not you yourself be one of those to
enter your name in such a list as I speak of? You
are young; you have great talents; you have a clear
head; you have a natural, fluent, and unforced elocution; your ideas are just, your sentiInents benevolent, open, and enlarged;-but this is too big for your modesty. Oh! this modesty, in time and place,
? ? ? ? LETTER TO WILLIAM ELLIOT, ESQ. 129
is a charming virtue, and the grace of all other virtues. But it is sometimes the worst enemy they have.
Let him whose print I gave you the other day be engraved in your memory! Had it pleased Providence
to have spared him for the trying situations that
seem to be coming on, notwithstanding that he was
sometimes a little dispirited by the disposition which
we thought shown to depress him and set him aside,
yet he was always buoyed up again; and on one or
two occasions he discovered what might be expected
from the vigor and elevation of his mind, from his
unconquerable fortitude, and from the extent of his
resources for every purpose of speculation and of action. Remember him, my friend, who in the highest degree honored and respected you; and remember that great parts are a great trust. Remember, too, that mistaken or misapplied virtues, if they are
not as pernicious as vice, frustrate at least their own
natural tendencies, and disappoint the purposes of
the Great Giver.
Adieu. My dreams are finished.
VOL. V. 9
? ? ? ? THOUGHTS AND DETAILS
ON
SCARCITY.
ORIGINALLY PRESENTED
TO THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM PITT, IN THE MONTH OF NOVEMIBER. I795.
? ? ? ? THOUGHTS AND DETAILS
ON
SCARCITY.
F all things, an indiscreet tampering with the
trade of provisions is the most dangerous, and
it is always worst in the time when men are most
disposed to it, - that is, in the time of scarcity; because there is nothing on which the passions of men are so violent, and their judgment so weak, and on
which there exists such a multitude of ill-founded
popular prejudices.
The great use of government is as a restraint; and
there is no restraint which it ought to put upon others, and upon itself too, rather than that which is imposed on the fury of speculating under circumstances of irritation. The number of idle tales spread about by the industry of faction and by the zeal of
foolish good-intention, and greedily devoured by the
malignant credulity of mankind, tends infinitely to
aggravate prejudices which in themselves are more
than sufficiently strong. In that state of affairs, and
of the public with relation to them, the first thing
that government owes to us, the people, is information; the next is timely coercion: the one to guide our judgment; the other to regulate our tempers.
To provide for us in our necessities is not in the lower of government. It would be a vain presump
? ? ? ? 1`34 THOUGHTS AND DETAILS ON SCARCITY.
tion in statesmen to think they can do it. The people maintain them, and not they the people. It is
in the power of government to prevent much evil;
it can do very little positive good in this, or perhaps
in anything else. It is not only so of the state and
statesman, but of all the classes and descriptions of
the rich: they are the pensioners of the poor, and
are maintained by their superfluity. They are under
an absolute, hereditary, and indefeasible dependence
on those who labor and are miscalled the poor.
The laboring people are only poor because they are
numerous. Numbers in their nature imply poverty.
In a fair distribution among a vast multitude none
can have much. That class of dependent pensioners
called the rich is so extremely small, that, if all their
throats were cut, and a distribution made of all they
consume in a year, it would not give a bit of bread
and cheese for one night's supper to those who labor,
and who in reality feed both the pensioners and themselves.
But the throats of the rich ought not to be cut,
nor their magazines plundered; because, in their persons, they are trustees for those who labor, and their hoards are the banking-houses of these latter. Whether they mean it oi' not, they do, in effect, execute their trust, - some with more, some with less fidelity
and judgment. But, on the whole, the duty is performed, and everything returns, deducting some very trifling commission and discount, to the place from
whence it arose. When the poor rise to destroy the
rich, they act as wisely for their own purposes as
when they burn mills and throw corn into the river
to make bread cheap.
When I say that we of the people ought to be in
? ? ? ? THOUGHTS AND DETAILS ON SCARCITY. 135
formed, inclusively I say we ought not to be flattered: flattery is the reverse of instruction. The poor
in that case would be rendered as improvident as the
rich, which would not be at all good for them.
Nothing can be so base and so wicked as the political canting language, " the laboring poor. " Let compassion be shown in action,- the more, the better,
- according to every man's ability; but let there be
no lamentation of their condition. It is no relief to
their miserable circumstances; it is only an insult to
their miserable understandings. It arises from a total want of charity or a total want of thought. Want
of one kind was never relieved by want of any other
kind. Patience, labor, sobriety, frugality, and religion should be recommended to them; all the rest is
downright fraud. It is horrible to call them " the
once happy laborer. "
Whether what may be called the moral or philosophical happiness of the laborious classes is increased
or not, I cannot say. The seat of that species of happiness is in the mind; and there are few data to ascertain the comparative state of the mind at any two periods. Philosophical happiness is to want little.
Civil or vulgar happiness is to want much and to
enjoy Inuch.
If the happiness of the animal man (which certainly goes somewhere towards the happiness of the
rational man) be the object of our estimate, then I
assert, without the least hesitation, that the condition of those who labor (in all descriptions of labor,
and in all gradations of labor, from the highest to
the lowest inclusively) is, on the whole, extremely
meliorated, if more and better food is any standard
of melioration. They work more, it is certain; but
? ? ? ? 136 THOUGHTS AND DETAILS ON SCARCITY.
they have the advantage of their augmented labor:
yet whether that increase of labor be on the whole
a good or an evil is a consideration that would lead
us a great way, and is not for my present purpose.
But as to the fact of the melioration of their diet, I
shall enter into the detail of proof, whenever I am
called upon: in the mean time, the known difficulty
of contenting them with anything but bread made of
the finest flour and meat of the first quality is proof
sufficient.
I further assert, that, even under all the hardships
of the last year, the laboring people did, either out
of their direct gains, or from charity, (which it seems
is now an insult to them,) in fact, fare better than
they did in seasons of common plenty, fifty or sixty
years ago, -or even at the period of my English observation, which is about forty-four years. I even assert that full as many in that class as ever were
known to do it before continued to save money; and
this I can prove, so far as my own information and
experience extend.
It is not true that the rate of wages has not increased with the nominal price of provisions. I allow, it has not fluctuated with that price, - nor ought it;
and the squires of Norfoll had dined, when they gave
it as their opinion that it might or ought to rise and
fall with the market of provisions. The rate of wages,.
in truth, has no direct relation to that price. Labor
is a commodity like every other, and rises or falls
according to the demand. This is in the nature of
things; however, the nature of things has provided
for their necessities. Wages have been twice raised
in my time; and they bear a fiull proportion, or even
a greater than formerly, to the medium of provision
? ? ? ? THOUGHTS AND DETAILS ON SCARCITY. 137
during the last bad cycle of twenty years. They bear
a full proportion to the result of their labor. If we
were wildly to attempt to force them beyond it, the
stone which we had forced up the hill would only fall
back upon them in a diminished demand, or, what
indeed is the far lesser evil, an aggravated price of all
the provisions which are the result of their manual
toil.
There is an implied contract, much stronger than
any instrument or article of agreement between the
laborer in any occupation and his employer, - that the
labor, so far as that labor is concerned, shall be sufficient to pay to the employer a profit on his capital and a compensation for his risk: in a word, that the
labor shall produce an advantage equal to the payment. Whatever is above that is a direct tax; and
if the amount of that tax be left to the will and pleasure of another, it is an arbitrary tax.
If I understand it rightly, the tax proposed on the
farming interest of this kingdom is to be levied at
what is called the discretion of justices of peace.
The questions arising on this scheme of arbitrary
taxation are these: Whether it is better to leave all
dealing, in which there is no force or fraud, collusion
or combination, entirely to the persons mutually concerned in the matter contracted for,- or to put the contract into the hands of those who can have none
or a very remote interest in it, and little or no knowledge of the subject.
It might be imagined that there would be very little difficulty in solving this question: for what man,
of any degree of reflection, can think that a want of
interest in any subject, closely connected with a want
of skill in it, qualifies a person to intermeddle in any
? ? ? ? 13 8 THOUGHTS AND DETAILS ON SCARCITY.
the least affair, - much less in affairs that vitally concern the agriculture of the kingdom, the first of all
its concerns, and the foundation of all its prosperity
in every other matter by which that prosperity is
produced?
The vulgar error on this subject arises from a total
confusion in the very idea of things widely different
in themselves, -- those of convention, and those of
judicature. When a contract is making, it is a matter of discretion and of interest between the parties.
In that intercourse, and in what is to arise from it,
the parties are the masters. If they are not completely so, they are not free, and therefore their contracts are void. But this freedom has no farther extent, when the
contract is made: then their discretionary powers
expire, and a new order of things takes its origin.
Then, and not till then, and on a difference between
the parties, the office of the judge commences. He
cannot dictate the contract. It is his business to see
that it be enforced, - provided that it is not contrary
to preexisting laws, or obtained by force or fraud.
If he is in any way a maker or regulator of the contract, in so much he is disqualified from being a
judge. But this sort of confused distribution of administrative and judicial characters (of which we
have already as much as is sufficient, and a little
more) is not the only perplexity of notions and passiolls which trouble us in the present hour.
What is doing supposes, or pretends, that the
farmer and the laborer have opposite interests, - that
the farmer oppresses the laborer, - and that a gentleman, called a justice of peace, is the protector of the
latter, and a control and restraint on the former;
? ? ? ? THOUGHTS AND DETAILS ON SCARCITY. 139
and this is a point I wish to examine in a manner
a good deal different from that in which gentlemen
proceed, who confide more in their abilities than is
fit, and suppose them capable of more than any natural abilities, fed with no other than the provender
furnished by their own private speculations, can accomplish. Legislative acts attempting to regulate
this part of economy do, at least as much as any
other, require the exactest detail of circumstances,
guided by the surest general principles that are necessary to direct experiment and inquiry, in order
again from those details to elicit principles, firm and
luminous general principles, to direct a practical legislative proceeding.
First, then, I deny that it is in this case, as in any
other, of necessary implication that contracting parties should originally have had different interests.
By accident it may be so, undoubtedly, at the outset:
but then the contract is of the nature of a compromise; and compromise is founded on circumstances
that suppose it the interest of the parties to be reconciled in some medium. The principle of compromise adopted, of consequence the interests cease to be different.
But in the case of the farmer and the laborer,
their interests are always the same, and it is absolutely impossible that their free contracts can be
onerous to either party. It is the interest of the
farmer that his work should be done with effect and
celerity; and that cannot be, unless the laborer is
well fed, and otherwise found with such necessaries
of animal life, according to its habitudes, as may
keep the body in full force, and the mind gay and
cheerful. For of all the instruments of his trade,
? ? ? ? 140 THOUGHTS AND DETAILS ON SCARCITY.
the labor of man (what the ancient writers have
called the instrumentum vocale) is that on which he
is most to rely for the repayment of his capital.
The other two, the semivocale in the ancient classification, that is, the working stock of cattle, and the
instrumentum mutumrn, such as carts, ploughs, spades,
and so forth, though not all inconsiderable in themselves, are very much inferior in utility or in expense, and, without a given portion of the first, are nothing at all. For, in all things whatever, the mind
is the most valuable and the most important; and
in this scale the whole of agriculture is in a natural
and just order: the beast is as an informing principle to the plough and cart; the laborer is as reason
to the beast; and the farmer is as a thinking and
presiding principle to the laborer. An attempt to
break this chain of subordination in any part is
equally absurd; but the absurdity is the most mischievous, in practical operation, where it is the most
easy, - that is, where it is the most subject to an erroneous judgment.
It is plainly more the farmer's interest that his
men should thrive than that his horses should be
well fed, sleek, plump, and fit for use, or than that
his wagon and ploughs should be strong, in good
repair, and fit for service.
On the other hand, if the farmer ceases to profit
of the laborer, and that his capital is not continually manured and fructified, it is impossible that he
should continue that abundant nutriment and clothing and lodging proper for the protection of the inl
struments he employs.
It is therefore the'first and fundamental interest of
the laborer, that the farmer should have a filll inconm
? ? ? ? THOUGHTS AND DETAILS ON SCARCITY. 141
ing profit on the product of his labor. The proposition is self-evident; and nothing but the malignity, perverseness, and ill-governed passions of mankind,
and particularly the envy they bear to each other's
prosperity, could prevent their seeing and acknowledging it, with thankfulness to the benign and wise Disposer of all things, who obliges men, whether they
will or not, in pursuing their own selfish interests,
to connect the general good with their own individnal success.
But who are to judge what that profit and advantage ought to be? Certainly no authority on earth.
It is a matter of convention, dictated by the reciprocal conveniences of the parties, and indeed by their reciprocal necessities. -- But if the farmer is excessively avaricious? -- Why, so much the better: the more he desires to increase his gains, the more interested is he in the good condition of those upon whose labor his gains must principally depend.
I shall be told by the zealots of the sect of regulation, that this may be true, and may be safely committed to the convention of the farmer and the
laborer, when the latter is in the prime of his youth,
and at the time of his health and vigor, and in ordinary times of abundance. But in calamitous seasons, under accidental illness, in declining life, and with
the pressure of a numerous offspring, the future
nourishers of the community, but the present drains
and blood-suckers of those who produce them, what
is to be done? When a man cannot live and maintain his family by the natural hire of his labor, ought
it not to be raised by authority?
On this head I must be allowed to submit what
my opinions have ever been, and somewhat at large.
? ? ? ? 142 THOUGHTS AND DETAILS ON SCARCITY.
And, first, I premise that labor is, as I have already
intimated, a commodity, and, as such, an article of
trade. If I am right in this notion, then labor must
be subject to all the laws and principles of trade, and
not to regulations foreign to them, and that may be
totally inconsistent with those principles and those
laws. When any commodity is carried to market,
it is not the necessity of the vendor, but the necessity
of the purchaser, that raises the price. The extreme
want of the seller has rather (by the nature of things
with which we shall in vain contend) the direct contrary operation. If the goods at market are beyond
the demand, they fall in their value; if below it,
they rise. The impossibility of the subsistence of
a man who carries his labor to a market is totally
beside the question, in this way of viewing it. The
only question is, What is it worth to the buyer?
But if authority comes in and forces the buyer to a
price, what is this in the case (say) of a farmer who
buys the labor of ten or twelve laboring men, and
three or four handicrafts,- what is it but to make
an arbitrary division of his property among them?
The whole of his gains (I say it with the most
certain conviction) never do amount anything like in
value to what he pays to his laborers and artificers;
so that a very small advance upon what one man pays
to many may absorb the whole of what he possesses,
and amount to an actual partition of all his substance
among them. A perfect equality will, indeed, be produced, -- that is to say, equal want, equal wretchedness, equal beggary, and, on the part of the partitioners, a woful, helpless, and desperate disappointment. Such is the event of all compulsory equalizations.
They pull down what is above; they never raise
? ? ? ? THOUGHTS AND DETAILS ON SCARCITY. 143
what is below; and they depress high and low together beneath the level of what was originally the
lowest.
If a commodity is raised by authority above what
it will yield with a profit to the buyer, that commodity will be the less dealt in. If a second blundering
interposition be used to correct the blunder of the
first and an attempt is made to force the purchase
of the commodity, (of labor, for instance,) the one of
these two things must happen: either that the forced
buyer is ruined, or the price of the product of the
labor in that proportion is raised. Then the wheel
turns round, and the evil complained of falls with
aggravated weight on the complainant. The price
of corn, which is the result of the expense of all the
operations of husbandry taken together, and for some
time continued, will rise on the laborer, considered
as a consumer. The very best will be, that he remains where he was. But if the price of the corn
should not compensate the price of labor, what is far
more to be feared, the most serious evil, the very destruction of agriculture itself, is to be apprehended.
Nothing is such an enemy to accuracy of judgment as a coarse discrimination, a want of such classification and distribution as the subject admits of. Increase the rate of wages to the laborer, say the
regulators, -as if labor was but one thing, and of
one value. But this very broad, generic term, labor,
admits, at least, of two or three specific descriptions:
and these will suffice, at least, to let gentlemen discern a little the necessity of proceeding with caution
in their coercive guidance of those whose existence
depends upon the observance of still nicer distinctions and subdivisions than commonly they resort
? ? ? ? 144 THOUGHTS AND DETAILS ON SCARCITY.
to in forming their judgments on this very enlarged
part of economy.
The laborers in husbandry may be divided, -
First, Into those who are able to perform the full
work of a man,- that is, what can be done by a person from twenty-one years of age to fifty. I know no
husbandry work (mowing hardly excepted) that is not
equally within the power of all persons within those
ages, the more advanced fully compensating by knack
and habit what they lose in activity. Unquestionably, there is a good deal of difference between the
value of one man's labor and that of another, from
strength, dexterity, and honest application. But I
am quite sure, from my best observation, that any
given five men will, in their total, afford a proportion of labor equal to any other five within the periods of life I have stated: that is, that among such five men there will be one possessing all the qualifications of a good workman, one bad, and the other
three middling, and approximating to the first and
the last. So that, in so small a platoon as that of
even five, you will find the full complement of all that
five men can earn. Taking five and five throughout
the'kingdom, they are equal: therefore an error with
regard to the equalization of their wages by those who
employ five, as farmers do at the very least, cannot be
considerable.
Secondly, Those who are able to work, but not
the complete task of a day-laborer. This class is
infinitely diversified, but will aptly enough fall into
principal divisions. Men, from the decline, which
after fifty becomes every year more sensible, to the
period of debility and decrepitude, and the maladies
that precede a final dissolution. Women, whose em
? ? ? ? THOUGHTS AND DETAILS ON SCARCITY. 145
ployment on husbandry is but occasional, and who
differ more in effective labor one from another than
men do, on account of gestation, nursing, and domestic management, over and above the difference they have in common with men in advancing, in
stationary, and in declining life. Children, who proceed on the reverse order, growing from less to greater utility, but with a still greater disproportion
of nutriment to labor than is found in the second of these subdivisions: as is visible to those who will give themselves the trouble of examining into the interior economy of a poor-house.
This inferior classification is introduced to show
that laws prescribing or magistrates exercising a
very stiff and often inapplicable rule, or a blind and
rash discretion, never call provide the just proportions between earning and salary, on the one hand,
and nutriment on the other: whereas interest, habit,
and the tacit convention that arise from a thousand
nameless circumstances produce a tact that regulates
without difficulty what laws and magistrates cannot
regulate at all. The first class of labor wants nothing to equalize it; it equalizes itself. The second
and third are not capable of any equalization.
But what if the rate of hire to the laborer comes
far short of his necessary subsistence, and the calamity of the time is so great as to threaten actual famine? Is the poor laborer to be abandoned to the flinty heart and griping hand of base self-interest,
supported by the sword of law, especially when there
is reason to suppose that the very avarice of farmers
themselves has concurred with the errors of government to bring famine on the land?
In that case, my opinion is this: Whenever it hapVOL. V. 10
? ? ? ? 146 THOUGHTS AND DETAILS ON SCARCITY.
pens that a man can claim nothing according to the
rules of commerce and the principles of justice, he
passes out of that department, and comes within the
jurisdiction of mercy. In that province the magistrate has nothing at all to do; his interference is a
violation of the property which it is his office to protect. Without all doubt, charity to the poor is a direct and obligatory duty upon all Christians, next in
order after the payment of debts, full as strong, and
by Nature made infinitely more delightful to us.
Pufendorf, and other casuists, do not, I think, denominate it quite properly, when they call it a duty of
imperfect obligation. But the manner, mode, time,
choice of objects, and proportion are left to private
discretion; and perhaps for that very reason it is
performed with the greater satisfaction, because the
discharge of it has more the appearance of freedom,
recommending us besides very specially to the Divine
favor, as the exercise of a virtue most suitable to a
being sensible of its own infirmity.
The cry of the people in cities and towns, though
unfortunately (from a fear of their multitude and
combination) the most regarded, ought, inlfact, to be
the least attended to, upon this subject: for citizens
are in a state of utter ignorance of the means by
which they are to be fed, and they contribute little or
nothing, except in an infinitely circuitous manner, to
their own maintenance. They are truly fruyes consumere nati. They are to be heard with great respect and attention upon matters within their province, - that is, on trades and manufactures; but on anything that relates to agriculture they are to be listened to with the same reverence which we pay to the
dogmas of other ignorant and presumptuous meni.
? ? ? ? THOUGHTS AND DETAILS ON SCARCITY. 147
If any one were to tell them that they were to give
in an account of all the stock in their shops, - that
attempts would be made to limit. their profits, or raise
the price of the laboring manufacturers upon them,
or recommend to government, out f a capital from
the public revenues, to set up a hsop of the same
commodities, in order to rival them, and keep them
to reasonable dealing, -- they would very soon see
the impudence, injustice, and oppression of such a
course. They would not be mistaken: but they are
of opinion that agriculture is to be subject to other.
laws, and to be governed by other principles.
A greater and more ruinous mistake cannot be
fallen into than that the trades of agriculture and
grazing can be conducted upon any other than the
common principles of commerce: namely, that the
producer should be permitted, and even expected, to
look to all possible profit which without fraud or
violence he can make; to turn plenty or scarcity to
the best advantage he can; to keep back or to bring
forward his commodities at his pleasure; to account
to no one for his stock or for his gain. On any other
terms he is the slave of the consumer: and that he
should be so is of no benefit to the consumer. No
slave was ever so beneficial to the master as a freeman that deals with him on an equal footing by convention, formed on the rules and principles of
contending interests and compromised advantages.
The consumer, if he were suffered, would in the end
always be the dupe of his own tyranny and injustice.
The landed gentleman is never to forget that the
farmer is his representative.
It is a perilous thing to try experiments on the
farmer. The farmer's capital (except in a few per
? ? ? ? 148 THOUGHTS AND DETAILS ON SCARCITY.
sons and in a very few places) is far more feeble than
commonly is imagined. The trade is a very poor
trade; it is subject to great risks and losses. The
capital, such as it is, is turned but once in the year;
in some branches it requires three years before the
money is paid: I believe never less than three in the
turnip and grass-land course, which is the prevalent
course on the more or less fertile sandy and gravelly
loams, -and these compose the soil in the south and
southeast of England, the best adapted, and perhaps
the only ones that are adapted, to the turnip husbandry.
It is very rare that the most prosperous farmer,
counting the value of his quick and dead stock, the
interest of the money he turns, together with his own
wages as a bailiff or overseer, ever does make twelve
or fifteen per centum by the year on his capital.
they might still stand, though some of their conclusums should taste of the prejudices of country or of faction, whether political or religious. Some degree
even of corruption should not make me think them
guilty of suicide; but if we could suppose that the
Aulic Council, not regarding duty or even common
decorum, listening neither to the secret admonitions
of conscience nor to the public voice of fame, some
of the members basely abandoning their post, and
others continuing in it only the more infamously
to betray it, should give a judgment so shameless
and so prostitute, of such monstrous and even portentous corruption, that no example in the history of human depravity, or even in the fictions of poetic imagination, could possibly match it, -- if it should be a judgment which, with cold, unfeeling cruelty, after
long deliberations, should condemn millions of innocent people to extortion, to rapine, and to blood, and should devote some of the finest countries upon earth
to ravage and desolation, - does any one think that
any servile apologies of mine, or any strutting and
bullying insolence of their own, can save them from
the ruin that must fall on all institutions of dignity
or of authority that are perverted from their purport
to the oppression of human nature in others and to
its disgrace in themselves? As the wisdom of men
makes such institutions, the folly of men destroys
them. Whatever we may pretend, there is always
more in the soundness of the materials than in the
fashion of the work. The order of a good building
is something. But if it be wholly declined from its
perpendicular, if the cement is loose and incollerent,
if the stones are scaling with every change of the
weather, and the whole toppling on our heads, what
? ? ? ? LETTER TO WILLIAM ELLIOT, ESQ. 121
matter is it whether we are crushed by a Corinthian
or a Doric ruin? The fine form of a vessel is a matter of use and of delight. It is pleasant to see her decorated with cost and art. But what signifies
even the mathematical truth of her form, -what
signify all the art and cost with which she can be
carved, and painted, and gilded, and covered with
decorations from stem to stern, -- what signify Ali
her rigging and sails, her flags, her pendants, and
her streamers, --what signify even her cannon, her
stores, and her provisions, if all her planks and timbers be unsound and rotten?
Quamvis Pontica pinus,
Silvoe filia nobilis,
Jactes et genus et nomen inutile.
I have been stimulated, I know not how, to give
you this trouble by what very few except myself
would think worth any trouble at all. In a speech
in the House of Lords, I have been attacked for the
defence of a scheme of government in which that
body inheres, and in which alone it can exist. Peers
of Great Britain may become as penitent as the sovereignl of Prussia. They may repent of what they have done in assertion of the honor of their king, and in
favor of their own safety. But never the gloom that
lowers over the fortune of the cause, nor anything
which the great may do towards hastening their
owll fall, can make me repent of what I have done
lby pen or voice (the only arms I possess) in favor
of the order of things into which I was born and in
which I fondly hoped to die.
In the long series of ages which have furnished
the matter of history, never was so beautiful and so
august a spectacle presented to the moral eye as Eu
? ? ? ? 122 LETTER TO WILLIAM ELLIOT, ESQ.
l ope afforded the day before the Revolution in France.
I knew, indeed, that this prosperity contained in itself the seeds of its own danger. In one part of' the
society it caused laxity and debility; in the other
it produced bold spirits and dark designs. A false
philosophy passed from academies into courts; and
the great themselves were infected withl the theories
which conducted to their ruin. Knowledge, which
in the two last centuries either did not exist at all,
or existed solidly on right principles and in chosen
hands, was now diffused, weakened, and perverted.
General wealth loosened morals, relaxed vigilance,
and increased presumption. Men of talent began to
compare, in the partition of the common stock of
public prosperity, the proportions of the dividends
with the merits of the claimants. As usual, they
found their portion not equal to their estimate (or
perhaps to the public estimate) of their own worth.
When it was once discovered by the Revolution in
France that a struggle between establishment and
rapacity could be maintained, though but for one
year and in one place, I was sure that a practicable'
breach was made in the whole order of things, and
in every country. Religion, that held the materials
of the fabric together, was first systematically loosened. All other opinions, under the name of prejudices, must fall along with it; and property, left unldefended by principles, became a repository of spoils to tempt cupidity, and not a magazine to furnish
arms for defence. I knew, that, attacked on all sides
by the infernal energies of talents set in action by
vice and disorder, authority could not stand upon
authority alone. It wanted some other support than
the poise of its own gravity. Situations formerly
? ? ? ? LETTER TO WILLIAM ELLIOT, ESQ. 123
supported persons. It now became necessary that
personal qualities should support situations. Formerly, where authority was found, wisdom and virtue were presumed. But now the veil was torn, and, to keep off sacrilegious intrusion, it was necessary that
in the sanctuary of government something should be
disclosed not only venerable, but dreadful. Government was at once to show itself full of virtue and
full of force. It was to invite partisans, by making
it appear to the world that a generous cause was
to be asserted, one fit for a generous people to engage in. From passive submission was it to expect
resolute defence? 'No! It must have warm advocates and passionate defenders, which an heavy, discontented acquiescence never could produce. What a base and foolish thing is it for any consolidated
body of authority to say, or to act as if it said, " 1
will put my trust, not in my own virtue, but in your
patience; I will indulge in effeminacy, in indolences,
in corruption; I will give way to all my perverset
and vicious humors, because you cannot punish me
without the hazard of ruining yourselves. "
I wished to warn the people against the greate, t
of all evils, --a blind and furious spirit of innovation, under the name of reform. I was, indeed, well
aware that power rarely reforms itself. So it is, undoubtedly, when all is quiet about it. But I was in
hopes that provident fear might prevent fruitless
penitence. I trusted that danger might produce at
least circumspection. I flattered myself, in a moment like this, that nothing would be added to malke
authority top-heavy, -- that the very moment of aii
earthquake would not be the time chosen for addill
a story to our houses. I hoped to see the surest oe' l
? ? ? ? 104 LETTER TO WILLIAM ELLIOT, ESQ.
rleforms, perhaps the only sure reform, -the ceasing
to do ill. In the mean time I wished to the people
the wisdom of knowing how to tolerate a condition
which none of their efforts can render much more
than tolerable. It was a condition, however, in which
everything was to be found that could enable them
to live to Nature, and, if so they pleased, to live to
virtue and to honor.
I do not repent that I thought better of those to
whom I wished well than they will suffer me long
to think that they deserved. Far from repenting, I
would to God that new faculties had been called up
in me, in favor not of this or that man, or this or
that system, but of the general, vital principle, that,
whilst it was in its vigor, produced the state of things
transmitted to us from our fathers, but which, through
the joint operation of the abuses of authority and liberty, may perish in our hands. I am not of opinion that the race of men, and the commonwealths they
create, like the bodies of individuals, grow effete and
languid and bloodless, and ossify, by the necessities
of their own conformation, and the fatal operation of
longevity and time. These analogies between bodies
natural aud politic, though they may sometimes illustrate arguments, furnish no argument of themselves. They are but too often used, under the color of a
specious philosophy, to find apologies for the despair
of laziness and pusillanimity, and to excuse the want
of all manly efforts, when the exigencies of our country call for them the more loudly.
How often has public calamity been arrested on
the very brink of rtmill by the seasonable energy of
a single mall! Have we no such man amongst us? I
amn as sure as I am of my beinlg, that one vigorous
? ? ? ? LETTER TO WILLIAM ELLIOT, ESQ. 125
mind, without office, without situation, without public
functions of any kind, (at a time when the want of
such a thing is felt, as I am sure it is,) I say, one
such man, confiding in the aid of God, and full of
just reliance in his own fortitude, vigor, enterprise,
and perseverance, would first draw to him some
few like himself, and then that multitudes, hardly
thought to be in existence, would appear and troop
about him.
If I saw this auspicious beginning, baffled and frustrated as I am, yet on the very verge of a timely grave, abandoned abroad and desolate at home, stripped of my boast, my hope, my consolation, my
helper, my counsellor, and my guide, (you know ill
part what I have lost, and would to God I could clear
myself of all neglect and fault in that loss,) yet thus,
even thus, I would rake up the fire under all the
ashes that oppress it. I am no longer patient of the
public eye; nor am I of force to win my way and
to justle and elbow in a crowd. But, even in solitude, something may be done for society. The
meditations of the closet have infected senates witlh
a subtle frenzy, and inflamed armies with the brands
of the Furies. The cure might come from the same
source with the distemper. I would add my part to
those who would animate the people (whose hearts
are yet right) to new exertions in the old cause.
Novelty is not the only source of zeal. Why should
not a Maccabacus and his brethren arise to assert the
honor of the ancient law and to defend the temple
of their forefathers with as ardent a spirit as call
inspire any innovator to destroy the monuments of
the piety and the glory of ancient ages? It is not
a hazarded assertion, it is a great truth, that, wllen
? ? ? ? 126 LETTER TO WILLIAM ELLIOT, ESQ.
once things are gone out of their ordinary course,
it is by acts out of the ordinary course they can alone
ble reestablished. Republican spirit can only be combated by a spirit of the same nature, --of the same nature, but informed with another principle, and
pointing to another end. I would persuade a resistance both to the corruption and to the reformation
that prevails. It will not be the weaker, but much
the stronger, for combating both'together. A victory
over real corruptions would enable us to baffle the
spurious and pretended reformations. I would not
wish to excite, or even to tolerate, that kind of evil
spirit which evokes the powers of hell to rectify the
disorders of the earth, No! I would add my voice
with better, and, I trust, more potent charms, to
draw down justice and wisdom and fortitude from
heaven, for the correction of human vice, and the
recalling of human error from the devious ways
into which it has been betrayed. I would wish to
call the impulses of individuals at once to the aid
and to the control of authority. By this, which I
call the true republican spirit, paradoxical as it may
appear, monarchies alone can be rescued from the
imbecility of courts and the madness of the crowd.
This republican spirit would not suffer men in high
place to bring ruin on their country and on themselves. It would reform, not by destroying, but by
saving, the great, the rich, and the powerful. Such
a republican spirit we perhaps fondly conceive to
have animated the distinguished heroes and patriots
of old, who knew no mode of policy but religion and
virtue. These they would have paramount to all constitutions; they would not suffer monarchs, or senates, or popular assemblies, under pretences of dignity
? ? ? ? LETTER TO WILLIAM ELLIOT, ESQ. 127
or authority or freedom, to shake off those moral
iiders which reason has appointed to govern every
sort of rude power. . These, in appearance loading
them by their weight, do by that pressure augment
their essential force. The momentum is increased
by the extraneous weight. It is true in moral as it
is in mechanical science. It is true, not only in
the draught, but in the race. These riders of the
great, in effect, hold the reins which guide them in
their course, and wear the spur that stimulates them
to the goals of honor and of safety. The great must
submit to the dominion of prudence and of virtue,
or none will long submit to the dominion of the
great. Di's te minorern quod geris, imperas. This is
the feudal tenure which they cannot alter.
Indeed, my dear Sir, things are in a bad state. I
do not deny a good share of diligence, a very great
share of ability, and much public virtue to those
who direct our affairs. But they are incumbered,
not aided, by their very instruments, and by all the
apparatus of the state. I think that our ministry
(though there are things against them which neither
you nor I can dissemble, and which grieve me to the
heart) is by far the most honest and by far the
wisest system of administration in Europe. Their
fall would be no trivial calamity.
Not meaning to depreciate the minority in Parliament, whose talents are also great, and to whom I do not deny virtues, their system seems to me to
be fundamentally wrong. But whether wrong or
right, they have not enough of coherence among
themselves, nor of estimation with the public, nor of
numbers. They cainot make up an administration.
Nothing is more visible. Many other things are
? ? ? ? 128 LETTER TO WILLIAM ELLIOT, ESQ.
against them, which I do not charge as faults, but
reckon among national misfortunes. Extraordinary
things must be done, or one,of the parties cannot
stand as a ministry, nor the other even as an opposition. They cannot change their situations, nor can
any useful coalition be made between them. I do
not see the mode of it nor the way to it. This aspect of things I do not contemplate with pleasure.
I well know that everything of the daring kind
which I speak of is critical: but the times are critical. New things in a new world! I see no hopes
in the common tracks. If men are not to be found
who can be got to feel within them some impulse,
quod nequeo mzonstrare, et sentio tantum, and which
makes them impatient of the present, -- if none can
be got to feel that private persons may sometimes assume that sort of magistracy which does not depend
on the nomination of kings or the election of the
people, but has an inherent and self-existent power
which both would recognize, I see nothing in the
world to hope.
If I saw such a group beginning to cluster, such
as they are, they should have (all that I can give)
my prayers and my advice. People talk of war or
cry for peace: have they to the bottom considered
the questions either of war or peace, upon the scale
of the existing world? No, I fear they have not.
Why should not you yourself be one of those to
enter your name in such a list as I speak of? You
are young; you have great talents; you have a clear
head; you have a natural, fluent, and unforced elocution; your ideas are just, your sentiInents benevolent, open, and enlarged;-but this is too big for your modesty. Oh! this modesty, in time and place,
? ? ? ? LETTER TO WILLIAM ELLIOT, ESQ. 129
is a charming virtue, and the grace of all other virtues. But it is sometimes the worst enemy they have.
Let him whose print I gave you the other day be engraved in your memory! Had it pleased Providence
to have spared him for the trying situations that
seem to be coming on, notwithstanding that he was
sometimes a little dispirited by the disposition which
we thought shown to depress him and set him aside,
yet he was always buoyed up again; and on one or
two occasions he discovered what might be expected
from the vigor and elevation of his mind, from his
unconquerable fortitude, and from the extent of his
resources for every purpose of speculation and of action. Remember him, my friend, who in the highest degree honored and respected you; and remember that great parts are a great trust. Remember, too, that mistaken or misapplied virtues, if they are
not as pernicious as vice, frustrate at least their own
natural tendencies, and disappoint the purposes of
the Great Giver.
Adieu. My dreams are finished.
VOL. V. 9
? ? ? ? THOUGHTS AND DETAILS
ON
SCARCITY.
ORIGINALLY PRESENTED
TO THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM PITT, IN THE MONTH OF NOVEMIBER. I795.
? ? ? ? THOUGHTS AND DETAILS
ON
SCARCITY.
F all things, an indiscreet tampering with the
trade of provisions is the most dangerous, and
it is always worst in the time when men are most
disposed to it, - that is, in the time of scarcity; because there is nothing on which the passions of men are so violent, and their judgment so weak, and on
which there exists such a multitude of ill-founded
popular prejudices.
The great use of government is as a restraint; and
there is no restraint which it ought to put upon others, and upon itself too, rather than that which is imposed on the fury of speculating under circumstances of irritation. The number of idle tales spread about by the industry of faction and by the zeal of
foolish good-intention, and greedily devoured by the
malignant credulity of mankind, tends infinitely to
aggravate prejudices which in themselves are more
than sufficiently strong. In that state of affairs, and
of the public with relation to them, the first thing
that government owes to us, the people, is information; the next is timely coercion: the one to guide our judgment; the other to regulate our tempers.
To provide for us in our necessities is not in the lower of government. It would be a vain presump
? ? ? ? 1`34 THOUGHTS AND DETAILS ON SCARCITY.
tion in statesmen to think they can do it. The people maintain them, and not they the people. It is
in the power of government to prevent much evil;
it can do very little positive good in this, or perhaps
in anything else. It is not only so of the state and
statesman, but of all the classes and descriptions of
the rich: they are the pensioners of the poor, and
are maintained by their superfluity. They are under
an absolute, hereditary, and indefeasible dependence
on those who labor and are miscalled the poor.
The laboring people are only poor because they are
numerous. Numbers in their nature imply poverty.
In a fair distribution among a vast multitude none
can have much. That class of dependent pensioners
called the rich is so extremely small, that, if all their
throats were cut, and a distribution made of all they
consume in a year, it would not give a bit of bread
and cheese for one night's supper to those who labor,
and who in reality feed both the pensioners and themselves.
But the throats of the rich ought not to be cut,
nor their magazines plundered; because, in their persons, they are trustees for those who labor, and their hoards are the banking-houses of these latter. Whether they mean it oi' not, they do, in effect, execute their trust, - some with more, some with less fidelity
and judgment. But, on the whole, the duty is performed, and everything returns, deducting some very trifling commission and discount, to the place from
whence it arose. When the poor rise to destroy the
rich, they act as wisely for their own purposes as
when they burn mills and throw corn into the river
to make bread cheap.
When I say that we of the people ought to be in
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formed, inclusively I say we ought not to be flattered: flattery is the reverse of instruction. The poor
in that case would be rendered as improvident as the
rich, which would not be at all good for them.
Nothing can be so base and so wicked as the political canting language, " the laboring poor. " Let compassion be shown in action,- the more, the better,
- according to every man's ability; but let there be
no lamentation of their condition. It is no relief to
their miserable circumstances; it is only an insult to
their miserable understandings. It arises from a total want of charity or a total want of thought. Want
of one kind was never relieved by want of any other
kind. Patience, labor, sobriety, frugality, and religion should be recommended to them; all the rest is
downright fraud. It is horrible to call them " the
once happy laborer. "
Whether what may be called the moral or philosophical happiness of the laborious classes is increased
or not, I cannot say. The seat of that species of happiness is in the mind; and there are few data to ascertain the comparative state of the mind at any two periods. Philosophical happiness is to want little.
Civil or vulgar happiness is to want much and to
enjoy Inuch.
If the happiness of the animal man (which certainly goes somewhere towards the happiness of the
rational man) be the object of our estimate, then I
assert, without the least hesitation, that the condition of those who labor (in all descriptions of labor,
and in all gradations of labor, from the highest to
the lowest inclusively) is, on the whole, extremely
meliorated, if more and better food is any standard
of melioration. They work more, it is certain; but
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they have the advantage of their augmented labor:
yet whether that increase of labor be on the whole
a good or an evil is a consideration that would lead
us a great way, and is not for my present purpose.
But as to the fact of the melioration of their diet, I
shall enter into the detail of proof, whenever I am
called upon: in the mean time, the known difficulty
of contenting them with anything but bread made of
the finest flour and meat of the first quality is proof
sufficient.
I further assert, that, even under all the hardships
of the last year, the laboring people did, either out
of their direct gains, or from charity, (which it seems
is now an insult to them,) in fact, fare better than
they did in seasons of common plenty, fifty or sixty
years ago, -or even at the period of my English observation, which is about forty-four years. I even assert that full as many in that class as ever were
known to do it before continued to save money; and
this I can prove, so far as my own information and
experience extend.
It is not true that the rate of wages has not increased with the nominal price of provisions. I allow, it has not fluctuated with that price, - nor ought it;
and the squires of Norfoll had dined, when they gave
it as their opinion that it might or ought to rise and
fall with the market of provisions. The rate of wages,.
in truth, has no direct relation to that price. Labor
is a commodity like every other, and rises or falls
according to the demand. This is in the nature of
things; however, the nature of things has provided
for their necessities. Wages have been twice raised
in my time; and they bear a fiull proportion, or even
a greater than formerly, to the medium of provision
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during the last bad cycle of twenty years. They bear
a full proportion to the result of their labor. If we
were wildly to attempt to force them beyond it, the
stone which we had forced up the hill would only fall
back upon them in a diminished demand, or, what
indeed is the far lesser evil, an aggravated price of all
the provisions which are the result of their manual
toil.
There is an implied contract, much stronger than
any instrument or article of agreement between the
laborer in any occupation and his employer, - that the
labor, so far as that labor is concerned, shall be sufficient to pay to the employer a profit on his capital and a compensation for his risk: in a word, that the
labor shall produce an advantage equal to the payment. Whatever is above that is a direct tax; and
if the amount of that tax be left to the will and pleasure of another, it is an arbitrary tax.
If I understand it rightly, the tax proposed on the
farming interest of this kingdom is to be levied at
what is called the discretion of justices of peace.
The questions arising on this scheme of arbitrary
taxation are these: Whether it is better to leave all
dealing, in which there is no force or fraud, collusion
or combination, entirely to the persons mutually concerned in the matter contracted for,- or to put the contract into the hands of those who can have none
or a very remote interest in it, and little or no knowledge of the subject.
It might be imagined that there would be very little difficulty in solving this question: for what man,
of any degree of reflection, can think that a want of
interest in any subject, closely connected with a want
of skill in it, qualifies a person to intermeddle in any
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the least affair, - much less in affairs that vitally concern the agriculture of the kingdom, the first of all
its concerns, and the foundation of all its prosperity
in every other matter by which that prosperity is
produced?
The vulgar error on this subject arises from a total
confusion in the very idea of things widely different
in themselves, -- those of convention, and those of
judicature. When a contract is making, it is a matter of discretion and of interest between the parties.
In that intercourse, and in what is to arise from it,
the parties are the masters. If they are not completely so, they are not free, and therefore their contracts are void. But this freedom has no farther extent, when the
contract is made: then their discretionary powers
expire, and a new order of things takes its origin.
Then, and not till then, and on a difference between
the parties, the office of the judge commences. He
cannot dictate the contract. It is his business to see
that it be enforced, - provided that it is not contrary
to preexisting laws, or obtained by force or fraud.
If he is in any way a maker or regulator of the contract, in so much he is disqualified from being a
judge. But this sort of confused distribution of administrative and judicial characters (of which we
have already as much as is sufficient, and a little
more) is not the only perplexity of notions and passiolls which trouble us in the present hour.
What is doing supposes, or pretends, that the
farmer and the laborer have opposite interests, - that
the farmer oppresses the laborer, - and that a gentleman, called a justice of peace, is the protector of the
latter, and a control and restraint on the former;
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and this is a point I wish to examine in a manner
a good deal different from that in which gentlemen
proceed, who confide more in their abilities than is
fit, and suppose them capable of more than any natural abilities, fed with no other than the provender
furnished by their own private speculations, can accomplish. Legislative acts attempting to regulate
this part of economy do, at least as much as any
other, require the exactest detail of circumstances,
guided by the surest general principles that are necessary to direct experiment and inquiry, in order
again from those details to elicit principles, firm and
luminous general principles, to direct a practical legislative proceeding.
First, then, I deny that it is in this case, as in any
other, of necessary implication that contracting parties should originally have had different interests.
By accident it may be so, undoubtedly, at the outset:
but then the contract is of the nature of a compromise; and compromise is founded on circumstances
that suppose it the interest of the parties to be reconciled in some medium. The principle of compromise adopted, of consequence the interests cease to be different.
But in the case of the farmer and the laborer,
their interests are always the same, and it is absolutely impossible that their free contracts can be
onerous to either party. It is the interest of the
farmer that his work should be done with effect and
celerity; and that cannot be, unless the laborer is
well fed, and otherwise found with such necessaries
of animal life, according to its habitudes, as may
keep the body in full force, and the mind gay and
cheerful. For of all the instruments of his trade,
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the labor of man (what the ancient writers have
called the instrumentum vocale) is that on which he
is most to rely for the repayment of his capital.
The other two, the semivocale in the ancient classification, that is, the working stock of cattle, and the
instrumentum mutumrn, such as carts, ploughs, spades,
and so forth, though not all inconsiderable in themselves, are very much inferior in utility or in expense, and, without a given portion of the first, are nothing at all. For, in all things whatever, the mind
is the most valuable and the most important; and
in this scale the whole of agriculture is in a natural
and just order: the beast is as an informing principle to the plough and cart; the laborer is as reason
to the beast; and the farmer is as a thinking and
presiding principle to the laborer. An attempt to
break this chain of subordination in any part is
equally absurd; but the absurdity is the most mischievous, in practical operation, where it is the most
easy, - that is, where it is the most subject to an erroneous judgment.
It is plainly more the farmer's interest that his
men should thrive than that his horses should be
well fed, sleek, plump, and fit for use, or than that
his wagon and ploughs should be strong, in good
repair, and fit for service.
On the other hand, if the farmer ceases to profit
of the laborer, and that his capital is not continually manured and fructified, it is impossible that he
should continue that abundant nutriment and clothing and lodging proper for the protection of the inl
struments he employs.
It is therefore the'first and fundamental interest of
the laborer, that the farmer should have a filll inconm
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ing profit on the product of his labor. The proposition is self-evident; and nothing but the malignity, perverseness, and ill-governed passions of mankind,
and particularly the envy they bear to each other's
prosperity, could prevent their seeing and acknowledging it, with thankfulness to the benign and wise Disposer of all things, who obliges men, whether they
will or not, in pursuing their own selfish interests,
to connect the general good with their own individnal success.
But who are to judge what that profit and advantage ought to be? Certainly no authority on earth.
It is a matter of convention, dictated by the reciprocal conveniences of the parties, and indeed by their reciprocal necessities. -- But if the farmer is excessively avaricious? -- Why, so much the better: the more he desires to increase his gains, the more interested is he in the good condition of those upon whose labor his gains must principally depend.
I shall be told by the zealots of the sect of regulation, that this may be true, and may be safely committed to the convention of the farmer and the
laborer, when the latter is in the prime of his youth,
and at the time of his health and vigor, and in ordinary times of abundance. But in calamitous seasons, under accidental illness, in declining life, and with
the pressure of a numerous offspring, the future
nourishers of the community, but the present drains
and blood-suckers of those who produce them, what
is to be done? When a man cannot live and maintain his family by the natural hire of his labor, ought
it not to be raised by authority?
On this head I must be allowed to submit what
my opinions have ever been, and somewhat at large.
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And, first, I premise that labor is, as I have already
intimated, a commodity, and, as such, an article of
trade. If I am right in this notion, then labor must
be subject to all the laws and principles of trade, and
not to regulations foreign to them, and that may be
totally inconsistent with those principles and those
laws. When any commodity is carried to market,
it is not the necessity of the vendor, but the necessity
of the purchaser, that raises the price. The extreme
want of the seller has rather (by the nature of things
with which we shall in vain contend) the direct contrary operation. If the goods at market are beyond
the demand, they fall in their value; if below it,
they rise. The impossibility of the subsistence of
a man who carries his labor to a market is totally
beside the question, in this way of viewing it. The
only question is, What is it worth to the buyer?
But if authority comes in and forces the buyer to a
price, what is this in the case (say) of a farmer who
buys the labor of ten or twelve laboring men, and
three or four handicrafts,- what is it but to make
an arbitrary division of his property among them?
The whole of his gains (I say it with the most
certain conviction) never do amount anything like in
value to what he pays to his laborers and artificers;
so that a very small advance upon what one man pays
to many may absorb the whole of what he possesses,
and amount to an actual partition of all his substance
among them. A perfect equality will, indeed, be produced, -- that is to say, equal want, equal wretchedness, equal beggary, and, on the part of the partitioners, a woful, helpless, and desperate disappointment. Such is the event of all compulsory equalizations.
They pull down what is above; they never raise
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what is below; and they depress high and low together beneath the level of what was originally the
lowest.
If a commodity is raised by authority above what
it will yield with a profit to the buyer, that commodity will be the less dealt in. If a second blundering
interposition be used to correct the blunder of the
first and an attempt is made to force the purchase
of the commodity, (of labor, for instance,) the one of
these two things must happen: either that the forced
buyer is ruined, or the price of the product of the
labor in that proportion is raised. Then the wheel
turns round, and the evil complained of falls with
aggravated weight on the complainant. The price
of corn, which is the result of the expense of all the
operations of husbandry taken together, and for some
time continued, will rise on the laborer, considered
as a consumer. The very best will be, that he remains where he was. But if the price of the corn
should not compensate the price of labor, what is far
more to be feared, the most serious evil, the very destruction of agriculture itself, is to be apprehended.
Nothing is such an enemy to accuracy of judgment as a coarse discrimination, a want of such classification and distribution as the subject admits of. Increase the rate of wages to the laborer, say the
regulators, -as if labor was but one thing, and of
one value. But this very broad, generic term, labor,
admits, at least, of two or three specific descriptions:
and these will suffice, at least, to let gentlemen discern a little the necessity of proceeding with caution
in their coercive guidance of those whose existence
depends upon the observance of still nicer distinctions and subdivisions than commonly they resort
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to in forming their judgments on this very enlarged
part of economy.
The laborers in husbandry may be divided, -
First, Into those who are able to perform the full
work of a man,- that is, what can be done by a person from twenty-one years of age to fifty. I know no
husbandry work (mowing hardly excepted) that is not
equally within the power of all persons within those
ages, the more advanced fully compensating by knack
and habit what they lose in activity. Unquestionably, there is a good deal of difference between the
value of one man's labor and that of another, from
strength, dexterity, and honest application. But I
am quite sure, from my best observation, that any
given five men will, in their total, afford a proportion of labor equal to any other five within the periods of life I have stated: that is, that among such five men there will be one possessing all the qualifications of a good workman, one bad, and the other
three middling, and approximating to the first and
the last. So that, in so small a platoon as that of
even five, you will find the full complement of all that
five men can earn. Taking five and five throughout
the'kingdom, they are equal: therefore an error with
regard to the equalization of their wages by those who
employ five, as farmers do at the very least, cannot be
considerable.
Secondly, Those who are able to work, but not
the complete task of a day-laborer. This class is
infinitely diversified, but will aptly enough fall into
principal divisions. Men, from the decline, which
after fifty becomes every year more sensible, to the
period of debility and decrepitude, and the maladies
that precede a final dissolution. Women, whose em
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ployment on husbandry is but occasional, and who
differ more in effective labor one from another than
men do, on account of gestation, nursing, and domestic management, over and above the difference they have in common with men in advancing, in
stationary, and in declining life. Children, who proceed on the reverse order, growing from less to greater utility, but with a still greater disproportion
of nutriment to labor than is found in the second of these subdivisions: as is visible to those who will give themselves the trouble of examining into the interior economy of a poor-house.
This inferior classification is introduced to show
that laws prescribing or magistrates exercising a
very stiff and often inapplicable rule, or a blind and
rash discretion, never call provide the just proportions between earning and salary, on the one hand,
and nutriment on the other: whereas interest, habit,
and the tacit convention that arise from a thousand
nameless circumstances produce a tact that regulates
without difficulty what laws and magistrates cannot
regulate at all. The first class of labor wants nothing to equalize it; it equalizes itself. The second
and third are not capable of any equalization.
But what if the rate of hire to the laborer comes
far short of his necessary subsistence, and the calamity of the time is so great as to threaten actual famine? Is the poor laborer to be abandoned to the flinty heart and griping hand of base self-interest,
supported by the sword of law, especially when there
is reason to suppose that the very avarice of farmers
themselves has concurred with the errors of government to bring famine on the land?
In that case, my opinion is this: Whenever it hapVOL. V. 10
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pens that a man can claim nothing according to the
rules of commerce and the principles of justice, he
passes out of that department, and comes within the
jurisdiction of mercy. In that province the magistrate has nothing at all to do; his interference is a
violation of the property which it is his office to protect. Without all doubt, charity to the poor is a direct and obligatory duty upon all Christians, next in
order after the payment of debts, full as strong, and
by Nature made infinitely more delightful to us.
Pufendorf, and other casuists, do not, I think, denominate it quite properly, when they call it a duty of
imperfect obligation. But the manner, mode, time,
choice of objects, and proportion are left to private
discretion; and perhaps for that very reason it is
performed with the greater satisfaction, because the
discharge of it has more the appearance of freedom,
recommending us besides very specially to the Divine
favor, as the exercise of a virtue most suitable to a
being sensible of its own infirmity.
The cry of the people in cities and towns, though
unfortunately (from a fear of their multitude and
combination) the most regarded, ought, inlfact, to be
the least attended to, upon this subject: for citizens
are in a state of utter ignorance of the means by
which they are to be fed, and they contribute little or
nothing, except in an infinitely circuitous manner, to
their own maintenance. They are truly fruyes consumere nati. They are to be heard with great respect and attention upon matters within their province, - that is, on trades and manufactures; but on anything that relates to agriculture they are to be listened to with the same reverence which we pay to the
dogmas of other ignorant and presumptuous meni.
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If any one were to tell them that they were to give
in an account of all the stock in their shops, - that
attempts would be made to limit. their profits, or raise
the price of the laboring manufacturers upon them,
or recommend to government, out f a capital from
the public revenues, to set up a hsop of the same
commodities, in order to rival them, and keep them
to reasonable dealing, -- they would very soon see
the impudence, injustice, and oppression of such a
course. They would not be mistaken: but they are
of opinion that agriculture is to be subject to other.
laws, and to be governed by other principles.
A greater and more ruinous mistake cannot be
fallen into than that the trades of agriculture and
grazing can be conducted upon any other than the
common principles of commerce: namely, that the
producer should be permitted, and even expected, to
look to all possible profit which without fraud or
violence he can make; to turn plenty or scarcity to
the best advantage he can; to keep back or to bring
forward his commodities at his pleasure; to account
to no one for his stock or for his gain. On any other
terms he is the slave of the consumer: and that he
should be so is of no benefit to the consumer. No
slave was ever so beneficial to the master as a freeman that deals with him on an equal footing by convention, formed on the rules and principles of
contending interests and compromised advantages.
The consumer, if he were suffered, would in the end
always be the dupe of his own tyranny and injustice.
The landed gentleman is never to forget that the
farmer is his representative.
It is a perilous thing to try experiments on the
farmer. The farmer's capital (except in a few per
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sons and in a very few places) is far more feeble than
commonly is imagined. The trade is a very poor
trade; it is subject to great risks and losses. The
capital, such as it is, is turned but once in the year;
in some branches it requires three years before the
money is paid: I believe never less than three in the
turnip and grass-land course, which is the prevalent
course on the more or less fertile sandy and gravelly
loams, -and these compose the soil in the south and
southeast of England, the best adapted, and perhaps
the only ones that are adapted, to the turnip husbandry.
It is very rare that the most prosperous farmer,
counting the value of his quick and dead stock, the
interest of the money he turns, together with his own
wages as a bailiff or overseer, ever does make twelve
or fifteen per centum by the year on his capital.
