Mr. Arthur Young’s valuation of the Revenue, in his Political Arithmetic, is the result of his own private observations. Nothing ever occurred to me on the subject, that can come up with the minute accounts he gives us of the different provinces which he has visited in the north, south, and east of England.
I am ready to suppose, with that gentleman, that the joint revenue of England and Scotland may be computed, the landed produce and commercial profits included, at 110 millions sterling.
Mr. Chalmers has published a work on the comparative resources of this country at different periods; a subject, it seems, difficult to touch upon without examining the state of population. This publication, according to my judgement, unites to such solid principles as the matter will admit, a great deal of propriety in the manner of applying them, and of drawing the inferences.
I willingly acquiesce, taking it for granted, with the author, that Great Britain contains 9,350,000 inhabitants: but, at the same time, I apprise the reader, that I do not mean to take any advantage of a population more or less numerous; nor of a larger or smaller amount of the revenue. Data I require; but such I will prefer as most nearly border on reality. There is not a State to which, with a difference in the numbers, one may not apply what I have to say concerning England, in those which I have adopted.
It appears from the estimates of Mr. King, who, in the reign of William and Mary, proved himself as exact an observer as Mr. Young has done in our days, that the produce of Land alone amounted then to 32,000,000; the latter calculator nearly doubles it, by rating it at 63,000,000. The Custom House books, the exactness of which cannot be disputed in one of the two facts they vouch to, (the Burthen of the Shipping, and the Produce of Exportation,) will shew that the former, from the year 1709 to 1773, progressively increased from 289,318, to 775,078 tons; and the years 1697, 1698, 1699, taken upon a medium and compared with 1771, 1772, and 1773, tend to prove that the gradual rise of the Exports has been still more considerable, being from 5,612,058l. to 16,027,937l. (Vide Sir Charles Whitworth’s State of Trade).
The foreign trade of England seems therefore to have trebled since the beginning of the present century. We shall, in the sequel, state the reasons for supposing the commerce of other nations to have experienced the same progression.
The annual sum of 110,000,000, divided amongst 9,350,000 inhabitants, will produce daily little less than 8 pence per head, from the Monarch down to the meanest subject.
The observations I have made in several parts of France, from documents, it is true, no ways comparable to those of Mr. Young, could not justify my allowing so large a revenue to each individual in that kingdom. Yet France and England are the two richest and most flourishing countries in Europe.
Mr. Young rates the clear profits of the Manufactories and Trade of England alone at 37 millions; but as these two objects have apparently been trebled in regard to the exports, they cannot be supposed to have exceeded 12 millions in the reign of William and Mary. To this let us add, in a proportion rather exaggerated, 5 millions for the landed and commercial revenues of Scotland; and it will appear, that, including the 32 millions of landed produce, as computed by Mr. King, the total amount of the revenue, land and trade of both countries included, could hardly be equal to 49 millions in the beginning of the present century. Now, from the same author, both kingdoms contained at that period 7,200,000 inhabitants, who, if admitted to a brotherly share, would have claimed only 4½d. each per day. I do not confine myself to a nicer exactness in the fractions: the object is not to calculate the precise instant of an eclipse; or at least, that of English prosperity appearing to me no ways probable, I think myself justified in neglecting every thing that might impede my operations, without influencing, in the least, my arguments.
Yet the wages of a journeyman were nevertheless rated then at 8d. per day: but let it be observed, that the number of working-days, when balanced with the holidays, sickness, and want of employment, those eight pence, distributed in the journeyman’s family, were often reduced to two; just as the sixteen pence, the present price of labour, according to Mr. Young’s Estimate, commonly amount to 4d. only, although the brotherly share of each man nearly amounts to 8d. If any one should be inclined to call this, injustice, let him consider that this very multitude of reductions from 4d. to 2d. and from 8d. to 4d. from William III. to this present time, has been the only means of accumulating by degrees that immense stock of 600 millions and upwards, manifestly laid out by the State in less than a century, and of which the National Debt makes a part. It is evident that if each individual, from William III. had only spent at the rate of 5d. per day, there would be no National Debt; but as each man of the nation could, generally speaking, and upon an equal proportion, lay out only 4½d. per day, the exceeding halfpenny must have long ago swallowed up the whole principal, the produce of former reductions.
Not one of the monuments erected since that period would now exist, nor would a single trace be left of the stocks to which the nation owes its present wealth: each portion of the national stock, every monument posterior to that era, prove as many persons reduced in the origin from 4d. to 2d. and then from 8d. to 4d. as either of the above two sums are oftener told in the value of such monument, or such stock as might be made the subject of inquiry. No country in the world can boast of a more respectable source of its opulence.—This opulence must either be given up, or the inconveniences that attend it be submitted to. In all parts of the world the labourer earns a livelihood, and very little above that: yet this very trifle is sufficient to make him happy, wherever he cannot be compelled to work without pay. He feels little, never takes the trouble of thinking, and leaves off work only to eat, make merry, or go to rest.—Is our lot better, with that fatal degree of reflection by which our whole life so often centers within a single point?
But is the nation in general as happy in our days as it was in those of William III? Have those causes, which tend to produce a decrease in the population, no manner of influence on the people’s happiness? And is not the reality of such causes more self-evident, than the pretended proofs adduced universally in favour of its increase?
Without entering into any dispute on the merits of the researches concerning population, which would lead to some truths perhaps unthought of hitherto; here follow the arguments which will occur to any man who stands not in need of a fixed and precise number of thinking heads, laborious hands, and well-digesting stomachs.
1st. It is not easy to conceive how, the landed revenue being nearly double, there should be a less number of husbandmen; for it is not with agriculture as we find it in several manufactories, where the invention of engines, and an alteration in the mode of working, can so advantageously supply the supposed decrease in the number of hands to work after the primitive manner. The valuable number of husbandmen seems therefore, in my opinion, placed beyond even the idea of a decrease.
2dly. It is no less impossible to imagine, that the number of sailors being nearly in a triple proportion to what it was, and the quantity of exports probably augmented on account of the burden of the outward-bound ships, a diminution should have taken place among that class of people, equally precious to the State, for establishing and ascertaining its wealth and strength, as the cultivation is indispensable to secure and support its very existence.
3dly. If, notwithstanding the acknowledged impossibility of proving a real decrease in the population, any one should obstinately admit of it, without positive proofs, it cannot at least be denied, that the produce of land and industry being nearly doubled, some means must have been devised, to do that with one hand which required two before. In this case it would be an easy matter to prove, that at the rate of the supposed depopulation, the few elect, who have escaped its causes, can boast of enjoyments in a threefold proportion to what they were before, notwithstanding the difference between the present impost and that which was paid in the beginning of this century: for, after all, the taxes under William III. amounted to four millions and a half and upwards, to be deducted from forty-nine millions standing revenue; the balance was therefore forty-four millions and a half, to be shared amongst 7,200,000 inhabitants, acknowledged by Mr. King; that is, very little above 4d. per day for each individual. Now, in the year 1779, for I have not yet exceeded that period, the impost was of about nine millions, which, taken from an income of 110 millions, left a surplusage of 101,000,000l. to be divided. If we adopt the supposed depopulation at its highest rate, the number of souls in England is reduced to 4,500,000, each of whom has 1s. 3d. instead of 4d. allowed in the reign of William. It is then incontestible that the Nation is richer, but, I must own, not more happy; for they complain and are alarmed at this time, as was then the case.
It would be necessary to allow the supposition of an increase, if the intention were to shew that the people are now in a worse condition: nor could even this be deemed sufficient; for, admitting the existence of 9,350,000 inhabitants, it will appear, that, by the surplusage of 101 millions left, after the discharge of the taxes in 1779, each individual would be entitled to 7d. instead of the groat, in William’s reign.
The nation therefore in that year, in spite of its public debt, had almost doubled its wealth, rating the population at 9,350,000; and raised it four-fold, supposing the number reduced to 4,500,000 souls: and in either case, the riches of the State, as well as the national debt, arose and increased from the daily reductions of 4d. to 2d. and of 8d. to 4d. which, since the reign of William to this day, have escaped from that all-devouring canker, commonly called Luxury.