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Leader (1850-1860), 29th January 1859, Edition 2 of 2, Page 26, 154 THE IEADEB. [No. 462, January 29 > 1...

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      154 The Ieadeb. [No. 462, January 29 > 1...

      154 THE IEADEB . [ No . 462 , January 29 > 1859 .

      Commercial.

      COMMERCIAL .

      Capital—Debt-—War. The Science Of Politi...

      CAPITAL—DEBT- —WAR . The science of political economy was brought into notice by trade * and political economical questions have ever since been regarded as closely connected mth it . The science is not , in fact , more exchir sively connected with it than "With any other of the businesses by which we all live . In consequenee of the supposed connexion , however , we discuss in this place a question of economical science and of economical history which now requires elucidation .

      Last week , in noticing in another part of our journal Mr , Capps ' s work on the National Debt , we pointed out that this was not a destruction , but only a transfer of property , and that apprehensions of national ruin from the debt , which have been often entertained and often deceived , were occasioned by misunderstanding the true nature of the debt . The recipients of the annuities charged on the national industry are some of ourselves , and the distribution of this portion of its produce amongst them . by the debt no more impoverishes

      the nation , as a whole , than the gift of tithes to the Church , or rent to the landowner . The evils of war need no exaggeration , and if the 369 ^ , 000 / . of debt incurred between 1801 and 1816 had been actually abstracted from the capital of the country over and above the heavy additional amount of taxation annually levied , as was stated last week by a contemporary , instead of an increase of population in that period of about twenty-one per Cent ., it must have beetn lessened from the loss of the means of employment and subsistence . ; Al ^ debt to

      though the war increased the Capital of the the amount mentioned , every sixpence of which went to remunerate the growers of timber of which warships were built , and of food by which they were provisioned ; the importers of hemp which supplied them with ropes and sails ; the iron-masters who procured metal for cannon and muskets- —in short , every sixpence of it which went to remunerate any of the parties who supplied the munitions of warfar from being abstracted from the capital of the country , replaced the capital of all these persons with a very considerable profit . On the whole ,

      much the larger part of the sum borrowed was so employed . What the war actually destroyed—the amount of capital which it really abstracted from the country—was the value of the industry it wasted in killing foreigners , and in destroying their property , and the profit which would have accrued from that industry if not directed to a work of destruction . We could not do enormous mischief without inflicting on ourselves much injury , but not equal to the abstraction from the country of 369 , 000 , 000 / . of capital , or 28 , 000 , 000 / . per . annum—nearly equal to

      the value of the wheat crop—for sixteen successive years . "Wax , from its frequency , / may be considered even now as a natural condition of the human species , and-it should be satisfactory rather than otherwise-sto find' it less destructive of human welfare than' is- commonly represented . The error ^ e-have pOintted out grows from the erroneous notibtt entertained of capital by political econoniists . They re - present it as saving arid as supplying the me ' s & s of employment for the people . At the same time , they admit that all capital , like all other wealth , is annually either used or consumed

      and is annually reproduced ., the repairs of implements and instruments ^ of iaUfciads being tantamount to a continual , reproduction , . W-ewho live inan age of marvels ' hare learned 1 that ? new inventionswhioh supersede" old tfapital ' - ^ as' railways have ; to a Considerable * extent ; superseded turnpike-roads —and d & jttoy the Value of saving , are - tho ittain sources df new e ' mWl ^ taOnts fbr the ficttple ttrid of thetoiro ' greSs of society . While the railways were in course of coristruotiow through a series of

      conferring it on- him , to other persons , such as the railway-makers , and it was in no other wise instrumental in the promotion of railways . Capital , therefore , is not the means of employing the people ; one species of industry employs and pays another > and consequently the evil of a national debt or the evil of war , limiting our view to its expense , is to be measured exclusively by the misdirection of industry . Many other employments misdirect it as much as war , ' . and iu proportion they are equally destructive .

      In pointing out Mr . Capps ' s error , we referred to -the condition of the people during the war between 1793 and 1 S 15 , and mentioned that it was much deteriorated . We find this view amply confirmed by the journal we have alluded to . The increase of population in England and Wales in the interval—partly of factory workers reared from pauper children sent from the metropolis and agricultural districts into the manufacturing towns , or partly of Irish and their descendants who flocked into England , was unquestionably attended , as all who

      p eace . The corn law was a misdirection of the industry of the nation , more mischievous even than war . Between 1 S 1 G and 1819 peace was continually made the scapegoat for the consequences of the laws of our landowning Legislature . For society this is a great lesson , and therefore we now refer to it . We are all anxious to procure a reform of Parliament—let us take care that we make it a fair representation of industry , or this may be again misdirected by a law causing far greater calamities to the people than dven pestilence or war .

      forbad the importation of food , and of course-it equally'forbad the exportation of manufactures to pay for it . It forbad , therefore , the employment of shipping , and it forbad the manufacture of cloth . The corn law , therefore ^ the plain and palpabl e cause of the sad condition of the country between 1815 and 1832 , which the Economist now refers to the exhaustion of War . The corn law was the cause of the people wanting employment , and of the poverty and of the crime which increased after the

      remember or have read of the period must be well aware , by a great deterioration of the condition of the multitude . Accordingly , the Economist states that in the . first fifteen years of the century the . total quantities of articles imported had not increased , though the population had : 21 per cent . ; that the consumption of tea had fallen off two ounces per head ; and the consumption of sugar three pounds per head , and that of these articles , SO per cent , is consumed by the middle and lower classes . These are very decisive proofs of the deterioration of the working people of this part of the empire , for the middle classes made srreat advances in the first fifteen years

      of the century . A statement , however , subsequently made by our contemporary , shows how much more mischievous can be other misdirections of industry even than the destructive employment of the soldier . It was not , he says , until about 1832 that the state of exhaustion in which the war left the country was overcome . At the end of sixteen years of peace , therefore , the country was in no better condition than at the close of war ; and those sixteen years , though the industry of the people never slackened , were not more conducive to the welfare of the people than sixteen years of of the shippinghe addsit not

      war . Speaking , , was till 1834 that it had recovered what it had lost between 1815 arid 1823 , In those eight years of peace , therefore , the shipping interest went to decay , and in that period Mi \ Wallace and Mr . Jluskisson undertook their reforms of the commercial and navigation laws chiefly in order to relieve the shipping interest . Their exertions , however , were or little avail , and no political regulation sufficed to promote trade and restore continuous prosperity to the country till the necessities of the case compelled our most unwilling legislators first to reduce the tariff and afterwards to abolish the com laws . The next turning point , however , was 1830 , when the distress and . discontent of the people , after fourteen years of peace , drove the Tories from office and enabled the Whigs to pass

      the Reform Bill . The measures of Sir B . Pfcal are referred to by our contemporary as having led , during the last fifteen years , to extraordinary prosperity , NW , one of those measures , tlio greatest ana best of them , was the abolition of the corn laws enacted m 1815 . It is well known that crimes augmented rapidly in' England and Wales between 18 Q 5 —•• the date of the first criminal retunis- < -and 1815 . Put it is-also equally well known that subsequent to 1815 , and especially betweon 1815 and 1810 , and down to

      so late a period as 1842 , crime continued to increase . In pea - ce , after 1815 , poverty arid crime made more rapid' advances than in war . Was this the consequence of peace , and of the prostration caused by the war ? Certainly not , How could peaco stop the moreaso of our shipping and the extension of our imports P What stopped ooth was the law passed in 1815 , which Sir JX , Peel supported ' qjp thirty-one years , and abolished in 1840 . At the forme * ponod England ; in spite of the ox * tension , of her agriculture , had T & eqome virtually dependent on , foreign countries for a largo portion of the food ox the people . The com > w

      years by engineers , navviesj and their helps , all the passes of > sooiety . not engaged in making railways were employed'in ijheiv usual ' avocations'otgro ^ ng corn ,, mafcisg oloth , r . building houses , & o , & o . 5 and clearly . thejPRilway-makors' wants wore-not supplied through all ! the period by-anything saved , but by the productive- labour * or' aU' these othe * qla & sos . ( jatoital > ir < o > oertlfleR ^ e op property ^ It is a bankrnote-, tv rtghfrto aatotfro" of tire nati < mal debt , a depotfv w a tfanfc ^ ttd ' ifraB nietoiy'the mean's of tran & eWtotf the portion of the' ahriual produce whioh belong to the oapittul ^ t by virtue' of Uo m

      Insurance Against War. The Rumours And A...

      INSURANCE AGAINST WAR . The rumours and apprehension of war have beea revived in the week \ Large preparations arc making , large contracts ' for provisions are entered into , and in'the face of these facts , pacific assurances lose their force . Consols , instead of going up above par , the price in January , 1 S 53 , when ; the Bank minimum rate of discount was , as now , at 2 £ per cent ., are depressed to 95 f , and all otber securities are proportionably low . . The railway traffic shows a large increase as compared to last year . " Manchester , " said , the chairman of the

      Chamber of Commerce , on Wednesday , " is as flourishing as ever I recollect it . " The other places and other interests arc nearly equally well off , and yet the apprehensions of war paralyse enterprise and depress the value of all kinds of securities . Suppose—a moderate estimate—the amount of property affected be only 2 , 000 , 000 , 000 / ., a depreciation of " 2 per cent . —and probably the rumours of war cause a much greater depression power—will produce a depreciation in the whole to the extent of 40 , 000 , 000 / . Over the revenues of every state in Europe the moneyed and mercantile classes hold a larfce mortprasre , and when they see

      the mortgagors inclined to ruin their property , have they not a right , are they not bound , to try and restrain them ? , At Lloyd's , extra premiums are exaoted and readily paid for war risks . People arc accustomed , therefore , to insure partially against the evils of war . Insurance against fire is general ; in grape-growing countries people insure agaiust the destruction of hail-storms , Practically , people insure alike against the visitations of Providence and against human negligence or malevolence , Why should they then not have on the same rule an insurance against war P Properly organised , it

      might prevent war and save all the premiums actually paid at Lloyd ' s and other places , and the still heavier premiums paid , without in the end obtaining security , in delayed enterprise , deteriorated property , and painful apprehensions . The groat political principle of modern tunes theoretically recognised by all writers , and practically acknowledged in every representative Government , and in every country where a roprcsonta'tjon is demanded , is the ascendancy or superiority of tno wholo people Nowhere now in civilised -Europe . is a system of government theoretically justilieu whidh has not nominally for its basis the wolfaro or all the people , Nowhere are the laws made oxolu * sivoly f 6 rtt » e bonoufc of the Church , the aristoorncy , fcho kine > the bureaucraov . or the army , but

      professedly for the whole people . In theory , then , w m fact*—for all moral power depends ultimately on physical power—the democracy is now the aoknowedged master of society . In fact , it is another namo for sooioty . Tlio classes now suffering from approiensions of war are oxtremely influential , i-im have it in their power , by their own exertion , to insure themselves against its ovils . They may oven insure themselves against it occurring , They have o » uy to unite in different countries , or rather to P » J ; ° word to one another , declaring against way loans and war taxes ( and it is useless for them to complain of the effects of these if they will not provow

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 29, 1859, page 26, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_29011859/page/26/