The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 05 (of 12)

There is much gayety and dissipation and profusion which must escape and disappoint all the arithmetic of political economy. But the theatres are a prominent feature. They are established through every part of the kingdom, at a cost unknown till our days. There is hardly a provincial capital which does not possess, or which does not aspire to possess, a theatre-royal. Most of them engage for a short time, at a vast price, every actor or actress of name in the metropolis: a distinction which in the reign of my old friend Garrick was confined to very few. The dresses, the scenes, the decorations of every kind, I am told, are in a new style of splendor and magnificence: whether to the advantage of our dramatic taste, upon the whole, I very much doubt. It is a show and a spectacle, not a play, that is exhibited. This is undoubtedly in the genuine manner of the Augustan age, but in a manner which was censured by one of the best poets and critics of that or any age:—

Migravit ab aure voluptasOmnis ad incertos oculos, et gaudia vana:Quatuor aut plures aulæa premuntur in horas,Dum fugiunt equitum turmæ, peditumque catervæ;—

I must interrupt the passage, most fervently to deprecate and abominate the sequel:—

Mox trahitur manibus regum fortuna retortis.

I hope that no French fraternization, which the relations of peace and amity with systematized regicide would assuredly sooner or later draw after them, even if it should overturn our happy Constitution itself, could so change the hearts of Englishmen as to make them delight in representations and processions which have no other merit than that of degrading and insulting the name of royalty. But good taste, manners, morals, religion, all fly, wherever the principles of Jacobinism enter; and we have no safety against them but in arms.

The proprietors, whether in this they follow or lead what is called the town, to furnish out these gaudy and pompous entertainments, must collect so much more from the public. It was but just before the breaking out of hostilities, that they levied for themselves the very tax which, at the close of the American war, they represented to Lord North as certain ruin to their affairs to demand for the state. The example has since been imitated by the managers of our Italian Opera. Once during the war, if not twice, (I would not willingly misstate anything, but I am not very accurate on these subjects,) they have raised the price of their subscription. Yet I have never heard that any lasting dissatisfaction has been manifested, or that their houses have been unusually and constantly thin. On the contrary, all the three theatres have been repeatedly altered, and refitted, and enlarged, to make them capacious of the crowds that nightly flock to them; and one of those huge and lofty piles, which lifts its broad shoulders in gigantic pride, almost emulous of the temples of God, has been reared from the foundation at a charge of more than fourscore thousand pounds, and yet remains a naked, rough, unsightly heap.

I am afraid, my dear Sir, that I have tired you with these dull, though important details. But we are upon a subject which, like some of a higher nature, refuses ornament, and is contented with conveying instruction. I know, too, the obstinacy of unbelief in those perverted minds which have no delight but in contemplating the supposed distress and predicting the immediate ruin of their country. These birds of evil presage at all times have grated our ears with their melancholy song; and, by some strange fatality or other, it has generally happened that they have poured forth their loudest and deepest lamentations at the periods of our most abundant prosperity. Very early in my public life I had occasion to make myself a little acquainted with their natural history. My first political tract in the collection which a friend has made of my publications is an answer to a very gloomy picture of the state of the nation, which was thought to have been drawn by a statesman of some eminence in his time. That was no more than the common spleen of disappointed ambition: in the present day I fear that too many are actuated by a more malignant and dangerous spirit. They hope, by depressing our minds with a despair of our means and resources, to drive us, trembling and unresisting, into the toils of our enemies, with whom, from the beginning of the Revolution in France, they have ever moved in strict concert and coöperation. If, with the report of your Finance Committee in their hands, they can still affect to despond, and can still succeed, as they do, in spreading the contagion of their pretended fears among well-disposed, though weak men, there is no way of counteracting them, but by fixing them down to particulars. Nor must we forget that they are unwearied agitators, bold assertors, dexterous sophisters. Proof must be accumulated upon proof, to silence them. With this view, I shall now direct your attention to some other striking and unerring indications of our flourishing condition; and they will, in general, be derived from other sources, but equally authentic: from other reports and proceedings of both Houses of Parliament, all which unite with wonderful force of consent in the same general result. Hitherto we have seen the superfluity of our capital discovering itself only in procuring superfluous accommodation and enjoyment, in our houses, in our furniture, in our establishments, in our eating and drinking, our clothing, and our public diversions: we shall now see it more beneficially employed in improving our territory itself: we shall see part of our present opulence, with provident care, put out to usury for posterity.

To what ultimate extent it may be wise or practicable to push inclosures of common and waste lands may be a question of doubt, in some points of view: but no person thinks them already carried to excess; and the relative magnitude of the sums laid out upon them gives us a standard of estimating the comparative situation of the landed interest. Your House, this session, appointed a committee on waste lands, and they have made a report by their chairman, an honorable baronet, for whom the minister the other day (with very good intentions, I believe, but with little real profit to the public) thought fit to erect a board of agriculture. The account, as it stands there, appears sufficiently favorable. The greatest number of inclosing bills passed in any one year of the last peace does not equal the smallest annual number in the war, and those of the last year exceed by more than one half the highest year of peace. But what was my surprise, on looking into the late report of the Secret Committee of the Lords, to find a list of these bills during the war, differing in every year, and48 larger on the whole by nearly one third! I have checked this account by the statute-book, and find it to be correct. What new brilliancy, then, does it throw over the prospect, bright as it was before! The number during the last four years has more than doubled that of the four years immediately preceding; it has surpassed the five years of peace, beyond which the Lords' committees have not gone; it has even surpassed (I have verified the fact) the whole ten years of peace. I cannot stop here. I cannot advance a single step in this inquiry without being obliged to cast my eyes back to the period when I first knew the country. These bills, which had begun in the reign of Queen Anne, had passed every year in greater or less numbers from the year 1723; yet in all that space of time they had not reached the amount of any two years during the present war; and though soon after that time they rapidly increased, still at the accession of his present Majesty they were far short of the number passed in the four years of hostilities.

In my first letter I mentioned the state of our inland navigation, neglected as it had been from the reign of King William to the time of my observation. It was not till the present reign that the Duke of Bridgewater's canal first excited a spirit of speculation and adventure in this way. This spirit showed itself, but necessarily made no great progress, in the American war. When peace was restored, it began of course to work with more sensible effect; yet in ten years from that event the bills passed on that subject were not so many as from the year 1793 to the present session of Parliament. From what I can trace on the statute-book, I am confident that all the capital expended in these projects during the peace bore no degree of proportion (I doubt, on very grave consideration, whether all that was ever so expended was equal) to the money which has been raised for the same purposes since the war.49 I know that in the last four years of peace, when they rose regularly and rapidly, the sums specified in the acts were not near one third of the subsequent amount. In the last session of Parliament, the Grand Junction Company, as it is called, having sunk half a million, (of which I feel the good effects at my own door,) applied to your House for permission to subscribe half as much more among themselves. This Grand Junction is an inosculation of the Grand Trunk; and in the present session, the latter company has obtained the authority of Parliament to float two hundred acres of land, for the purpose of forming a reservoir, thirty feet deep, two hundred yards wide at the head, and two miles in length: a lake which may almost vie with that which once fed the now obliterated canal of Languedoc.

The present war is, above all others of which we have heard or read, a war against landed property. That description of property is in its nature the firm base of every stable government,—and has been so considered by all the wisest writers of the old philosophy, from the time of the Stagyrite, who observes that the agricultural class of all others is the least inclined to sedition. We find it to have been so regarded in the practical politics of antiquity, where they are brought more directly homo to our understandings and bosoms in the history of Borne, and above all, in the writings of Cicero. The country tribes were always thought more respectable than those of the city. And if in our own history there is any one circumstance to which, under God, are to be attributed the steady resistance, the fortunate issue, and sober settlement of all our struggles for liberty, it is, that, while the landed interest, instead of forming a separate body, as in other countries, has at all times been in close connection and union with the other great interests of the country, it has been spontaneously allowed to lead and direct and moderate all the rest. I cannot, therefore, but see with singular gratification, that, during a war which has been eminently made for the destruction of the lauded proprietors, as well as of priests and kings, as much has been done by public works for the permanent benefit of their stake in this country as in all the rest of the current century, which now touches to its close. Perhaps after this it may not be necessary to refer to private observation; but I am satisfied that in general the rents of lands have been considerably increased: they are increased very considerably, indeed, if I may draw any conclusion from my own little property of that kind. I am not ignorant, however, where our public burdens are most galling. But all of this class will consider who they are that are principally menaced,—how little the men of their description in other countries, where this revolutionary fury has but touched, have been found equal to their own protection,—how tardy and unprovided and full of anguish is their flight, chained down as they are by every tie to the soil,—how helpless they are, above all other men, in exile, in poverty, in need, in all the varieties of wretchedness; and then let them well weigh what are the burdens to which they ought not to submit for their own salvation.

Many of the authorities which I have already adduced, or to which I have referred, may convey a competent notion of some of our principal manufactures. Their general state will be clear from that of our external and internal commerce, through which they circulate, and of which they are at once the cause and effect. But the communication of the several parts of the kingdom with each other and with foreign countries has always been regarded as one of the most certain tests to evince the prosperous or adverse state of our trade in all its branches. Recourse has usually been had to the revenue of the Post-Office with this view. I shall include the product of the tax which was laid in the last war, and which will make the evidence more conclusive, if it shall afford the same inference: I allude to the Post-Horse duty, which shows the personal intercourse within the kingdom, as the Post-Office shows the intercourse by letters both within and without. The first of these standards, then, exhibits an increase, according to my former schemes of comparison, from an eleventh to a twentieth part of the whole duty.50 The Post-Office gives still less consolation to those who are miserable in proportion as the country feels no misery. From the commencement of the war to the month of April, 1796, the gross produce had increased by nearly one sixth of the whole sum which the state now derives from that fund. I find that the year ending 5th of April, 1793, gave 627,592l., and the year ending at the same quarter in 1796, 750,637l., after a fair deduction having been made for the alteration (which, you know, on grounds of policy I never approved) in your privilege of franking. I have seen no formal document subsequent to that period, but I have been credibly informed there is very good ground to believe that the revenue of the Post-Office51 still continues to be regularly and largely upon the rise.

What is the true inference to be drawn from the annual number of bankruptcies has been the occasion of much dispute. On one side it has been confidently urged as a sure symptom of a decaying trade: on the other side it has been insisted that it is a circumstance attendant upon a thriving trade; for that the greater is the whole quantity of trade, the greater of course must be the positive number of failures, while the aggregate success is still in the same proportion. In truth, the increase of the number may arise from either of those causes. But all must agree in one conclusion,—that, if the number diminishes, and at the same time every other sort of evidence tends to show an augmentation of trade, there can be no better indication. We have already had very ample means of gathering that the year 1796 was a very favorable year of trade, and in that year the number of bankruptcies was at least one fifth below the usual average. I take this from the declaration of the Lord Chancellor in the House of Lords.52 He professed to speak from the records of Chancery; and he added another very striking fact,—that on the property actually paid into his court (a very small part, indeed, of the whole property of the kingdom) there had accrued in that year a net surplus of eight hundred thousand pounds, which was so much new capital.

But the real situation of our trade, during the whole of this war, deserves more minute investigation. I shall begin with that which, though the least in consequence, makes perhaps the most impression on our senses, because it meets our eyes in our daily walks: I mean our retail trade. The exuberant display of wealth in our shops was the sight which most amazed a learned foreigner of distinction who lately resided among us: his expression, I remember, was, that "they seemed to be bursting with opulence into the streets." The documents which throw light on this subject are not many, but they all meet in the same point: all concur in exhibiting an increase. The most material are the general licenses53 hich the law requires to be taken out by all dealers in excisable commodities. These seem to be subject to considerable fluctuations. They have not been so low in any year of the war as in the years 1788 and 1789, nor ever so high in peace as in the first year of the war. I should next state the licenses to dealers in spirits and wine; but the change in them which took place in 1789 would give an unfair advantage to my argument. I shall therefore content myself with remarking, that from the date of that change the spirit licenses kept nearly the same level till the stoppage of the distilleries in 1795. If they dropped a little, (and it was but little,) the wine licenses, during the same time, more than countervailed that loss to the revenue; and it is remarkable with regard to the latter, that in the year 1796, which was the lowest in the excise duties on wine itself, as well as in the quantity imported, more dealers in wine appear to have been licensed than in any former year, excepting the first year of the war. This fact may raise some doubt whether the consumption has been lessened so much as, I believe, is commonly imagined. The only other retail-traders whom I found so entered as to admit of being selected are tea-dealers and sellers of gold and silver plate, both of whom seem to have multiplied very much in proportion to their aggregate number.54 I have kept apart one set of licensed sellers, because I am aware that our antagonists may be inclined to triumph a little, when I name auctioneers and auctions. They may be disposed to consider it as a sort of trade which thrives by the distress of others. But if they will look at it a little more attentively, they will find their gloomy comfort vanish. The public income from these licenses has risen with very great regularity through a series of years which all must admit to have been years of prosperity. It is remarkable, too, that in the year 1793, which was the great year of bankruptcies, these duties on auctioneers and auctions55 fell below the mark of 1791; and in 1796, which year had one fifth less than the accustomed average of bankruptcies, they mounted at once beyond all former examples. In concluding this general head, will you permit me, my dear Sir, to bring to your notice an humble, but industrious and laborious set of chapmen, against whom the vengeance of your House has sometimes been levelled, with what policy I need not stay to inquire, as they have escaped without much injury? The hawkers and peddlers,56 I am assured, are still doing well, though, from some new arrangements respecting them made in 1789, it would be difficult to trace their proceedings in any satisfactory manner.

When such is the vigor of our traffic in its minutest ramifications, we may be persuaded that the root and the trunk are sound. When we see the life-blood of the state circulate so freely through the capillary vessels of the System, we scarcely need inquire if the heart performs its functions aright. But let us approach it; let us lay it bare, and watch the systole and diastole, as it now receives and now pours forth the vital stream through all the members. The port of London has always supplied the main evidence of the state of our commerce. I know, that, amidst all the difficulties and embarrassments of the year 1793, from causes unconnected with and prior to the war, the tonnage of ships in the Thames actually rose. But I shall not go through a detail of official papers on this point. There is evidence, which has appeared this very session before your House, infinitely more forcible and impressive to my apprehension than all the journals and ledgers of all the Inspectors-General from the days of Davenant. It is such as cannot carry with it any sort of fallacy. It comes, not from one set, but from many opposite sets of witnesses, who all agree in nothing else: witnesses of the gravest and most unexceptionable character, and who confirm what they say, in the surest manner, by their conduct. Two different bills have been brought in for improving the port of London. I have it from very good intelligence, that, when the project was first suggested from necessity, there were no less than eight different plans, supported by eight different bodies of subscribers. The cost of the least was estimated at two hundred thousand pounds, and of the most extensive at twelve hundred thousand. The two between which the contest now lies substantially agree (as all the others must have done) in the motives and reasons of the preamble; but I shall confine myself to that bill which is proposed on the part of the mayor, aldermen, and common council, because I regard them as the best authority, and their language in itself is fuller and more precise. I certainly see them complain of the "great delays, accidents, damages, losses, and extraordinary expenses, which are almost continually sustained, to the hindrance and discouragement of commerce, and the great injury of the public revenue." But what are the causes to which they attribute their complaints? The first is, "THAT, FROM THE VERY GREAT AND PROGRESSIVE INCREASE OF THE NUMBER AND SIZE OF SHIPS AND OTHER VESSELS TRADING TO THE PORT OF LONDON, the river Thames, in and near the said port, is in general so much crowded with shipping, lighters, and other craft, that the navigation of a considerable part of the river is thereby rendered tedious and dangerous; and there is great want of room in the said port for the safe and convenient mooring of vessels, and constant access to them." The second is of the same nature. It is the want of regulations and arrangements, never before found necessary, for expedition and facility. The third is of another kind, but to the same effect: That the legal quays are too confined, and there is not sufficient accommodation for the landing and shipping of cargoes. And the fourth and last is still different: they describe the avenues to the legal quays (which, little more than a century since, the great fire of London opened and dilated beyond the measure of our then circumstances) to be now "incommodious, and much too narrow for the great concourse of carts and other carriages usually passing and repassing therein." Thus our trade has grown too big for the ancient limits of Art and Nature. Our streets, our lanes, our shores, the river itself, which has so long been our pride, are impeded and obstructed and choked up by our riches. They are, like our shops, "bursting with opulence." To these misfortunes, to these distresses and grievances alone, we are told, it is to be imputed that still more of our capital has not been pushed into the channel of our commerce, to roll back in its reflux still more abundant capital, and fructify the national treasury in its course. Indeed, my dear Sir, when I have before my eyes this consentient testimony of the corporation of the city of London, the West India merchants, and all the other merchants who promoted the other plans, struggling and contending which of them shall be permitted to lay out their money in consonance with their testimony, I cannot turn aside to examine what one or two violent petitions, tumultuously voted by real or pretended liverymen of London, may have said of the utter destruction and annihilation of trade.

This opens a subject on which every true lover of his country, and, at this crisis, every friend to the liberties of Europe, and of social order in every country, must dwell and expatiate with delight. I mean to wind up all my proofs of our astonishing and almost incredible prosperity with the valuable information given to the Secret Committee of the Lords by the Inspector-General. And here I am happy that I can administer an antidote to all despondence from the same dispensary from which the first dose of poison was supposed to have come. The report of that committee is generally believed to have derived much benefit from the labors of the same noble lord who was said, as the author of the pamphlet of 1795, to have led the way in teaching us to place all our hope on that very experiment which he afterwards declared in his place to have been from the beginning utterly without hope. We have now his authority to say, that, as far as our resources were concerned, the experiment was equally without necessity.

"It appears," as the committee has very justly and satisfactorily observed, "by the accounts of the value of the imports and exports for the last twenty years, produced by Mr. Irving, Inspector-General of Imports and Exports, that the demands for cash to be sent abroad" (which, by the way, including the loan to the Emperor, was nearly one third less sent to the Continent of Europe than in the Seven Years' War) … "was greatly compensated by a very large balance of commerce in favor of this kingdom,—greater than was ever known in any preceding period. The value of the exports of the last year amounted, according to the valuation on which the accounts of the Inspector-General are founded, to 30,424,184l., which is more than double what it was in any year of the American war, and one third more than it was on an average during the last peace, previous to the year 1792; and though the value of the imports to this country has during the same period greatly increased, the excess of the value of the exports above that of the imports, which constitutes the balance of trade, has augmented even in a greater proportion." These observations might perhaps be branched out into other points of view, but I shall leave them to your own active and ingenious mind. There is another and still more important light in which, the Inspector-General's information may be seen,—and that is, as affording a comparison of some circumstances in this war with the commercial history of all our other wars in the present century.