A Merchant of Philadelphia offers to his former Jamaica correspondents, (see Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser of June 24, 1785) to serve them, with all such articles as they may require, at the current price of Philadelphia, only with the addition of freight and the usual commission. In order to render his proposal unequivocal, he mentions staves, and makes a calculation, by which it appears that he could not land them in Jamaica for less than 12l. 19s. 1½d. currency per thousand; he then adds:
“By this calculation it appears, that staves would come considerably higher than they used to be in Jamaica before the war: it is true they are so, but it is owing to their being risen at Philadelphia nearly 100 per cent. Of course, Jamaica prices must be in proportion; for it would be unreasonable to expect goods of Jamaica at the old prices, when those of America have advanced so considerably.”
I shall venture upon some remarks on the foregoing proposition.
First, The Philadelphian has sense enough to feel, that the war must advance the price of goods from the Colonies, in a due proportion to the general increase in prices of all that is carried there. In Europe, on the contrary, people are not only strangers to the idea of that universal chain, but they are so convinced, or rather so persuaded, that the Colonies were created, and do actually exist, for the sole pleasure and interest of their respective metropolises, that no imaginable means are spared to lessen the price of their products in the mother country who receives them, in order that this tender mother may sell them at a cheaper rate in the foreign markets; but, ye mother countries! your colonists are also your children, foreigners are only your brethren.—It must be owned, however, that the coffee, indigo, and cottons, of Jamaica, Grenada, Guadaloupe, St. Domingo, &c. are no more the territorial commodities of England, and of France, than the corn and other productions of those two kingdoms; and that the arguments adduced in regard to the colonies, are, as Montaigne says, of a piece with that by which they prove, that, the cheaper the corn, the more brilliant is the commercial competition.—Were not Nature by her underhand work constantly fighting, with some advantage, against the dreams of speculators, to what pitch of misery would not agriculture be reduced in all parts of the world!
Secondly, War has been productive, in the United States of America, of the same effects which attend it every where else, viz. an augmentation in the price of every thing.
Thirdly, The increase of nearly cent. per cent. assigned to the staves, does not determine the general advance of American goods; the excessive, but instantaneous price of one article only, denotes an extraordinary demand for that object, and the actual impossibility of answering that demand; the level, so necessary in all prices, naturally returns as soon as the medium of the demand is known, and has determined the number of hands necessary to supply it: now it cannot be doubted, but that the goods in America must have advanced in price, much more than any where else, because the expences of the Colonies have been, during the war, relatively speaking, much more considerable than any where else, considering the discredit inseparable from the precariousness of their situation. But the difference between their inland common prices, and those of Europe, was so great (this will presently be seen), that they may increase them enough to pay off the interest of their national debt, and yet keep the European prices at a distance.
Fourthly, The United States are now a foreign nation in regard to Jamaica, which belongs to England; yet this consideration does not render them so far unjust, as to shake off the burden of their taxes, and fix it on the inhabitants of Jamaica; they only make them nominal partners in that burden, (if the expression may be allowed), without any inconvenience arising therefrom to either of the parties.
Fifthly, They have the true notion of an equitable trade, founded on the continuation of former relations between goods and goods; a principle from which I only draw inferences relative to the national debt, and which suffices to destroy all the hideousness of that phantom.
Sixthly, They do not pretend, with the Europeans, that the increase in the national prices, can in any thing affect their exportation; but they have found, that being obliged to sell dearer, it was their duty to offer very frankly to pay also dearer for whatever they wanted in return.
Seventhly, They do not entertain the least doubt on what seems to be unknown in Europe, namely, that the real benefit of a voyage can be found only in the price which the returns will meet with, when arrived in the country where the voyage is to terminate.
Eighthly, In the union, and in the execution of these different points, centers the little mystery, by means of which Nature has hitherto filled up by slow degrees, and by which the American proposes, without thinking so to do, to fill up with more dispatch, those little furrows of taxes, the very name of which is now a bugbear, but would cease to be so, if the manner in which they are planned, imposed, and above all, collected, did not prolong and increase the real and momentary evil, which will ever be inseparable from them.
Ninthly, It is singular enough, that the European cultivator should be taught by the American trader, the necessity and the justice of an increase of price in the productions of the earth, proportionable, says the honest Philadelphian, to that which is to be met with in the price of the productions of industry:—It would be unreasonable, says he, to expect the goods of Jamaica at the old prices, when those of Philadelphia have advanced so considerably.—Nay, say the European manufacturers, since our goods, by means of the taxes, have increased 10 per cent. it follows necessarily that the price of wheat, sugar, indigo, &c. should fall in the same proportion, in order that the trade in competition may be supported abroad;—had not Nature, by her underhand work, constantly fought with some advantage against the dreams of speculators, and against the much more dreadful surreptions of cupidity, to what pitch of misery would not agriculture be reduced in all parts of the world!
The following estimates may be of some service; their utility is independent of the absolute precision of the facts on which they are founded; one may, as occasion requires, extend or contract the compasses.
Previous to the last war the common price of wheat was, upon an average, in America about 20s. sterling per quarter, (vide Mr. A. Young’s Political Arithmetic).
If in England a population of 9,000,000 of industrious inhabitants, yields a landed revenue of 60,000,000l. sterling, the wheat being there at 40s. per quarter, a population of 3,000,000 of industrious inhabitants in America, where wheat sells at 20s. a quarter, ought to produce at least a landed revenue of 10,000,000l. sterling; I say at least, first, because the land is new, and produces as much, with less culture; and secondly, because that part of the inhabitants employed in agriculture in England, constitute only one third of the whole population, and that in all probability, above two thirds of the Americans are employed in works of husbandry. It may therefore be presumed, that their landed revenue exceeds 20,000,000, instead of the 10 which I have set down; but this surplus of 10,000,000, only serves to make good both the national and foreign industry, which is to balance it, and pay off the taxes: so that, in whatever light my thesis be considered, every error turns to their advantage.
In limiting their landed revenue to 10,000,000, their wheat remaining at 20s. per quarter; let everyone judge what load of taxes they could bear, before the price of their wheat and other territorial productions, should come up to that of the same commodities of Europe, even including the expences for the export of their surplusage.
Let every one judge also of the necessity of their bankruptcy, the idea of which has been so fondly cherished by some low-minded people, and the narrative of which, they feared perhaps themselves, would unavoidably stain the first pages of the history of their political existence.
The last war, it is said, has loaded them with an interest of 1,000,000 per annum. Would a tax of 10 per cent. on every article, or rather on the total of the produce of national, as well as foreign industry, consumed within the country, be productive of any other effect, but that of increasing the prices nearly as much? and would the cultivators of wheat and other productions of the earth, have occasion for any other expedient to pay the tax, without being at any expence, without any one being aggrieved, (provided they should raise in the same proportion the price of labour attending cultivation) but that of advancing, in the mean time, the price of their wheat, and other productions of the earth, from 10 to 11 or 12, from 20 to 22 or 24?—This is the case in my first hypothesis, with this difference, that the 21,000,000 interest, mentioned therein, represented highways, havens, canals, public schools, &c. and that the interest of 1,000,000, in the United States, will represent the establishment of their independence. Such a monument is, in my opinion, too precious to admit a thought of destroying it by a reimbursement,—a reimbursement palpably useless so soon as the price of every thing is restored to a level with the interest of any national loan whatever.
They have committed some errors; more will follow: they know not what to fix upon; nor will they know for some time, perhaps for a long time.—Is there a State in Europe that can reproach them with any false step, of which that very same State did not set the precedent at some period of its history?—But with their principle concerning exportation, a principle founded on justice and evidence, they have already perceived that the necessitated price of 22 or 24, instead of 20, must be felt in their country alone; and if their commodities exported for the purpose of procuring such articles for their home consumption, as they stand in need of, continue still to yield them the same quantity of those articles of consumption, as were obtained before the war, will they not perceive that the home prices, which the re-action of the taxes shall have set upon the whole of their productions, establish in the country an exact balance of those new prices at which the taxes will oblige them to sell the articles to be imported?
Compelled by necessity to have recourse to paper-money, will it be long before they are made sensible, that nothing more than internal credit is wanted to make this paper equal to coin, and answer all its purposes for ever, if they should be thus wisely inclined,—if this measure should be found the only means of curbing effectually the cupidity of those with whom they shall have occasion to trade?
Will it be long before they perceive, that this credit will follow close upon the solidity of public engagements,—a solidity demonstrated by the evidence of the inutility of a base and infamous robbery?
Will it be long before they feel that all the actual wealth of a State, its real wealth, is nothing more or less than the mass of its present industry; that all its possible wealth can arise only from the sum of all its possible labour; that the greatest riches are only the greatest sum of labour? that if this labour is a bitter pill, the gold and silver in which it is wrapped up, are only (like honours, titles, dignities, fame, esteem, &c.) different kinds of powders, which sweeten the taste of it to those who are ignorant of its value, to those who know not how necessary labour is to support every day, without being weary, and sometimes without regret, the wretched burthen of our lives; and in fine, that paper, once got into credit, can, in this respect, be an ample substitute for gold and silver ... but how many circumstances, where gold and silver cannot supply the want of credit?
Will it be long before they become sensible, that they are clogged in no part of their legislation, by those preposterous maxims which can be justified only by the circumstances that gave them birth, by those tyrannical regulations which owed their success wholely to the ignorance of their cotemporaries, by that chaos of contradictory regulations, all of which became perhaps necessary by degrees, after the first was extorted by cupidity?[6]