Let us suppose, nevertheless, that there should exist at this day, a nation pretending to be formidable in her competition, and who should only be, in fact, remarkable for her folly, that is to say, a nation so very blind, as to endeavour to keep the price of her wheat under that of all other countries; I agree that the labour of her artisans would be rated in consequence, and that the produce of her industry might thus be purchased at a lower rate than that of any other nation:—but what advantage could she derive from thence in a competition abroad?⸺Though she should denominate at home the sum of her exports, only one million for instance, because she would call 100, the quantity of wheat, which elsewhere would be called 150, how could she require less for her returns than the other countries, who, by the price of their wheat, would be compelled to call 1,500,000 that which she herself would call 1,000,000?—Would not this million represent, as really, the labour of 75,000 of her workmen (their families included), as if it were by her denominated 1,500,000l.?—Besides, the place where she has carried her goods is not the end of her voyage; and it is so much more necessary for her to obtain in return the produce of 75,000 labourers (families included), adequate to what she herself has given, as being obliged to carry those returns home, where every thing sells, in the hypothesis, 50 per cent. below the price they would fetch any where else, she would lose in lowering the rates of her exports, all the fruit she might expect to reap from her voyage.—This is what escapes observation. They see nothing but money in commercial operations, instead of observing that all the nations in Europe, neither do nor can require, and that England herself does not preserve more of it than the sum necessary to answer those five articles of which I have spoken in examining her balance: I shall in the sequel bring some proofs, in addition to those I have already given; but I think I have said enough here, to justify me in insisting, that the competition can be dreaded by the unjust man alone, by that man who wishes to sell the labour of 100 workmen as if it were the labour of 150, and by that man, not less unreasonable, who, compelled to sell his own goods 10 per cent. dearer, should refuse to pay also 10 per cent. dearer for the foreign goods which he would ask in exchange.—If that principle—a principle of the strictest justice, is still unknown in Europe; as an American, I glory that it is not so in America.
Reflexions on a Letter from Philadelphia, inserted in the English News-papers.
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.