Further Considerations on the Necessity of a Correspondence between the Prices of Agriculture and those of Industry.
I have said it more than once, and beg leave to repeat it here: Let any essential object be denoted by one number or another; it is a matter of perfect indifference, provided the numbers intended to denote the mass of objects corresponding thereto, do not present any ideas contrary to the proportion of labour which exists between the essential object, and the mass which is to form its balance. Thus then, be the value of wheat, which serves as the general standard, because it is useful to all, at all times, and which ought to be so, from another consideration almost equally powerful, namely, that it constitutes about one third of the landed revenue in Europe—be its value, I say, denominated 30, 50, or 25, nothing more indifferent, provided the numbers denoting the value of the other products of land and industry, keep exactly, either by more or by less, within the same proportion; it is clear that, in such a case, neither the land proprietor nor the capitalist of industry, can undergo from the alteration in the numbers, any real alteration in their circumstances. But to think of nothing but the manufactures, and imagine it possible to maintain, and endeavour seriously to maintain, wheat at the same price, whilst the taxes advance by 10 per cent. that of the products of industry,—is to aim at the ruin of agriculture, and to oblige all the proprietors of land and money, whose employments in the State would not indemnify them for such an injustice, to go in search of another country, where the manufacturer, better acquainted with his real interest, would know, or act as if he knew, that the solidity of his wealth is inseparable from that of the land proprietor, and from the ease of the proprietor of money, and of the labouring man.
Then perhaps those national manufacturers, so proud and so jealous of their exportations, so greedy of premiums, prohibitions, restrictions, encouragements of all kinds, would sue more ardently to have those nuisances suppressed, than they ever did for their establishment.
Nothing more admirable than those regulations to which England acknowledges to be indebted for the best part of her wealth and power; but they crept in at a time when ignorance generally prevailed, when all the other parts of Europe had almost no idea either of the principle of commerce, or of its influence over all the other resources of society. In effect, from what known point could one then start, to imagine that a nation, who openly countenances monopoly at home, in order to encourage her foreign trade, lays the most solid basis for the monopoly she wishes to secure to herself every where? How was it possible to conceive that the Dutch, a nation so necessary to those that are deficient in means, and so forcibly compelled by the superabundance of their own, to make them serviceable to those who stand in need of them, could not be shut out from the English ports, without depriving the rest of Europe of the advantage, which their admittance every where was necessarily calculated to procure to their correspondents, by securing to them, as well as to England, a competition so essential to all, and fatal to monopoly alone? Europe, busy at that time in search of another sort of equilibrium, did not consider what weight commerce, carried on upon such principles, would throw into one of the scales; how could Europe then suspect that it would overthrow the balance entirely? But what is the final result of all these projects against Nature?—The pretensions of the Ecclesiastical State stirred up all Europe; and the Pontifical See was fixed in its proper place. France roused all Europe against the ambition of the House of Austria, much more formidable by its real power; the Imperial Throne was fixed in its proper place, and France was hailed as the founder and assertor of European liberties. Soon after the Protectress became a despot; England stirred up all Europe against her, and France was, aukwardly, thrown out of her proper place; England, the principal instrument of the revolution, made an improper use of her importance, as had been successively done by the Ecclesiastical Power, the House of Austria, and by France;—the Armed Neutrality appeared, and presented a code of laws unheard of before; it was just; every nation, that had not bowed beneath the English yoke, adopted it:—there was an instant, when this armed neutrality might have dictated both to England and France, laws as equitable as the code itself; and all Europe would have applauded, had even England and France united, at that very instant, to exterminate in concert the whole naval force of Europe, then burnt the exterminating fleets, and themselves given to all the world those very laws of equity which were intended to be imposed upon them.
Every thing, at this moment, is in that happy state, which gives time to reflect upon what is past, to see what is present, to look forwards to what is to come, and to consider an ensemble, the very idea of which could not be admitted during former periods. A few clouds, dispersed here and there, do not spoil the beauty of the horizon; no body can now, for any length of time, think it his interest to ruin and destroy; and every body is concerned not to suffer any thing to be destroyed. I return to my subject, if I may be said to have deviated from it.
If a diminution in the price of the necessaries of life be looked upon as so very important, there exists a sure method of effecting it, even in England, without any detriment to the land proprietor. Let us see whether this very method would prove injurious to the true interest of the manufacturer, who must be patronised, cherished as the fountain head of riches; I mean that kind of riches called money, which could not long subsist without the riches called wheat.
Fourteenth Hypothesis.
Let us suppose, that, by the suppression of the monopoly enjoyed by the manufacturers, and of which they are so jealous, the price of the whole of their goods should fall one tenth; in such a case, the wheat which the new taxes will enhance in price, I suppose, in the proportion of 40 to 44, would, upon a medium, fall back to 40; and in this case again the produce of the manufactories would only cost industry 20 instead of 22, at which they will be rated when wheat shall have risen from 40 to 44; for, in the latter supposition, it will be necessary for industry to pay finally this increase of expence, in favour of the artificers, who would not long submit to an injustice, without presenting petitions in their own way: just as wheat must indispensably rise from 40 to 44, in order that the land and money-proprietors be not compelled to leave their country, to the great prejudice of the internal consumption, so essential to the truest interest of the manufacturer.
Let it then be supposed, that wheat should fall from 44 to 40, and so of all the rest;—I confess that the proprietor of money would thereby become a gainer, and that the general persuasion is, that it is salutary he should lose: but would he long support his gain? Would not the encouragement which every thing must derive from this new order of things, from that activity which trade would find in the new channels that would open every day, when commerce should build on that true principle, acknowledged to be the only unerring one, the exchange of commodities, (excepting the bullion required for the five articles before mentioned)—would not that activity, I say, that encouragement, inspire in all parts of Europe an eagerness for labour, necessarily followed by an increase of real wealth, a creation of new productions, and by an increase of that imaginary wealth, still more stimulating than the former, because it is its proof and its pledge, but which cannot be obtained without a general increase in all the prices?
Will it be said, that, on the first moment, the fall of prices would affect the intellects of those who can only see, but never compare? that the people, for instance, would lament their being reduced to 10, from the 12 they had been accustomed for some days to receive, although they should pay only 5 for what cost them 6 before? In this case, keep up the prices, but without exception, and export on the true principles of exportation: take for your guide the example set up by my countryman, the American of Philadelphia, in selling dearer because you are compelled to do so; propose to buy dearer also, and this will be only an act of justice; you will see hereafter that you would at last be just, in spite of yourselves; be so intentionally: you cannot come down to the price of your purchasers; raise their prices to a level with your own, they will observe that even the first profit is not the lot of the first bidder, if every one doing justice to himself bids in proportion: mean while, the eagerness for labour goes on increasing, and by little and little the benefit extends to the lowest wretch that dwells in the community; he finds more work to do, and a greater reward for it.
It will be said no doubt, that this is another supposition of a general agreement.—No, certainly not; it is enough for every one to see that it must be so; that it will happen without any other help than the private interest of each individual; that these private and niggardly measures, already taken, or to be taken, in order to prevent the result of all those personal interests, are of no use but to keep justice at a distance; to multiply the number of injuries which daily take place, till what must be, comes to pass; to produce a greater evil, where it might be less; to substitute forced, to necessary prices: but it is so evident that wheat, and all the productions of the earth, should increase by one tenth, as soon as the taxes, or an accession of wealth, shall increase by one tenth the price of the products of industry, that it is necessary to lay this principle as the basis of all regulations, or else openly to adopt as a maxim, that agriculture should be sacrificed to industry.
This maxim, I set forth of the correspondence required between the prices, together with the inconvenience of having them too much out of proportion with those of other nations, militates, it is true, against that monstrous system of prohibitions, corporations, &c. which is the only burden entailed upon us by our forefathers, the only burden which the present legislatures can transmit to posterity; but although it might be an absurdity to suppose a reform as sudden as it would be advantageous, yet would it be less absurd to suppose that, the evil being once found out, the remedy will constantly be rejected? Would it be less absurd to suppose, that the manufacturers, better acquainted with their real interests, will persist in endeavouring to aggravate the evil, instead of complying with the only means of retrieving it? Would it be less absurd to suppose, that each of them will never perceive that he pays for the privilege of ransoming in his branch of industry, by the disadvantage of being himself ransomed on a thousand other objects? Russia, 30 years ago, was perhaps more distant from her present state, than the unmasking of monopoly, and the knowledge of its effects, will be from its extirpation.