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on in successive generations of others of a less elevated class of minds, in whom the influence of interested motives was direct and immediate.

Adam Smith's work, now styled the principia of economical science by the free-traders, first gave token of the important and decisive change then going forward in society. It was an ominous and characteristic title: The Nature and Cause of the WEALTH of Nations. It was not said of their wisdom, virtue, or happiness. The direction of such a mind as Adam Smith's to the exclusive consideration of the riches of nations, indicated the advent of a period when the fruits of industry in this vast empire, sheltered by protection, had become so great that they had formed a powerful class in society, which was beginning to look to its separate interests, and saw them in the beating down the price of articles-that is, diminishing the remuneration of other men's industry. It showed that the Plutocracy was becoming powerful. The constant arguments that able work contained, in favour of competition and against monopoly, its impassioned pleadings in favour of freedom of commerce, and the removal of all restrictions on importation, were so many indications that a new era was opening in society; that the interests of realised wealth were beginning to come into collision with those of creating industry, and that the time was not far distant when a fierce legislative contest might be anticipated between them. It is well known that Adam Smith advocated the Navigation Laws, upon the ground that national independence was of more importance than national wealth. But there can be no doubt that this was a deviation from his principles, and that, if they were established in other particulars, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to succeed in maintaining an exception in favour of the shipping interests, because that was retaining a burden on the colonies, when the corresponding benefit had been voted away.

Although, however, the doctrines of Adam Smith, from their novelty, simplicity, and alliance with democratic liberty, spread rapidly in the rising generation-ever ready to repudiate the doctrines and throw off

VOL. LXVI.-NO. CCCCV.

the restraints of their fathers—yet, so strongly were the producing interests intrenched in the legislature, that a very long period would probably have elapsed before they came to be practically applied in the measures of government, had it not been that, at the very period when, from the triumph of protection-principles during the war, and the vast wealth they had realised in the state, the moneyed interest had become most powerful, a great revolution in the state gave that interest the command of the House of Commons. By the Reform Bill two-thirds of the seats in that house were given to boroughs, and twothirds of the voters in boroughs, in the new constituency, were shopkeepers or those in their interest. Thus a decisive majority in the house, which, from having the command of the public purse, practically became possessed of supreme power, was vested in those who made their living by buying and selling-with whom cheap prices was all in all. The producing classes were virtually, and to all practical purposes, cast out of the scale.

The landed interest, on all questions vital to its welfare, would evidently soon be in a minority. Schedules A and B at one blow disfranchised the whole colonial empire of Great Britain, because it closed the avenue by which colonial wealth had hitherto found an entrance to the House of Commons. Seats could no longer be bought: the virtual representation of unrepresented places was at an end. The greatest fortunes made in the colonies could now get into the house only through some populous place; and the majority of voters in most populous places were in favour of the consumers and against the producers, because the consumers bought their goods, and they bought those of the producers. Thus no colonial member could get in but by forswearing his principles and abandoning the interests of his order. The shipping interest was more strongly intrenched, because many shipping towns had direct representatives in parliament, and it accordingly was the last to be overthrown. But when the colonies were disfranchised, and protection was withdrawn from their industry to cheapen prices at home, it

H

became next to impossible to keep up the shipping interest-not only because the injustice of doing so, and so enhancing freights, when protection to colonial produce was withdrawn, was evident, but because it was well understood, by certain unequivocal symptoms, that such a course of policy would at once lead to colonial revolt, and the dismemberment of the empire.

The authors of the Reform Bill were well aware that under it two-thirds of the seats in the House of Commons were for boroughs: but they clung to the idea that a large proportion of these seats would fall under the influence of the landed proprietors in their vicinity, and thus be brought round to the support of the agricultural interest. It was on that belief that Earl Grey said in private, amidst all his public democratic declamations, that the Reform Bill was "the most aristocratic measure which had ever passed the House of Commons." But in this anticipation, which was doubtless formed in good faith by many of the ablest supporters of that revolution, they showed themselves entirely ignorant of the effect of the great monetary change of 1819, which at that very period was undermining the influence of the owners of landed estates as much as it was augmenting the power of the holders of bonds over their properties. As that bill changed the prices of agricultural produce, at least to the extent of forty per cent, it of course crippled the means and weakened the influence of the landowners as much as it added to the powers of the moneyed interest which held securities over their estates. This soon became a matter of paramount importance. After a few severe struggles, the landowners in most places saw that they were overmatched, and that their burdened estates and declining rent-rolls were not equal to an encounter with the ready money of the capitalists, which that very change had so much enhanced in value and augmented in power. One by one the rural boroughs slipped out of the hands of the landed, and fell under the influence of the moneyed interest. At the same time one great colonial interest, that of the West Indies, was so entirely prostrated by the ruinous mea

sure of the emancipation of the negroes, that its influence in parliament was practically rendered extinct. Thus two of the great producing interests in the state those of corn and sugarwere materially weakened or nullified, at the very time when the power of their opponents, the moneyed aristocracy, was most augmented.

Experience, however, proved, on one important and decisive occasion, that even after the Reform Bill had become the law of the land, it was still possible, by a coalition of all the producing interests, to defeat the utmost efforts of the moneyed party, even when aided by the whole influence of government. On occasion of the memorable Whig budget of 1841, such a coalition took place, and the efforts of the free-traders were overthrown. A change of ministry was the consequence; but it soon appeared that nothing was gained by an alteration of rulers, when the elements in which political power resided, under the new constitution, remained unchanged.

Sir Robert Peel, and the leaders of the party which now succeeded to power, appear to have been guided by those views in the free-trade measures which they subsequently introduced. They regarded, and with justice, the Reform Bill as, in the language of the Times, “a great fact"-the settlement of the constitution upon a new basis-on foundations non tangenda non movenda, if we would shun the peril of repeated shocks to our institutions, and ultimately of a bloody revolution. Looking on the matter in this light, the next object was to scan the composition of the House of Commons, and see in what party and interest in the state a preponderance of power was now vested. They were not slow in discerning the fatal truth, that the Reform Bill had given a decided majority to the representatives of boroughs, and that a clear majority in these boroughs was, from the embarrassments which monetary change had produced on the landed proprietors, and the preponderance of votes which that bill had given to shopkeepers, vested in the moneyed or consuming interest. Such a state of things might be regretted, but still it existed; and it was the business of

practical statesmen to deal with things as they were, not to indulge in vain regrets on what they once were or might have been. It seemed impossible to carry on the government on any other footing than that of concession to the wishes and attention to the interests of the moneyed and mercantile classes, in whose hands supreme power, under the new constitution, was now practically vested. Whether any such views, supposing them well founded, could justify a statesman and a party, who had received office on a solemn appeal to the country, under the most solemn engagement to support the principles of protection, to repudiate those principles, and introduce the measures they were pledged to oppose, is a question on which, it is not difficult to see, but one opinion will be formed by future times.

Still, even when free-trade measures were resolved on by Sir R. Peel's government, it was a very doubtful matter, in the first instance, how to secure their entire success. The great coalition of the chief producing interests, which had proved fatal to the Whig administration by the election of 1841, might again be reorganised, and overthrow any government which attempted to renew the same projects. Ministers had been placed in office on the principles of protection-they were the watches, planted to descry the first approaches of the enemy, and repel his attacks. But the old Roman maxim, "Divide et impera," was then put in practice with fatal effect on the producing interests, and, in the end, on the general fortunes of the empire. The assault was in the first instance directed against the agricultural interest: the cry of "Cheap bread," ever all-powerful with the multitude, was raised to drown that of "Protection to native industry." The whole weight of government, which at once abandoned all its principles, was directed to support the free-trade assault, and beat down the protectionist opposition. The whole population in the towns-that is, the inhabitants of the places which, under the Reform Bill, returned two-thirds of the House of Commons-was roused almost to madness by the prospect of a great

reduction in the price of provisions. The master - manufacturers almost unanimously supported the same views, in the hope that the wages of labour and the cost of production would be in a similar way reduced, and that thus the foreign market for their produce would be extended. The West India interest, the colonial interest, the shipping interest, stood aloof, or gave only a lukewarm support to the protectionists, conceiving that it was merely an agricultural question, and that the time was far distant when there was any chance of their interests being brought into jeopardy. "Cetera quis nescit?" The corn-laws were repealed, agricultural protection was swept away, and England, where wheat cannot be raised at a profit when prices are below 50s., or, at the lowest, 45s. a quarter, was exposed to the direct competition of states possessing the means of raising it to an indefinite extent, where it can be produced and imported at a profit for in all 32s.

What subsequent events have abundantly verified, was at the time foreseen and foretold by the protectionists, that when agricultural protection at home was withdrawn, it could not be maintained in the colonies, and that cheap prices must be rendered universal, as they had been established in the great article of human subsistence. This necessity was soon experienced. The West Indies were the first to be assailed. Undeterred by the evident ruin which a free competition with the slavegrowing states could not fail to bring on British planters forced to work with free labourers-undismayed by the frightful injustice of first establishing slavery by law in the English colonies, and giving the utmost encouragement to negro importation, then forcibly emancipating the slaves on a compensation not on an average a fourth part of their value, and then sweeping away all fiscal protection, and exposing the English planters, who could not with their free labourers raise sugar below £10 a ton, to competition with slave states who could raise it for £4 a ton-that great work of fiscal iniquity and freetrade spoliation was perpetrated. The English landed interest resisted the

unjust measure; but it could hardly be expected that they were to be very enthusiastic in the cause. They had not forgotten their desertion in the hour of need by the West India planters, and the deferred punishment, as they conceived, dealt out to them in return, was not altogether displeasing. The shipping interest did little or nothing when either contest was going on; nay, they in general, and with fatal effect, supported free-trade principles thus far they were delighted that the tempest had not as yet reached their doors, and flattered themselves none would be insane enough to attack the wooden walls of Old England, and hand us over, bereft of our ocean bulwarks, to the malice and jealousy of our enemies. They little knew the extent and infatuation of political fanaticism. They were only reserved, like Ulysses in the cave of Polyphemus, for the melancholy privilege of being last devoured. Each session of Parliament, since free trade was introduced, has been marked by the sacrifice of a fresh interest. The year 1846 witnessed the repeal of the corn laws; the year 1847 the equalisation, by a rapidly sliding scale, of the duties on English free-grown and foreign slaveraised sugar; and 1849 was immortalised by the destruction of the

Navigation Laws. The British shipowner, who pays £10 for wages on ships, is exposed to the direct competition of the foreign shipowner, who navigates his vessel for £6. "Perish the colonies," said Robespierre, "rather than one principle be abandoned." Fanaticism is the same in all ages and countries. The triumph of free trade is complete. A ruinous and suicidal principle has been carried out, in defiance alike of bitter experience and national safety. Each interest in the state has, since the great conservative party was broken up by Sir R. Peel's free-trade measures, looked on with indifference when its neighbour was destroyed; and to them may be applied with truth what the ancient annalist said of the enemies of Rome, "Dum singuli pugnant, universi vincuntur.”*

We say advisedly, each interest has looked on with indifference when its neighbour was destroyed. That this strong phrase is not misapplied to the effect of these measures in the West Indies, is too well known to require any illustration. Ruin, widespread and universal, has, we know by sad experience, overtaken, and is rapidly destroying these once splendid colonies. While we write these lines, a decisive prooff has been judicially afforded of

* "While each separately fights, all are conquered."-TACITUS.

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-IN RE CRUIKSHANKS, IN CHANCERY, Times, June 6th, 1849.

the frightful depreciation of property which has there taken place, from the acts of successive administrations acting on liberal principles, and yielding to popular outcries: the fall has amounted to ninety-three per cent. Beyond all doubt, since the new system began to be applied to the West Indies, property to the amount of a hundred and twenty millions has perished under its strokes. The French Convention never did anything more complete. Free-trade fanaticism may well glory in its triumphs; it is doubtful if they have any parallel in the annals of mankind.

We

We do not propose to resume the debate on the Navigation Laws, of which the public have heard so much in this session of parliament. are aware that their doom is sealed; and we accept the extinction of shipping protection as un fait accompli, from which we must set out in all future discussions on the national prospects and fortunes. But, in order to show how enormously perilous is the change thus made, and what strength of argument and arrays of facts free-trade fanaticism has had the merit of triumphing over, we cannot resist the temptation of transcribing into our pages the admirable letter of Mr Young, the able and unflinching advocate of the shipping interest, to the Marquis of Lansdowne, after the late interesting debate on the subject in the House of Lords. We do so not merely from sincere respect for that gentleman's patriotic spirit and services, but because we do not know any document which, in so short a space, contains so interesting a statement of that leading fact on which the whole question hinges-viz. the progressive and rapid decline of British, and growth of foreign tonnage, with those countries with whom we have concluded reciprocity treaties: affording thus a foretaste of what we may expect now that we have established a reciprocity treaty, by the repeal of the Navigation Laws, with the whole world:

"My Lord,-In the debate last night on the Navigation Laws, your Lordship said,

"The noble and learned Lord opposite has spoken contemptuously of statistics.

Let me remind that noble and learned Lord that if any statement founded on statistics remains unshaken, it is the statement that under reciprocity treaties now existing, by which this country enjoys no protection, she, nevertheless, monopolises the greater part of the commerce of the north of Europe.'

As an impartial statist, as well as a statesman, your Lordship will perhaps permit me to invite your attention to the following abstract from Parliamentary returns, respectfully trusting that, if the facts it discloses should be found irreconcilable with the opinions you have expressed, a sense of justice will induce your Lordship to correct the error :

The reciprocity treaty with the United States was concluded in 1815.

The British inward entries from that country were

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350,624

in-} 31,443

Baltic tonnage having in-
creased

Thus, from the peace in 1815 to 1824, when the "Reciprocity of Duties Act" passed, in the trade of the only country in the world with which great Britain was in reciprocity, her tonnage declined 146 tons, and that of the foreign nation advanced 61,561 tons; while in the trade with the Baltic powers, with which no reciprocity existed, British tonnage advanced on its competitors in the proportion of 51,362 to 31,443 tons.

From 1824 the reciprocity principle was applied to the Baltic powers; and-

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