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Those to be reformed will cry loudest that their rights are invaded:

"It will be pretended, That if such a course is taken in dissolving, or undermining Charters, all Order and Regularity will be overturned, and the usual Channels of Justice, and Civil Government will be stopped up." 90

Expediency is dressed in its thousand-year garb:

"The monopolizing Merchant taxes his Fellow-Citizens both in his Exports and Imports; and yet expects that they should blindly, and stupidly vindicate his Cause and make it their own! —This being the Case, let the Citizens themselves be the Judges, therein standing up for a Monopoly of some few of their Fellow-Citizens to their own Prejudice, they do not in reality leave the Substance, and catch at the Shadow. Let them likewise consider, which indeed are their real Friends, those who would promote a general, and universal Commerce all over the Kingdom, or those others, who would check Labour, who would squeeze all the Wealth of the Kingdom into the City of London, and the Wealth of the City of London into the Purses of a Score or two over-grown Monopolists, and tyrannical Ingrossers." pp. 165-66.

The tyranny has no case at the court of human understanding:

"Judge likewise, whether Monopolies and Exclusions were ever necessary, or ever vindicable; And above all, please to reflect, that every Plea, Pretence, or Apology urged at this Day in defence of these Things, is nothing else than a nauseous Repetition of the same idle, canting Story, which hath been confuted a thousand Times over." p. 167.

Not until democracy is enthroned will the world be right:

Shall I say,

"But alas! what shall I say on this Occasion? what every Lover of his Country would wish to hear, that this worthy Patriot received the Thanks of the King and Country for his modest, sensible, and nervous Vindication of the natural Rights of Mankind? No: Nothing of this was to be expected from the Prerogative, and arbitrary Government of good Old England. In short, this deserving Member of the English Parliament met with a Prison for his Reward, even during the Sitting of the House. And the King showed no Disposition of pursuing Solomon's Maxim, viz. of establishing his Throne by Righteousness." p. 166.

Theocratic democracy was in Tucker's mind.

"Rewards and Punishments are the grand Hinges, on which, not only Government, and Religion, but national Commerce, and national Industry, ought to turn: And indeed, the nearer you bring your Commercial Ideas to the Standard of good Government, and sound Religion, the more lasting, the more extensive, and the more perfect is your Plan." pp. 169-70.

In the course of time, and that in matters which concerned the poor, Tucker was found in opposition to the great Edmund Burke, a close friend of Adam Smith. The opposition is stated by the Barrister-at-Law, J. D. Rogers, who in short words shows the fire of the Dean's soul.

"Burke upheld the trade laws, and reviled 'the profane herd of those vulgar and mechanical politicians who think that nothing exists but what is gross and material Tucker replied with the audacity of Cobden, that

he was proud to belong to the latter class." 192

Though born eleven years before Adam Smith, Tucker was destined to outlive him nine years. Only Burke could defeat his plans for the poor, and it came about shortly before Burke's death, which occurred in 1797 in the sixty-eighth year of his life, two years before the death of Tucker, who died at eighty-seven.

Burke, who was praised by Adam Smith, as “the only man he had met with who thought as he did on the chief topics of political economy without previous communication," 2 drew into the year 1795 determined to thwart what threatened to be the overthrow of the corn merchant in England. There is an inspired bit of history, apparently the work of grateful members of the corn-fraternity, that is good reading for the student of democracy. It stands as an "Introduction" to Burke's successful "Memorial" to Parliament. The self-praise of the forestallers, couched in glorification of Burke, runs thus:

"He (Burke) zealously promoted the repeal of the statutes against forestallers; a measure not lightly and hastily pro

posed or adopted in the liberal impulse of an unguarded moment, but the result of various investigations made by the House (of Commons), or in different committees, during six years of scarcity and high prices; a measure which, although two Bills of a contrary tendency had formerly been introduced and lost, so approved itself, at length, to the reason of all, that it was ordered to be brought in, without a single dissenting voice. Yet, though such was his early pre-eminence in these pursuits, to the last hour of his life, as his fame spread wider and wider over Europe, he availed himself of the advantage which this afforded him, to enlarge his sphere of enquiries into the state of other countries, that he might benefit his own. "The consequence of all was, he every day became more firmly convinced, that the unrestrained freedom of buying and selling is the great animating principle of production and supply." 193

There is much more of this praise for Peter that carries as much for Paul, and then we are upon Burke's words to Parliament.

"I beseech the Government-which I take in the largest sense of the word, comprehending the two Houses of Parliamentmanfully to resist the very first idea, speculative or practical, that it is within the competence of Government, taken as Government, or even of the rich, as rich, to supply the poor, those necessaries which it has pleased the Divine Providence for a while to withhold from them. We, the people, ought to be made sensible, that it is not in breaking the laws of commerce, which are the laws of nature, and consequently the laws of God, that we are to place our hope of softening the divine displeasure to remove any calamity under which we suffer, or which hangs over us." 484. 194

"I do not wonder the papers are full of this matter, but I am a little surprised it should be mentioned in parliament (is referring to the scarcity of provisions and high prices) Let us be saved from too much wisdom of our own, and we shall do tolerably well. It is one of the finest problems in legislation, and what has often engaged my thoughts whilst I followed that profession, 'What the state ought to take upon itself to direct by the public wisdom, and what it ought to leave with as little interference as possible, to individual discretion.' The clearest line of distinction which I could draw, whilst I had any chalk to draw my line, was this: That the state ought to confine itself to what regards the state, or the creatures of state, namely, the exterior establishment of religion; its magistry; its revenue; its military force by sea and land; the corporations that owe their existence to its fiat; in a word, to everything that is truly and properly public, to the public peace, to the public safety, to the public order, to the public prosperity.

..Statesmen who know themselves will, with the dignity

that belongs to wisdom, proceed only in this the superior orb and first mover of their duty, steadily, vigilantly, courageously; whatever remains will, in a manner provide for itself. But as they descend from a state to a province, from a province to a parish, and from a parish to a private house, they go on accelerated in their fall.

"I believe that no Government ever yet perished from any other direct cause than its own weakness. My opinion is against this most momentous of all meddling on the part of authority; the meddling with the subsistence of the people." 1.

The result of this indoctrination of the policy of letting well-enough alone, for the good of one's professional advancement, is told by the representative of invisible government who writes the Introduction.

"The scheme of public granaries (for that was the proposal to reduce the exorbitant prices), if it ever existed, was abandoned. In parliament the ministers maintained a prudent and dignified forbearance; and repressed in others, or where they could not entirely controul, interposed to moderate and divert, that restless spirit of legislation, which is an evil that seems to grow up, as the vehemence of party-contention debates. The consistency and good sense of the Commons defeated an attempt, which was made toward the close of the sessions, to revive against forestallers of one particular, some portions of the exploded laws." 458.

David Davies and Josiah Tucker had failed. Expediency and Burke's memorial to Parliament above is as fine an exposition of the art of expediency in its command over the legislature as we have in the literature of the favors of law-was full in the saddle. It will be in order now to look in upon England when the laws against the forestallers were by no means 'exploded; thence to follow the earliest steps which led up to the explosion.

CHAPTER XIII

England's Ancient Exchanges

Beware of breaking "the law of commerce, which are the laws of nature, and consequently the laws of God," Edmund Burke had successfully besought the government. We rub our eyes in astonishment at his arugment which prevailed:-If the price of the necessaries of life is held too high for the poor, "resist the very first idea, speculative or practical, that it is within the province of Government," to do anything about it, since by the laws of commerce "it has pleased the Divine Providence for awhile to withhold" food from the poor.

In the face of the "prudent and dignified forbearance" of the legislature to relieve the poor of the extortion, somehow England cannot rid herself of the feeling that her ancient self, when it was all so very different, was her real self, while the oppressive if sentimental nonsense of the two hundred recent years has been the disordered working of a haunted dream.

It was Archbishop Whately (1784-1863), in his lectures to the students of Oxford in the early thirties of the past century, who endeavored to set the ball rolling for a better day of government in seven simple words:"Man is a being who makes exchanges.” Once, even the England of Burke's day knew, the AngloSaxons had fashioned their laws in the belief that if all exchanges between man and man could be made perfectly equitable, there wuold be little left to be desired of government. Yet Burke, some centuries later, had triumphantly argued with the legislature that laws

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