If a statesman finds certain individuals in want, he must either feed them, in which case he may employ them as he thinks fit; or he must give them a piece of land, as the means of feeding themselves. If he gives the land, he can require no equivalent for it, because a person who has nothing can give nothing but his labour; and if he be obliged to labour for his food, he cannot purchase with labour the earth itself, which is the object of it. If it be asked, whether a statesman does better to give the food, or to give the land? I think it will appear very evident, that the first is the better course, because he can then exact an equivalent; and since in either way the person is fed, the produce of his labour is always clear gain. But in order to give the food, he must have it to give; in which case, it must either be a surplus-produce of public lands, or a contribution from the people. In both which cases, is implied a labour carried on beyond the personal wants of those who labour the ground. If this fund be applied in giving bread to those whom he employs in improving the soil of the country in general, it will have no immediate effect of destroying the simplicity of their manners; it will only extend the fund of their subsistence. If he employs them in making highways, aqueducts, common sewers, bridges, and the like; it will extend the correspondence between the different places of the country, and render living in cities more easy and agreeable: and these changes have an evident tendency towards destroying simplicity. But here let it be remarked, that the simplicity of individuals is not hurt by the industry carried on at the expence of the public. The superfluous food at the statesman’s disposal, is given to people in necessity, who are employed in relieving the wants of the public, not of private persons. But if, in consequence of the roads made, any inhabitant shall incline to remove from place to place in a chariot, instead of riding on horseback, or walking, he must engage some body to make the machine: this is a farther extension to occupation, on the side of those who labour; but the consequence of the employment is very different, when considered with regard to the simplicity of manners. The reason is plain: the ingenuity here must be paid for; and this superfluity in the hands of the workman is a fund for his becoming luxurious.
Industry destroys simplicity of manners in him who gives an equivalent for an article of superfluity; and the equivalent given frequently gives rise to a subordinate species of luxury in the workman. When industry therefore meets with encouragement from individuals, who give an equivalent in order to satisfy growing desires, it is a proof that they are quitting the simplicity of their manners. In this case, the wants and desires of mankind prove the mother of industry, which was the supposition in the first book; because, in fact, the industry of Europe is owing to this cause alone.
But the industry of antient times was very different, where the multitude of slaves ready to execute whatever was demanded, either by the state or by their masters, for the equivalent of simple maintenance only, prevented wealth from ever falling into the hands of industrious free men; and he who has no circulating equivalent to give for satisfying a desire of superfluity, must remain in his former simplicity. The labour therefore of those days producing no circulation, could not corrupt the manners of the people; because, remaining constantly poor, they never could increase their consumption of superfluity.
I must, in this place, insert the authority of an antient author, in order both to illustrate and to prove the justness of this representation of the political oeconomy of the antients.
There remains a discourse of Xenophon upon the improvement of the revenue of the state of Athens. Concerning the authenticity of this work, I have not the smallest doubt. It is a chef d’oeuvre of its kind, and from it more light is to be had, in relation to the subject we are here upon, than from any thing I have ever seen, antient or modern.
From this antient monument we learn the sentiments of the author with regard to the proper employment of the three principal classes of the Athenian people, viz. the citizens, the strangers, and the slaves. From the plan he lays down we plainly discover, that, in the state of Athens, (more renowned than any other of antiquity for the arts of luxury and refinement) it never entred into the imagination of any politician to introduce industry even among the lowest classes of the citizens; and Xenophon’s plan was to reap all the benefits we at present enjoy from it, without producing any change upon the spirit of the Athenian people.
The state at this time was in use to impose taxes upon their confederate cities, in order to maintain their own common people, and Xenophon’s intention in this discourse was, not to lay down a plan to make them maintain themselves by industry, but to improve the revenue of the state in such a manner as out of it to give every citizen a pension of three oboli a day, or three pence three farthings of our money.
I shall not here go through every branch of his plan, nor point out the resources he had fallen upon to form a sufficient fund for that purpose; but he says, that in case of any deficiency in the domestic revenue of the state, people from all quarters, Princes and strangers of note, in all countries, would be proud of contributing towards it, for the honour of being recorded in the public monuments of Athens, and having their names transmitted to posterity as benefactors to the state in the execution of so grand a design.
In our days, such an idea would appear ridiculous; in the days of Xenophon, it was perfectly rational. At that time great quantities of gold and silver were found locked up in the coffers of the rich: this was in a great measure useless to them, in the common course of life, and was the more easily parted with from a sentiment of vanity or ostentation.
In our days, the largest income is commonly found too small for the current expence of the proprietor. From whence it happens, that presents, great expence at funerals and marriages, godfathers gifts, &c. so very familiar among ourselves in former times, are daily going out of fashion. These are extraordinary and unforeseen expences which our ancestors were fond of, because they flattered their vanity, without diminishing the fund of their current expence: but as now we have no full coffers to fly to, we find them excessively burthensome, and endeavour to retrench them as soon as we can, not from frugality, God knows, but in consequence o£ a change in our manners.