It is the quality of the land that determines the division of its products: however ungrateful the soil, the man who cultivates it, first deducts what is necessary for his subsistence, and a trifle more; the rest is divided amongst the landlord and some others, for one reason or another admitted to a share. This division, determined by the most general quality of the land, brings down the proprietor, who farms out his estate, to about one third of its productions, and reduces nearly to the like proportion, those who are employed in wresting them from the bottom of the earth.
In order therefore to consume as much as 80 men, the proprietor must have a landed estate capable of giving food to 240; and out of these 240, 160 must be provided for before the proprietor can think on his own consumption. Consequently, it would be unreasonable to call him to any other account than for that portion which he has received: but I readily subscribe to the necessity of having that account examined with the utmost rigour, since the object is to justify the dissipation of so considerable a surplus, and since the employment of that surplus, well ascertained, will give us sufficient light on the employment of the other parts of the revenue, which by that means it will be useless to examine.
The highest pitch of extravagance, in point of luxury, is, beyond contradiction, that which, in the smallest possible compass, contains the largest quantity, as well as the greatest perfection of labour, and of a labour the most easy to destroy.
Let us suppose a man who, to the fancy of being possessed of such an article, should join that of seeing constantly at work all those hands which must be employed to complete it; such a fancy never produces any other effect, but that of tertiating or doubling the price of things. The Patriarchs of old, busied and amused themselves, no doubt, in setting to work those whom they enabled to eat; they lived too near the time when man was condemned to labour, to maintain them in idleness. The modern Patriarch of whom I am speaking, provided with a pound weight of flax, which costs him 6d. divides it among 25 working people, who give it every preparation necessary to answer the purpose it is intended for. After an entire month of the most slavish precautions, the most minute details, a thread, hardly perceptible to the naked eye, presents to the warm imagination of the proprietor, the idea of the chef-d’œuvre of which this thread is to be the foundation; after 4 or 5 months more, devoted to the most patient and assiduous industry, he is at last put in possession of some slips of lace, weighing in all 4 or 5 drachms, picked out and sorted, thanks to the last refinement of art, from that pound of flax which had cost six-pence. Five-pence three farthings, and a few fractions, are then, it seems, in the strictest calculation, the only real loss—the only devastation which is occasioned by luxury carried to the highest pitch of extravagance; and this loss is compensated by some very curious pieces of workmanship, which it is impossible to value at less than 227l. 10s. being the amount of 4550 days work at 12d. paid to each of the 25 working people, who have owed their subsistence, for six months, to that pretended inutility.—Amongst all the passions with which Providence has been pleased to gratify the rich for the advantage of the poor, name me only one that occasions less devastation, and maintains a greater number of indigent persons, than luxury carried to excess. O ye rigid men, who have left off wearing lace, join with me who have left it off too,—join with me in teaching those who continue to wear it, how many of their brethren they nourish without knowing it! Make them virtuous by teaching them, that in order to be so, they need only do, from a sentiment of humanity, what hitherto perhaps they have done through a motive of puerile vanity, or from a principle of ostentation, which, when considered, needs to be considered with some indulgence.
Another aspect, whimsical enough perhaps, but by no means foreign to the title of this pamphlet, would be that under which we should view those prodigies of art and patience, as the work not only of 25 artificers who were busied upon it for six months, but also of 12 or 15 husbandmen whose existence and labour were indispensable for the sustenance, during the same time, of the 25 labouring people employed in that great work.... A peevish man would perhaps exclaim, Was it indeed worth while to be born, if all ends with this life?—And yet, even in this case, thread-lace ought not to be proscribed: it was not worth while indeed to come into the world, solely to make lace; but, once born, we must work at something, in order to bear, without weariness, every instant even of a life which should not require lace-making for its support: as to the nature of the work, let us not find fault with that of others, before we justly estimate our own.... Can we find many of our fellow-creatures, who on their death-bed are able to shew the work of their whole life ... worth the smallest shred of lace then in being?
After this single instance of luxury, by which 25 men are fed during six months at the expence of another, by daily reducing his revenue from 80 to 55, I think that, without being an enthusiast or a declaimer, it would be difficult, even for a good man in the right sense of the word, to withstand the pleasure (although perhaps rather of the mischievous kind) of observing that little more is wanted beyond two such fancies as we have stated, to bring the Proprietor, reduced in the origin from 240 shillings to 80, and then from 80 to 55—to bring him, I say, exactly to the level of the cultivator, whom he has brought down to 9d. or 10d. and of the mechanic on whom he has bestowed 11 or 12d.; however, I am willing to allow him 24 for his real, personal, and daily consumption. Twenty-four pence! will it be said, What signifies being so rich, to consume so little! Yes, twenty-four pence; and this is by much too much, if we deduct, as we ought, from the price of each article supposed to be consumed by the rich, the sum that remains in the hands of the pilferers of all kinds, who stand, unknown to him, between him and that article.—How! what say you then to that plate of green-peas which costs 6, 8, or 10 guineas!—But, my good friend the consumer of green peas, if you knew how many pilferers it conceals, of whom you have not the least idea! if you knew how many wants it has supplied to some, how many indulgences of luxury it has procured to others, before it found its way to the table of an Epicure, or of an ostentatious man!—Let us try to enumerate them: workers of mines and quarries, masons, carpenters, glaziers, colliers, lock-smiths, English and French sailors for the common-spice trade; Dutch seamen, for the more precious kinds; ships of war of the three Powers, indispensable for the protection of the merchantmen employed on those objects; wood-fellers in Sweden, sail-cloth weavers in Russia, ship-builders, pilots, admirals of the three nations, husbandmen busied in the four parts of the world in procuring food for themselves, in order to prepare food for all those wood-fellers, glaziers, admirals, &c. exclusive of the Dutch gardener, and the French cook who alone can worthily crown the mighty operation.—Imagination loses itself in that single plate of green peas. How many reductions from 16 pence to 8, and from 8 to 4, have been required to produce it! It is inconceivable that it should not sell for more than 6 or 8 guineas;—but if each of those pilferers above mentioned takes back the small portion by which he has increased the intrinsic value of the article.... O ye, who must have swallowed up 500 properties, in order to eat, without being guilty of extravagance, that plate of green peas, and who flatter yourselves with the idea of having consumed on that day fifty or sixty crowns worth, learn and reflect henceforward, without remorse and without vanity, that you have not spent above half one penny, the real value of any other dish of greens which you might have substituted to the peas you have consumed.
Scrutinise, in the same manner, your wearing apparel; choose, like a child, what pleases most the eyes of the body; or, like a fastuous man, all that is most imposing to the eyes of the imagination; or, miser-like, that which costs least money; or, in fine, like a man of sense, what your means or your taste incline you to wear; the difference, as to essentials, is little or none. It cannot be positively asserted, that your consumption will be more or less considerable in one than in the other case; but recollect that thread lace, for which you could not pay less than 227l. 10s. because there stand between you and the pound of flax from which it has been extracted, 35 or 40 intermediate pilferers, to be fed during six months;—this lace, however, in spite of that extravagant price, could not, as you have seen, be set down to account amongst the articles of your real and personal consumption, for more than sixpence, supposed to be the intrinsic value of a pound weight of flax, which has gone through so many hands to be converted into lace. Now, on this principle, you might be wrapped in lace from head to foot: and your entire mummy, instead of presenting to the eye of a sworn appraiser a consumption of 30 or 40,000l. would in this instant of its highest splendor, only present him with a devastation of 200lb. of flax, sacrificed to decorate that mummy, or to hide its defects.—And as the object would be 200lb. of flax, the value of which is fully known by the number of people to whom it would afford support, instead of dealing so lightly as I did with a single pound, when I introduced my Patriarch, the appraiser would reckon with you rigorously; he would consider, that in the hands of the Arts, no part of the works of the creation can be lost; that, as it is their triumph, so it is their duty, to divide into 10, 20, or 30 parts, whatever requires such a division, in order that each may receive the degree of utility of which it is susceptible, and which the Arts are bound to account for to society: the appraiser would then carry you to the lace-merchant, in order to lay before you ten different sorts of an inferior lace, taken from parts chosen successively after that which serves you for a wrapper, and descending still from pilfery to pilfery, he would at last inveigle you into the cabins of some pretended wretch, where he would shew you the quantity of coarse and substantial shirts, necessary to teach you that 3 or 4 lb. of flax, at the most, are the only possible devaluations your mummy can be reproached with, as two shillings are the only expence your vanity can boast of in the 25 or 30,000l. which you could presume to have consumed.
Yet, let us grant something to the pretended importance of being possessed of 500 properties, each of them sufficient to the support of one man. I shall accordingly suppose you to be habitually cloathed in those stuffs, which, to the richness of the materials that compose them, join the perfection of workmanship, (which concerns you, as you have seen, in no other light, but that of either a benevolent, or an unintentional provider for the necessary consumption of the labouring man);—but 10 lb. of silk, as they come out of Nature’s hands, are not worth 30 shillings:—without enquiring why they may then be valued at 30 shillings, bring all the other parts of your dress to the touchstone I have furnished you with; consider, that if you wear the same coat every day, it would be far from being worn out at the end of the year,—and how far it would be of course from standing for two or three pence in the account of your daily consumption;—add thereto your real and personal wastings in coals, wood, pomatum, essences, elixirs, &c. valued after the same principle;—at what a distance you still remain from the 24 pence I have granted you for consumption!—And do not say that you renew your coat every season;—had you swallowed up 5000 instead of 500 properties, and should you change cloaths every day, your real consumption would not be the greater for it: would not your valet de chambre, to whom you should have given that suit of cloaths, for which you had paid 40 guineas, and which you had worn only once—would not, I say, your valet de chambre sell it for 15 guineas to an old cloaths-man, who would get 20l. for it from a strolling player?—Be pleased now to trace that suit from Paris to Lisle, to Brussels, Dresden, Poland, Russia; see how many people will get a livelihood by carrying it about; how many guineas it will bring to the travelling Roscius, who will shine in so many countries at your expence; reflect, on the revolutions which the elegance of that dress will occasion in the modes at Petersburgh; how many draughtsmen, embroiderers, working people of all sorts, will be employed and fed, (thanks to your luxury), in copying that master-piece of taste and fancy.—This is not all; you might probably, at the end of 15 years, meet again in Paris with the same suit, cut into small pieces, in the hands of some ladies of the first rank, busily engaged in unweaving the rags, to send, as soon as possible, those precious relics of your seemingly spoiled cloaths, to Lyons, &c. where ten workmen are waiting its arrival, to get bread by restoring to it a great part of its former value, under another form.—And you would presume to have consumed it?... The work of God is not so easily destroyed, nor his beneficence so easily concentered.