persons, who have stirred this question on the other side of the channel; but my argument will apply equally to commutation as to abolition, unless that commutation be adequate to the clergy, and still levied off the soil. In 1734 the land proprietors of Ireland abolished tythes of gistment by an arbitrary vote of the fris House of Commons, declaring any professional man an enemy to his country, who should be concerned in any process for the recovery of tythes of agistment. This felonious injunction, for it robbed the clergy of their property without any colour of law, was afterwards legalised and placed upon the Statute Book at the Union. But, who were the gainers by that transaction? Were they not the proprietors themselves, whose pasture and feeding grounds were enhanced in value by being thus exonerated from the claims of the clergy? No man will venture to assert, that the public was in the smallest degree beuefited. Neither beef, nor butter, nor mutton, was reduced in price, in consequence, and there is good reason to think, that the present high rates of tythes, in that country, are owing to that measure, which, by confining their operation to so small a portion of the surface of the country, as that employed in tillage, fendered an increase of rates absolutely unavoidable. Should the land proprietors silcceed in 1908, as they did in 1734, in reducing the remaining incombrance of tythes, affecting their lands, would they, or the public profit by the change? The instance, just quoted, will suffice to answer that question." Every article of agricultural produce would continue at its full price, unaffected by the change, and only the present occupier, and the land proprietor in reversion, be benefited, unless the commutation should still respect the soil as its object. In any other case, the public at large would be altogether the sufferers, as there would be no diminution of prices, and the land owners would proportionably increase their rents, whilst the whole weight of the commutation, if not confined to the soil, would be to be defrayed by the public. If the land proprietors were generously and disinterestedly to come forward, and offer to forego the benefit, they enjoy from the abolition of tythes of agistment; if they were justly and nobly to declare, that they had inherited their estates, subject to the recog nised provision for the church, and were disposed to act honourably by the clergy, to deal fairly with the public, and to conform to the conditions, upon which their properties were granted; if they were to propose, that all the productive lands in the kingdon, should be charged, according to a certain rate by the acre, or the plough laud, in order to relieve tillage grounds from the exorbitant incumbrance, to which they are at present exclusively, though, perhaps, under existing circumstances, necessarily subjected for the support of the Irish church establishment; if, in their affectation of zeal for the interest of the public, they were to manifest any real feeling for the sufferings of the people; or, whilst ostensibly seeking redress of national grievances, not covertly to promote their own private interests; if they showed any disposition to acquiesce in a common sacrifice for a common object; or, if their efforts were directed to the attainment of popular relief by any measures of general operation, not by the plunder of a particular body, we might respect their motives, however difficult we might feel it, either to approve the means they have resorted to, or enter into their particular views upon so important a national question. But, let it be had in remembrance, that the land proprietors, who are now creating an outcry against tythes, for the severity with which they press upon the lower orders, are the very identical description of persons, who procured the abolition of tythes of agistment, which cast the whole of the burthen of tythes upon tillage lands; and, consequently upon the poor.. Had they exerted themselves, for the relief of the people, in 1734, with the saute activity and perseverance, which they displayed in prosecuting successfally the exoneration of their own pasture grounds from any part of the charge, there would not be any discontent, at this moment existing amongst the Irish peasantry, on the score of tythes. Tythes of potatoes, were, at that period, but of comparatively recent imposition, and had never been generally submitted to, nor levied without obstruction. From the first introduction of that nutritious root into Ireland, until about the middle of last century, its cultivation was attended with complete immunity from any contribu tion to the clergy. The exaction of a high rate, therefore, from a species of tillage, which had never before been the object of any such charge, was, as may be reasonably supposed, not quietly acquiesced in. White Boys, Right Boys, and various other denominations, and combinations of lawless noc. turnal insurgents associated, from time to time, for the purpose of resisting the charge with open violence, and committed atrocities, that disturbed the tranquillity of the country, and called for the direct interposition of the military. The pressure of tythes was unquestionably the immediate cause of tions restored public tranquillity. Such Lad been the state of things, when the laid pro these different insurrections; but, when the mistaken and misguided instruments of the popular tumults began to feel their power inprietors, taking advantage of the prostration the spread of their force and depredations, they uniformly extended their views and measures of redress, to every species of oppression, under which they had sutered It was the fashion, at the time, to ascribe these troubles, and the outrages that followed, to the disaffection and fury of a Popish mob. The fact was, however, that the vengeance of the rioters, was indiscriminately levelled against the dues exacted by the Catholic priests, the tythes levied by the Protes tant clergy, and the exorbitant rents demanded and inforced by the land proprietors and middlemen.-There were as many acts of violence committed against the priests, and persons concerted in levying distress for rent, as against the agents for tythes, who were universally represented as the sole objects of popular hatred and resentnicht. The excesses of the deluded multitude served only to enhance the hardships, which they sought to alleviate, and the repeated disturbances of the country bad the efect of intimidating enterprising British capitalists from embarking in any, the most promising speculations, in that devoted kingdom. The landlords accused the clergy, who, in turn, retorted the charge upon them, of being the source of the national grievances; and the populace, whenever goaded into resistance by the overflowing measure of their oppression, directed their attacks, with equal violence and without any distinction, against rents, tythes, and the exactions of their own clergy. It was, in the last degree, false, therefore, to ascribe such disturbances to any religious motives; they were the unhappy, illegal, and ill judged struggles of an oppressed population, to obtain by force a redress of existing griev ances, from whatever source they might have proceeded, and a greater number of Catholic priests, than of any other description of persons, suffered from popular resentment during these convulsions. The whole of the South of Ireland, at the commencement of the year 1780, presented a melancholy and alarming picture of public suffering and popular outrage. The spirit of insurrection, which had antecedently been confined to the obscurity of night, and the shelter of an assumed disguise, gaining confidence from numbers and impunity, encountered the face of day, and prosecuted the purposes of redress and violence in direct and declared defance of the civil power. The timely interposition of military force, and a tow deplorable, but unavoidable execu of the people, and the consternation of the clergy, procured their famous vote of agistment. On that occasion, the people were betrayed, and the clergy sacrificed; for wwhilst the latter were deprived of their property, the former were left exposed to the same unmitigated grievances, with all the aggravation, that must have been the consequence of throwing the whole weight of the church establishment upon tillage lands. What confidence, then,. I would ask, ought to be placed in the professions of men, who are so actively alive to their own interests, and have shewn such morbid sensibility to the hardships of the great body of their countrymen? Is it to be supposed, that they who put up their lands to public competi tion, and let them only to the highest bidder, will abstain from taking any advantage of the alleviation of the pressure of tythes, by a correspondent increase in their demands? If they had ever been known to decline an opportunity of swelling the amount of their rent-rolls, however presented, they might, perhaps, be allowed to possess some claim to the public spirit and disinterestedness, which they affect. It might then be sately admitted, that the public, and particularly the poorer classes, would derive some substantial benefit from the abolition or conmutation of tythes. But the spirit of exaction, which pervades all classes of the community, is ever craving and never satisfied. Whatever may be taken from the amount of tythes will be added to the amount of rent; so that the wretched hind, who is taught to expect some alleviation of his burthens, must fird ail his hopes frustrated, all his prospects blasted, when at length it shall be discover ed, that the only effect of the change will be, to transfer to one hand, that oppression which had previously been dispensed by two. -It is not to any one class, or to any parti cular body, therefore, that the distresses and oppression of the people of Ireland are to be ascribed. They are all equally infected with the thirst of income; and, whether land proprietors, clergymen, land jobbery, far mers, proctors, middlemen, or even cottagers, they avail themselves of every occasion to promote their selfish objects, without any regard to the miseries of the victims to their rapacity. Mutual jealousies, no less than party feelings and religious prejudices, give rise to reciprocal accusations; but, whilst the multifarious authors of the public calamities, are occupied in alternate charges and denunciations, the unvaried source of op pression becomes inveterate and progressive. | În such a state of things even prosperity becomes a national scourge: for, whilst it adds to the number of the affluent, it multiplies the authors and instruments of popular oppression. Religious differences, political disqualifications, or civil disabilities, produce at present, little more than nominal distinctions. The broad line of separation is not to be traced amongst the population of Ireland, between sects or factions, between parties, principles or professions, between orders or classes, or any known and recognised divisions or subdivisions of well regulated communities; it is simple, obvious, and definite, palpably discernible throughout every part of the country; and, without ever losing itself in the obscurity, that veils the limits of minor distinctions, draws a clear and comprehensive line of demarcation between the two grand, thongh very disproportionate, divisions of the people of Ireland; those who have some property, and those who have none but their labour; in a word, the oppressors and the oppressed. The selfish principle, that induces the great land proprietor to extort the highest possible rent for his lands, passes with the possession to his tenant, and descends with accumulating force through all the intermediate tenures, until it falls with insufferable effects upon the lowest denomination of occupants, the labouring poor. This is the great source of all the grievances and discontents in Ireland, and this proceeds not from the influence of religious prejudices, or the exercise of politi cal ascendancy; it is the melancholy conse quence of that unhappy system of legislative exclusion, which annihilated all identity of feeling, and destroyed any community of interest, during the last century, in the Irish nation, Laws were made for the security of property, rather than for the protection of the people. The great body of the nation, therefore, which was cut off by impolitic statutes, from any inheritance in the land, sunk insensibly, though rapidly, in moral estimation, to the level of its political degradation. The possessions of the predominant party were of much more consideration, than the rights of the prostrate, or the interests of the many. A new and unnatural system of public sentiment and moral feeling was quickly adopted, worthy of, and accommodated to, this most monstrous scheme of civil society. The mass of the population, who were by law prohibited from acquiring any property, became a species of property to their supe riors, and were held in nearly the same degree of estimation, as the animals, that composed the stock upon their estates. Successive relieving statutes have let in all descriptions of subjects, of whatsoever religious persuasion, amongst the proprietors; but their moral or mental habits have not undergone any revolution, correspondent with the change that has taken place in the civil and political condition of the great body of the people of Ireland. The proprietors, the new or the old, the Catholic or the Protes tant, and the various denominations of middlemen, who hold under them, still act upon the principle, of making a property of the people, by extorting from them an enormous amount of revenue, for the small portion of land, which they cultivate for the support of their families. In my next I shall establish that point, and shew, that the labouring poor alone yield to their oppressors, whether proprietors or middlemen, a revenue exceeding, in amount, the public income of the state. It will be for the Imperial Parliament then to determine the real source of the grievan ces of Ireland, aud how far the statements of Irish proprietors are to be confided in relative to that subject. I shall only add, that, in what I have stated, I had no intention to convey any impression, as if tythes were not a great source of public grievance in Įrelaud; my principal object having been to shew, that, though represented as the most prominent, they were neither an exclusive, nor the most considerable cause of the distresses and discontents of that wretched country.---1 am, Sir, &c. -VINDEX.- -London, De cember 20, 1807. PERISH COMMERCE." SIR,-As Mr. Spence acknowledges the basis of his system to be the same with that of the French economists, I have presumed to trouble you with a few remarks on that subject, which, if either be or you confute, I shall admit that you have gained your point. The doctrine of the economists is this-that the manufacturer adds nothing to national wealth; because while he is employed in encreasing the value of raw materials or rude produce, he consunies, for his own subsistence, a quantity of grain equal to the value of the commodity which he produces. The erroneousness of this doctrine is however easily detected. arises from fixing, in an arbitrary manner, the value of manufactured produce, ali stating it to be only equal to the quantity Supplement to No. 4, Vol. XIII.-Price 104. L It the system of the economists, that while an agriculturist is employed in raising grain he consumes manufactures equal to its value. Nothing can indeed be more evident than that the agriculturist is as much maintained at the expence of the manufacturer as the latter is at that of the former; and that the price of grain resolves itself into the amount of the manufactures exchanged for it, as much as the price of manufactures into the amount of the food which is received for them. Of what use is it, therefore, in demonstrating a diference between the circumstances of manufacturers and agriculturists, to say that the manufacturer has transmuted articles of a perishable into those of a durable nature, or the agriculturist those of a durable into those of a perishable nature ? For each consumes what the other creates; each gains what the other loses; each exchanges that which is of no use for that which is of use to him; each gives no more of the work of his own hands for that of the other's than its value, the relative amount of which that competition which exists among agriculturists, as well as manufacturers, always renders exact.-But instead of saying that one species of labour is more productive than another, it would be more correct to say that one commodity is more easily produced than another; which however can only have the effect of proving it to be of less value. For if the labour required to produce any commodity be small according to its quantity, the price must be in the same degree low; if, on the contrary, great, the price must be proportionally high. An corn necessary for the subsistence of the manufacturer. To render this however more apparent, it will be necessary to explain the nature, and point out the original source, of value. Value is in every case, I believe, constituted by labour, or the difficulty of producing any commodity. I shall not stop here to explain how the liberal arts and a knowledge of those sciences which time and capital are necessary to acquire, obtain a preeminence, but merely remark that the labour of one man appears to be originally equal in value to that of another, and that he is entitled to demand for the work of his hands that quantity of the produce of another person's which it required an equal length of time to fabricate. In bartering my goods with another person's therefore, I do not state my commodity, but my labour, against his. It is perhaps true that the agriculturist is capable of producing a greater quantity of grain than the manufacturer can of any commodity; but as things become increased in quantity, or as a less degree of labour is required for their production, they become diminished in value, and therefore a small quantity of manu factures may be stated against a large quantity of grain or rude produce.-It is here to be remarked however, that as every manufacturer, as well as the agriculturist, produces a quantity of those articles which he is employed in fabricating equal to the supply of many individuals besides himself, he is entitled to rank this surplus of his labour with the surplus of the labour of other artificers, and to set off a certain portion of it, according to its quantity, against that por-équality must be observed in apportioning tion of the superfluous food raised by the agriculturist which he receives, and in the same manner to barter the remainder among the followers of other arts for the other necessaries which he may require. The value of manufactures is never so much lessened by competition as to resolve itself into the inere subsistence of the manufacturer, because he could never be satisfied with so inadequate a return for his labour, and would therefore betake himself to another profession; and even that ingenuity which tends to increase the facility of the fabrication of any commodity never reduces its price beyond a degree which does not leave the manufacturer the full value and due reward of his industry. By nothing, however, is it better proved that the productive capacity of agriculture does not surpass that of other arts than by this-that agriculture and manufactures may be made to change circumstances, in such a manner, that it may be demonstrated in an inverse ratio to the emoluments of different professions, in order to induce the application of the members of society equally towards them, and there can be no other rule for this distribu tion of reward than labour. All arts are equally useful which society can afford to cultivate; and all professions must be equally paid if they are equally necessary. Even the soldier, the judge, and the menial ser vant, who produce no tangible commodity, are entitled to rank their labour as equal to a portion of the superfluous produce of almost all the manufacturers within the socie ty to which they belong, as all derive benefit from it; and to be remunerated for the security and facility which they give to the production of articles of necessity and luxury, or the addition which their labour makes to the enjoyment of them, with a certain por tion of them for their own.consumption— The only difference which is to be discovered between the productive nature of agricul tural labour and that employed in other arts appears in this-that the farmer, besides deriving, from his profession, a revenue for himself, is enabled at the same time to pay a rent to the landlord; while the manufacturer can spare nothing from the revenue necessary to reward his own labour, and to replace the wages of the men and the expense of the tools which he employs. This difference between manufacturers and agri-culturists is however more nominal than real. The rent paid to the landlord is evidently a profit on stock for money or property invested in land, which does not exceed the ordinary return of expence and maintenance, and places him in no more advantageous circumstances than any other capitalist; and if a master manufacturer borrows money for carrying on his business and pays interest for it, or if it is recollected that he pays a price for the rude produce which he manufactures, he will be found to be exactly in the situation of a farmer paying a rent. But by those who contend for the superiority of agriculture, the comparison is generally nade between journeymen manufacturers and farmers. To be fair however, it should be between the master manufacturer and the farmer; for the capacity of a landlord is an addition to the profe-sion of the latter. A landlord and a tenant are to be considered as engaged in two distinct trades, in which two capitals are employed, and from each of which a profit is to be derived. But it is obvious, that the rent received by the landlord is paid by manufacturers, cr that they give articles to the tenant in exchange for grain equal to a revenue for himself and another to the landlord,-only because the two stocks employed, in justice, demand it. Stock is again to be considered but as an accumulation of labour, which, on account of its utility, necessarily demands a certain revenue. In every case, indeed, however much the intricate nature of the subject may perplex our judgment, profit always resolves itself into a reward for labour, and as the competition between the Imembers of society, in the different arts, reduces this reward to exact justice, it is impossible that the agriculturist, more than those who are engaged in other professions, can derive any extraordinary or unjust reward from his labour, or that it can therefore be in any higher degree productive to himself or the community thau that which is engaged in other professions.--With regard to the necessity of foreign commerce, I shall only quote the following words of - Dr. Adam Smith, from the chapter which he writes on the agricultural system. "The perfection of manufacturing industry," SIR, Various have been the plans proposed by theoretical writers for the improvement of mankind. Among the most specious of these may be reckoned, what has been usually termed a popular education. The connection between truth and virtue is thought to be so intimate, that by whatever means the former is accelerated, by precisely the same, and to the same extent, will the practice of the latter be promoted. Than this opinion, it is scarcely possible to conceive one, at greater variance with the whole tenor of human experience. Were it true, that in the same proportion as nations emerge from a state of barbarism, they were known to cultivate those graces which tend to adorn the human character, then indeed there would be some apparent propriety, in using every possible exertion towards a general diffusion of knowledge. But luxury has hitherto, in an infinite variety of forms, been the inseparable concomitant of refinement, just as much as avarico has been of commerce, or rapacity of power. From the history of what country may the moral influence of knowledge, even when it has truth for its object, be deduced, is therefore neither an invidious, not an useless inquiry? For, is it not a lamentable fact, that the mind of man may be highly improved, while he remains a stranger to every emotion almost, which ought to agitate his breast.-The plan of education proposed by Mr. Whitbread, I am willing to believe, originated in an ardent desire of promoting the welfare of a large class of his fellow creatures. But, that there was any rational probability of its accomplishing the end in view, may be very fairly questioned. Its being so nearly related to the far-famed discoveries of those high-toned philosophers, who are ever crying up the omnipotence of truth, afforded a strong presumption against it, in the judgment of sober minds. The bare possibility of living to see a motley company of ploughmen, thread-spinners, and tobaccotwisters, disputing with their great-grandmothers, concerning the eternal fitness of things, seems enough to support the drooping spirits of these venerable sages. Accustomed, however, to rely with confidence |
