These figures, of course, may be slightly inaccurate, but they are sufficient to show the great variation, both in taxation and wages, which prevails in the three countries which are here specified; and we have no reason to believe that, during the few years which have elapsed since these calculations were made, any material difference in proportion has taken place. A similar discrepancy prevails in wages of every kind. For example, Mr Porter tells us that in Wurtemberg the wages of the artisans in towns are from 1s. 8d. to 4s. 2d. per week; that in Bavaria “labourers are paid at the rate of 8d. per day in the country, and from 8d. to 1s. 4d. in the towns;” and that in Saxony “a man employed in his loom, working very diligently from Monday morning until Saturday night, from five o’clock in the morning until dusk, and even at times with a lamp, his wife assisting him in finishing and taking him the work, could not possibly earn more than 20 groschen (2s. 6d. sterling) per week.” We might have added many other instances to these, but we judge it to be unnecessary. We quote them simply for the purpose of showing that labour in Britain, if heavily taxed, was better remunerated than elsewhere.
Now, why was it better remunerated? That is—after all that has been said and written on the subject, and Eolus-bags of oratory, and hundreds of thousands of reams of paper have been expended on it—the question, upon the solution of which the merit of the rival systems depends. It was better remunerated in this way—because in Great Britain there has been a far greater outlay of capital in every department and branch of industry, than has been made in any other country of the world. With us, land has been reclaimed, and brought under tillage, which elsewhere would have been left in a state of nature. At an immense cost the difficulties of climate have been overcome, and the soil rendered productive, and capable of sustaining an increased number of inhabitants. We must go back farther than the memory of the present generation can reach, in order to appreciate the vast nature of the improvements which were so effected. Since the commencement of the present century, very nearly four millions of acres, in England alone, have been brought into cultivation under the Inclosure Acts, besides all that has been effected by private enterprise—and it is probable that amount immensely exceeds the other—on land held by a simple tenure. Eighty years ago, the greater part of the surface of what are now our best cultivated counties, was covered with heath and ling, and of course wholly unproductive. It was from this outlay of capital in the cultivation of the soil that the rapid growth of our towns, and the great increase of our manufactures, took their rise. The latter cannot precede—it must always follow the other. The country supplied the towns with food, and the towns in turn supplied the country with manufactures. Such being the case, it is evident that the prosperity of either interest depended greatly upon the circumstances of the other. If agriculture was depressed, from whatever cause, there was no longer the same demand as formerly for manufactures; if manufactures were depressed, the agriculturist suffered in his turn. But in reality, except from over-trading, and a competition pushed to an extent which has affected the national interest, it is difficult to understand how a depression in manufactures for the home trade could take place, except through and in consequence of agricultural calamity. The home demand was remarkably steady, and could be calculated upon with almost a certainty of return. It was reserved for the enlightened economists of our age to discover that the interests of agriculture and manufactures were not harmonious. Such, clearly, was not the theory of our forefathers. The Book of Common Prayer contains a form of thanksgiving for a good harvest—it has none for a year of unusual export and import.
We must not, however, pass over without notice, the circumstances which led to the extraordinary development of industry and enterprise in Great Britain, in every department. Without consumers, it is quite evident that agriculture could not have advanced with such rapid strides; and it is important that there should be no misunderstanding on this matter. The possession of a hundred or a thousand acres of land is of little value unless the owner can command a remunerative market for his produce; nor will he cultivate his land to the utmost unless he has the assurance of such a market. It is all very well to say, that, by the expenditure of a certain sum of money, such and such an amount of crops may be reared on each acre;—that is a mere feat of agricultural chemistry, such as Mr Huxtable offered to undertake upon pure sand with the assistance of pigs’ dung; but the real and only question is—will the return meet the outlay? Without some unusual and extraordinary cause to increase the number of consumers, it is clear to us that the progress of agriculture must have been comparatively slow; and accordingly, we find that cause in the Continental war, which continued for nearly a quarter of a century, and which has effected such mighty changes—the end of which is not yet apparent—in the social position of Great Britain.
To maintain that war, the resources of this country were taxed to the utmost. So great were the demands, that they could not possibly have been met but for two things—one being the result of internal arrangement, and the other arising from external circumstances. The first of these was the suspension of cash payments, and the extension, or rather creation, of credit, arising from an unlimited paper currency. The second was the monopoly of the foreign markets, which we engrossed, in virtue of our naval supremacy. No writer on the social state of Britain, even at the present hour, and no political economist who does not specially refer to these two circumstances, are worth consulting. Better put their volumes into the fire, than discuss effects without regard to their antecedent cause.
It may be that the extent to which that unlimited currency was pushed, has since had disastrous results. If unwisely permitted without control or regulation, it was, as we think, contracted in a manner even more unwise; and the practical consequence has been an enormous addition to the weight of the public debt. But without a currency of very large extent—without the credit which that currency created—Great Britain could not have continued the struggle so long, nor brought it to a triumphant issue. It was this that stimulated both agriculture and manufactures, the latter having, in addition, the inestimable privilege of the command of the markets of the world, without any interference of a rival. Reclaimed fields and new manufactories were the products of that period; and unquestionably there never was an era in our history when prosperity appeared to be more generally diffused. If prices were high, so were wages. Employment was plentiful, because improvement was progressing on every side, and no jealousy existed between the manufacturer and the agriculturist. During fifteen years, from 1801 to 1815, the average annual quantity of wheat and wheat-flour imported to this country was only 506,000 quarters.
Perhaps it may be instructive here to quote the words of an acute observer in 1816, regarding the improvements which had taken place, before any check occurred. The writer of the historical summary in the Edinburgh Annual Register for that year thus expresses himself:—
“During the continuance of the last war, many things had conspired to stimulate to the highest extent the exertions of every class of the people of England. Cut off by the decrees of Buonaparte from direct intercourse with some of the richest countries of Europe, the policy which England had adopted in revenge of this exclusion, had greatly increased the action of those many circumstances which naturally tended towards rendering her the great, or rather the sole entrepot, of the commerce of the world. In her the whole of that colonial trade which had formerly been sufficient to enrich, not her alone, but France and Holland also, had now centred. The inventive zeal of her manufacturers had gone on from year to year augmenting and improving branches of industry, in which, even before, she had been without a rival. The increase of manufactures had been attended with a perpetual increase in the demand for agricultural produce, and the events of the two years of scarcity (as they were called) lent an additional spring to the motion of those whose business it was to meet this demand. The increase which took place in the agricultural improvements of the island, was such as had never before been equalled in any similar period of time. Invention followed invention, for economising labour, and increasing production; till throughout no inconsiderable part of the whole empire the face of the country was changed. ‘It may safely be said,’ asserted Mr Brougham, ‘that without at all comprehending the waste lands wholly added to the productive tenantry of the island, not perhaps that two blades of grass now grow where one only grew before, but certainly that five grow where four used to be; and that this kingdom, which foreigners were wont to taunt as a mere manufacturing and trading country, inhabited by a shopkeeping nation, is, in reality, for its size, by far the greatest agricultural state in the world!’”
Contrary, perhaps, to the general expectation, the close of the war and the return of peace operated disastrously upon the internal interests of the country. Though the manufacturing energies of the Continent had been checked, its agriculture was ready and available; and accordingly, no sooner were the ports opened than prices fell at an alarming rate. The result was not only immediate agricultural distress in Britain, but the greatest depression in every branch of manufacture connected with the home trade. The agricultural distress needs no explanation. The vast improvements on land had been made with borrowed money; and when prices went down, the proprietor too often found himself unable from his rents to pay the bare interest of the money expended. Yet, had these improvements not taken place, how could Britain have continued the struggle so long—how could her manufacturing population have been fed? These are questions never considered now, especially by those agitators who revile the landlords, or rather the Legislature, for the imposition of the Corn Laws; but the truth is, that, unless the corn duty had been then imposed, England must, within a very few years, either have exhibited the humiliating spectacle of a bankrupt and ruined state, or been plunged in revolution. The distress rapidly spread to the manufacturers—for example, those engaged in the silk trade, and the iron and coal-workers of Staffordshire and Wales. The fall in the price of corn produced its natural effect by limiting the consumption of everything else; and, as if to crown the calamity, the exporting manufacturers, in their eagerness for gain, committed precisely the same blunder, from the effects of which they are now suffering so severely; and by creating a glut in the Continental markets, they both annihilated their own profits, and excited such an alarm in foreign governments as to give rise to a system of prohibitory duties, which continues to the present hour. Then followed the resumption of cash payments, with all its train of ruin—a measure which, whether necessary or not in principle, could not have been carried but for the existence of a corn law, which in some degree mitigated its pressure.
In a country so loaded with debt as ours, it is in vain to talk, as Lord John Russell lately did, of a “natural price.” The term, indeed, has no kind of significance under any circumstances; and we are perfectly certain that the noble lord, when he employed it, was not attempting to clothe a distinct idea in words. He found the phrase somewhere—perhaps borrowed it from the Economist—and used it, because he thought it sounded well. If he could reduce the price of all commodities here to the level of that which prevails in a Continental country—a consummation which appears to be contemplated and desired by the Free-Traders—the result would necessarily be a like decadence of our wealth—not accompanied, however, by a relaxation of our present burdens. The high wages which the working-classes receive in this country, contrasted with the low wages which are given elsewhere, depend upon the return which is yielded to the capitalist who calls their labour into being. Now, let us see what effect depression in any one great branch of industry exercises upon the working-classes, who are not immediately dependent upon it for their subsistence.
This involves one of the most curious phenomena in economical science. When an interest is depressed, it does not always happen—especially in the first stage of depression—that the labourers attached to that interest feel immediately the consequences of the decline. Agricultural wages, for example, do not fluctuate according to the price of wheat. The retrenchment which becomes necessary in consequence of lessened returns is usually effected, in the first instance at least, by curtailment of personal expenditure on the part of the cultivator—by abstinence from purchases, not necessary indeed, but convenient—and by that species of circumspect, but nameless thrift, which, at the end of a year, makes a very considerable difference in the amount of tradesmen’s bills. This kind of retrenchment is the easiest, the safest, and the most humane; and it is not until the depression becomes so great as to render other and more stringent modes of economising necessary, that the agricultural labourer is actually made to feel his entire dependence upon the land, and the interest which he has in its returns. The small tradesmen and dealers in the country and market towns are usually the first to discern what is called the pressure of the times. They find that the farmers are no longer taking from them the same quantity of goods as before; that their stocks, especially of the more expensive articles, remain on their hands unsold; and that there is no demand for novelties. If the depression goes so far as to necessitate a diminution of rental, then the same economy, but on a wider scale, is practised by the landlord. Expensive luxuries are given up, establishments contracted, and the town’s-people begin to complain of a dull season, for which they find it impossible to account, seeing that money is declared to be cheap. All this reacts upon the artisans very severely; because in towns labour has a far less certain tenure than in the country; and when there is a cessation of demand, workmen, however skilled, are not only liable, but certain to be dismissed. If the shopkeeper cannot get his goods off his hands, the manufacturer need not expect to prevail upon him to give any farther orders. The demand upon the mills becomes slack, and the manufacturer, finding that there is no immediate prospect of revival, considers it his duty to have recourse to short time.