Volume I Part 15 (2/2)

The first thing upon which I shall observe is,[60] what he takes for granted as the clearest of all propositions, the emigration of our manufacturers to France. I undertake to say that this a.s.sertion is totally groundless, and I challenge the author to bring any sort of proof of it. If living is cheaper in France, that is, to be had for less specie, wages are proportionably lower. No manufacturer, let the living be what it will, was ever known to fly for refuge to low wages. Money is the first thing which attracts him. Accordingly our wages attract artificers from all parts of the world. From two s.h.i.+llings to one s.h.i.+lling, is a fall in all men's imaginations, which no calculation upon a difference in the price of the necessaries of life can compensate. But it will be hard to prove that a French artificer is better fed, clothed, lodged, and warmed, than one in England; for that is the sense, and the only sense, of living cheaper. If, in truth and fact, our artificer fares as well in all these respects as one in the same state in France,--how stands the matter in point of opinion and prejudice, the springs by which people in that cla.s.s of life are chiefly actuated? The idea of our common people concerning French living is dreadful; altogether as dreadful as our author's can possibly be of the state of his own country; a way of thinking that will hardly ever prevail on them to desert to France.[61]

But, leaving the author's speculations, the fact is, that they have not deserted; and of course the manufacture cannot be departed, or departing, with them. I am not indeed able to get at all the details of our manufactures; though, I think, I have taken full as much pains for that purpose as our author. Some I have by me; and they do not hitherto, thank G.o.d, support the author's complaint, unless a vast increase of the quant.i.ty of goods manufactured be a proof of losing the manufacture. On a view of the registers in the West Riding of Yorks.h.i.+re, for three years before the war, and for the three last, it appears, that the quant.i.ties of cloths entered were as follows:

Pieces broad. Pieces narrow.

1752 60,724 72,442 1753 55,358 71,618 1754 56,070 72,394 ------- ------- 172,152 216,454

Pieces broad. Pieces narrow.

1765 54,660 77,419 1766 72,575 78,893 1767 102,428 78,819 ------- ------- 3 years, ending 1767 229,663 235,131 3 years, ending 1754 172,152 216,464 ------- ------- Increase 57,511 18,677

In this manner this capital branch of manufacture has increased, under the increase of taxes; and this not from a declining, but from a greatly flouris.h.i.+ng period of commerce. I may say the same on the best authority of the fabric of thin goods at Halifax; of the bays at Rochdale; and of that infinite variety of admirable manufactures that grow and extend every year among the spirited, inventive, and enterprising traders of Manchester.

A trade sometimes seems to perish when it only a.s.sumes a different form.

Thus the coa.r.s.est woollens were formerly exported in great quant.i.ties to Russia. The Russians now supply themselves with these goods. But the export thither of finer cloths has increased in proportion as the other has declined. Possibly some parts of the kingdom may have felt something like a languor in business. Objects like trade and manufacture, which the very attempt to confine would certainly destroy, frequently change their place; and thereby, far from being lost, are often highly improved. Thus some manufactures have decayed in the west and south, which have made new and more vigorous shoots when transplanted into the north. And here it is impossible to pa.s.s by, though the author has said nothing upon it, the vast addition to the ma.s.s of British trade, which has been made by the improvement of Scotland. What does he think of the commerce of the city of Glasgow, and of the manufactures of Paisley and all the adjacent country? Has this anything like the deadly aspect and _facies Hippocratica_ which the false diagnostic of our state physician has given to our trade in general? Has he not heard of the iron-works of such magnitude even in their cradle which are set up on the Carron, and which at the same time have drawn nothing from Sheffield, Birmingham, or Wolverhampton?

This might perhaps be enough to show the entire falsity of the complaint concerning the decline of our manufactures. But every step we advance, this matter clears up more; and the false terrors of the author are dissipated, and fade away as the light appears. ”The trade and manufactures of this country (says he) going to ruin, and a diminution of our _revenue from consumption_ must attend the loss of so many seamen and artificers.” Nothing more true than the general observation: nothing more false than its application to our circ.u.mstances. Let the revenue on consumption speak for itself:--

Average of net excise, since the new duties, three years ending 1767 4,590,734 Ditto before the new duties, three years ending 1759 3,261,694 --------- Average increase 1,329,040

Here is no diminution. Here is, on the contrary, an immense increase.

This is owing, I shall be told, to the new duties, which may increase the total bulk, but at the same time may make some diminution of the produce of the old. Were this the fact, it would be far from supporting the author's complaint. It might have proved that the burden lay rather too heavy; but it would never prove that the _revenue from, consumption_ was impaired, which it was his business to do. But what is the real fact? Let us take, as the best instance for the purpose, the produce of the old hereditary and temporary excise granted in the reign of Charles the Second, whose object is that of most of the new impositions, from two averages, each of eight years.

Average, first period, eight years, ending 1754 525,317 Ditto, second period, eight years, ending 1767 538,542 ------- Increase 613,225

I have taken these averages as including in each a war and a peace period; the first before the imposition of the new duties, the other since those impositions; and such is the state of the oldest branch of the revenue from consumption. Besides the acquisition of so much new, this article, to speak of no other, has rather increased under the pressure of all those additional taxes to which the author is pleased to attribute its destruction. But as the author has made his grand effort against those moderate, judicious, and necessary levies, which support all the dignity, the credit, and the power of his country, the reader will excuse a little further detail on this subject; that we may see how little oppressive those taxes are on the shoulders of the public, with which he labors so earnestly to load its imagination. For this purpose we take the state of that specific article upon which the two capital burdens of the war leaned the most immediately, by the additional duties on malt, and upon beer.

Barrels.

Average of strong beer, brewed in eight years before the additional malt and beer duties 3,895,059

Average of strong beer, eight years since the duties 4,060,726 --------- Increase in the last period 165,667

Here is the effect of two such daring taxes as 3_d._ by the bushel additional on malt, and 3_s._ by the barrel additional on beer. Two impositions laid without remission one upon the neck of the other; and laid upon an object which before had been immensely loaded. They did not in the least impair the consumption: it has grown under them. It appears that, upon the whole, the people did not feel so much inconvenience from the new duties as to oblige them to take refuge in the private brewery.

Quite the contrary happened in both these respects in the reign of King William; and it happened from much slighter impositions.[62] No people can long consume a commodity for which they are not well able to pay. An enlightened reader laughs at the inconsistent chimera of our author, of a people universally luxurious, and at the same time oppressed with taxes and declining in trade. For my part, I cannot look on these duties as the author does. He sees nothing but the burden. I can perceive the burden as well as he; but I cannot avoid contemplating also the strength that supports it. From thence I draw the most comfortable a.s.surances of the future vigor, and the ample resources, of this great, misrepresented country; and can never prevail on myself to make complaints which have no cause, in order to raise hopes which have no foundation.

When a representation is built on truth and nature, one member supports the other, and mutual lights are given and received from every part.

Thus, as our manufacturers have not deserted, nor the manufacture left us, nor the consumption declined, nor the revenue sunk; so neither has trade, which is at once the result, measure, and cause of the whole, in the least decayed, as our author has thought proper sometimes to affirm, constantly to suppose, as if it were the most indisputable of all propositions. The reader will see below the comparative state of our trade[63] in three of the best years before our increase of debt and taxes, and with it the three last years since the author's date of our ruin.

In the last three years the whole of our exports was between 44 and 45 millions. In the three years preceding the war, it was no more than from 35 to 36 millions. The average balance of the former period was 3,706,000_l._; of the latter, something above four millions. It is true, that whilst the impressions of the author's destructive war continued, our trade was greater than it is at present. One of the necessary consequences of the peace was, that France must gradually recover a part of those markets of which she had been originally in possession.

However, after all these deductions, still the gross trade in the worst year of the present is better than in the best year of any former period of peace. A very great part of our taxes, if not the greatest, has been imposed since the beginning of the century. On the author's principles, this continual increase of taxes must have ruined our trade, or at least entirely checked its growth. But I have a ma.n.u.script of Davenant, which contains an abstract of our trade for the years 1703 and 1704; by which it appears that the whole export from England did not then exceed 6,552,019_l._ It is now considerably more than double that amount. Yet England was then a rich and flouris.h.i.+ng nation.

The author endeavors to derogate from the balance in our favor as it stands on the entries, and reduces it from four millions, as it there appears, to no more than 2,500,000_l._ His observation on the looseness and inaccuracy of the export entries is just; and that the error is always an error of excess, I readily admit. But because, as usual, he has wholly omitted some very material facts, his conclusion is as erroneous as the entries he complains of.

On this point of the custom-house entries I shall make a few observations. 1st. The inaccuracy of these entries can extend only to FREE GOODS, that is, to such British products and manufactures, as are exported without drawback and without bounty; which do not in general amount to more than two thirds at the very utmost of the whole export even of _our home products_. The valuable articles of corn, malt, leather, hops, beer, and many others, do not come under this objection of inaccuracy. The article of CERTIFICATE GOODS re-exported, a vast branch of our commerce, admits of no error, (except some smaller frauds which cannot be estimated,) as they have all a drawback of duty, and the exporter must therefore correctly specify their quant.i.ty and kind. The author therefore is not warranted from the known error in some of the entries, to make a general defalcation from the whole balance in our favor. This error cannot affect more than half, if so much, of the export article. 2dly. In the account made up at the Inspector-General's office, they estimate only the original cost of British products as they are here purchased; and on foreign goods, only the prices in the country from whence they are sent. This was the method established by Mr.

Davenant; and as far as it goes, it certainly is a good one. But the profits of the merchant at home, and of our factories abroad, are not taken into the account; which profit on such an immense quant.i.ty of goods exported and re-exported cannot fail of being very great: five per cent, upon the whole, I should think, a very moderate allowance. 3dly.

It does not comprehend the advantage arising from the employment of 600,000 tons of s.h.i.+pping, which must be paid by the foreign consumer, and which, in many bulky articles of commerce, is equal to the value of the commodity. This can scarcely be rated at less than a million annually. 4thly. The whole import from Ireland and America, and from the West Indies, is set against us in the ordinary way of striking a balance of imports and exports; whereas the import and export are both our own.

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