Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

lating capital tended no doubt to rouse and enliven every branch of industry and species of adventure, and thereby countributed to the general wealth or clear revenue of the nation. But, it is not to be disgui. sed, that it had a most pernicious influence on the condition of the great mass of the poor labouring people. Taxes on taxes without end, for payment of the iuterest of loans on loans, gave birth to such a profusion of those paper-signs of wealth, as occasioned also a rapid decrease in its value. While idle capitalists and stock-jobbers rolled in wealth, the lot of the lower clas. ses of the people became harder and harder. The price of provisions and all necessaries became higher and higher: that is, the value of money became less and less. This fall in the value of money was rapid, but the rise in the price of labour, par. ticularly agricultural labour, the most valuable of any, and which employs so great a proportion of the population of the country, was very slow. And no sooner was it raised, if indeed it ever was raised, to a level with the depreciation of

money, on an average proportion of wages to necessaries for some years back, than new inundations of both metaphysical and metal money destroyed the balance. The number of those who depended on relief from their parishes, had increased to an alarming degree. And the increase in the poors-rates was an enormous addition to the enormous taxes paid to government. The reduced state of the common people was observable to every one, and to those who happened to return to London, or any other place, after an absence of twenty or thirty years, extremely striking. A very great number of what are called tea-gardens, in the vicinity of the metropolis, were deserted. The voice of joy and gladness was less heard in the villages. And even among those who were not inclined to give vent to their feelings, in murmurs and complaints, there was an air of patient and sad resignation.

These were among the evils flowing from the funding system, or that of shifting off on the shoulders of posterity the burthen of the day; which burthen, however, would, in many instances, have been less, if

*We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work; but many against combining to raise it. If all such disputes, the masters can hold out much longer than the labourers or workmen. A landlord, a farmer, a mastermanufacturer, or merchant, though they did not employ a single labourer or workman, could, generally, live a year or two upon the stocks which they have already acquired. Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarcely any a year, without employment. In the long-run the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him: but the necessity is not so immediate---we rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But, whoever imagines on this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and every where in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate. To violate this combination is everywhere a most unpopular action, and a sort of reproach to a master among his neighbours and equals. We seldom indeed hear of this combination, because it is the usual, and one may say the natural state of things, which nobody ever hears of.-SMITH'S WEALTH of NATIONS, book 1.

[ocr errors][ocr errors]

the

[ocr errors]

the difficulty of borrowing money had acute and patient calculators, both been greater

in and out of parliament, set them. But this system had been for more selves to shew by a variety of state. than a century adopted, for avoiding ments, though with what degree of ac. the immediate pressure of raising the curacy it is not here pretended to supplies within the year, and cou'd judge, that the amount of taxes ne not now be abandoned. The impo. cessary to be imposed under the new sition of new taxes to any great plan, as it was called, or of debt in. amount, would have been harsh and curred on account of compound in. cruel, and might have been even a terest, in the twentieth year from dangerous expedient. The raising raising any particular loan, would of the property tax to 10 per cent, be twice as much as under common (which certain financiers entertained funding, that is to say, borrowing, thoughts of raising still higher) was and raising taxes within the year for universally complained of as most payment of the interest of the sums oppressive, and tyrannical. It was borrowed. called by thousands, not taxation, Of all the plans of finance sub. but confiscation.

mitted to the consideration of par. Lord Henry Petty therefore, in the liament, the most simple, solid, and ardour of genius and youth, con. what would have been most gene. ceived the design of relieving the na- rally acceptable, was thatof Sir James tion, at least for a time, by abstrac. Pulteney, who declared his opinion tion on abstraction, by refinements that the accumulation of the sinking and calculations, that stretched to fund should stop now, that is, that the utmost the finest and strongest the produce of this fund, during the nerves of political arithmetic. War. war, should be diverted to the ser. loans and supplementary loans; one vice of the year: which would save per cent. sinking funds on supplemen. the trouble and expence attending, tary loans, and five per cent, sinking the making and managing of new funds on war-loans; to raise the loans to that amount. first year a smaller supplementary partiality of ministers, or those who loun than in proportion to that of expected or wished to be ministers, other years; tables to shew how for the sinking fund, was very gene. much might be diverted out of the rally ascribed to the facility it ex. existing sinking fund; and calcula- tended, by keeping up the price of tions on the rise and fall of consols, stocks, to the borrowing of money. on money capital of debt, and no- Lord H. Petty's confession that, in minal capital.---All this with the ac- his view of the matter, the great be. knowledged uncertainty of future nefit of the sinking fund lay in the incidents, and the future deprecia certainty it afforded of stock being tion of money, conveyed to minds a marketable commodity, was much incapable, or too inactive to follow commented on both in conversation the labyrinth of his combinations, and publications of the press: in the idea of a machinery too cumber- which this benefit to stock-jobbers, some and intricate, and liable to too and ministers, ever prone to get the many unforeseen accidents, to be command of as much money as pos. acted upon by men of common sense, sible into their own hands, was viewed and altogether chimerical: while more as a tax of eight or nine millions a

year

The great

year on the people. In truth, this of the stockholders, clamorous in benefit, if it be one, was the only be. vain for the regular payment of their nefit that accompanied the sinking dividends, would be drowned in one fund. With regard to the nation, general uproar of the nation.---But considered as an individual proprie such a sudden and sad reverse, even tor, or one family, this scheme of though our open trade should be making the family at once debtor and shut out from the continent of Europe, creditor, taking from the one hand with all the world to trade with bear to give the other, robbing Peter to sides, is not to be apprehended. Our pay Paul, was merely a political so- national prosperity may reasonably phism. It reminds us of the cove- be expected, if we may judge hy what tous man in Moliere; who, chagrined has past since the termination of the beyond measure at the loss of his mo- American war, to increase, not in ney, and not knowing whom to accuse an arithmetical, but more nearly in of the theft, seizes the left hand with a geometrical proportion to its pre. the right, and cries out in a paroxysm sent extent: in which case the future of passion, “And myself too! I will depreciation of money must be ex. charge myself with the robbery.” tremely rapid; so great indeed as to Public credit would never be shaken defy all our calculation. Herethe loss, while we could pay the interest, it is evident, would fall on the stock though we should never diminish the holders. The debt of the nation amount of our debts. The taxes rai. would be almost annihilated, merely sed for the sinkingfund, may be consi. by a gradual decrease in the value of dered as a capital laid out at a very money. And as to the stock-holders, low interest, instead of being suffered the depreciation in the real value of to remain in the hands of industrious stock, that is, the necessaries it would individuals, to be employed by them in purchase, while it continued to be agriculture, manufactures, and trade. transferred from hand to hand, would It is, as if a landholder, or farmer, not be very sensibly felt by any pos. instead of improving his estate or farm, should lock up, for the benefit It seems therefore to be the wisest of his grandchildren, his guineas, as well as simplest political econocrowns, and shillings, in his strong- my, to apply, if necessary, the whole box. Without a sinking fund, the revenue of the current year to the very progress of society would alle: service of the state, rather than to viate the burthen of the national debt, oppress and overload the people by and at last almost annihilate it. taxes that cramp productive indus

Either the navigation, commerce, try, for the purpose of raising or conand general exertion and improve. tinuing the accumulation of a sinkment of the British empire, must un- ing fund. --Queen Elizabeth was dergo a sudden and a sad reverse, or wont to say, that "

money was continue to flourish more and more : good to her, in her people's pockets for in human affairs there is nothing as in her own.”---If the people had absolutely stationary. In the first been suffered to live as comfortably case, the sinking fund would be swept as possible, and if possible to put a away in the general crash ; public little money in their pockets instead credit would dwindle also away, and of the sinking fund, government almost to Dothing ; and the voice would have lost nothing. It seems

a

sessor.

as

to have been just as easy for govern. finances, like Mr. Pitt, had provi. ment, in the reign of George III, to ded, according to his calculations, a put their hands in the pockets of the sinking fund. But lo! instead of a people, as in that of Queen Elizabeth. sinking fund, a great deficit. Mr. It is the yearly produce of the natio.' Necker acknowledged that deficit, nal industry, alone that can be consi- but by way of apology, gave an acdered as a permanent fund for de. count of the various unforeseen cirfraying the expences of each year. cumstances to which it was owing. If more be taken, by drawing bills Mr. de Calonne replied that reasons on posterity, and loading the present why the deficit could not but exist, generation with the interest, the an. served only to prove the truth of its nual produce is every year suffering existence. The contingencies by diminution, which is also a diminution which it was occasioned, ought to of the sources of revenue.

have been taken into that average The controversy about lord H. Pet. on which the pretended sinking fund ty's plan of finance, and the nature was founded. and operation of the sinking fund in These false appearances of sinking general, in 1807, bore a near resem. funds, invite popular applause and blance to that between Mr. Necker confidence at first. But they do not and Mr. Calonne, in France, about seem calculated to stand the touch twenty years previous to that period. of reason, or the test of time. Mr. Necker, the comptroller of the

[ocr errors]

CHAP.

܀

CHAP. VII

Bill for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, brought into the House of Peers by Lord Grenville.-Motion for appointing a Day for the second Reading of the Bill. --Communications on this Subject be. tween His Majesty and Foreign Powers.-Second Reading of the Bill.-Speakers in favour of the Bill- and Speakers against it.Religious and Moral Plan for the gradual Abolition of Slavery, by Lord Sidmouth.- New Clauses introduced into the Bill.- The Bishop of London's Lamentation respecting the Paucity of Churches and Ecclesiastics in our West-India Islands..--Emphatic, De claration against the Bill, by the Earl of St. Vincent.The Bill passed in the House of Peers, and sent down to the House of Com mons.Speakers pro and con.---Council heard against the Bill.--Second Reading of the Bill.---Debate on the Question for going into a Committee.The Question carried---and passed into a Law... Motion for a gradual Abolition of Slavery in our West-India Colonies, by Lord Percy---supported by Mr. Sheridan---but not pressed, for the present, by Lord Percy against the general sense of the House.

THE

HE time that was taken up, and the anxiety that was shewn by the British parliament, to provide for an enormous expenditure, the necessity of which was imposed upon the state by the imperious law of self-preservation, did not shut the ears of the legislature against the cries of suffering and outraged humanity.

A bill for the abolition of the slavetrade went hand in hand with the proceedings respecting finance and œconomy. The British parliament and nation had the generosity and the courage, in the cause of humanity and justice, to hazard an innovation, which, in the opinion of most men, threatened ruin to the most valuable branch of British commerce, and proved to the world, that this "nation of shopkeepers," as it had been sucer. ingly styled by the French, was susceptible of the finest feelings, and

might be induced to pay homage to the purest principles of morality.

It will be recollected that two resolutions were passed by both houses, in the last session of parliament; the one declaring that the African slave. trade, being contrary to the princi ples of justice, humanity, and sound policy, ought to be abolished with all practicable expedition; and the other, to address his majesty, beseeching him to take such measures as might appear most effectual for obtaining, by negotiation, the con currence and concert of foreign powers, in the abolition of the slave trade, and the execution of the regulations adopted for that purpose.*

In pursuance of these resolutions, lord Grenville on the 2d of Janu ary brought into the house of peers, a bill for abolishing the slave-trade. Lord Eldon wished to know whether

* Vide Vol. XLVII. 1806, History of Europe, p. 92.

the

« ForrigeFortsett »