Thoughts on the mechanism of societies

by marquis de Charles Casaux

First, Of the fifth part, at least, of the present revenue arising to her from her colonies;

Secondly, Of all those branches of industry to which such an addition of revenue gives constant life;

Thirdly, Of all the profit which the fair trader, the instigator of that barbarous law, gets annually on the importations and exportations which that additional income requires;

Fourthly, Of the duties which the King’s treasury receives directly, or indirectly, from the one and the other; (it is impossible to estimate this article.)

Fifthly, and in fine, of the assistance which the State derives for the Royal navy, from that increase in its trading one, which became necessary after the increase of a revenue, due to people who should have been sent to the galleys, had they been caught in the flagrancy of such a crime. One half of the cotton and coffee which is gathered at St. Domingo, Martinico, Guadaloupe, and Grand Terre above all, owes its existence to negroes, constantly furnished to the French smuggler, both great and small, by the English merchant, the natural, and as it plainly appears, the necessary enemy to France and her trade; the quantity of sugar and indigo which in the said colonies owes its existence to the same means, is much more than necessary to make up that fifth of the revenue, the glory of which may be claimed by the smuggler, though the fair trader comes in for a share in the profits.

Any one desirous to have this fact confirmed, may be informed of it by nine tenths of the French planters, provided they be taught that the time is now come, when every useful truth may be spoken, even with energy, when accompanied by decency. This once ascertained, he is no native of America who will refuse his evidence; an American believes in every thing that is just and reasonable, the very instant that it is pronounced.

I sincerely wish that smuggling might produce in England the same good it has done to the French colonies; this would appear to me very just, and the more so, since it will not be the fault of the British commerce, if that blessed contraband, after having given life to America, does not spread the same animation every where, Great Britain excepted. I have heard an English manufacturer prove at the bar of the House of Lords, that his manufactory was in want of a special patronage, by so much the more, as the size and brittleness of his ware made it a difficult point for him to smuggle it over to the continent, and as a duty of 30 per cent. had been lately laid upon it, in the two countries where it concerned him most to have it exported. Amongst other questions that were put to him, I remarked four, which would have stunned me, had I been in his place. One of these questions was as follows: “Have you not heard that that 30 per cent. of which you complain, was laid in consequence of some prohibitions, or extra duties imposed in England on some articles imported from those very countries which you allude to?” I could make nothing of the manufacturer’s answers; they were so long-winded, they had been so carefully studied, they were so very full of a policy which I do not understand, that it became impossible for me to class them under any heads in my memory.

Reflexions on a very strange Revolution in France.

A General maxim, almost universally adopted beyond contradiction, and the foundation of an hundred regulations, enforced from pole to pole, is, that it is essential for all national commodities to be at the lowest price, in order that foreign trade may turn out to the best advantage; that is to say, for the native traders to be able to dispose abroad of the products of national industry, at a cheaper rate than any other nation can sell those of her own. Certain it is, that the less price national commodities will bring, the less of the products of national industry will be necessary to pay them off, the more of course will there remain of those products to stock the foreign markets, and the more also will the foreign purchaser be gratified by the reduced price at which they may be given, to the detriment of the land proprietor of the nation; this is so self-evident that it cannot be withstood. This, methinks, is carrying to an excess the principles of Christian charity, if the Legislators are land proprietors; it is a shameful abuse of power, if the Legislators are at the head of manufactures; and in either case one must be blind to the necessity of keeping up an even balance between agriculture and industry.—Had not Nature militated under hand, and with some advantage against the dreams of speculators in this respect, and against the much more dangerous surreptions of cupidity, to what state of abjection and misery would not agriculture be now reduced in all countries!

I have said, that the price of every thing would perhaps be now in France, very little different from what it was 40 years ago, had it not been for an eventual circumstance, (I might have said a regulation,) which a few years ago tertiated, at least, the fortune of every subject in that kingdom;—nominally at first, it is true; but afterwards in reality, owing to the prodigious encouragement that ensued; I mean the regulation which permitted the exportation of wheat, and authorised each of the French Provinces not to consider herself as a stranger to all the others. I shall only make a few reflexions on a matter which might furnish enough to fill a volume.