commerce has dazzling prizes, which obscure the ruin of the less happy adventurers, at whose expense they are won; while the steady intercourse of peace, more wholesome but less exciting, discourages ardent minds by its equable distribution of moderate profits. The very favourable conclusion at which the Committee arrived induced us to extend the inquiry over the former years of the peace. The result is shown by the following table, in the formation of which we have selected twelve articles,-six of daily enjoyment, tea, coffee, sugar, wine, foreign spirits, and tobacco; and five of household necessity, soap, starch, candles of wax and tallow, and bricks. To these silk has been added. Beer we have not inserted, because its late increase has outgrown, we understand, the progress in the consumption of malt. Leather is also excluded by an imperfection in the returns. The quantities given below are those of domestic consumption. An useless multiplication of figures has been avoided, by adopting one million as the unit, so that the decimal places are hundreds of thousands, &c.: : Candles. 696 2.2 20.2 1819 80 1820 82 .85 1821 87 .88 79 Tall. Wax. Soap. Starch. Bricks. Sugar. Tea. Brandy. Rum Coffee. Tobac. Wine. lbs. lbs. lbs. lbs. thou. cwt. lbs. gal. gals. ibs. lbs. 1816 81 .85 70 2.8 1817 78 .88 64 2.4 1818 77 .86 68 3.4 69 4.2 74 4.3 4.4 Silk. 1822 89 .86 81 5.0 1823 102 .87 97 5.7 1.265 1824 109 .93 100 5.5 1.493 gals. raw. thr. 7.5 12.8 4.4 360 230 697 2.9 29.8 8.6 13.5 5.6 398 .394 812 1.4 22.6 .77 3.13 7.9 13.6 6.1 .708 345 1.065 2.4 22.6 1.06 3.01 7.4 12.9 4.9 .621 .345 979 2.5 22.4 1.13 2.96 6.9 13.0 5.0 .953 .393 964 2.6 22.8 1.20 2.76 7.3 12.9 5.0 935 466 977 2.6 23.9 1.30 2.67 7.4 12.9 4.9 .943 591 2.8 23.7 1.39 2.79 8.2 13.4 1.067 .431 2.9 23.7 1.57 3.05 5.4 1.473 401 1.991 2.6 24.8 1.68 2.50 1826 110 .90 96 1.381 3.2 25.2 1.84 5.13 12.7 13.7 1827 115 .94 104 7.3 1.123 3.0 26.0 1.63 3.91 14.9 14.7 7.2 1.524 555 1828 3.2 20.7 1.64 3.90- 16.5 14.5 7.5 2-131 .613 We here see that the people of this country have, in the last year, consumed one-half more of candles, soap, starch, bricks, sugar, brandy, and one-third more of tea, than they did only twelve years ago, a date which seems to most of us recent. Yet on none of these articles has there been any considerable reduction of duty. The consumption of the remaining commodities, the imposts on which have been abated, has increased in various proportions. Within the last six years coffee has doubled, rum and wine have grown by one-half, tobacco at a slower rate. Of raw silk, six times as much, and of thrown silk there has been introduced three times as much as at the close of the war. In tracing on the table the steps of this general progress, we find that the year 1825 shows, in every column, sudden advance, which is not surprising, for that was the year of excess, but we also find that this springtide of consumption has had no countervailing ebb; a higher level was reached in that year, aud has been maintained even under our our present discouragement. The sudden but lasting advance extends to almost every official return of the period. But if national consumption have increased thus mightily since the close of the war, we must not forget in how much larger proportion that contest increased the charge of our debt, or how moderate have been our subsequent payments. That charge stood in the first year of the war at nine and a half millions, in the first of the peace at thirty-two and a half, and amounted even in 1828 to twenty-nine millions, or threefold of the former annual burthen. Now, if such be the increase of debt during war, and all attempts at reduction prove in peace, as they ever have, ineffectual, bankruptcy cannot in the end be avoided, unless the public means grow also with equal rapidity. Have then our national resources kept pace, since 1793, with the triple advance of our debt? The question, in itself difficult, is yet more perplexed, by the changes which, in the meantime, temporarily affected our measure of value the currency. We have seen how wonderfully consumption has increased since the war, and we might be tempted to infer a corresponding improvement in our resources. But though the benefit be certain which the public derives from the augmented quantity of articles purchased, the increase of value expended, with which we now have to do, is less sure. The price of most commodities has been lowered greatly. Still, that this country has been, within the last thirty years, greatly enriched, cannot be doubted. It so happens, indeed, that the records of the revenue supply us for a part of this period, in the tax on the transfer of property by will, with no inaccurate measure. For though land be exempted therefrom, and some other property also escapes by previous settlement, an equal proportion of the country's existing wealth, whatever that be, does probably, in each year, pay this gloomy tribute. Nec præter invisam cupressum ulla brevem dominum sequeter. This proportion, we should moreover remark, is not drawn from expended income, the uncertain resource of the current season, but from capital, from the accumulated savings of all foregoing years. The fault, then, of the tax is the merit of the measure. • Produce of Legacy and Probate Duty. England. Scotland. Ireland. England. Scotland. Ireland. 81,380 56,030 943,030 34,765 1820 1,555,739 1,652,847 104,425 45,974 1811 864,025 25,823 1822 1,697,138 96,402 43,653 1,712,924 88,916 45,708 1,793,310 108,088 54,665 1814. 1,823,238 108,179 64,810 1,631,668 106,692 59,156 1,748,177 103,665 67,916 1,938,994 108,894 69,217 1,537,854 57,439 57,305 We We here have it in evidence, that the amount of property annually devolved by will has been, during the last twenty years, doubled in England, and in Scotland trebled; nor need we doubt that personal property has increased at those rates in each country. But we must not hasten to infer a tantamount growth of national wealth for the progress of debt has, in the meantime, added largely to devisable possessions, not by the production of wealth, but by the creation of consols; which latter process resolves itself into a mere transfer of ownership. Again, the price of these public securities has risen much during the peace, yet neither here is any accession to the capital stock of the country. Nor can the value of land have advanced in this proportion. Husbandry, indeed, has made great progress, and vast sums have been expended, as well in the inclosure of wild ground as in the improvement of the older soils, yet we cannot perhaps allow rents to have been augmented more than thirty per cent. However, if we throw in the former fifteen years of the war we shall perhaps be entitled to assume, that since the year 1793 the wealth of this country has increased by one-half. Even since the peace of Amiens our population has probably grown at that rate, for between the first and the third census of Great Britain, in 1801 and 1821, it rose from 10,942,000 to 14,391,000, and can now, therefore, scarcely be less than sixteen millions. Fifty per cent. have been also added to our debt since that illusory calm; and to this point, if our previous conclusions be just, will the country have fetched up its leeway. This were so far well; but much, by such an estimate, would remain to be done. The advance, however, of national wealth may bear up against increase of taxation in two different modes. Either there may be added to each order of the community new members possessing the average income of their respective class, or its stores may grow in the hands of the old population. The two principles will work for the most part together, but the former seems inherent in new countries, the latter, the peculiar resource of ancient states. Now our own nation has, within the last forty years, increased its capital, and also improved its agriculture and manufactures more than was ever known in any people under the sun. Within the same time our annual taxation has also increased by about thirty-five millions sterling. Has the growth of our surplus income, aided by the contributions of our very large new population, enabled us to bear this great addition of weight? We believe that it has. We have ourselves no doubt that our means have kept pace with the increased load which our late struggles imposed. The *The mode of registration has been changed since the latter year. present present then is safe, as the past has been glorious. But our actual repose must have an end, and with war there must probably come upon us a new weight of incumbrances. Will our resources still cope with our burthens, as the arm of the smith grows over the anvil? We are not among those who believe that our population or our means of support have yet reached their summit. Our national agriculture has already attained great excellence; but we have still much to learn from the Tuscans, the Lombards, the Flemings, as to the treatment of the land actually under cultivation; and we have millions of acres that have never yet been cultivated at all. The ground, rich or poor, always lends itself to increased pains, and man has in some degree over the soil a power of creation. Much of Flanders, the garden of northern Europe, was thus gained by the churchmen of old from the sandy wilderness; and Great Britain alone, we doubt not, has yet nurture for fresh millions of sons.* To Ireland, moreover, we ought with confidence to look for a large accession of strength. Her contributions to the common exchequer fall at present far indeed short of her relative population and size; for England is said to contain thirty-two millions of fertile acres, Scotland but five, and Ireland no less than eighteen. The last census gives to the three countries a proportion of population nearly the same-twelve millions. to England, two to Scotland, and nearly seven to Ireland. These two sets of numbers keep almost the parallel proportion of six, one, and three and a half. Now we will not bring forward the forty-four millions of English revenue, because the common metropolis is an unfair weight in our scale. But if Scotland, poor by nature, puts four millions yearly into the general purse, we do think that we may fairly demand twelve at least from the triple population of Ireland. But how stands the fact? Ireland does not vield more than Scotland to our national store; yet that island has natural advantages greater than our own. England is only fertile by the engrafted tilth of the husbandman. In Ireland, the successive crops of grain which follow a hasty ploughshare are choked by the weed of the sluggard. Does she wish to part with her superfluous produce? her rivers are more than ours, her havens more hospitable, and nearer to the new centre of commerce. An English or a Scotch population would have made Ireland another Flanders, Grenada, or Lombardy. Her lawyers tell her, that misgovernment has left her one of the poor and barbarous kingdoms. We would say that religious dissension may palliate, but cannot exculpate, her backwardness. A weak mind eans for excuse upon circumstances-a strong one creates them. Her children are brave, we believe generous. If they now teach themselves the virtues of peace, steadiness, content, frugality, tem*For a full proof of this truth, see Mr. Sadler's admirable work upon Ireland. perance, perance, foresight, we may, as we do, look forward to their growing prosperity, as to a main element of our future imperial strength. Firmly, however, as we trust in this vegetative power of our wealth, we cannot forget that he who surveys a national edifice must not look to its endurance for his short life only, or for those of his children, but must estimate its power to endure the buffets of ages. The next war may but stimulate our industry by improving our markets, and by absorbing idle capital which the stock exchange will easily supply by twenty or thirty millions yearly; nor do we much doubt that this country will pass through another contest, and another, with credit untarnished, as we trust with honour acquired. But the last century brought to us on an average alternate decennial periods of strife and repose-and, as the wise man said, the things that were yesterday shall be to-morrow. Now it certainly is to be feared, that the burthens of endless wars will at length accumulate too rapidly for the retarded growth of our wealth. Few we imagine contemplate our debt without the foreboding of such a crisis, few without the associate dread of civil anarchy. For the arrival or the delay of that day we, for our parts, look much more to moral than to political or financial causes. It will come when it does come, because we are unwilling, not unable, to fulfil our engagements. Although we believe it distant, because we know the principles of our countrymen to be as yet sound, still the weight of present incumbrances leads the mind forward to a possible, though distant, catastrophe, and a century is, after all, but a short portion of a nation's existence. General history does indeed defy human foresight, but the problem of our future finances is less complicated; a very few combinations exhaust every possible solution. ART. IX.-1. The Anti-Pauper System. By the Rev. J. T. Becher, A.M. 8vo. London. 2. Home Colonies. By William Allen. London. London. 1828. 3. Sur l'Organisation des Colonies de Bienfaisance de FredericksOord et de Wortel. Par M. le Chevalier de Kirckhoff. 4. Rapport fait par une Commission spéciale à la Commission générale de Surveillance sur la situation physique et morale de la Colonie de Fredericks-Oord. 5. Plan pour l'Admission dans la Colonie de Fredericks-Oord de Familles indigentes ainsi que d'Enfans Pauvres et d'Orphelins agés de six ans au moins.. 1819. IN N our last Number we submitted to the consideration of our readers, the necessity of augmenting the comforts of the agricul tural labourer, by placing at his disposal the means of employing time and labour which, from the faulty arrangements now pre vailing |