the number of inhabitants which any given tract | than that of a country which works up goods for or surface can support, finite; it is evident that others, whilst these others are cultivating new great numbers may be constantly leaving a tracts of land for them: for as, in a genial clicountry, and yet the country remain constantly mate, and from a fresh soil, the labour of one man full. Or whatever be the cause which invincibly will raise provision enough for ten, it is manifest limits the population of a country; when the that, where all are employed in agriculture, much number of the people has arrived at that limit, the greater part of the produce will be spared the progress of generation, beside continuing the from the consumption; and that three out of four, succession, will supply multitudes for foreign at least to those who are maintained by it, will emigration. In these two cases, emigration nei- reside in the country which receives the redunther indicates any political decay, nor in truth dancy. When the new country does not remit diminishes the number of the people; nor ought to provision to the old one, the advantage is less; be prohibited or discouraged. But emigrants may but still the exportation of wrought goods, by relinquish their country, from a sense of insecurity, whatever return they are paid for, advances popuoppression, annoyance, and inconveniency. Nei-lation in that secondary way, in which those trades ther, again, here is it emigration which wastes promote it that are not employed in the producthe people, but the evils that occasion it. It tion of provision. Whatever prejudice, therefore, would be in vain, if it were practicable, to confine some late events have excited against schemes of the inhabitants at home; for the same causes colonization, the system itself is founded in apwhich drive them out of the country, would pre-parent national utility; and what is more, upon vent their multiplication if they remained in it. Lastly; men may be tempted to change their situation by the allurement of a better climate, of a more refined or luxurious manner of living; by the prospect of wealth; or, sometimes, by the mere nominal advantage of higher wages and prices. This class of emigrants, with whom alone the laws can interfere with effect, will never, I think, be numerous. With the generality of a people, the attachment of mankind to their homes and country, the irksomeness of seeing new habitations, and of living amongst strangers, will outweigh, so long as men possess the necessaries of life in safety, or at least so long as they can ob- III. MONEY.-Where money abounds, the peotain a provision for that mode of subsistence ple are generally numerous: yet gold and silver which the class of citizens to which they belong neither feed nor clothe mankind; nor are they in are accustomed to enjoy, all the inducements that all countries converted into provision by purthe advantages of a foreign land can offer. There chasing the necessaries of life at foreign markets; appear, therefore, to be few cases in which emi- nor do they, in any country, compose those artigration can be prohibited, with advantage to the cles of personal or domestic ornament which cerstate; it appears also that emigration is an equi-tain orders of the community have learnt to revocal symptom, which will probably accompany gard as necessaries of life, and without the means the decline of the political body, but which may of procuring which, they will not enter into likewise attend a condition of perfect health and vigour. principles favourable to the common interest of human nature; for it does not appear by what other method newly-discovered and unfrequented countries can be peopled, or during the infancy of their establishment be protected or supplied. The error which we of this nation at present lament, seems to have consisted not so much in the original formation of colonies, as in the subsequent management; in imposing restrictions too rigorous, or in continuing them too long; in not perceiving the point of time when the irresistible order and progress of human affairs demand a change of laws and policy. family-establishments:-at least, this property of the precious metals obtains in a very small degree. II. COLONIZATION.-The only view under The effect of money upon the number of the peowhich our subject will permit us to consider ple, though visible to observation, is not explained colonization, is in its tendency to augment the without some difficulty. To understand this conpopulation of the parent state.-Suppose a fertile, nexion properly, we must return to the proposibut empty island, to lie within the reach of a tion with which we concluded our reasoning upon country in which arts and manufactures are al- the subject; "that population is chiefly promoted ready established; suppose a colony sent out from by employment." Now of employment, money is such a country, to take possession of the island, partly the indication, and partly the cause. The and to live there under the protection and au- only way in which money regularly and sponthority of their native government: the new set-taneously flows into a country, is in return for the tlers will naturally convert their labour to the cul- goods that are sent out of it, or the work that is tivation of the vacant soil, and with the produce performed by it; and the only way in which moof that soil will draw a supply of manufactures ney is retained in a country, is by the country's from their countrymen at home. Whilst the in- supplying, in a great measure, its own consumphabitants continue few, and lands cheap and fresh, tion of manufactures. Consequently, the quanthe colonists will find it easier and more profitable tity of money found in a country, denotes the to raise corn, or rear cattle, and with corn and cat- amount of labour and employment; but still, tle to purchase woollen cloth, for instance, or linen, employment, not money, is the cause of populathan to spin or weave these articles for themselves. tion; the accumulation of money being merely a The mother-country, meanwhile, derives from this collateral effect of the same cause, or a circumconnexion an increase both of provision and em- stance which accompanies the existence, and ployment. It promotes at once the two great re-measures the operation, of that cause. And this quisites upon which the facility of subsistence, and by consequence the state of population, depend,production and distribution; and this in a manner the most direct and beneficial. No situation can be imagined more favourable to population, is true of money, only whilst it is acquired by the industry of the inhabitants. The treasures which belong to a country by the possession of mines, or by the exaction of tribute from foreign dependencies, afford no conclusion concerning the state of population. The influx from these sources may be immense, and yet the country remain poor and ill-peopled; of which we see an egregious example in the condition of Spain, since the acquisition of its South-American dominions. stock, only vary the distribution of it, they are not necessarily prejudicial to population. If the state exact money from certain members of the community, she dispenses it also amongst other members of the same community. They who contribute to the revenue, and they who are supported or benefited by the expenses of government, are to be placed one against the other; and whilst what the subsistence of one part is profited by receiving, compensates for what that of the other suffers by paying, the common fund of the society is not lessened. This is true: but it must be observed, that although the sum distributed by the state be always equal to the sum collected from the people, yet the gain and loss to the means of subsistence may be very unequal; and the balance will remain on the wrong or the right side of the account, according as the money passes by taxation from the industrious to the idle, from the many to the few, from those who want to those who abound, or in a contrary direction. For instance: a tax upon coaches, to be laid out in the repair of roads, would probably improve the population of a neighbourhood; a tax upon cottages, to be ultimately expended in the purchase and support of coaches, would certainly diminish it. In like manner, a tax upon wine or tea distributed in bounties to fishermen or husbandmen, would augment the provision of a country; a tax upon fisheries and husbandry, however indirect or concealed, to be converted, when raised, to the procuring of wine or tea for the idle and opulent, would naturally impair the public stock. The effect, therefore, of taxes, upon the means of subsistence, depends not so much upon the amount of the sum levied, as upon the object of the tax and the application. Taxes likewise may be so adjusted as to conduce to the restraint of luxury, and the correction of vice; to the encouragement of industry, trade, agriculture, and marriage. Taxes thus contrived, become rewards and penalties; not only sources of revenue, but instruments of police. Vices indeed themselves cannot be taxed, without holding forth such a conditional toleration of them as to destroy men's perception of their guilt; a tax comes to be considered as a commutation: the materials, however, and incentives of vice, may. Although, for instance, drunkenness would be, on this account, an unfit object of taxation, yet public houses and spirituous liquors are very properly subjected to heavy imposts. But, secondly, money may become also a real and an operative cause of population, by acting as a stimulus to industry, and by facilitating the means of subsistence. The ease of subsistence, and the encouragement of industry, depend neither upon the price of labour, nor upon the price of provision, but upon the proportion which one bears to the other. Now the influx of money into a country, naturally tends to advance this proportion; that is, every fresh accession of money raises the price of labour before it raises the price of provision. When money is brought from abroad, the persons, be they who they will, into whose hands it first arrives, do not buy up provision with it, but apply it to the purchase and payment of labour. If the state receives it, the state dispenses what it receives amongst soldiers, sailors, artificers, engineers, shipwrights, workmen;-if private persons bring home treasures of gold and silver they usually expend them in the building of houses, the improvement of estates, the purchase of furniture, dress, equipage, in articles of luxury or splendour:—if the merchant be enriched by returns of his foreign commerce, he applies his increased capital to the enlargement of his business at home. The money ere long comes to market for provision; but it comes thither through the hands of the manufacturer, the artist, the husbandman, and labourer. Its effect, therefore, upon the price of art and labour, will precede its effect upon the price of provision; and during the interval between one effect and the other, the means of subsistence will be multiplied and facilitated, as well as industry be excited by new rewards. When the greater plenty of money in circulation has produced an advance in the price of provision, corresponding to the advanced price of labour, its effect ceases. The labourer no longer gains any thing by the increase of his wages. It is not, therefore, the quantity of specie collected into a country, but the continual increase of that quantity, from which the advantage arises to employment and population. It is only the accession of money which produces the effect, and it is only by money constantly flowing into a country that the effect can be constant. Now whatever consequence arises to the country from the influx of money, the contrary may be ex- Nevertheless, although it may be true that pected to follow from the diminution of its quan- taxes cannot be pronounced to be detrimental to tity: and accordingly we find, that whatever population, by an absolute necessity in their nacause drains off the specie of a country, faster ture; and though, under some modifications, and than the streams which feed it can supply, not when urged only to a certain extent, they may only impoverishes the country, but depopulates even operate in favour of it; yet it will be found, it. The knowledge and experience of this effect in a great plurality of instances, that their tenhave given occasion to a phrase which occurs in dency is noxious. Let it be supposed that nine almost every discourse upon commerce or politics. families inhabit a neighbourhood, each possessing The balance of trade with any foreign nation is barely the means of subsistence, or of that mode said to be against or in favour of a country, sim- of subsistence which custom hath established ply as it tends to carry money out, or bring it in: amongst them; let a tenth family be quartered that is, according as the price of the imports ex-upon these, to be supported by a tax raised from ceeds or falls short of the price of the exports: so invariably is the increase or diminution of the specie of a country regarded as a test of the public advantage or detriment which arises from any branch of its commerce. IV. TAXATION.-As taxes take nothing out of a country; as they do not diminish the public the nine; or rather, let one of the nine have his income augmented by a similar deduction from the incomes of the rest; in either of these cases, it is evident that the whole district would be broken up: for as the entire income of each is supposed to be barely sufficient for the establishment which it maintains, a deduction of any part destroys that establishment. Now it is no answer telligible; it encourages no activity which is useto this objection, it is no apology for the grievance, ful or productive. to say, that nothing is taken out of the neighbour- The sum to be raised being settled, a wise hood; that the stock is not diminished: the mis-statesman will contrive his taxes principally with chief is done by deranging the distribution. Nor, a view to their effect upon population; that is, he again, is the luxury of one family, or even the will so adjust them as to give the least possible maintenance of an additional family, a recom- obstruction to those means of subsistence by which pense to the country for the ruin of nine others.- the mass of the community is maintained. We Nor, lastly, will it alter the effect though it may are accustomed to an opinion, that a tax, to be conceal the cause, that the contribution, instead just, ought to be accurately proportioned to the of being levied directly upon each day's wages, circumstances of the persons who pay it. But is mixed up in the price of some article of con- upon what, it might be asked, is this opinion stant use and consumption, as in a tax upon founded; unless it could be shown that such a candles, malt, leather, or fuel. This example illus- proportion interferes the least with the general trates the tendency of taxes to obstruct subsist- conveniency of subsistence? Whereas I should ence; and the minutest degree of this obstruction rather believe, that a tax, constructed with a view will be felt in the formation of families. The to that conveniency, ought to rise upon the difexample, indeed, forms an extreme case; the evil ferent classes of the community, in a much higher is magnified, in order to render its operation dis-ratio than the simple proportion of their incomes. tinct and visible. In real life, families may not be broken up, or forced from their habitation, houses be quitted, or countries suddenly deserted, in consequence of any new imposition whatever; but marriages will become gradually less frequent. It seems necessary, however, to distinguish between the operation of a new tax, and the effect of taxes which have been long established. In the course of circulation, the money may flow back to the hands from which it was taken. The proportion between the supply and the expense of subsistence, which had been disturbed by the tax, may at length recover itself again. In the instance just now stated, the addition of a tenth family to the neighbourhood, or the enlarged expenses of one of the nine, may, in some shape or other, so advance the profits, or increase the employment, of the rest, as to make full restitution for the share of their property of which it deprives them; or, what is more likely to happen, a reduction may take place in their mode of living, suited to the abridgment of their incomes. Yet still the ultimate and permanent effect of taxation, though distinguishable from the impression of a new tax, is generally adverse to population. The proportion above spoken of, can only be restored by one side or other of the following alternative: by the people either contracting their wants, which at the same time diminishes consumption and employment; or by raising the price of labour, which necessarily adding to the price of the productions and manufactures of the country, checks their sale at foreign markets. A nation which is burthened with taxes, must always be undersold by a nation which is free from them, unless the difference be made up by some singular advantage of climate, soil, skill, or industry. This quality belongs to all taxes which affect the mass of the community, even when imposed upon the properest objects, and applied to the fairest purposes. But abuses are inseparable from the disposal of public money. As governments are usually administered, the produce of public taxes is expended upon a train of gentry, in the maintaining of pomp, or in the purchase of influence. The conversion of property which taxes effectuate, when they are employed in this manner, is attended with obvious evils. It takes from the industrious, to give to the idle; it increases the number of the latter; it tends to accumulation; it sacrifices the conveniency of many to the luxury of a few; it makes no return to the people, from whom the tax is drawn, that is satisfactory or in The point to be regarded is, not what men have, but what they can spare; and it is evident that a man who possesses a thousand pounds a year, can more easily give up a hundred, than a man with a hundred pounds a year can part with ten; that is, those habits of life which are reasonable and innocent, and upon the ability to continue which the formation of families depends, will be much less affected by the one deduction than the other: it is still more evident, that a man of a hundred pounds a year would not be so much distressed in his subsistence, by a demand from him of ten pounds, as a man of ten pounds a year would be by the loss of one: to which we must add, that the population of every country being replenished by the marriages of the lowest ranks of the society, their accommodation and relief become of more importance to the state, than the conveniency of any higher but less numerous order of its citizens. But whatever be the proportion which public expediency directs, whether the simple, the duplicate, or any higher or intermediate proportion of men's incomes, it can never be attained by any single tax: as no single object of taxation can be found, which measures the ability of the subject with sufficient generality and exactness. It is only by a system and variety of taxes, mutually balancing and equalising one another, that a due proportion can be preserved. For instance: if a tax upon lands press with greater hardship upon those who live in the country, it may be properly counterpoised by a tax upon the rent of houses, which will affect principally the inhabitants of large towns. Distinctions may also be framed in some taxes, which shall allow abatements or exemptions to married persons; to the parents of a certain number of legitimate children; to improvers of the soil; to particular modes of cultivation, as to tillage in preference to pasturage; and in general to that industry which is immediately productive, in preference to that which is only instrumental; but above all, which may leave the heaviest part of the burthen upon the methods, whatever they be, of acquiring wealth without industry, or even of subsisting in idleness. V. EXPORTATION OF BREAD-CORN.-Nothing seems to have a more positive tendency to reduce the number of the people, than the sending abroad part of the provision by which they are maintained; yet this has been the policy of legislators very studious of the improvement of their country. In order to reconcile ourselves to a practice which appears to militate with the chief interest, that is, I discover or adopt a mechanical improvement, will, From the reasoning that has been pursued, and necessaries of life. Laws cannot induce men to enter into marriages, when the expenses of a family must deprive them of that system of accommodation to which they have habituated their expectations. Laws, by their protection, by assuring to the labourer the fruit and profit of his labour, may help to make a people industrious; but without industry, the laws cannot provide either subsistence or employment; laws cannot make corn grow without toil and care, or trade flourish without art and diligence. In spite of all laws, the expert, laborious, honest workman, will be employed, in preference to the lazy, the unskilful, the fraudulent, and evasive: and this is not more true of two inhabitants of the same village, than it is of the people of two different countries, which communicate either with each other, or with the rest of the world. The natural basis of trade is rivalship of quality and price; or, which is the same thing, of skill and industry. Every attempt to force trade by operation of law, that is, by compelling persons to buy goods at one market, which they can obtain cheaper and better from another, is sure to be either eluded by the quick-sightedness and incessant activity of private interest, or to be frustrated by retaliation. One half of the commercial laws of many states are calculated merely to counteract the restrictions which have been imposed by other states. Perhaps the only way in which the interposition of law is salutary in trade, is in the prevention of frauds. Next to the indispensable requisites of internal peace and security, the chief advantage which can be derived to population from the interference of law, appears to me to consist in the encouragement of agriculture. This, at least, is the direct way of increasing the number of the people: every other mode being effectual only by its influence upon this. Now the principal expedient by which such a purpose can be promoted, is to adjust the laws of property, as nearly as possible, to the two following rules: first, "to give to the occupier all the power over the soil, which is necessary for its perfect cultivation;"-secondly, "to assign the whole profit of every improvement to the persons by whose activity it is carried on." What we call property in land, as hath been observed above, is power over it. Now it is indifferent to the public in whose hands this power resides, if it be rightly used; it matters not to whom the land belongs, if it be well cultivated. When we lament that great estates are often united in the same hand, or complain that one man possesses what would be sufficient for a thousand, we suffer ourselves to be misled by words. The owner of ten thousand pounds a-year, consumes little more of the produce of the soil than the owner of ten pounds a-year. If the cultivation be equal, the estate in the hands of one great lord, affords subsistence and employment to the same number of persons as it would do if it were divided amongst a hundred proprietors. In like manner we ought to judge of the effect upon the public interest, which may arise from lands being holden by the king, or by the subject; by private persons, or by corporations; by laymen, or ecclesiastics; in fee, or for life; by virtue of office, or in right of inheritance. I do not mean that these varieties make no difference, but I mean that all the difference they do make respects the cultivation of the lands which are so holden. and general law of enfranchisement, partition, and enclosure; which, though compulsory upon the lord, or the rest of the tenants, whilst it has in view the melioration of the soil, and tenders an equitable compensation for every right that it takes away, is neither more arbitrary, nor more dangerous to the stability of property, than that which is done in the construction of roads, bridges, embankments, navigable canals, and indeed in almost every public work, in which private owners of land are obliged to accept that price for their property which an indifferent jury may award. It may here, however, be proper to observe, that although the enclosure of wastes and pastures be generally beneficial to population, yet the enclosure of lands in tillage, in order to convert them into pastures, is as generally hurtful. But, secondly, agriculture is discouraged by every constitution of landed property which lets in those, who have no concern in the improvement, to a participation of the profit. This objection is applicable to all such customs of manors as subject the proprietor, upon the death of the lord or tenant, or the alienation of the estate, to a fine apportioned to the improved value of the land. But of all institutions which are in this way adverse to cultivation and improvement, none is so noxious as that of tithes. A claimant here enters into the produce, who contributed no assistance whatever to the production. When years, perhaps, of care and toil have matured an improvement; when the husbandman sees new crops ripening to his skill and industry; the moment he is ready to put his sickle to the grain, he finds himself compelled to divide his harvest with a stranger. Tithes are a tax not only upon industry, but upon that industry which feeds mankind; upon that species of exertion which it is the aim of all wise laws to cherish and promote; and to uphold and excite which, composes, as we have seen, the main benefit that the community receives from the whole system of trade, and the success of commerce. And, together with the more general inconveniency that attends the exaction of tithes, there is this additional evil, in the mode at least according to which they are collected at present, that they operate as a bounty upon pasturage. The burthen of the tax falls with its chief, if not with its whole weight, upon tillage; that is to say, upon that precise mode of cultivation, which, as hath been shown above, it is the business of the state to relieve and remunerate, in preference to every other. No measure of such extensive concern appears to me so practicable, nor any single alteration so beneficial, as the conversion of tithes into corn-rents. CHAPTER XII. This There exist in this country, conditions of tenure which condemn the land itself to perpetual sterility. Of this kind is the right of common, which pre-commutation, I am convinced, might be so adjusted cludes each proprietor from the improvement, or as to secure to the tithe-holder a complete and even the convenient occupation, of his estate, with- perpetual equivalent for his interest, and to leave out (what seldom can be obtained) the consent of to industry its full operation, and entire reward. many others. This tenure is also usually embarrassed by the interference of manorial claims, under which it often happens that the surface belongs to one owner, and the soil to another; so that neither owner can stir a clod without the concurrence of his partner in the property. In many manors, the tenant is restrained from granting leases beyond a short term of years; which renders every plan of solid improvement impracticable. In these cases, the owner wants, what the first rule of rational policy requires, "sufficient power over the soil for its perfect cultivation." This power ought to be extended to him by some easy Of War, and of Military Establishments. BECAUSE the Christian Scriptures describe wars as what they are, as crimes or judgments, some have been led to believe that it is unlawful for a Christian to bear arms. But it should be remembered that it may be necessary for individuals to unite their force, and for this end to resign themselves to the direction of a common will; and yet |