Methinks upon viewing the picture I have drawn, it is easy now to conceive, why, as I have observed in page 62, a person, however strongly convinced of the cruel effect which ought naturally to arise from a debt of 64 millions sterling, contracted from 1754 to 1762, could not nevertheless cite in England, from 1763 to 1775, a single indication of a decay in agriculture or commerce, nor any falling-off in the enjoyment of luxury, public or private, nor less insolence in the bulk of the people. The reason is this: the two capitalists, who failed not to increase the price of every thing they were concerned in, according to the exigency of the taxes, determined also (after a few little formalities, always necessary with regard to the people, when nothing but luxury has been taxed) to augment the price of labour in proportion to that of its products; foreigners, on the other hand, raised the price of their goods in proportion as taxes had increased the goods of England exported to them; and the old equilibrium was restored every where, as soon as the general increase of prices had made the general power of consumption, equal to the need the State was in of an exterior as well as an interior, i. e. of a foreign as well as a national consumption, in order that all the taxes might be productive.
But if the debt of 64 millions, contracted from 1754 to 1762, had increased, by 10 per cent. the nominal value of all merchandise exported from England since that period, how shall we prevent the 60 millions of the last debt, from increasing, from 8 to 10 per cent. the nominal value of all commodities to be exported after this later period?
And if the general augmentation of prices, which has clearly followed the debt contracted in England from 1754 to 1762, has proved advantageous to all Europe, without hurting England, why should not the general increase of prices, which results, and will inevitably result from the last English debt, prove unprejudicial to England, although it will prove advantageous to all Europe?
But if this increase of 10 per cent. generally acknowledged, in the price of all merchandise in Europe, had extended only to the products of industry; if the price of the total of the produce of agriculture had not increased in the same proportion;—had not Nature always silently and successfully opposed all the dreams of speculation on this head, to what a degree of misery and wretchedness would not agriculture have been reduced in all parts of our so much enlightened Europe!—It was not so.[10]
The quantity of wheat sold at Berne at 69 batz, on a medium of five years taken from 1751 to 1755, was sold for 92⅗ batz from 1766 to 1770.
The quantity of wheat sold at Dijon at the lowest, 2l. 11s. 5d. on a medium of 5 years from 1753 to 1757, was sold at the lowest, 4l. 5s. 9d. on a medium of 5 years from 1766 to 1770.
The quantity of wheat sold at Bâle for 9l. 9s. on a medium of 5 years from 1754 to 1758, was sold for 13l. 14s. 2d. on a medium of 5 years from 1766 to 1770.
The quantity of wheat sold at Geneva for 27 florins, on a medium of 5 years from 1751 to 1755, was sold for 37 florins, on a medium of 5 years from 1766 to 1770, (see Arthur Young’s Political Arithmetic.)
We find upon the total, from 1755 to 1770, as I observed in my Reflexions on a singular revolution in France, about 40 per cent. increase in the price of wheat.—Ten per cent. was enough to discharge, without expence to any body, and without any attention being paid to it, the interest of the debt contracted in England, from 1755 to 1762; but 30 per cent. more was necessary, in order to come (without injuring England) nearly to an equality with the English price, a price advantageous to the agriculture of all Europe; an advantageous price, which the barriers and barricadoes set up in France, had till then prevented from extending to Switzerland.