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economists, "such as M'Culloch, Ricardo, and others, as the natural rate of wages. This low and abject state of labor," he says, "is the original principle from which they have drawn most important conclusions as to the foundation of their system, it being admitted [by them] that profits go wholly to the owners of capital employing labor, and no part of the accumulation to the laborers themselves."

It may, therefore, be assumed as a fact, involving a fundamental element in the system of the Free-Trade economists, and pervading every part of it, that the masses of mankind are to be regarded as mere working machines for the benefit of the few, with no other cost than to be kept in the best working order. Such an element of public economy, lying at the foundation of a system, being as one to three of the capital parts, stops nowhere in its influence and control over the various subdivisions and ramifications of that sys

The only thing that remains the same, is, the position, the necessity, the hopeless doom of this working machine.

If it should be said that some measure of political freedom has been granted to the working classes in Great Britain, and in some other states of Europe, it amounts to very little upon examination, and is rather a mockery of their condition, than a ground of hope for future emancipation, under such a recognised system of public economy, as above described, in perpetual and full operation. The number of freemen entitled to the elective franchise among the laborers of Great Britain, is very small, even under their boasted reform bill; and their position, as electors, is not, to any considerable extent, independent. They are for the most part under the influence of their employers, in the use of this privilege, which renders it of little avail to them as a political right. But the entire disqualification of the great masses of the toiling millions of Great Britain, which is generally allowed to have more freedom than any other country in Europe, is an insuperable obstacle to their emancipation. Some of the smaller European states have, indeed, a semblance of freedom; but even that amounts to but little in the general reckoning, and the cases are so isolated and walled in by opposing barriers, as to amount to much less in their influence. No promise has ever yet dawned on that vast domain of the civilized world, that is likely to disturb the doctrine of the economists in that quarter, or to require a new classification of the human race in their system. The landlord and his rent, the capitalist and his profit, the laborer and his food, seem likely to continue for ages in

the same relations to each other, with the same apportionment of the goods of this life, "essentially different," the third having no political influence, and few of them any political rights what

ever.

The prevalent principle of land tenures in Europe, together with the principle on which land was originally distributed, in constituting the foundation of the present state of society there, seems to lie at the foundation of the Free-Trade system of public economy. Look at the three great parts of that system, “rent, profit, and wages."

The original and fundamental principle of land tenures in Great Britain, seems to be that they are held of the crown; that in looking backward, the crown is a ne plus ultra seignory, as a sovereign corporation of and by itself; that, except crown-lands reserved, the territory was distributed among and bestowed upon the nobles by the sovereign, under royal patents, or some appropriate instruments of conveyance; that most of the lands have so descended; and that the changes of modern times have not essentially disturbed this state of things. The principal land-owners of Great Britain, even now, do not exceed some thirty odd thousand, in a population of twenty-eight millions. In the monarchical countries of Europe, which comprehend most of its territories, the principle of land tenures is substantially the same as in Great Britain, however it may run into different forms of application. Hence a system of public economy growing out of such a state of things, and adapted to it, begins with this first principle, and is controlled by its influence throughout.

The following definition of "rent," by Adam Smith, is a very instructive comment on the bearings of British and other European land tenures:

"Rent, considered as the price paid for the use of land, is naturally the highest which the tenant can afford to pay, in the actual circumstances of the land. In adjusting the terms of the lease, the landlord endeavors to leave him no greater share of the produce than what is sufficient to keep up the stock [capital] from which he furnishes the seed, pays the labor, and purchases and maintains the cattle and other instruments of husbandry, together with the ordinary profits of farming stock [capital] in the neighborhood. This is evidently the smallest share with which the tenant can possibly content himself, without being a loser; and the landlord seldom means to leave him any more."

It will be seen, again, that this is a pretty close calculation, as it bears on the tenant, or the farmer as he is called in England, which does not mean exactly the same as in the United States. In every new lease, the English landlord is as much in the market with his land, to get the most he can for it, according to the principles laid down in the above definition of Adam Smith, as his tenant is with his produce; and he will take advantage of every new adventitious value. He may sometimes lose by this principle; but in a thriving country, he generally gains. When a landlord finds seaweed thrown up by the tides on the shore that borders his land, though furnished by Providence, and falling not within his patent, he nevertheless taxes his tenant for its value as a raw material for purposes of manure. The barren rocks of the Shetland Islands are taxed with rent for every fisherman's hut-not for the value of that which is above the tide, but according to the value of that which the hardy fishermen, in their perilous expeditions, draw up from the deep blue sea. They must live, and bring their produce on shore. But they must pay the landlord's rent, which is graduated by the excess of the productive wealth of the sea, above the fisherman's necessities! Large parts of the British metropolis are now standing on the estates of British noblemen, and yield a rent corresponding with their value at the time of the latest lease.

The annual income of the duke of Sutherland is £360,000, or $1,742,240; that of the duke of Northumberland, £300,000, or $1,452,000; that of the marquis of Westminster, £280,000, or $1,355,200; that of the duke of Buccleugh, £250,000, or $1,210,000. The English nobility alone, numbering about 400 peers, not including Irish and Scotch, receive an annual income of £5,400,000, or $26,026,000. The annual income of the English gentry, not reckoning Irish and Scotch, including baronets, knights, country and other gentlemen, is £53,000,000, or $256,250,000, or more than one sixth of the aggregate income of all classes of the British empire, England, Ireland, and Scotland, which is about £300,000,000, or $14,520,000,000. The civil list or annual appropriations for the royal household, fixed on William IV., was £510,000, or $2,468,400. This grant to William IV., was a reform; as it appears that the annual average of the civil list, from 1760, the accession of George III., to the demise of George IV., was £1,315,000, or $6,364,600. The annual income of persons employed under the British government is £6,830,000, or $34,673,200.

The above examples of income are sufficient to show how the wealth of Great Britain is chiefly absorbed by royalty, government, the nobility, and the higher classes. The fact that the common measure of private wealth in England, is a reference to the "rent roll," is sufficient evidence of the relative and comparative importance that has ever been attached to it, in that state of society.

When it is considered that this principle of rent pervades the entire system of British civil polity, under which the superior classes live on their incomes from land and other properties, while a second and intermediate class, with a capital of their own, superintend and husband these properties of whatever description, land or other, to make all they can out of them, after paying their rent, or its equivalent under some other name, it may easily be conceived how this superincumbent weight of society, with all the power in its hands, bears down on the substratum of the laboring classes. The first two classes leave nothing for the third, as has been seen, but that which is necessary to support existence, and continue the race of laborers. It is not considered that anything more is suitable— certainly not required. The laboring classes are not only considered as born to that portion, but they consider themselves as born to it. They do not aspire, they have not the moral courage to attempt to burst the chains that bind them. From generation to generation, for centuries, it has been so, and it is-no doubt with a moral certainty-regarded as a reliable element of public economy. Every British Free-Trade economist speaks of it as such, assumes the fact, incorporates it in his system in one uniform shape, and it does not seem to be regarded as susceptible of any essential modification. Not even a contingency is attached to it; but it is put down as a fixed and permanent fact, that the masses are born to serve the few, and to serve them as masters, in whose power they are, and from which they can never escape.

It has already been suggested, that this state of things is the result of an original, primary principle-"rent." Modern changes in society have indeed imparted to it some new modifications, as to the mode of its operation, and as to the hands in which the power is vested. In Great Britain especially, what are commonly called "the middle classes," have for a long time been creeping upward by the augmentation of wealth among those engaged in commerce, in the trades, and in manufactures. Wealth gives power and consequence; it becomes possessed of lands and fixed estates; it aspires to recognition in the higher circles of society; ultimately it

gains a standing, in the case of men of acknowledged worth and talents; it steps into the condition of gentlemen, which is a class; and at last some arrive at the highest honors of the state, and are perhaps installed among the peers of the realm. But as they rise in the world, they imbibe the spirit of every superior station to which they may have attained, and are more jealous of the prerogatives of class than those who are born to them. The substratum from which they have emerged gains nothing by their ascent, but rather loses. They do not lift others up, but seek to keep them down; and still the old principles of proprietorship, tenancy, and villanage, prevail. The working classes are doomed.

It is quite unnecessary to say, on American soil, and under the shadow of American institutions, that American society is directly opposed to this. With few exceptions, and those very limited in extent, the occupancy and use of the soil of the country are not under the tenure of rent; and the troubles that have risen in the state of New York, on account of it, are sufficient evidence of the innate opposition that exists to this system in the feelings of the people. And yet, as practised here, in the cases above alluded to, it is a very different thing from the tenure of rent as it is made to operate in Great Britain and in Europe. We are not aware, that the obnoxious principles recognised in Smith's definition of rent, above cited, have been attempted to be put in force, in this country, by landlords. On the contrary, the terms of rent remain the same as originally stipulated; whereas Adam Smith says, that "the rent of an estate [in Great Britain] commonly amounts to what is supposed to be a third of its gross produce." He, moreover, has occasion to represent very frequently, on this topic, that all the increased values of an estate, by time, culture, and any adventitious cause whatever, go to the landlord-are appropriated by him. Neither the tenant, nor the laborer, gets any benefit.

In the United States, the people hold land and other property, not of the seignory of a crown, but of themselves, as a voluntary corporation existing in the form of a commonwealth, and the individual rights of soil generally vest in the proper persons of individuals, without any superior. The aim, ambition, pride of the American people, tends toward proprietorship, be it of a larger or smaller domain; be it of a great or little amount of property; be it of a costly mansion or an humble cabin; be it a fisherman's boat, or a horse, or a cow, or a dog and rifle. In other words, it is the spirit of independence, which they cherish. This is the genius of the

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