If the exportation of subsistence should go forward, while many are found in want at home, a restraint laid upon exportation will not redress the inconvenience; because the wretched will still remain so, unless they are assisted and put in a capacity to dispute the subsistence of their own country with foreign nations. The principal cause of this phenomenon is the preponderancy of the scale of work at home. When home-demand does not fill up the void, of which we have spoken, a vicious competition takes place among those who work for a physical-necessary; the price of their labour falls below the general standard of subsistence abroad; their portion is exported, and they are forced to starve.
A statesman, therefore, at the head of a luxurious people, must endeavour to keep his balance even; and if a subversion is necessary, it is far better it should happen by the preponderancy of the scale of demand. Here is my reason for preferring this alternative.
All subversions are bad, and are attended with bad consequences. If the scale of work preponderates, the industrious will starve, their subsistence will be exported; the nation gains by the balance, but appears in a manner to sell her inhabitants. If the scale of demand preponderates, luxury must increase, but the poor are fed at the expence of the rich, and the national stock of wealth stands as it was. Upon the cessation, therefore, of foreign trade, you must either lose your people, or encourage luxury.
The statesman having regulated the concerns of his outward commerce, must apply more closely than ever to his domestic concerns. I reduce the principal objects of his attention to three. 1. To regulate the progress of luxury according to the hands ready to supply the demand for it. 2. To circumscribe the bounds of it, that is, the multiplication of his people, to the proportion of the extent and fertility of the soil. And in the last place, to distribute his people into classes, according as circumstances (of which he is not master) may demand.
Here I point out the reasons why the progress of luxury does less hurt to a great kingdom than to a small state. Why sumptuary laws are good in an imperial town of Germany, and why they would be hurtful in London or Paris. Why the establishment of a standing army, in a country fully peopled and rich, should be accompanied with endeavours to diminish luxury, in order to prevent too great a preponderancy of the scale of demand, and the rising of prices, which would cut off the hopes of recovering a foreign trade.
Having briefly gone through the objects of the statesman’s concern, I come to examine the natural consequences of this revolution upon the spirit, government, and manners of a people, who from industrious and frugal are become luxurious and polite.
The traders withdraw their stocks as trade decays, and lend it out at home to landed men, who thereby are enabled to become luxurious. This indemnifies the industrious for the loss of foreign demand. When the money, formerly employed in order to gain more, begins to circulate at home, for providing superfluities, and augmenting domestic consumption, the country appears daily to be growing more opulent; tradesmen and manufacturers, who were formerly confined to a physical-necessary, are now easy in their circumstances; they increase their consumption; this accelerates circulation; an air of plenty and ease spreads over the face of the country; and the very consequences of their decline, are construed as invincible proofs of their growing prosperity.
Riches may be considered by a statesman in three different lights; as a mine when they are locked up; as an object of trade when they are employed in order to gain more; or as an object of luxury, and fund for taxation, when they are spent in the gratification of our political wants.
The general cast of mind and disposition of the inhabitants of every country (in so far as regards money) may, I think, be reduced to one or other of these three modifications. It is the business of a statesman to work upon the spirit of his people, so as to model their taste of expence by insensible degrees, and to bring it to be analogous to that principle which is most conducive to national prosperity. Hoarding in private people, can hardly ever be advantageous to a state; when the state hoards, the case is very different, as shall be shewn. While money is employed to gain more, it never can procure to the proprietor, either power or authority; but when, in the last case, it is employed for the gratification of our desires, in the hands of the ambitious, it acquires power; consequently, may rival that influence which no person ought to enjoy, but he who is at the head of the state. This is the mother of faction, and the root from which all hurtful parties spring. It is by such means that governments (be they good or bad) are brought into anarchy. Private wealth corrupted, and at last destroyed the excellence of the Roman commonwealth: and private wealth alone established the liberty of Holland upon the ruins of Spanish tyranny. So soon therefore as the inhabitants of a country begin to employ their riches to gratify their inclinations, at the same time should a statesman begin to make himself rich, in order to preserve that superiority which is essential to him who sits at the head of every principle of action. And whenever this lies beyond his reach, the power he had will soon disappear; and the government will take a new form.
A statesman acquires wealth by imposing taxes upon his people: rapine is the tax of the despote; capitation, land tax, and others which affect persons, are those of the monarch; excises upon consumption are imposed by limited governments. The first lay all flat, the second affect growing wealth, the last accelerate dissipation. I conclude my chapter with some little historical illustrations concerning the power and influence of great men in a state, under different circumstances.