Part 42 (2/2)

the United States promise to support the industry of England, now that it has humbled its ambition, far more than both the Indies, which gratify it so much.

It is highly probable, that America will increase more rapidly in wealth and population than in manufactures, such as she at present takes from great Britain; but if the ratio merely continues the same that it is now, the purpose will be completely answered, and a market for British manufactures insured for ages to come. In 1802, by the last census, the inhabitants of the United States amounted to about eight millions; and, for several years together, the exports of British goods have amounted to seven millions, so that it is fair to reckon a consumption equal to sixteen s.h.i.+llings a year to each person. It was about the same in 1774, previous to the revolt; and, as the population doubles in about fifteen years, in the course of thirty years more, the exports to that country alone would amount to 24,000,000 L. provided we continue to be able to sell at such rates as not to be undersold by others =sic= nations in the American market.

There is nothing great, nothing brilliant, in this commerce, all is solid and good; it is a connection founded on mutual wants and mutual conveniencey, not on monopoly, restriction, or coercion; for that reason it will be the more durable, and ought to be the more valued; but it is not. Governments, like individuals, are most attached to what is dear to purchase and difficult to keep. It is to be hoped, however, that this matter will be seen in its true light.

One circ.u.mstance, that makes the matter still more favourable for Britain is, that the western country of America, by far the most fertile, as well as the most extensive, is now peopling very rapidly. The labour and capital of the inhabitants are entirely turned to agriculture and not to manufactures, and will be so for a great number of years; for, when there are fifty millions of inhabitants in the United States, their population will not amount to one-half of what may naturally be expected, or sufficient to occupy the lands. The fertility of the soil will enable the Americans, with great ease to themselves, to make returns in produce wanted in Europe, so that we may expect a durable, a great, and an advantageous trade with them. In British [end of page #268]

manufactures our trade was not near so great before the revolt, for we then supplied America with every article.

This, however, will depend partly on our circ.u.mstances; for, if wages and the prices of our manufactures rise, as they lately have done, our merchants will buy upon the continent of Europe, what they otherwise would purchase in England, to supply the American market.

America is the only country in the world where, with respect to the wages of labour, and the produce of industry, money is of less value than in England. The Americans will then be able to afford to purchase English goods, when other nations will not; but then, they will only purchase such articles as cannot be had elsewhere; for though they may and will continue able to purchase, they will not do it if they can get goods that suit them elsewhere. {206}

No country, that we read of in history, ever enjoyed equal advantages with the American states; they have good laws, a free government, and are possessed of all the inventions and knowledge of the old world. Arts are now conveyed across the Atlantic with more ease than they formerly were from one village to another. It is possible, that a new market of so great an extent being opened may do away those jealousies of commerce, which have, for these two or three last centuries, occasioned many quarrels, and which are peculiarly dangerous to a nation that has risen high above its level.

All those things, with care and attention, will prove advantageous to Britain in a superior degree. They afford us much reason for hope and comfort, and do away one of the causes for fearing a decline that has been stated, namely, the being supplanted by poorer nations, or by not having a market for our increasing manufactures.

There remains yet another consideration in favour of Britain, as a manufacturing and a commercial country; for, as such, we must view it, reckoning more on industry than on the ideal wealth of our colonies in the West, and our conquests in the East. It is this, we are the

{206} England begins already to lose the market for linen-cloth, window-gla.s.s, fire-arms, and a number of other articles. It would have entirely lost that of books, if any nation on the continent of Europe could print English correctly. As, it is, they are printing in America, in place of our keeping the trade, which we might have done with great profit and advantage.

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latest of European nations that has risen to wealth by commerce and manufactures. In looking over the map, there does not seem to be any one to supplant us; all those, who have great advantages, have already gone before, and, till we see the example of a country renewing itself, we have a right to disbelieve that it is possible.

Russia is the only country in Europe that is newer than England, and many circ.u.mstances will prevent it from becoming a rival in commerce. It does not, nor it ever can increase in population, and carry civilization and manufactures to the same point. Though, very new, as a powerful European nation, the people are as ancient as most others in Europe; the territory is so extensive, the climate so cold, and the Baltic Sea so much to the north, and frozen so many months in the year, that it never will either be a carrying or a manufacturing country.

To cultivate its soil, and export the produce of its mines, the skins, tallow, hides, timber, &c. &c. will be more profitable, and suit better the inhabitants than any compet.i.tion in manufactures.

It is not in great extensive empires that manufactures thrive the most, they are great objects for small countries, like England or Holland; but, for such as Russia, Turkey, or France, they are a less object than attention to soil and natural productions; and, thus we see, that China, the greatest of all countries in extent, encourages interior trade and manufactures, but despises foreign commerce. {207}

One peculiar advantage England enjoys favourable to manufactures, deserves notice. The law of patents, if it does not make people invent or seek after new inventions, it at least encourages and enables them to improve their inventions. Invention is the least part of the business in respect to public wealth and utility. There has long been a collection of models, at Paris, made by one of the most in-

{207} The smaller a district, or an island is, the exports and imports will be the greater, when compared with the number of inhabitants.

Take the exports and imports of all Europe, with the other quarters of the world;--considering Europe as one country, and it will not be found to amount to one s.h.i.+lling a person per annum. Take the amount in Britain, it will be found about forty s.h.i.+llings a person. Consider what is bought and sold by a single village, and it will be still greater than that; and, last of all, a single labouring family buys all that it uses, and sells all that it produces. And the meanest family, taken in this way, does proportionably =sic= more buying and selling than the richest state, taken in a body. Consider the whole earth as one state, and it neither exports nor imports.

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genious mechanics of the last century, (Mr. Vaucusson,) at the expense of that government, in which were nearly all the curious inventions brought forth in England, together with many not known in it. Some Englishmen, in going through it, brought over new inventions here, for which they obtained patents, and, by which, they, as well as the public, were gainers, while the inventions lay useless and dormant in France.

Invention is not a thing in a man's power, and great inventions are generally more the effect of accident than of superior abilities; at any rate, no encouragement is certain to produce invention, but it always will produce improvement on invention. When a man has a patent for fourteen years, he does every thing in his power to make the object of that patent become as generally useful as possible, and this is only to be done by carrying the improvements as far as he is able. {208} Others, again, who have no patent, but are of the same trade, endeavour to preserve their business by improvement, and to this contest in excellence may be attributed the great progress, made in England, in bringing manufactures to a higher degree of perfection than in any other country.

The great inventions, from which others branch out and spring, are not due, it has often been a.s.serted, to natives of this country. Probably this may be owing to the circ.u.mstance, that they were known before the advancement of this country in any of the arts; but let that be as it may, there are a vast number of inventions carried to greater

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