Thoughts on the mechanism of societies

by marquis de Charles Casaux

The Navigation Act was, if you will have it so, the last effort of the human mind, at a time when every notion relative to commerce, was nearly confined to England alone; but I question much whether the Opposition the most warm in invoking that tutelary God, against the Minister who dares to offer the least encroachment upon its worship, would not be very much pleased to see it destroyed before they themselves should come into office: it is an old idol, to which incense is offered through mere policy, and for which a veneration is kept up in the minds of the people, for the sole purpose of making it subservient to the downfall of the man who might be courageous enough to attempt its destruction. I shall pass over in silence the obstacles which that famous Act daily opposes to regulations as well adapted to the present state of things, as those it contains were to the circumstances that gave it birth; but, to the intoxication produced by its success, I shall be bold enough to impute one of the most mistaken notions on the true aim of national commerce: it is a very fatal error, to imagine that money ought to be the object of those operations of which it is only the means. This chimera, it is true, has never been realised; the wisdom of private cupidities has always triumphed over the folly of general cupidity: nothing more clear than the exactness with which the treasures of America have been shared amongst all the nations of Europe, each in proportion to her agriculture and her industry, that is, according to her wants: at least it appears to me, that the two balances of England and France, which I have produced, are incontrovertible proofs of what I here advance, though they have been imagined and received as proofs of the very contrary; nevertheless, the prejudice concerning these two formidable balances still subsists, and it is this prejudice which daily gives life to new prohibitions, and new restrictions: there is not perhaps in all Europe, a single modern regulation of that kind which does not owe its establishment to this prejudice, and to the power it derives from the veneration paid to it in the place where it was first conceived. The nation who takes the lead in point of commercial knowledge, is every where carefully watched. On the least of her operations, other nations make use of the light she has held forth; her principles are studied, her maxims adopted, her examples followed; every where they are on their guard against her pretensions, pretensions openly avowed, prosecuted without mystery, and crowned, as it is supposed, with success; and when they see, that within the course of a twelvemonth, she has really received more gold and silver than she was wont to receive in three years; when they see the intoxication of her inhabitants on the arrival of those treasures which obey her call from all parts of Europe; when they hear the complaints of her news-paper writers against the untractableness of the Americans, in not suffering themselves to be entirely stripped of their specie; when they attend to her invectives on the combinations of the American merchants to prevent those of England from taking away that trifling sum in specie which the United States want, to give more consistency to their paper-money;—then, indeed, then it is possible to forget every thing else; it is possible not to remark, that, with the same excess of avowed cupidity, England, nevertheless, has not received, in the course of a whole century, (a period sufficient to determine an experiment) England, I say, during a whole century, has disdained to receive her dividend of the treasures imported into Europe; the paper-money circulating in England stands evidently in lieu of a great part of the sum it represents, and which it was at her own option to procure. It is also very pardonable not to reflect then, that it is impossible for England to keep long in her hands without hurting herself, more than any other nation, any money above what is necessary for her. No one takes the trouble of arguing long on causes, when the effect is instantaneously and powerfully felt: Not Europe alone, but the United States of America, are stript of their money by England; England therefore wants not any longer to import foreign goods, or when she advances the price of her own merchandise, she refuses paying dearer for that of other nations. The other nations do not hesitate—English goods are instantly prohibited.

The following principles are such as, I think, can never mislead.

There is not a single nation that cannot boast some palpable advantage over another; nay, there is not a nation, a single province, that has not received some peculiar favour from nature, which the same soil to all appearance, the same temperature, the same exposure, refuse to yield any where else but with double the labour, and double the expence, and which, even with such additional aids, they yield at last only in a state of degradation. Now, that portion of such peculiar favours, which the proprietor of the land does not chuse to consume, belongs only to the greatest quantity of other favours that it is possible to procure in exchange. The more the proprietor procures of such other favours in exchange, the more is he encouraged to increase the quantity of articles which have enabled him to procure those favours; on the contrary, the more he is restrained with regard to those exchanges which he might procure, the more he is circumscribed, even in his means of production. Every restriction therefore tending to diminish either the production or the price of any article whatever, is a theft committed upon the proprietor of the land, upon the province blessed with that favour which is peculiar to it, upon the nation whose general revenue is decreased by the whole amount of the productions stifled in the very bud, upon the exchequer of that nation which would receive a duty on those productions; and finally upon every one capable of presenting the nation with another exchangeable commodity, or waiting only to see those productions, in order to create an equivalent to pay for them.—Does it signify in what part of the world? Must it not, at last, reach the original proprietor, if he be not paid?

What is said of the productions of agriculture, may be applied to those of industry. It is a gross mistake to imagine, that all things can be equally well manufactured every where: how many fabrics, the perfection of which depends on the quality of the water, and other local causes for which it is impossible to account! How many more derive their perfection from the bent of national genius, from the general dispositions, the natural qualities of the inhabitants! Can we expect from the vivacity of the Frenchman, who desires only to consume, what we may expect from the patience of the Englishman, who labours only to enjoy? This latter will always, and in spite of himself, give to his work a solidity which will increase its price as well as its value; the other, in spite of himself, will be busy about the forms best calculated to procure a quick sale: objects of real comfort will always belong to the former, the latter will ever lead the fashions. To hope that the one will produce, without difficulty, what costs little or nothing to the other, would be attempting to give to the wines of hot countries the pleasing acidity proper to the wines of Germany; to these, the restorative and balsamic qualities of the Spanish and Italian wines in the places where they understand how to make them; to the wines of Italy and Germany, that native generosity proper to the wine of Bordeaux; to all of them, the flavour of Burgundy and the sprightliness of Champaign. It is possible, say they, to imitate every thing;—say rather, to adulterate, to corrupt, nay even to poison every thing, if Art can find no other way to counterfeit Nature: and these are the blessed effects of restrictions and prohibitions. It is a strange idea, to think of doing without others; as if that did not lead them to think of doing without us; as if the savage, of whom I have spoken, had not the same reason to prefer his state to that of civilisation.

Nor would it be less strange to persist in setting the interest of the people in opposition to that of the Exchequer, if it were possible to reconcile them together, instead of rendering, almost on every object at present, the infamous trade of informers more lucrative than labour.

Smuggling is hurtful to the State; it deprives government of the duties on the articles smuggled into or out of the kingdom; but is it so very advantageous to succeed in the measures adopted to prevent it, if by bartering a great number of honest smugglers against a great number of informers and a great number of custom-house imps, you make so many thieves of the first, so many much more contemptible wretches of the second, a rabble almost equally vile as the third; and succeed, at the same time, in debasing in the hands of several manufacturers and landed proprietors, the value of all those articles, which were before taken from them by the smugglers to their mutual benefit?

England, it is true, suffered no damage, when a prodigious quantity of English goods, which are not comprehended in the modest balance with France, as stated by Sir Charles Whitworth, because they were introduced into France by smugglers, were sold nevertheless, without much ado, all over that kingdom, and particularly in Paris, publicly advertised on the shop-boards, in large gold letters;—but had not France some reason to think herself ill used, when an equal quantity of French goods, introduced also by smugglers into England, without any information given to Sir Charles, ceased to pay the value of the goods smuggled from England, and sold publicly all over France, and when, instead of a small balance, sometimes given, sometimes received, France found herself obliged to remit to London an enormous sum in hard cash, for payments which she had hitherto discharged in merchandise?

It is a pitiful policy on the part of France, (as remarked very justly in all the English papers after the first of August, 1785) to deprive herself of a thousand English luxuries which she is so fond of, and which she is so able to procure;—but is English policy much better, in rejecting thousands of French luxuries, which she finds so pleasing, and which she is so able to pay for?

Smuggling is but a very poor corrective, a partial corrective, of the iniquity ever attendant on Monopoly;—a feeble compensation for the restrictions and prohibitions obtained in its favour: Smuggling, duly considered in this light, is but too just; and it is shocking to be obliged to punish so barbarously the unhappy men who gain a living by it. But will not this necessity be removed, together with smuggling itself, at the very moment that to those absurd regulations which encourage that practice, shall be substituted a system of bartering, equally advantageous to the nations which now find a benefit in smuggling?—a system, which would mutually furnish to all parties interested, all the means of introducing and procuring, in the best condition, at the cheapest rate, with the least risk, and with the greatest advantage to the Treasury, every article which before was introduced and procured at a greater risk, almost always dearer, of the worst quality, and to the detriment of the public revenue.