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by Casaux, Charles, marquis de
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In: History - Early Modern (c. 1450-1750)·Philosophy & Ethics·Economics
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THOUGHTS ON THE MECHANISM OF SOCIETIES.
By the MARQUIS DE CASAUX, FELLOW OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY.
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH (Under the Inspection of the Author) By PARKYNS MAC MAHON.
If Men would be content to graft upon Nature, and assist her operations, what mighty effects might we expect!
SPECTATOR.
LONDON, Printed by T. Spilsbury, Snowhill.
Sold by G. G. J. and J. ROBINSON, in Pater-noster Row; W. RICHARDSON, under the Royal Exchange; and J. DEBRETT, Piccadilly.
M,DCC,LXXXVI.
PREFACE BY THE EDITOR.
It is not a treatise that the Author announces; it is nothing more than Thoughts on the Mechanism of Societies. Such a title does not confine a Writer to a regular plan; it saves him even the risk of preparing his Readers for a chain of ideas which cannot escape their sagacity if it exist, and on which they cannot be deceived if it do not. But in a picture consecrated to the world at large as well as to his own Country, to the People as well as to their Rulers, it was necessary that the most striking object, the object to which their first attention was called, should be of so general an interest, as to entice them progressively to an investigation of all those details which deserve most to be scrutinised, and of which the different relations are either little known, or greatly mistaken.
The object which at present fixes the attention of all the States in Europe, (all of them either debtors or creditors), is the National Debt of England, and the measures which will be taken on that subject by the Assembly the most clear-sighted of any in the world to every thing that concerns the interests of the people, the most jealous of its rights, and the most free, at least in its debates. It is by considering that formidable debt, and its influence on the wealth of the State and the ease of the People, that the Author dares to begin. But before he proceeds to unfold the mechanism of the national debt, the result of which developement presents some ideas too opposite to the received opinion, he endeavours by degrees to familiarise his Readers with his own, by some general reflexions on the present situation of England: these reflexions leave him no room to doubt, that England was in 1779, notwithstanding the national debt, richer than she was at the beginning of this century;—richer, either in a fourfold, or in a double proportion, as the Reader is disposed to adopt the one or the other rate of population: whence it appears that the Author, in respect to his plan, does not affix any importance to the difference of opinions on this article.
A more particular view of the subject furnishes him with fresh reasons, which seem to him sufficient to quiet the mind of the most suspicious creditor. It is, indeed, only by means of the savings made, or daily to be made, upon eight pence (the exact proportion each individual is entitled to in the general revenue), that it has been possible to reach the summit of opulence, and that it is possible to be fixed there: but the Author seeks for such savings in agriculture and industry, as cannot be misunderstood; he observes that the savings made in agriculture, have proved sufficient, in the course of a century, not only to discharge all the public burdens, but even to double the landed revenue; and he then enters into a detail of several objects, (all easy to be ascertained,) which seem to demonstrate a similar progress in industry.
Here our Author, beginning to feel himself on ground sufficiently firm, confesses that he sees nothing in the present situation of England, tending to justify the idea of a national bankruptcy, although the public news-papers often hint at the convenience of such a measure. The author even so far forgets himself, as to examine seriously, whether it would be profitable or unprofitable to effect the so much recommended reimbursement, even on the supposition that the 238 millions which have been borrowed, and have disappeared, could find their way back to the Exchequer.
After having presented the question under several points of view, our Author hesitates not to declare for the negative, and then endeavours to prove that a previous thesaurisation which might have enabled the nation to go through the last war without laying any additional tax, would have done more harm than the new taxes can possibly have done.
The Author, become bolder because he meets with no contradiction when he is alone, (and indeed he is alone very often) undertakes to reconcile mankind to the taxes by means of a first decomposition of the impost; he gives up, it is true, one part of it as burdensome, (it is truly to be lamented that this part cannot be dispensed with; luckily it is the least); but he contends boldly for the other part, as a very precious resource for that portion of the people which best deserves to engage the cares of Government.
Notwithstanding all the precautions taken by the Author not to frighten his readers, there remains such a leap for him to clear, that he is seen, as it were on his knees, begging he may be permitted to try twenty times, if he cannot clear it in ten: in other words, he earnestly wishes that his work may not receive its final judgement before it has been perused to the end; and in fact, it is not impossible but that a detached proposition, the absurdity of which is striking when considered singly, may be found conclusive when successively brought near to all those that are to follow it.
An Editor owes more to the Public, than to any work, even such as he could wish to bring into some trifling repute: I think then, it is my duty (in foro conscientiæ) to declare, that it will not be till the Reader has perused fifty pages or more, that he will suspect the reason why the Writer has not announced in the very first, some singular opinion, which he meant insidiously to establish as it were step by step in his pamphlet; but, at length, we begin to have some notion of what we are to expect from a man who has been trying to wheedle us into a belief, that taxes are a trifling evil;—that ~thesaurisation~ would be a very great one;—that a reimbursement is at best useless;—and who afterwards modestly intimates, that some singularities may perhaps escape him in the sequel; as if it were possible to imagine any thing more singular than the three propositions I have just quoted.
Yet too much severity should not be used. Has the Reader been but amused with the part of the picture hitherto exposed to his view? Let him humour the Author in his little conceits. Who would exhibit for public entertainment, if he were not at liberty to draw up the curtain in his own way; if he had not a right to display, at every shifting of the scene, that part only of his curiosities upon which he meant for that instant to fix the eyes of the spectator?
But if the Reader, in spite of the different positions into which he has been attracted, has not observed the least alteration in the compass; if he has not been moved by the arguments with which he has been lured before he came to that part of the work—let him throw the piece into the fire; for the Author, of whom I do not pretend to imitate the circumspection, or adopt the fears, or justify the temerity, or share in the guilt, aims at nothing less than to induce all Europe (all Europe!) to investigate,
Whether it could possibly cost England more than 5 millions sterling, (found once for all) to secure for ever, in the most solid manner, the payment of the interest on a debt of 238 millions, that interest rated at 9 millions, of the same currency?
Whether there be not, (without its being suspected), in the system of finance in England, some of those imperfections so well remarked, so fully, so bitterly criticised in that of France; and whether a national reimbursement be not the easiest of all the sports a Minister of finance can think of, to amuse society without serving it?
Whether the possibility of a balance of trade, always favourable, be not as doubtful as the necessity of a national bankruptcy, and the advantage of a national reimbursement?
Whether an equilibrium in all things (and every where), be not indispensable; and whether, to maintain or restore it, any great effort of imagination be required on the part of those who fancy they hold the balance?
Whether the difference of prices be something or nothing; and whether more has been wanted by the French than 66 millions Tournois (found once for all), to secure for ever, the interest at 5 per cent. on a national loan of 1,500 millions Tournois?
Whether the monster of a competition (in point of trade) supposed unconquerable on account of the low prices with which it should be armed, be not as fantastical as that of a balance always favourable?
Whether the most justifiable premium for exportation be any thing more than one piece of injustice, become necessary to counterbalance a great many others?
Whether it do not result from the ever infallible and merely mechanical restoration of an equilibrium in all the prices, that the taxes are in themselves completely innocent;—whether there be more than one kind of taxation, which increases only by the exact amount of the tax, the whole mass of prices;—whether the effect of taxation be not trebled by all other imposts;—whether the most pernicious of them, (after the poll-tax), be not the tax on luxury;—and whether from the instant that all kinds of taxes, either judiciously or injudiciously contrived, have re-acted on every thing, the burthen of the national debt is not literally null in all countries?
Whether, after monopoly, credit be not that effect of wealth which increases most the price of every production, both of agriculture and industry?
Whether a certain country, where smuggling has been prohibited under pain of the galleys, be not indebted to smuggling itself for one fifth of the products of her agriculture, which the merchant and trader turn to their advantage with as little scruple, as if they had not petitioned for the detestable law against the smuggler?
Whether the absurdity of the general opinion, on the most efficacious means of establishing a profitable competition, in point of trade, be not clearly evinced, by the account of a strange revolution in _France_—a revolution, as indubitable as the two wars in 1755 and 1779?
Whether the impossibility of the two supposed balances, constantly at the disposal of England and France, be not proved, by the very facts adduced in both countries to establish the existence of those two monsters?—Whether that impossibility be not demonstrated by other facts as little equivocal; and whether it be not the interest of England and France to renounce the Idol, and solemnly abjure both its works and its pomps?
Whether imports and exports be not a mere sport, as innocent as the game of tennis? A sport, nevertheless, which all Governments might turn to great profit, all Subjects to great advantage, and all States to an increase of power and wealth.
Whether the generality of exports from England, at different periods, considered with regard to her foreign correspondence, do not demonstrate a kind of electricity, unthought of hitherto, though not unworthy of amusing the greatest politicians at their leisure moments?
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