Volume I Part 15 (1/2)
If this gentleman's hero of finance, instead of flying from a treaty, which, though he now defends, he could not approve, and would not oppose; if he, instead of s.h.i.+fting into an office, which removed him from the manufacture of the treaty, had, by his credit with the then great director, acquired for us these, or any of these, objects, the possession of Guadaloupe or Martinico, or the renewal of the _a.s.siento_, he might have held his head high in his country; because he would have performed real service; ten thousand times more real service, than all the economy of which this writer is perpetually talking, or all the little tricks of finance which the expertest juggler of the treasury can practise, could amount to in a thousand years. But the occasion is lost; the time is gone, perhaps forever.
As to the third requisite, _alliance_, there too the author is silent.
What strength of that kind did they acquire? They got no one new ally; they stript the enemy of not a single old one. They disgusted (how justly, or unjustly, matters not) every ally we had; and from that time to this we stand friendless in Europe. But of this naked condition of their country I know some people are not ashamed. They have their system of politics; our ancestors grew great by another. In this manner these virtuous men concluded the peace; and their practice is only consonant to their theory.
Many things more might be observed on this curious head of our author's speculations. But, taking leave of what the writer says in his serious part, if he be serious in any part, I shall only just point out a piece of his pleasantry. No man, I believe, ever denied that the time for making peace is that in which the best terms maybe obtained. But what that time is, together with the use that has been made of it, we are to judge by seeing whether terms adequate to our advantages, and to our necessities, have been actually obtained. Here is the pinch of the question, to which the author ought to have set his shoulders in earnest. Instead of doing this, he slips out of the harness by a jest; and sneeringly tells us, that, to determine this point, we must know the secrets of the French and Spanish cabinets[55], and that Parliament was pleased to approve the treaty of peace without calling for the correspondence concerning it. How just this sarcasm on that Parliament may be, I say not; but how becoming in the author, I leave it to his friends to determine.
Having thus gone through the questions of war and peace, the author proceeds to state our debt, and the interest which it carried, at the time of the treaty, with the unfairness and inaccuracy, however, which distinguish all his a.s.sertions, and all his calculations. To detect every fallacy, and rectify every mistake, would be endless. It will be enough to point out a few of them, in order to show how unsafe it is to place anything like an implicit trust in such a writer.
The interest of debt contracted during the war is stated by the author at 2,614,892_l._ The particulars appear in pp. 14 and 15. Among them is stated the unfunded debt, 9,975,017_l._, supposed to carry interest on a medium at 3 per cent, which amounts to 299,250_l._ We are referred to the ”Considerations on the Trade and Finances of the Kingdom,” p. 22, for the particulars of that unfunded debt. Turn to the work, and to the place referred to by the author himself, if you have a mind to see a clear detection of a capital fallacy of this article in his account. You will there see that this unfunded debt consists of the nine following articles: the remaining subsidy to the Duke of Brunswick; the remaining _dedommagement_ to the Landgrave of Hesse; the German demands; the army and ordnance extraordinaries; the deficiencies of grants and funds; Mr.
Touchet's claim; the debts due to Nova Scotia and Barbadoes; exchequer bills; and navy debt. The extreme fallacy of this state cannot escape any reader who will be at the pains to compare the interest money, with which he affirms us to have been loaded, in his ”State of the Nation,”
with the items of the princ.i.p.al debt to which he refers in his ”Considerations.” The reader must observe, that of this long list of nine articles, only two, the exchequer bills, and part of the navy debt, carried any interest at all. The first amounted to 1,800,000_l._; and this undoubtedly carried interest. The whole navy debt indeed amounted to 4,576,915_l._; but of this only a _part_ carried interest. The author of the ”Considerations,” &c. labors to prove this very point in p. 18; and Mr. G. has always defended himself upon the same ground, for the insufficient provision he made for the discharge of that debt. The reader may see their own authority for it.[56]
Mr. G. did in fact provide no more than 2,150,000_l._ for the discharge of these bills in two years. It is much to be wished that these gentlemen would lay their heads together, that they would consider well this matter, and agree upon something. For when the scanty provision made for the unfunded debt is to be vindicated, then we are told it is a very _small part_ of that debt which carries interest. But when the public is to be represented in a miserable condition, and the consequences of the late war to be laid before us in dreadful colors, then we are to be told that the unfunded debt is within a trifle of ten millions, and so large a portion of it carries interest that we must not compute less than 3 per cent upon the _whole_.
In the year 1764, Parliament voted 650,000_l._ towards the discharge of the navy debt. This sum could not be applied solely to the discharge of bills carrying interest; because part of the debt due on seamen's wages must have been paid, and some bills carried no interest at all.
Notwithstanding this, we find by an account in the journals of the House of Commons, in the following session, that the navy debt carrying interest was, on the 31st of December, 1764, no more than 1,687,442_l._ I am sure therefore that I admit too much when I admit the navy debt carrying interest, after the creation of the navy annuities in the year 1763, to have been 2,200,000_l._ Add the exchequer bills; and the whole unfunded debt carrying interest will be four millions instead of ten; and the annual interest paid for it at 4 per cent will be 160,000_l._ instead of 299,250_l._ An error of no small magnitude, and which could not have been owing to inadvertency.
The misrepresentation of the increase of the peace establishment is still more extraordinary than that of the interest of the unfunded debt.
The increase is great, undoubtedly. However, the author finds no fault with it, and urges it only as a matter of argument to support the strange chimerical proposals he is to make us in the close of his work for the increase of revenue. The greater he made that establishment, the stronger he expected to stand in argument: but, whatever he expected or proposed, he should have stated the matter fairly. He tells us that this establishment is nearly 1,500,000_l._ more than it was in 1752, 1753, and other years of peace. This he has done in his usual manner, by a.s.sertion, without troubling himself either with proof or probability.
For he has not given us any state of the peace establishment in the years 1753 and 1754, the time which he means to compare with the present. As I am obliged to force him to that precision, from which he always flies as from his most dangerous enemy, I have been at the trouble to search the journals in the period between the two last wars: and I find that the peace establishment, consisting of the navy, the ordnance, and the several incidental expenses, amounted to 2,346,594_l._ Now is this writer wild enough to imagine, that the peace establishment of 1764 and the subsequent years, made up from the same articles, is 3,800,000_l._ and upwards? His a.s.sertion however goes to this. But I must take the liberty of correcting him in this gross mistake, and from an authority he cannot refuse, from his favorite work, and standing authority, the ”Considerations.” We find there, p. 43[57], the peace establishment of 1764 and 1765 stated at 3,609,700_l._ This is near two hundred thousand pounds less than that given in ”The State of the Nation.” But even from this, in order to render the articles which compose the peace establishment in the two periods correspondent (for otherwise they cannot be compared), we must deduct first, his articles of the deficiency of land and malt, which amount to 300,000_l._ They certainly are no part of the establishment; nor are they included in that sum, which I have stated above for the establishment in the time of the former peace. If they were proper to be stated at all, they ought to be stated in both accounts. We must also deduct the deficiencies of funds, 202,400_l._ These deficiencies are the difference between the interest charged on the public for moneys borrowed, and the produce of the taxes laid for the discharge of that interest. Annual provision is indeed to be made for them by Parliament: but in the inquiry before us, which is only what charge is brought on the public by interest paid or to be paid for money borrowed, the utmost that the author should do, is to bring into the account the full interest for all that money. This he has done in p. 15; and he repeats it in p. 18, the very page I am now examining, 2,614,892_l._ To comprehend afterwards in the peace establishment the deficiency of the fund created for payment of that interest, would be laying twice to the account of the war part of the same sum. Suppose ten millions borrowed at 4 per cent, and the fund for payment of the interest to produce no more than 200,000_l._ The whole annual charge on the public is 400,000_l._ It can be no more. But to charge the interest in one part of the account, and then the deficiency in the other, would be charging 600,000_l._ The deficiency of funds must therefore be also deducted from the peace establishment in the ”Considerations”; and then the peace establishment in that author will be reduced to the same articles with those included in the sum I have already mentioned for the peace establishment before the last war, in the year 1753, and 1754.
Peace establishment in the ”Considerations” 3,609,700 Deduct deficiency of land and malt 300,000 Ditto of funds 202,400 -------- 502,400 --------- 3,107,300 Peace establishment before the late war, in which no deficiencies of land and malt, or funds are included 2,346,594 ---------
Difference 760,706
Being about half the sum which our author has been pleased to suppose it.
Let us put the whole together. The author states,--
Difference of peace establishment before and since the war 1,500,000 Interest of Debt contracted by the war 2,614,892 --------- 4,114,892 The _real_ difference in the peace establishment is 760,706
The actual interest of the funded debt, including that charged on the sinking fund 2,315,642
The actual interest of unfunded debt at most 160,000 --------- Total interest of debt contracted by the war 2,475,642 --------- Increase of peace establishment, and interest of new debt 3,236,348 --------- Error of the author 878,544
It is true, the extraordinaries of the army have been found considerably greater than the author of the ”Considerations” was pleased to foretell they would be. The author of ”The Present State” avails himself of that increase, and, finding it suit his purpose, sets the whole down in the peace establishment of the present times. If this is allowed him, his error perhaps may be reduced to 700,000_l._ But I doubt the author of the ”Considerations” will not thank him for admitting 200,000_l._ and upwards, as the peace establishment for extraordinaries, when that author has so much labored to confine them within 35,000_l._
These are some of the capital fallacies of the author. To break the thread of my discourse as little as possible, I have thrown into the margin many instances, though G.o.d knows far from the whole of his inaccuracies, inconsistencies, and want of common care. I think myself obliged to take some notice of them, in order to take off from any authority this writer may have; and to put an end to the deference which careless men are apt to pay to one who boldly arrays his accounts, and marshals his figures, in perfect confidence that their correctness will never be examined.[58]
However, for argument, I am content to take his state of it. The debt was and is enormous. The war was expensive. The best economy had not perhaps been used. But I must observe, that war and economy are things not easily reconciled; and that the attempt of leaning towards parsimony in such a state may be the worst management, and in the end the worst economy in the world, hazarding the total loss of all the charge incurred, and of everything along with it.
But _cui bono_ all this detail of our debt? Has the author given a single light towards any material reduction of it? Not a glimmering. We shall see in its place what sort of thing he proposes. But before he commences his operations, in order to scare the public imagination, he raises by art magic a thick mist before our eyes, through which glare the most ghastly and horrible phantoms:
Hunc igitur terrorem animi tenebrasque necesse est.
Non radii solis, neque lucida tela diei Discutiant, sed naturae species ratioque.
Let us therefore calmly, if we can for the fright into which he has put us, appreciate those dreadful and deformed gorgons and hydras, which inhabit the joyless regions of an imagination fruitful in nothing but the production of monsters.
His whole representation, is founded on the supposed operation of our debt, upon our manufactures, and our trade. To this cause he attributes a certain supposed dearness of the necessaries of life, which must compel our manufacturers to emigrate to cheaper countries, particularly to France, and with them the manufacture. Thence consumption declining, and with it revenue. He will not permit the real balance of our trade to be estimated so high as 2,500,000_l._; and the interest of the debt to foreigners carries off 1,500,000_l._ of that balance. France is not in the same condition. Then follow his wailings and lamentings, which he renews over and over, according to his custom--a declining trade, and decreasing specie--on the point of becoming tributary to France--of losing Ireland--of having the colonies torn away from us.