Thoughts on the mechanism of societies

by marquis de Charles Casaux

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.