Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

houses, cities, &c. which are therefore only subsistence thus metamorphosed.

6. Manufactures are only another shape into which so much provisions and subsistence are turned, as were equal in value to the manufactures produced. This appears from hence, that the manufacturer does not, in fact, obtain from the employer, for his labor, more than a mere subsistence, including raiment, fuel, and shelter: all which derive their value from the provisions consumed in procuring them.

7. The produce of the earth, thus converted into manufactures, may be more easily carried to distant markets than before such conversion.

8. Fair commerce is, where equal values are exchanged for equal, the expence of transport included. Thus, if it costs A in England as much labor and charge to raise a bushel of wheat, as it cost B in France to produce four gallons of wine, then are four gallons of wine the fair exchange for a bushel of wheat, A and B meeting at half distance with their commodities to make the exchange. The advantage of this fair commerce is, that each party increases the number of his enjoyments, having, instead of wheat alone, or wine alone, the use of both wheat and wine.

9. Where the labor and expence of producing both commodities are known to both parties, bargains will generally be fair and equal. Where they are known to one party only, bargains will often be unequal, knowlege taking its advantage of ignorance.

10. Thus he, that carries one thousand bushels of wheat abroad to sell, may not probably obtain so great a profit thereon, as if he had first turned the wheat into manufactures, by subsisting therewith the workmen while producing those manufactures: since there are many expediting and facilitating methods of working, not generally known; and strangers to the manufactures, though they know pretty well the expence of raising wheat, are unacquainted with those short methods of working, and thence, being apt to suppose more labor employed in the manufactures than there

really is, are more easily imposed on in their value, and induced to allow more for them than they are honestly worth.

11. Thus the advantage of having manufactures in a country does not consist, as is commonly supposed, in their highly advancing the value of rough materials, of which they are formed; since, though six-pennyworth of flax may be worth twenty shillings when worked into lace, yet the very cause of its being worth twenty shillings, is, that, besides the flax, it has cost nineteen shillings and sixpence in subsistence to the manufacturer. But the advantage of manufactures is, that under their shape provisions may be more easily carried to a foreign market; and by their means our traders may more easily cheat strangers. Few, where it is not made, are judges of the value of lace. The importer may demand forty, and perhaps get thirty shillings for that, which cost him but twenty.

12. Finally, there seem to be but three ways for a nation to acquire wealth. The first is by war, as the Romans did, in plundering their conquered neighbors. This is robbery. -The second by commerce, which is generally cheating.The third by agriculture, the only honest way, wherein man receives a real increase of the seed thrown into the ground, in a kind of continual miracle wrought by the hand of God in his favor, as a reward for his innocent life, and his virtuous industry.

April 4, 1769.

B. FRANKLIN.

The following extracts of a letter signed Columella, and addressed to the editors of the British Repository for select Papers on Agriculture, Arts, and Manufactures (see Vol. I. p. 352) will serve the purpose of preparing those who read it, for entering upon the next paper.

"GENTLEMEN,

"THERE is now publishing in France a periodical work, called Ephemeridis du Citoyen, in which several points, interesting to those concerned in agriculture, are from time to time discussed by some able hands. In looking over one of the volumes of this work a few days ago, I found a little piece written by one of our countrymen, and which our vigilant neighbors had taken from the London Chronicle in 1766. The author is a gentleman well known to every man

On the Price of Corn, and Management of the Poor.

TO MESSIEURS THE PUBLIC.

I AM one of that class of people, that feeds you all, and at present is abused by you all ;-in short, I am a farmer. By your newspapers we are told, that God had sent a very short harvest to some other countries of Europe. I thought this might be in favor of Old England; and that now we should get a good price for our grain, which would bring millions among us, and make us flow in money: that to be sure is scarce enough.

But the wisdom of government forbade the exportation2. Well, says I, then we must be content with the market price at home.

No; say my lords the mob, you sha'nt have that. Bring your corn to market if you dare;we'll sell it for you, for less money, or take it for nothing.

Being thus attacked by both ends of the constitution, the head and tail of government, what am I to do?

Must I keep my corn in the barn, to feed and increase the breed of rats?-be it so; they cannot be less thankful than those I have been used to feed.

Are we farmers the only people to be grudged the profits of our honest labor?-And why? One of the late scriblers against us gives a bill of fare of the provisions at my daughter's wedding, and proclaims to all the world, that we had the insolence to eat beef and pudding!-Has he not

of letters in Europe, and perhaps there is none, in this age, to whom mankind in general are more indebted.

"That this piece may not be lost to our own country, I beg you will give it a place in your Repository: it was written in favor of the farmers, when they suffered so much abuse in our public papers, and were also plundered by the mob in many places."

The principles on which this piece is grounded are given more at large in the preceding articles.

2 It is not necessary to repeat in what degree Dr. Franklin respected the ministers, to whom he aliudes.-The embargo upon corn was but a single measure, which, it is enough to say, an host of politicians thought well advised, but ill defended.

read the precept in the good book, thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn; or does he think us less worthy of good living than our oxen?

O, but the manufacturers! the manufacturers! they are to be favored, and they must have bread at a cheap rate! Hark ye, Mr. Oaf :-The farmers live splendidly, you say. And pray, would you have them hoard the money they get? Their fine clothes and furniture, do they make them themselves, or for one another, and so keep the money among them? Or, do they employ these your darling manufacturers, and so scatter it again all over the nation?

The wool would produce me a better price, if it were suffered to go to foreign markets; but that, Messieurs the Public, your laws will not permit. It must be kept all at home, that our dear manufacturers may have it the cheapAnd then, having yourselves thus lessened our encouragement for raising sheep, you curse us for the scarcity of mutton!

cr.

I have heard my grandfather say, that the farmers submitted to the prohibition on the exportation of wool, being made to expect and believe, that when the manufacturer bought his wool cheaper, they should also have their cloth cheaper. But the deuce a bit. It has been growing dearer and dearer from that day to this. How so? Why, truly, the cloth is exported: and that keeps up the price.

Now if it be a good principle, that the exportation of a commodity is to be restrained, that so our people at home may have it the cheaper; stick to that principle, and go thorough stitch with it. Prohibit the exportation of your cloth, your leather, and shoes, your iron-ware, and your manufactures of all sorts, to make them all cheaper at home. And cheap enough they will be, I will warrant you-till people leave off making them.

Some folks seem to think they ought never to be easy till England becomes another Lubberland, where it is fancied the streets are paved with penny-rolls, the houses tiled with pancakes, and chickens, ready roasted, cry, come eat me.

I say, when you are sure you have got a good principle, stick to it, and carry it through.-I hear it is said, that though it was necessary and right for the ministry to advise a prohibition of the exportation of corn, yet it was contrary to law; and also, that though it was contrary to law for the mob to obstruct waggons, yet it was necessary and right. Just the same thing to a tittle. Now they tell me, an act of indemnity ought to pass in favor of the ministry, to secure them from the consequences of having acted illegally.—If so, pass another in favor of the mob. Others say, some of the mob ought to be hanged, by way of example......If so,— but I say no more than I have said before, when you are sure that you have a good principle, go through with it.

You say, poor laborers cannot afford to buy bread at a high price, unless they had higher wages.-Possibly.—But how shall we farmers be able to afford our laborers higher wages, if you will not allow us to get, when we might have it, a higher price for our corn?

By all that I can learn, we should at least have had a guinea a quarter more, if the exportation had been allowed. And this money England would have got from foreigners.

But, it seems, we farmers must take so much less, that the poor may have it so much cheaper.

This operates then as a tax for the maintenance of the poor. A very good thing, you will say. But I ask, why a partial tax? why laid on us farmers only? If it be a good thing, pray, messieurs the Public, take your share of it, by indemnifying us a little out of your public treasury. In doing a good thing, there is both honor and pleasure—you are welcome to your share of both.

For my own part, I am not so well satisfied of the goodness of this thing. I am for doing good to the poor, but I think the best way

I differ in opinion about the means. of doing good to the poor, is, not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. VOL. IV. E e

« AnteriorContinuar »