Part 23 (2/2)

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

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

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

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

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

The number of horses and of domestic animals maintained by the

{116} After the Augustan age, the populace of Rome seem to have degenerated with great rapidity, as the donations of corn clearly prove.

Had the tributary countries not furnished the means of providing food, the Goths would have been saved the trouble of sacking the city, as the people must have perished for want.

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

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

As we find depopulation one of the effects that is universally occasioned by decline, it must originate in some cause equally general, and that cause must be one attending the state of wealth and greatness, for it does not appear to be a necessary effect of decline.

We can very easily conceive a people, degraded and numerous, reduced to live poorly, as they do in Naples, Cairo, and some other particular spots: but taking the whole of those countries together, we find evident marks of a falling off in population; and we find it not progressive, but of long standing. Those countries seem to have found a new maximum of population, far inferior to the former standard, immediately after they ceased to be wealthy and flouris.h.i.+ng.

Perhaps it was from this cause that the idea of sumptuary laws originated; for though, in some cases, the pride of being distinguished might occasion the sovereign to enact, or the higher orders of society to solicit them, yet they were always considered as tending to prevent ruinous extravagance. When states become very wealthy, they may consider such regulations as ridiculous, and perhaps they may neither be necessary nor effectual; yet, nevertheless, there must be some cause for the general opinion of their utility. Though it is not the fas.h.i.+on of the present times to hold an opinion as good be-[end of page #142]

cause it is general, and its prevalence in ignorant times is considered as a mark of its being erroneous; yet, observation and common sense have never been wanting at any period, and it is from those sources that such maxims and opinions arise. Any man who had travelled, first through Italy and Spain, and then through England and America, would be very likely to invent sumptuary laws, if he had never heard of such a thing before. In the application of sumptuary laws, as a device, for preventing decline, the traveller might, perhaps, be very whimsical; sometimes forbidding what would never be attempted; but there would be nothing at all ridiculous in his general intention. {117}

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

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

Merchants are less splendid than conquerors and planters. Their ostentation is of a different sort; and, as the fortunes made in that way are rather more equally divided, they cannot launch out quite so far.

Besides, merchants are seldom entirely independent of credit and industry; at least, when acquiring their fortunes they were not so; and, therefore, whether the necessity continues or not, the habit, once contracted, is never quite effaced.

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

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

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