Thoughts on the mechanism of societies

by marquis de Charles Casaux

It would then be necessary to conclude, that all other nations were greatly in the wrong to think that England had any reason to be alarmed.

It must, in this case also, be acknowledged, that France, in 1720, very unreasonably cut asunder the Gordian knot of her difficulties, by declaring in substance that she owed no longer 15 millions Tournois of the debts which she had contracted; since, without so barbarously cutting the knot, and thereby effecting the ruin of thousands of wretched beings, she would have secured their fortune by imposing without mercy, or rather with judgement, a tax of 75 millions on all the produce of industry, which this tax would not have raised by one twentieth part; whilst an Arrêt from the council, permitting then the exportation of grain, which was not allowed till 50 years after, would have proved more than sufficient to enhance, as it must have done, the price of commodities, in order to make amends to the landed proprietors for the increase which they would have found in the products of industry.

Above all, it would be necessary to admit, that no minister, in any country, could, for the future, without a horrid perverseness, without a want of judgement bordering upon insanity, propose, neither all together nor separately, expedients as shameful as they would prove useless; and that no individual could hereafter dread such measures, without being guilty of folly. What a security, then, for the Subject! what an advantage to the State! what a facility for Administration!

Under this point of view, the idea I start deserves to be examined; but I once more entreat the reader not to pronounce finally upon it, until it has undergone the full exposition which I propose to give it. Nor shall I think I have written in vain, if I succeed only in making it appear so feasible, as to induce some abler hand more deeply to investigate it. Where is the man who would not wish to find it true? where is the man who could have an interest in finding it otherwise? I confess, perhaps to my shame, that it has engrossed my attention for a long series of years; I apply it to every thing, I square it with every thing; and the more I consider it under all the suppositions which my fancy suggests, the more I compare these suppositions with all the facts which it is possible to ascertain, and which seem to bear any relation to the subject, the more am I convinced, not only that the matter stands thus, but even that it is impossible it should be otherwise.

In fact, if I return to Great-Britain⸺

It would be absurd to suppose, that the taxes necessary to discharge the debt incurred during the late war, exceed the twentieth part of the value of the products both of foreign and national industry, consumed within the country. In this case, is it not impossible that the additional tax of a twentieth, in whatever manner it may be assessed on the mass of those products, should not enhance, by a twentieth, the value of this very mass? Let us call it a fifteenth; all kind of reaction included.

Is it not impossible that this additional fifteenth on the price of the products of industry, be not followed, sooner or later, by an equal augmentation on the productions of the earth, unless the proprietors of land should submit to diminish, by one fifteenth, their own consumption,—the home consumption (the only one that secures the prosperity of the State) and diminish it, in order to increase, by so much, the exportation, according to the ideas commonly adopted which would be as contrary to the facts that I shall adduce hereafter, as it would prove hostile to the interest of the State, to the interest of the proprietors, and would operate in direct opposition to the spirit of the tax, which is certainly to produce its own amount, without taking the trouble, every year, of going in search of it to Lisbon.

Is it not impossible that the augmentation of one fifteenth, upon the price of every produce in circulation, should require any thing above an additional fifteenth, in the sums which had been hitherto sufficient for brokerage, and the transports of all kinds of property?

Is it not impossible that this fifteenth, both in new specie and paper currency, once obtained, the interest of the latter part of the debt should not be very firmly established, funded, without any one being the worse for it, if the price of labour increases like that of its produce?