---{89} Accountability in money may be compared to military discipline, when on duty. No allowances are to be made for negligence or deviation from rule. Of this we have lately had a most striking and memorable example.-=-[end of page #104]be ruinous to the revenue to give, we must, therefore, never expect that the augmentation of taxes will take place without an increase of discontent, or, at least, an augmented indifference towards government.Perhaps nothing evinces more the general feeling, (even of the respectable part of society,) with regard to the revenues of the state, than the disposition to profit by evading the payment of duties imposed upon articles of consumption.The most respectable of the nobility or gentry will conceal a contraband article, or one on which there is a heavy duty, on their return from abroad: and what is more, if detected, they are more ashamed, on account of their want of address, than on account of the crime; for such it is, whatever custom may have taught us to think.A man who is rigorously treated, by what is commonly called a lawful creditor, whom he would never attempt to defraud must naturally feel doubly incensed, when still more rigorously treated by one whom he would think it very little harm, and no disgrace, to defraud. It is then very clear, that, the common habits of thinking on the subject of debts due to the king, is such as does not favour taxation, or incline people to submit willingly to rigorous modes of recovery.All taxes raise the prices of the articles taxed, but those are most felt and most obnoxious which fall on personal property, or on persons themselves.All taxes, then, when they pass a certain point, have a tendency to send away persons, and property, and trade, from a country, which, if they do, its decline is inevitable. The extent, however, of that effect must depend on a great variety of circumstances, such as the comparative situation of other nations, their distance, the difficulty of removing, &c.If America were as near to England as France is, the industrious class would emigrate in multitudes; and, if in France, property and persons were as safe and free as in England, part of both would go there; but, as matters are, to the former it is impossible to remove, and, to the latter, the risk surpasses the advantage.An increase of taxation tends to raise the wages of labour, and, where it does so in due proportion, the labourer pays almost nothing; he still for all that seems to pay, and he has the same disagreeable feeling [end of page #105] as if he did pay. No feeling is more disagreeable than that of being obliged, after earning money that can ill be spared, to pay it away to a surly tax-gatherer, who treats a man and his family with insolence, while he receives the money that should purchase them bread. Besides this, though the prices of many articles keep pace with the wages of labour, yet many others do not. Thus, in a country where wages are rapidly altering, though some are bettered by it, penury is entailed on others, who have not the means of raising their prices.If heavy taxes are levied on a few articles of consumption, then they become inefficient, and if they are divided amongst a great many, they become troublesome, so that either way they are attended with inconvenience and difficulty.In every country, where taxation has been carried to a great height, it has, at last, become necessary to bear heavily upon personal property. Such taxes are always attended with disagreeable feelings, and peculiar inconveniency. The tax always comes in the form of a debt, and whether convenient to be paid or not, it admits at best but of little delay. {90}In England the nature of the government, the disposition of the people, and the same sort of genius that made them succeed in commercial intercourse and regulation, led them to adopt the least objectionable modes of taxation.The customs were the first great branch of revenue at the time of the revolution. The excise, land-tax, and stamps, rose next, none of which can be objected to; for the person who pays the tax to government only advances the money, and is reimbursed by the consumer, who, again on his part, when he really pays the tax (for good and all) does it under the form of an advance in price. Thus, then, the tax is disguised to him that really pays it, and it is optional, inasmuch as he---{90} It will be seen, in a future part of this work, that the farmers have lost nothing, but rather got by the high prices of grain in this country, and it is so probably in all others. Those who sell necessaries raise the price; those who make or sell superfluities have no such resource, and therefore pay in the severest manner.-=-[end of page #106]may avoid the tax, by not consuming the article. He never can be sued for the tax, and he pays it by degrees, as he can spare the money. {91}Some time before the taxation which the American war rendered necessary, it was thought that the customs and excise could not be carried much farther. Ministers did not chuse =sic= to venture on an additional tax on land, and, consequently, stamps were augmented and extended, as were also duties on windows. A variety of new taxes on particular articles of consumption were resorted to. Those sort of taxes harassed and tormented individuals more than they filled the treasury, yet still, when, after an interval of a few years of peace, new burthens became necessary, in 1793, the same plan was pursued, till it was found ineffectual, being too troublesome and tedious, besides being unequal to the increase of expenditure.It was necessity that suggested a plan, which is the simplest and easiest of any, so long as it succeeds and is productive. =sic= To increase the excise and customs by an additional five or ten per cent. on the articles that were supposed able to bear it. This has been done again and again with those two branches of revenue, and with the stamps likewise.But the necessities of the state still outrun the means, and the assessed taxes, the worst and most obnoxious of all, were augmented in the same way; but even those were not productive. The inducement to privation was too great, and the restraints laid on expenditure, suggested the adoption of a tax on income; that is, on the means a man has to pay, which carries in its very name a description of its nature.We have mentioned the influence that necessity has on industry. One of the effects of taxes, as well as of rent, is to prolong the operation of necessity, or to increase it. A man who has neither rent nor taxes to pay, as is the case in some savage nations, only labours to supply his wants. Whatever proportion rent and taxes bear to the wants of---{91} The land-tax is not precisely the same, but very nearly. It operates as a tax on the produce of land, that is on commodities for the use of man, the same as those articles subject to duties of customs or excise. The landholder just feels as the brewer, distiller, or importer of foreign goods, he gets the tax reimbursed by the farmer, and the farmer is reimbursed by the consumer.-=-[end of page #107]a people their industry will be increased in the same proportion, unless their forces are exceeded, and then the operation is indeed very different.It follows, from this, that both rent and taxes, to a certain degree, increase the wealth of a people, by augmenting their industry. As rent is not compulsive, it never can in general be carried beyond the point that augmented industry will bear; but taxes are not either regulated by the industry of the individual, or of the community; they may therefore be carried too far, and when they are, the people become degraded, disheartened, their independent spirit is lost and broken, and industry, in place of increasing, as it did in the first stages of taxation, flies away.The government, in this case, generally becomes more severe, and certainly more obnoxious. The broken spirit of the people makes submission a matter of course, so that there is no effectual resistance made to its power. Incapacity to pay comes at last, and defeats the end; but, between incapacity and resistance, the difference is very wide.As calculators have been predicting the moment of a total stoppage to the increase of revenue for nearly half a century; as ministers, themselves, have never ventured to lay on a new burthen, except when forced to it by necessity. {92} As taxes have been laid on at random, in a manner similar to that in which the streets and houses of old cities were built, without regularity or design, and as the effects predicted have not taken place, it is fair to conclude, that the subject is not well understood. If it were, the evil would be in the way to be obviated; but still the conclusion would be the same, that increased taxation tends to bring on discontent, and to drive men and capital from a country. The degree of tendency, and the rapidity of its operations, are a question; but respecting the tendency itself there can be no question.Two things more are to be observed, relative to the effects of taxation, as tending towards decline. The first is, that the taxes are levied by and expended on men, who, having income only for their lives,---{92} Mr. Pitt seems an exception to this; but the establishment of a sinking fund, at the end of the war, was as necessary for his administration as any of the loans, during the war, were for Lord North; and both measures required new taxes.-=-[end of page #108]generally leave families in distress. Those who lose their parents when young are often left destitute, and those who are farther advanced are frequently ruined by being educated and accustomed to a rank in life that they are not able to support. This is a very great evil, and is renewed as it were every generation. As the revenues of a country increase, this evil increases also: for, except what goes to the proprietors of money in the stocks, all the public revenue, very nearly, goes to people whose income perishes with themselves. To begin with those who collect the taxes, custom-house officers, excise men, collectors, and clerks of every rank and demonination =sic=, there is not one in ten who does not die in indigence; and if he leaves a family, he leaves it in distress.It is no doubt the lot of the great bulk of mankind, that is to say, the labouring part of the community in every country, to leave children unprovided for; but then they are left in a rank of society that does not prevent their going to work or to service, which is not the case with the vast number left by those who enjoy, during life, a genteel and easy existence under government.The education of such persons is either neglected entirely, or ill fitted for the line of life into which they are to go. If the sum-total of human vice and misery was to be divided into shares, and if it were calculated how much fell to each person, there is not a doubt but at least a double portion would fall to the lot of those unfortunate persons who are left by parents enjoying offices for life; who are generally obliged to expend their income as they earn it. As, according to the natural chance of things, a number of such persons must leave young families, the seeds of misery are continually sowing a-fresh, to the great detriment of society. This evil depends in a great degree upon the habits and nature of the people, which augment or diminish it; and, in commercial nations, the evil is far the greatest. Where commerce does not flourish, persons belonging to the revenue-department are seldom highly paid, and they by no means consider themselves as a class of persons distinguished above the general run, or obliged to live more expensively; but, in a manufacturing country, to live without working, implies a degree of gentility that is extremely ruinous to those who enjoy that fatal and flimsy pre-eminence. [end of page #109]A manufacturer, who is getting a thousand pounds a year, will, perhaps, not assume so much importance as a man in office who does not get one hundred pounds; and the former, as well as his family, knowing that they are beholden to industry for what they have, do not think themselves above following it. {93}Unfortunately, it also happens, that, in all sorts of occupation where trust is reposed and punctuality required, more than in ordinary business, it is rather late in life before those employed rise to situations of considerable emolument. When they are old, their families are generally young; thus it is, that the persons who are the most unfit to marry late in life are generally those who do so. This order of things cannot easily be changed. In the rate of payments governments are regulated by the service done, and by the dependence that can be placed on the person employed, who, on the other hand, follows the natural propensities of human nature. When young, and on a small allowance, a revenue-officer remains single; but when it is necessary to become serious, attentive, and confidential, and when he finds he has the means, he betakes himself to a domestic life, which is the most natural to men arrived at a certain time of life, and the best fitted for those who are to be depended upon for the correctness of their conduct. It is impossible to prevent this natural state of things; and if let go uncorrected, if not counteracted, the consequences are very pernicious. It is to this, in a great measure, the augmentation of vice and mendicity =sic= is to be attributed in nations, as they become wealthy and great.Perhaps more depends upon the manner of taxation than the amount; at least it certainly is so in all countries where the amount is not very high. In America, for example, the amount is of no importance; the manner might be of very pernicious consequence. In France, before the revolution, the taxes were more oppressive, from the manner of levying them than from their amount. The same thing might be said---{93} This is a very important part of the consideration; but, as education and it are connected, and that comes into the Fourth Book =sic - there is none=, the whole consideration is left till then; not only the national prosperity is injured, but the feelings of humanity are hurt, and the sum of human misery increased by this consequence.-=-[end of page #110]of almost every country in Europe, England and Holland excepted. At present, the case is greatly altered, in many countries, by the increase: yet, still, one of the principal evils arises from the manner of levying the taxes; the restraints imposed by them, the inconveniency, the vexation, and, finally, the misery and ruin they, in many cases, occasion.Of all the examples, where taxation contributed most to the fall of a country, Rome is the greatest. The luxury of the imperial court, and the expenses of a licentious and disorderly army, added to the ignorance of the subject, rendered the taxes every way burthensome. From the fall of Rome, to the time of Louis XIV. the splendour of courts, and their expenses, were objects of no great importance. We are but lately arrived at a new aera in taxation; for, though taxation has been the occasion of much discontent at all times, it was carried to no considerable length, in any country in Europe, except in Spain and Holland, till within this last century.Indeed, when we consider the great noise that has often been made about raising an inconsiderable sum, it is impossible not to be astonished at the reluctance with which people pay taxes, when they feel that they are paying them, and are not accustomed to the feeling.Taxation is, then, to the feelings of men, disagreeable; to their manners hurtful; they are also, in their operation, to a certain degree, inimical to liberty. The ultimate consequence of this is, that persons and property have both of them a tendency to quit a country where taxes are high, and to go to one, where, with the same means, there may be more enjoyment.Taxes may be called a rent paid for living in a country, and operate exactly like the rent of houses or land, or rent for any thing else; that is, they make the tenant remove to a cheaper place, unless he finds advantages where he is to counterbalance the expense.Unfortunately, the persons who have the greatest disposition to quit a country that is heavily taxed are those, who, having a certain income, which they cannot increase, wish to enjoy it with some degree of economy. They are, likewise, the persons who can remove with the greatest [end of page #111] facility. Thus, people whose income is in money are always the first to quit a country that is become too dear to live in with comfort.Many circumstances may favour or counteract this tendency, such as the difficulty of finding an agreeable place to retire to, where the money will be secure, or the interest regularly paid; but, an inquiry into that will come more properly when we examine the external causes of decline.Though the increase of taxes, by augmenting the expense of living, and of the necessaries of life, is little felt by the labouring class, their wages rising in proportion; yet a most disastrous effect is produced on the fine arts, and on all productions of which the price does not bear a proportional rise.Where taxes are high, and luxury great, there must be some persons who have a great deal of ostentation, even if they have little taste. A picture or a jewel of great value will, very certainly, find a purchaser, but that will only serve as a motive for bringing the fine painting from another country, where the necessaries of life are cheaper, and where men enjoy that careless ease which is incompatible with a high state of taxation.When Rome became luxurious, to the highest pitch, there were neither poets, painters, nor historians, bred within its walls; buffoons and fiddlers could get more money than philosophers, and they had more saleable talents. Had Virgil not found an Augustus, had he lived three centuries later, he must either have written ballads and lampoons, or have starved; otherwise he must have quitted Italy.When Rome was full of luxury, and commanded the world and its wealth, there was not an artist in it capable of executing the statues of its victorious generals. {94}Some Greek island, barren and bare, would breed artists capable of making ornaments for imperial Rome.---{94} They were obliged to cut the heads off from ancient statues, as their artists were only sufficiently expert to carve the drapery of the body.-=-[end of page #112]It is an easy matter, in a rich country, to pay for a fine piece of art, but a difficult matter to find a price for the bringing up a fine artist. {95}The fine arts have not, indeed, any intimate or immediate connection with the wealth or strength of a nation. The balance of trade has never been greatly increased by the exportation of great masterpieces of art, nor have nations been subdued by the powers of oratory; but the knowledge and the arts, by which wealth and greatness are obtained, follow in the train of the finer performances of human genius.Where money becomes the universal agent, where it is impossible to enjoy ease or comfort for a single day without it, it becomes an object of adoration, as it were. To despise gold, which purchases all things, is reckoned a greater crime than to despise him to whose bounty we are indebted for all things; consequently, ambition, without which there never is excellence, is, at an early period of life, bent towards the gaining a fortune. A man, indeed, must either be of a singularly odd and obstinate disposition, or very indifferent about the opinion of others, and even about the good things of this world, (as they are termed,) to persevere in obtaining perfection in science or art, while without bread, when he might, with a tenth part of the care and study, live in affluence, and get money from day to day. There are few such obstinate fools; and without them, in a wealthy country, there can be found few men profound in science, or excelling in any of the arts.The augmentation of taxes, by rendering the produce of industry dearer than in other countries, tends to cut off a nation of that de----{95} This is liable to some exceptions. Natural genius may make a man excel; but, even then, it is ten to one if he is not compelled to labour in order to get bread, in place of trying to obtain fame. It was thus the great Dr. Johnson, with a genius that might have procured him immortal fame, drudged, during life, on weekly or daily labours, which will soon be forgotten. Even his dictionary, wonderful as it is for a single man, is not worthy of the English nation, and Johnson's name is little known beyond the limits of his own country. His genius was great, but his labours were little. His mind was in fetters; it was Sampson grinding at the mill to amuse the Philistines; not Sampson slaying lions, and putting to flight armies.-=-[end of page #113]scription, from the markets in poorer countries. If all other countries are poorer; and the taxes lower; it has a tendency to shut it out from all the markets in the world.An operation, that, at the same time that it renders people less happy, less contented, and more indifferent to the fate of their country, and at the same time tends to shut them out from foreign markets, is certainly very hurtful to any country, but particularly so to one, the greatness of which is founded on manufactures and commerce.It would be useless to enlarge on so self-evident a consequence; yet, even in this case, we shall find something of that mixture of good, along with the bad, which is to be found in all human things.As exertion originates in necessity or want, which it removes, taxation has the effect of prolonging the operation of necessity, after it would otherwise have ceased, and of rendering its pressure greater than it otherwise would be; the consequence of this is a greater and larger continued exertion on the part of those who have to pay the taxes. Human exertion, either in the way of invention or of industry, is like a spring that is pressed upon, and gains strength according to the pressure, until a certain point, when it gives way entirely.Those investigators, who have calculated the effect of such and such a degree of taxation, of national debt, &c. have all erred, in not making any, or a sufficient, allowance for the action of this elastic power. Mr. Hume and Mr. Smith, certainly, both of them, men of profound research, have erred completely in this. The former, in calculating the ultimatum of exertion, at a point which we have long since passed; and, the latter, in reasoning on the taxation at the time he wrote, as if nearly the utmost degree, though it has since trebled, and the difficulty in paying seems to be diminished; at least it appears not to have augmented.To fix the point at which this can stop is not, indeed, very easy; particularly, as the value of gold and silver, which are the measures of other values, do themselves vary. Thus, for example, a working man can, with his day's wages, purchase as much bread and beer as he could have done with it forty years ago. Though the national debt [end of page #114] is five times as great as it was then, at the present price of bread, it would not take twice the number of loaves to pay it that it would have required at that time.The depreciation of money, then, as well as the continuation and augmented pressure of necessity, counteract, to a certain degree, and for a certain time, the natural tendency of taxes; but that counteraction, though operating in all cases, in its degree and duration, must depend upon particular circumstances; and though, perhaps, it cannot be, with much accuracy, ascertained in any case, it is impossible to attempt resolving the question in a general way; we shall, therefore, return to the subject, when we apply the general principles to the particular situation of England.One conclusion, however, is, that as taxes, carried to a great extent, are very dangerous, though not so if only carried to a certain point; as that point cannot be ascertained, it ought to be a general rule to lay on as few taxes as possible; and the giving as little trouble and derangement to the contributor as may be, is also another point, with respect to which there cannot be two different opinions. [end of page #115]CHAP. IV.Of the interior Causes of Decline, arising from the Encroachments of public and privileged Bodies, and of those who have a common Interest; on those who have no common Interest.{96}FROM the moment that any particular form of government or order is established in a nation, there must be separate and adverse interests; or, which is the same thing, bodies acting in opposition to each other, and seeking their own power and advantage at the expense of the rest.In a country where the executive government is under no sufficient control, its strides to arbitrary power are well known; but, in a government poised like that of England, where there are deliberative bodies, with different interests, acting separately, and interested in keeping each other and the executive in check, it is not from the government that much danger is to be apprehended.It is not meant to dwell on this particular part of the subject. As those governed hold a check on the executive power, which alone can be supposed to profit by oppression, there is a means of defence, in the first instance, and of redress, in the second, which diminishes greatly, if it does not entirely do away all danger from encroachment.Another thing to be said about this government is, that government and the subject never come into opposition with each other, except where there is law or precedent to determine between them.The danger, then, of encroachment on that side, is not very great, and it is the less so in this country, that, when there have been contests, they have always ended in favour of the people; whereas, in most---{96} The public certainly has a common interest, but it feels it not, and even those who have separate interests make part of that very public. -- This will be exemplified, in a variety of instances, in the course of the present chapter.-=-[end of page #116]other countries, they have terminated in favour of the executive power.It is not so, however, with many other of the component parts of society. Those deliberating bodies, who have separate interests, and all those who live, as it were, on the public, and have what they call, in France,l'esprit du corps, for which we have no proper expression, though it may be defined to be those who have a common interest, a fellow feeling, and the means of acting in concert, are much more dangerous.In nations where the executive power has no control, the progress of public bodies is less dangerous than where the power of the king is limited. It is always the interest of the sovereign, who monopolises all power, and those around him, to prevent any man, or body of men, from infringing on the liberty of the subject, or becoming rivals, by laying industry under contribution, so we find that, in every such nation, the clergy excepted, all public bodies are kept under proper subjection. {97}---{97} In all countries, those who have the care of religious matters must necessarily have some control over the minds of the people, which they can to a certain degree turn either to a good or a bad purpose. It is, therefore, impossible that the government and clergy can, for any length of time, act in opposition to each other: one or other of the two must soon fall, and there have been instances of the triumph of each. We have sometimes seen kings triumph over the clergy, but not very often; and we have frequently seen governments overturned by their means: except, therefore, in a state of revolution, they must mutually support each other. This is the natural state of things; but, in Roman Catholic countries, priests have a superior sway to what they have in any other, for several reasons that are very obvious. In the first place, the sovereign of the nation is not the head of the church; and, in the second, by means of a very superior degree of art and attention, during the dark ages, when the laity were sunk in ignorance, the catholic clergy contrived to entail the church property, from generation to generation, upon the whole body: at the same time, enjoining celibacy, by which all chance of alienation, even of personal property, was done away. As to the means of acquiring property, and of augmenting it; they were many, and, in every contest with the secular authority, they had a great advantage, by speaking, as it were, through ten thousand mouths at once, and giving the alarm to the consciences of the weak. In countries where the protestant religion has been established, the case is widely different. Gothic darkness was nearly fled before the reformation: besides this, the clergy are like other men, with regard to the manner of living; they are fathers and husbands, and, as such, liable to have all the property that is their own alienated, as much as any other set of men [end of page #117] whatever. The reformers, who were neither destitute of penetration nor zeal, and who knew all the abuses of the church of Rome, in matters of regulation as well as of opinion, were very careful to settle the new order of things on such a plan, as to be free from the evils which they had experienced, and against which they had risen with such energy and zeal.-=-The simple state of the case is, that the interest of the people is that of the sovereign; and, except in cases where there is a profound ignorance of what is good for the nation, every wise sovereign takes the part of the people. But, under a limited monarchy, or in a democracy, the case is different. There, those bodies, which an arbitrary monarch would reduce to obedience at once, stand upon prerogative themselves; they form a band in the legislature, and act true to their own interests; so that the sovereign himself is compelled to admit of abuses, which he is willing but not able to remedy.It is a great mistake, and one of the greatest into which people have of late been apt to run, that the government and people of a country are of opposite interests; and that governments wish to oppress the people, and rob them of the means of being affluent and happy: the very contrary is the case; all enlightened monarchs have acted quite differently.Alfred the Great, Edward III. Queen Elizabeth, and nearly all her successors have endeavoured to increase the wealth and happiness of the people in England. Henry IV. of France, even Louis XIV. Peter the Great of Russia, Catherine, and indeed all his successors, as also the Kings of Prussia, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and other sovereigns, who know how to shew their disposition, have tried to enrich their people, and render them happy. The great study of the English government has always been directed to that end, and the Romans extended their care even to the nations they subdued. Though there are many sovereigns who have not known how to do this, and therefore have either not attempted it, or erred in the mode they have taken; yet, with very few exceptions indeed, sovereigns have been found to wish for the prosperity of the nations over which they ruled.In all human institutions there is much that is bad, and something [end of page #118] that is good; and the best, as well as the worst, are only combinations of good and evil, differing in the proportions. In mixt governments, or in limited governments, the people can defend their rights better against the sovereign than against those bodies that spring up amongst themselves: whereas, in pure monarchies, they have only to guard against the encroachments of the sovereign; and he will take care to prevent them from being oppressed by any other power.This tendency to destruction, from encroachments of public bodies in established governments, is more to be dreaded in limited monarchies, and in democracies, than in pure monarchies; but we have had little occasion to observe the progress in governments of the former sort, excepting the clergy, though the military and the nobles generally play their part.In Rome, the military never were dangerous, while the armies were only raised, like militias, for the purpose of a particular war; but, when they became a standing body, they were the proximate efficient cause of destroying liberty, though this was only the prelude to that decline which afterwards took place.In limited monarchies, the lawyers are the greatest body, from which this sort of danger arises, and the reasons are numerous and evident.United in interest, and constantly occupied in studying the law of the country, while the public at large are occupied on a variety of different objects, and without any bond of union, there can be nothing more natural than that they should contrive to render the business which they alone can understand, of as much importance and profit as possible.In the criminal law of the country, where the king is the prosecutor, and where the lawyers are not interested in multiplying expense or embarrassment, our laws are administered with admirable attention; though, perhaps, in some cases, they are blamed for severity, they are justly admired over the world for their mode of administration.It is very different in cases of property, or civil actions, where it is man against man, and where both solicitor and council =sic= are interested in the intricacy of the case. Here, indeed, the public is so glaringly imposed upon, that it would be almost useless to dwell on the sub- [end of page #119] ject, and, as a part of the plan of this work is to offer, or point out, a remedy, it may be sufficient, in this case, to go over the business once, and leave the examples till the relief is proposed.At present, it is, however, necessary to shew why, as things are constituted in mixed governments like this, no remedy is to be had. The public only acts by representatives; and, in the House of Lords, the law-lords, who havel'esprit du corps, may easily contrive to manage every thing. One or two noblemen excepted, no one either has, or pretends to have sufficient knowledge to argue or adjust a point of law. Indeed, it is no easy matter to do so with effect, for, besides that, the law-lords have ministers on their side, or, which is the same thing, are on the side of ministers, the speaker is himself at the head of the law. The other members who look up to the law-lords, and who are generally very few in number on a law-question, generally give their assent. In the House of Commons, in which there are a number of lawyers, they are still less opposed. The country gentlemen profess ignorance. They think that to watch money-bills, the privileges of the house, the general interests of the nation, roads, canals, and inclosures, is their province. The mercantile, and other interests, composed of men getting money with great rapidity, consider the abuses of law as not to them of much importance; they do not feel the inconvenience, and have neither time nor inclination to study the subject. {98}The prerogative of the king to refuse his assent, might, perhaps, be expected to come in as a protection, but here there is least of all any thing to be expected. In the first place, it is thought to be wise never to use that prerogative, and, in the second place, the lord-high-chancellor is the king's guide in every thing of the sort, insomuch, that he is styled the keeper of the king's conscience.With power, influence, and interest on one side, and nothing to oppose it on the other, (for the common proverb is true, as all common---
---
{89} Accountability in money may be compared to military discipline, when on duty. No allowances are to be made for negligence or deviation from rule. Of this we have lately had a most striking and memorable example.
-=-
[end of page #104]
be ruinous to the revenue to give, we must, therefore, never expect that the augmentation of taxes will take place without an increase of discontent, or, at least, an augmented indifference towards government.
Perhaps nothing evinces more the general feeling, (even of the respectable part of society,) with regard to the revenues of the state, than the disposition to profit by evading the payment of duties imposed upon articles of consumption.
The most respectable of the nobility or gentry will conceal a contraband article, or one on which there is a heavy duty, on their return from abroad: and what is more, if detected, they are more ashamed, on account of their want of address, than on account of the crime; for such it is, whatever custom may have taught us to think.
A man who is rigorously treated, by what is commonly called a lawful creditor, whom he would never attempt to defraud must naturally feel doubly incensed, when still more rigorously treated by one whom he would think it very little harm, and no disgrace, to defraud. It is then very clear, that, the common habits of thinking on the subject of debts due to the king, is such as does not favour taxation, or incline people to submit willingly to rigorous modes of recovery.
All taxes raise the prices of the articles taxed, but those are most felt and most obnoxious which fall on personal property, or on persons themselves.
All taxes, then, when they pass a certain point, have a tendency to send away persons, and property, and trade, from a country, which, if they do, its decline is inevitable. The extent, however, of that effect must depend on a great variety of circumstances, such as the comparative situation of other nations, their distance, the difficulty of removing, &c.
If America were as near to England as France is, the industrious class would emigrate in multitudes; and, if in France, property and persons were as safe and free as in England, part of both would go there; but, as matters are, to the former it is impossible to remove, and, to the latter, the risk surpasses the advantage.
An increase of taxation tends to raise the wages of labour, and, where it does so in due proportion, the labourer pays almost nothing; he still for all that seems to pay, and he has the same disagreeable feeling [end of page #105] as if he did pay. No feeling is more disagreeable than that of being obliged, after earning money that can ill be spared, to pay it away to a surly tax-gatherer, who treats a man and his family with insolence, while he receives the money that should purchase them bread. Besides this, though the prices of many articles keep pace with the wages of labour, yet many others do not. Thus, in a country where wages are rapidly altering, though some are bettered by it, penury is entailed on others, who have not the means of raising their prices.
If heavy taxes are levied on a few articles of consumption, then they become inefficient, and if they are divided amongst a great many, they become troublesome, so that either way they are attended with inconvenience and difficulty.
In every country, where taxation has been carried to a great height, it has, at last, become necessary to bear heavily upon personal property. Such taxes are always attended with disagreeable feelings, and peculiar inconveniency. The tax always comes in the form of a debt, and whether convenient to be paid or not, it admits at best but of little delay. {90}
In England the nature of the government, the disposition of the people, and the same sort of genius that made them succeed in commercial intercourse and regulation, led them to adopt the least objectionable modes of taxation.
The customs were the first great branch of revenue at the time of the revolution. The excise, land-tax, and stamps, rose next, none of which can be objected to; for the person who pays the tax to government only advances the money, and is reimbursed by the consumer, who, again on his part, when he really pays the tax (for good and all) does it under the form of an advance in price. Thus, then, the tax is disguised to him that really pays it, and it is optional, inasmuch as he
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{90} It will be seen, in a future part of this work, that the farmers have lost nothing, but rather got by the high prices of grain in this country, and it is so probably in all others. Those who sell necessaries raise the price; those who make or sell superfluities have no such resource, and therefore pay in the severest manner.
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may avoid the tax, by not consuming the article. He never can be sued for the tax, and he pays it by degrees, as he can spare the money. {91}
Some time before the taxation which the American war rendered necessary, it was thought that the customs and excise could not be carried much farther. Ministers did not chuse =sic= to venture on an additional tax on land, and, consequently, stamps were augmented and extended, as were also duties on windows. A variety of new taxes on particular articles of consumption were resorted to. Those sort of taxes harassed and tormented individuals more than they filled the treasury, yet still, when, after an interval of a few years of peace, new burthens became necessary, in 1793, the same plan was pursued, till it was found ineffectual, being too troublesome and tedious, besides being unequal to the increase of expenditure.
It was necessity that suggested a plan, which is the simplest and easiest of any, so long as it succeeds and is productive. =sic= To increase the excise and customs by an additional five or ten per cent. on the articles that were supposed able to bear it. This has been done again and again with those two branches of revenue, and with the stamps likewise.
But the necessities of the state still outrun the means, and the assessed taxes, the worst and most obnoxious of all, were augmented in the same way; but even those were not productive. The inducement to privation was too great, and the restraints laid on expenditure, suggested the adoption of a tax on income; that is, on the means a man has to pay, which carries in its very name a description of its nature.
We have mentioned the influence that necessity has on industry. One of the effects of taxes, as well as of rent, is to prolong the operation of necessity, or to increase it. A man who has neither rent nor taxes to pay, as is the case in some savage nations, only labours to supply his wants. Whatever proportion rent and taxes bear to the wants of
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{91} The land-tax is not precisely the same, but very nearly. It operates as a tax on the produce of land, that is on commodities for the use of man, the same as those articles subject to duties of customs or excise. The landholder just feels as the brewer, distiller, or importer of foreign goods, he gets the tax reimbursed by the farmer, and the farmer is reimbursed by the consumer.
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a people their industry will be increased in the same proportion, unless their forces are exceeded, and then the operation is indeed very different.
It follows, from this, that both rent and taxes, to a certain degree, increase the wealth of a people, by augmenting their industry. As rent is not compulsive, it never can in general be carried beyond the point that augmented industry will bear; but taxes are not either regulated by the industry of the individual, or of the community; they may therefore be carried too far, and when they are, the people become degraded, disheartened, their independent spirit is lost and broken, and industry, in place of increasing, as it did in the first stages of taxation, flies away.
The government, in this case, generally becomes more severe, and certainly more obnoxious. The broken spirit of the people makes submission a matter of course, so that there is no effectual resistance made to its power. Incapacity to pay comes at last, and defeats the end; but, between incapacity and resistance, the difference is very wide.
As calculators have been predicting the moment of a total stoppage to the increase of revenue for nearly half a century; as ministers, themselves, have never ventured to lay on a new burthen, except when forced to it by necessity. {92} As taxes have been laid on at random, in a manner similar to that in which the streets and houses of old cities were built, without regularity or design, and as the effects predicted have not taken place, it is fair to conclude, that the subject is not well understood. If it were, the evil would be in the way to be obviated; but still the conclusion would be the same, that increased taxation tends to bring on discontent, and to drive men and capital from a country. The degree of tendency, and the rapidity of its operations, are a question; but respecting the tendency itself there can be no question.
Two things more are to be observed, relative to the effects of taxation, as tending towards decline. The first is, that the taxes are levied by and expended on men, who, having income only for their lives,
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{92} Mr. Pitt seems an exception to this; but the establishment of a sinking fund, at the end of the war, was as necessary for his administration as any of the loans, during the war, were for Lord North; and both measures required new taxes.
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generally leave families in distress. Those who lose their parents when young are often left destitute, and those who are farther advanced are frequently ruined by being educated and accustomed to a rank in life that they are not able to support. This is a very great evil, and is renewed as it were every generation. As the revenues of a country increase, this evil increases also: for, except what goes to the proprietors of money in the stocks, all the public revenue, very nearly, goes to people whose income perishes with themselves. To begin with those who collect the taxes, custom-house officers, excise men, collectors, and clerks of every rank and demonination =sic=, there is not one in ten who does not die in indigence; and if he leaves a family, he leaves it in distress.
It is no doubt the lot of the great bulk of mankind, that is to say, the labouring part of the community in every country, to leave children unprovided for; but then they are left in a rank of society that does not prevent their going to work or to service, which is not the case with the vast number left by those who enjoy, during life, a genteel and easy existence under government.
The education of such persons is either neglected entirely, or ill fitted for the line of life into which they are to go. If the sum-total of human vice and misery was to be divided into shares, and if it were calculated how much fell to each person, there is not a doubt but at least a double portion would fall to the lot of those unfortunate persons who are left by parents enjoying offices for life; who are generally obliged to expend their income as they earn it. As, according to the natural chance of things, a number of such persons must leave young families, the seeds of misery are continually sowing a-fresh, to the great detriment of society. This evil depends in a great degree upon the habits and nature of the people, which augment or diminish it; and, in commercial nations, the evil is far the greatest. Where commerce does not flourish, persons belonging to the revenue-department are seldom highly paid, and they by no means consider themselves as a class of persons distinguished above the general run, or obliged to live more expensively; but, in a manufacturing country, to live without working, implies a degree of gentility that is extremely ruinous to those who enjoy that fatal and flimsy pre-eminence. [end of page #109]
A manufacturer, who is getting a thousand pounds a year, will, perhaps, not assume so much importance as a man in office who does not get one hundred pounds; and the former, as well as his family, knowing that they are beholden to industry for what they have, do not think themselves above following it. {93}
Unfortunately, it also happens, that, in all sorts of occupation where trust is reposed and punctuality required, more than in ordinary business, it is rather late in life before those employed rise to situations of considerable emolument. When they are old, their families are generally young; thus it is, that the persons who are the most unfit to marry late in life are generally those who do so. This order of things cannot easily be changed. In the rate of payments governments are regulated by the service done, and by the dependence that can be placed on the person employed, who, on the other hand, follows the natural propensities of human nature. When young, and on a small allowance, a revenue-officer remains single; but when it is necessary to become serious, attentive, and confidential, and when he finds he has the means, he betakes himself to a domestic life, which is the most natural to men arrived at a certain time of life, and the best fitted for those who are to be depended upon for the correctness of their conduct. It is impossible to prevent this natural state of things; and if let go uncorrected, if not counteracted, the consequences are very pernicious. It is to this, in a great measure, the augmentation of vice and mendicity =sic= is to be attributed in nations, as they become wealthy and great.
Perhaps more depends upon the manner of taxation than the amount; at least it certainly is so in all countries where the amount is not very high. In America, for example, the amount is of no importance; the manner might be of very pernicious consequence. In France, before the revolution, the taxes were more oppressive, from the manner of levying them than from their amount. The same thing might be said
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{93} This is a very important part of the consideration; but, as education and it are connected, and that comes into the Fourth Book =sic - there is none=, the whole consideration is left till then; not only the national prosperity is injured, but the feelings of humanity are hurt, and the sum of human misery increased by this consequence.
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of almost every country in Europe, England and Holland excepted. At present, the case is greatly altered, in many countries, by the increase: yet, still, one of the principal evils arises from the manner of levying the taxes; the restraints imposed by them, the inconveniency, the vexation, and, finally, the misery and ruin they, in many cases, occasion.
Of all the examples, where taxation contributed most to the fall of a country, Rome is the greatest. The luxury of the imperial court, and the expenses of a licentious and disorderly army, added to the ignorance of the subject, rendered the taxes every way burthensome. From the fall of Rome, to the time of Louis XIV. the splendour of courts, and their expenses, were objects of no great importance. We are but lately arrived at a new aera in taxation; for, though taxation has been the occasion of much discontent at all times, it was carried to no considerable length, in any country in Europe, except in Spain and Holland, till within this last century.
Indeed, when we consider the great noise that has often been made about raising an inconsiderable sum, it is impossible not to be astonished at the reluctance with which people pay taxes, when they feel that they are paying them, and are not accustomed to the feeling.
Taxation is, then, to the feelings of men, disagreeable; to their manners hurtful; they are also, in their operation, to a certain degree, inimical to liberty. The ultimate consequence of this is, that persons and property have both of them a tendency to quit a country where taxes are high, and to go to one, where, with the same means, there may be more enjoyment.
Taxes may be called a rent paid for living in a country, and operate exactly like the rent of houses or land, or rent for any thing else; that is, they make the tenant remove to a cheaper place, unless he finds advantages where he is to counterbalance the expense.
Unfortunately, the persons who have the greatest disposition to quit a country that is heavily taxed are those, who, having a certain income, which they cannot increase, wish to enjoy it with some degree of economy. They are, likewise, the persons who can remove with the greatest [end of page #111] facility. Thus, people whose income is in money are always the first to quit a country that is become too dear to live in with comfort.
Many circumstances may favour or counteract this tendency, such as the difficulty of finding an agreeable place to retire to, where the money will be secure, or the interest regularly paid; but, an inquiry into that will come more properly when we examine the external causes of decline.
Though the increase of taxes, by augmenting the expense of living, and of the necessaries of life, is little felt by the labouring class, their wages rising in proportion; yet a most disastrous effect is produced on the fine arts, and on all productions of which the price does not bear a proportional rise.
Where taxes are high, and luxury great, there must be some persons who have a great deal of ostentation, even if they have little taste. A picture or a jewel of great value will, very certainly, find a purchaser, but that will only serve as a motive for bringing the fine painting from another country, where the necessaries of life are cheaper, and where men enjoy that careless ease which is incompatible with a high state of taxation.
When Rome became luxurious, to the highest pitch, there were neither poets, painters, nor historians, bred within its walls; buffoons and fiddlers could get more money than philosophers, and they had more saleable talents. Had Virgil not found an Augustus, had he lived three centuries later, he must either have written ballads and lampoons, or have starved; otherwise he must have quitted Italy.
When Rome was full of luxury, and commanded the world and its wealth, there was not an artist in it capable of executing the statues of its victorious generals. {94}
Some Greek island, barren and bare, would breed artists capable of making ornaments for imperial Rome.
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{94} They were obliged to cut the heads off from ancient statues, as their artists were only sufficiently expert to carve the drapery of the body.
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It is an easy matter, in a rich country, to pay for a fine piece of art, but a difficult matter to find a price for the bringing up a fine artist. {95}
The fine arts have not, indeed, any intimate or immediate connection with the wealth or strength of a nation. The balance of trade has never been greatly increased by the exportation of great masterpieces of art, nor have nations been subdued by the powers of oratory; but the knowledge and the arts, by which wealth and greatness are obtained, follow in the train of the finer performances of human genius.
Where money becomes the universal agent, where it is impossible to enjoy ease or comfort for a single day without it, it becomes an object of adoration, as it were. To despise gold, which purchases all things, is reckoned a greater crime than to despise him to whose bounty we are indebted for all things; consequently, ambition, without which there never is excellence, is, at an early period of life, bent towards the gaining a fortune. A man, indeed, must either be of a singularly odd and obstinate disposition, or very indifferent about the opinion of others, and even about the good things of this world, (as they are termed,) to persevere in obtaining perfection in science or art, while without bread, when he might, with a tenth part of the care and study, live in affluence, and get money from day to day. There are few such obstinate fools; and without them, in a wealthy country, there can be found few men profound in science, or excelling in any of the arts.
The augmentation of taxes, by rendering the produce of industry dearer than in other countries, tends to cut off a nation of that de-
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{95} This is liable to some exceptions. Natural genius may make a man excel; but, even then, it is ten to one if he is not compelled to labour in order to get bread, in place of trying to obtain fame. It was thus the great Dr. Johnson, with a genius that might have procured him immortal fame, drudged, during life, on weekly or daily labours, which will soon be forgotten. Even his dictionary, wonderful as it is for a single man, is not worthy of the English nation, and Johnson's name is little known beyond the limits of his own country. His genius was great, but his labours were little. His mind was in fetters; it was Sampson grinding at the mill to amuse the Philistines; not Sampson slaying lions, and putting to flight armies.
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scription, from the markets in poorer countries. If all other countries are poorer; and the taxes lower; it has a tendency to shut it out from all the markets in the world.
An operation, that, at the same time that it renders people less happy, less contented, and more indifferent to the fate of their country, and at the same time tends to shut them out from foreign markets, is certainly very hurtful to any country, but particularly so to one, the greatness of which is founded on manufactures and commerce.
It would be useless to enlarge on so self-evident a consequence; yet, even in this case, we shall find something of that mixture of good, along with the bad, which is to be found in all human things.
As exertion originates in necessity or want, which it removes, taxation has the effect of prolonging the operation of necessity, after it would otherwise have ceased, and of rendering its pressure greater than it otherwise would be; the consequence of this is a greater and larger continued exertion on the part of those who have to pay the taxes. Human exertion, either in the way of invention or of industry, is like a spring that is pressed upon, and gains strength according to the pressure, until a certain point, when it gives way entirely.
Those investigators, who have calculated the effect of such and such a degree of taxation, of national debt, &c. have all erred, in not making any, or a sufficient, allowance for the action of this elastic power. Mr. Hume and Mr. Smith, certainly, both of them, men of profound research, have erred completely in this. The former, in calculating the ultimatum of exertion, at a point which we have long since passed; and, the latter, in reasoning on the taxation at the time he wrote, as if nearly the utmost degree, though it has since trebled, and the difficulty in paying seems to be diminished; at least it appears not to have augmented.
To fix the point at which this can stop is not, indeed, very easy; particularly, as the value of gold and silver, which are the measures of other values, do themselves vary. Thus, for example, a working man can, with his day's wages, purchase as much bread and beer as he could have done with it forty years ago. Though the national debt [end of page #114] is five times as great as it was then, at the present price of bread, it would not take twice the number of loaves to pay it that it would have required at that time.
The depreciation of money, then, as well as the continuation and augmented pressure of necessity, counteract, to a certain degree, and for a certain time, the natural tendency of taxes; but that counteraction, though operating in all cases, in its degree and duration, must depend upon particular circumstances; and though, perhaps, it cannot be, with much accuracy, ascertained in any case, it is impossible to attempt resolving the question in a general way; we shall, therefore, return to the subject, when we apply the general principles to the particular situation of England.
One conclusion, however, is, that as taxes, carried to a great extent, are very dangerous, though not so if only carried to a certain point; as that point cannot be ascertained, it ought to be a general rule to lay on as few taxes as possible; and the giving as little trouble and derangement to the contributor as may be, is also another point, with respect to which there cannot be two different opinions. [end of page #115]
CHAP. IV.
Of the interior Causes of Decline, arising from the Encroachments of public and privileged Bodies, and of those who have a common Interest; on those who have no common Interest.{96}
FROM the moment that any particular form of government or order is established in a nation, there must be separate and adverse interests; or, which is the same thing, bodies acting in opposition to each other, and seeking their own power and advantage at the expense of the rest.
In a country where the executive government is under no sufficient control, its strides to arbitrary power are well known; but, in a government poised like that of England, where there are deliberative bodies, with different interests, acting separately, and interested in keeping each other and the executive in check, it is not from the government that much danger is to be apprehended.
It is not meant to dwell on this particular part of the subject. As those governed hold a check on the executive power, which alone can be supposed to profit by oppression, there is a means of defence, in the first instance, and of redress, in the second, which diminishes greatly, if it does not entirely do away all danger from encroachment.
Another thing to be said about this government is, that government and the subject never come into opposition with each other, except where there is law or precedent to determine between them.
The danger, then, of encroachment on that side, is not very great, and it is the less so in this country, that, when there have been contests, they have always ended in favour of the people; whereas, in most
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{96} The public certainly has a common interest, but it feels it not, and even those who have separate interests make part of that very public. -- This will be exemplified, in a variety of instances, in the course of the present chapter.
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other countries, they have terminated in favour of the executive power.
It is not so, however, with many other of the component parts of society. Those deliberating bodies, who have separate interests, and all those who live, as it were, on the public, and have what they call, in France,l'esprit du corps, for which we have no proper expression, though it may be defined to be those who have a common interest, a fellow feeling, and the means of acting in concert, are much more dangerous.
In nations where the executive power has no control, the progress of public bodies is less dangerous than where the power of the king is limited. It is always the interest of the sovereign, who monopolises all power, and those around him, to prevent any man, or body of men, from infringing on the liberty of the subject, or becoming rivals, by laying industry under contribution, so we find that, in every such nation, the clergy excepted, all public bodies are kept under proper subjection. {97}
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{97} In all countries, those who have the care of religious matters must necessarily have some control over the minds of the people, which they can to a certain degree turn either to a good or a bad purpose. It is, therefore, impossible that the government and clergy can, for any length of time, act in opposition to each other: one or other of the two must soon fall, and there have been instances of the triumph of each. We have sometimes seen kings triumph over the clergy, but not very often; and we have frequently seen governments overturned by their means: except, therefore, in a state of revolution, they must mutually support each other. This is the natural state of things; but, in Roman Catholic countries, priests have a superior sway to what they have in any other, for several reasons that are very obvious. In the first place, the sovereign of the nation is not the head of the church; and, in the second, by means of a very superior degree of art and attention, during the dark ages, when the laity were sunk in ignorance, the catholic clergy contrived to entail the church property, from generation to generation, upon the whole body: at the same time, enjoining celibacy, by which all chance of alienation, even of personal property, was done away. As to the means of acquiring property, and of augmenting it; they were many, and, in every contest with the secular authority, they had a great advantage, by speaking, as it were, through ten thousand mouths at once, and giving the alarm to the consciences of the weak. In countries where the protestant religion has been established, the case is widely different. Gothic darkness was nearly fled before the reformation: besides this, the clergy are like other men, with regard to the manner of living; they are fathers and husbands, and, as such, liable to have all the property that is their own alienated, as much as any other set of men [end of page #117] whatever. The reformers, who were neither destitute of penetration nor zeal, and who knew all the abuses of the church of Rome, in matters of regulation as well as of opinion, were very careful to settle the new order of things on such a plan, as to be free from the evils which they had experienced, and against which they had risen with such energy and zeal.
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The simple state of the case is, that the interest of the people is that of the sovereign; and, except in cases where there is a profound ignorance of what is good for the nation, every wise sovereign takes the part of the people. But, under a limited monarchy, or in a democracy, the case is different. There, those bodies, which an arbitrary monarch would reduce to obedience at once, stand upon prerogative themselves; they form a band in the legislature, and act true to their own interests; so that the sovereign himself is compelled to admit of abuses, which he is willing but not able to remedy.
It is a great mistake, and one of the greatest into which people have of late been apt to run, that the government and people of a country are of opposite interests; and that governments wish to oppress the people, and rob them of the means of being affluent and happy: the very contrary is the case; all enlightened monarchs have acted quite differently.
Alfred the Great, Edward III. Queen Elizabeth, and nearly all her successors have endeavoured to increase the wealth and happiness of the people in England. Henry IV. of France, even Louis XIV. Peter the Great of Russia, Catherine, and indeed all his successors, as also the Kings of Prussia, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and other sovereigns, who know how to shew their disposition, have tried to enrich their people, and render them happy. The great study of the English government has always been directed to that end, and the Romans extended their care even to the nations they subdued. Though there are many sovereigns who have not known how to do this, and therefore have either not attempted it, or erred in the mode they have taken; yet, with very few exceptions indeed, sovereigns have been found to wish for the prosperity of the nations over which they ruled.
In all human institutions there is much that is bad, and something [end of page #118] that is good; and the best, as well as the worst, are only combinations of good and evil, differing in the proportions. In mixt governments, or in limited governments, the people can defend their rights better against the sovereign than against those bodies that spring up amongst themselves: whereas, in pure monarchies, they have only to guard against the encroachments of the sovereign; and he will take care to prevent them from being oppressed by any other power.
This tendency to destruction, from encroachments of public bodies in established governments, is more to be dreaded in limited monarchies, and in democracies, than in pure monarchies; but we have had little occasion to observe the progress in governments of the former sort, excepting the clergy, though the military and the nobles generally play their part.
In Rome, the military never were dangerous, while the armies were only raised, like militias, for the purpose of a particular war; but, when they became a standing body, they were the proximate efficient cause of destroying liberty, though this was only the prelude to that decline which afterwards took place.
In limited monarchies, the lawyers are the greatest body, from which this sort of danger arises, and the reasons are numerous and evident.
United in interest, and constantly occupied in studying the law of the country, while the public at large are occupied on a variety of different objects, and without any bond of union, there can be nothing more natural than that they should contrive to render the business which they alone can understand, of as much importance and profit as possible.
In the criminal law of the country, where the king is the prosecutor, and where the lawyers are not interested in multiplying expense or embarrassment, our laws are administered with admirable attention; though, perhaps, in some cases, they are blamed for severity, they are justly admired over the world for their mode of administration.
It is very different in cases of property, or civil actions, where it is man against man, and where both solicitor and council =sic= are interested in the intricacy of the case. Here, indeed, the public is so glaringly imposed upon, that it would be almost useless to dwell on the sub- [end of page #119] ject, and, as a part of the plan of this work is to offer, or point out, a remedy, it may be sufficient, in this case, to go over the business once, and leave the examples till the relief is proposed.
At present, it is, however, necessary to shew why, as things are constituted in mixed governments like this, no remedy is to be had. The public only acts by representatives; and, in the House of Lords, the law-lords, who havel'esprit du corps, may easily contrive to manage every thing. One or two noblemen excepted, no one either has, or pretends to have sufficient knowledge to argue or adjust a point of law. Indeed, it is no easy matter to do so with effect, for, besides that, the law-lords have ministers on their side, or, which is the same thing, are on the side of ministers, the speaker is himself at the head of the law. The other members who look up to the law-lords, and who are generally very few in number on a law-question, generally give their assent. In the House of Commons, in which there are a number of lawyers, they are still less opposed. The country gentlemen profess ignorance. They think that to watch money-bills, the privileges of the house, the general interests of the nation, roads, canals, and inclosures, is their province. The mercantile, and other interests, composed of men getting money with great rapidity, consider the abuses of law as not to them of much importance; they do not feel the inconvenience, and have neither time nor inclination to study the subject. {98}
The prerogative of the king to refuse his assent, might, perhaps, be expected to come in as a protection, but here there is least of all any thing to be expected. In the first place, it is thought to be wise never to use that prerogative, and, in the second place, the lord-high-chancellor is the king's guide in every thing of the sort, insomuch, that he is styled the keeper of the king's conscience.
With power, influence, and interest on one side, and nothing to oppose it on the other, (for the common proverb is true, as all common
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