We shall fairly confess that we have been much confounded by the dissimilarity of the two pictures; for they probably furnish the strongest instance on record of two historians flatly contradicting each other. The worst of the matter is, that we have in reality few authentic data which can enable us to decide between them. So long as Gregory King speaks to broad facts and prices, he is, we think, accurate enough; but whenever he gives way, as he does exceedingly often, to his speculative and calculating vein, we dare not trust him. For example, he has entered into an elaborate computation of the probable increase of the people of England in succeeding years, and, after a show of figures which might excite envy in the breast of the Editor of The Economist, he demonstrates that the population in the year 1900 cannot exceed 7,350,000 souls. With half a century to run, England has already more than doubled the prescribed number. Now, though King certainly does attempt to frame an estimate of the number of those who, in his time, did not indulge in butcher meat more than once a week, we cannot trust an assertion which was, in point of fact, neither more nor less than a wide guess; but we may, with perfect safety, accept his prices of provisions, which show that high living was clearly within the reach of the very poorest. Beef sold then at 11/3d., and mutton at 2-1/4d. per lb.; so that the taste of those viands must have been tolerably well known to the hundreds of thousands of families whom Mr Macaulay has condemned to the coarsest farinaceous diet.
It is unfortunate that we have no clear evidence as to the poor-rates, which can aid us in elucidating this matter. Mr Macaulay, speaking of that impost, says, "It was computed, in the reign of Charles II., at near seven hundred thousand pounds a-year, much more than the produce either of the excise or the customs, and little less than half the entire revenue of the crown. The poor-rate went on increasing rapidly, and appears to have risen in a short time to between eight and nine hundred thousand a-year – that is to say, to one-sixth of what it now is. The population was then less than one-third of what it now is." This view may be correct, but it is certainly not borne out by Mr Porter, who says that, "so recently as the reign of George II., the amount raised within the year for poor-rates and county-rates in England and Wales, was only £730,000. This was the average amount collected in the years 1748, 1749, 1750." To establish anything like a rapid increase, we must assume a much lower figure than that from which Mr Macaulay starts. A rise of £30,000 in some sixty years is no remarkable addition. Mr Doubleday, as we have seen, estimates the amount of the rate at only £300,000.
But even granting that the poor-rate was considered high in the days of James, it bore no proportion to the existing population such as that of the present impost. The population of England has trebled since then, and we have seen the poor-rates rise to the enormous sum of seven millions. Surely that is no token of the superior comfort of our people. We shall not do more than allude to another topic, which, however, might well bear amplification. It is beyond all doubt, that, before the Revolution, the agricultural labourer was the free master of his house and garden, and had, moreover, rights of pasturage and commonty, all which have long ago disappeared. The lesser freeholds, also, have been in a great measure absorbed. When a great national poet put the following lines into the mouth of one of his characters, —
"Even therefore grieve I for those yeomen,
England's peculiar and appropriate sons,
Known in no other land. Each boasts his hearth
And field as free, as the best lord his barony,
Owing subjection to no human vassalage,
Save to their king and law. Hence are they resolute,
Leading the van on every day of battle,
As men who know the blessings they defend;
Hence are they frank and generous in peace,
As men who have their portion in its plenty.
No other kingdom shows such worth and happiness
Veiled in such low estate – therefore I mourn them,"
we doubt not that he intended to refer to the virtual extirpation of a race, which has long ago been compelled to part with its birthright, in order to satisfy the demands of inexorable Mammon. Even whilst we are writing, a strong and unexpected corroboration of the correctness of our views has appeared in the public prints. Towards the commencement of the present month, November, a deputation from the agricultural labourers of Wiltshire waited upon the Hon. Sidney Herbert, to represent the misery of their present condition. Their wages, they said, were from six to seven shillings a-week, and they asked, with much reason, how, upon such a pittance, they could be expected to maintain their families. This is precisely the same amount of nominal wage which Mr Macaulay assigns to the labourer of the time of King James. But, in order to equalise the values, we must add a third more to the latter, which is at once decisive of the question. Perhaps Mr Macaulay, in a future edition, will condescend to explain how it is possible that the labourer of our times can be in a better condition than his ancestor, seeing that the price of wheat is nearly doubled, and that of butcher-meat fully quadrupled? We are content to take his own authorities, King and Davenant, as to prices; and the results are now before the reader.
These remarks we have felt ourselves compelled to make, because it is necessary that, before touching upon the institution of the national debt, we should clearly understand what was the true condition of the people. We believe it possible to condense the leading features within the compass of a single sentence. There were few colossal fortunes, because there was no stock gambling; there was little poverty, because taxation was extremely light, the means of labour within the reach of all, prices moderate, and provisions plentiful: there was less luxury, but more comfort, and that comfort was far more equally distributed than now. It is quite true, that if a man breaks his arm at the present day, he can have it better set; but rags and an empty belly are worse evils than indifferent surgical treatment.
We are very far from wishing to attribute this state of national comfort – for we think that is the fittest word – to the personal exertions of James. We give him no credit for it whatever. His bigotry was far greater than his prudence; and he forfeited his throne, and lost the allegiance of the gentlemen of England, in consequence of his insane attempt to thrust Popery upon the nation. But if we regard him simply as a financial monarch, we must admit that he taxed his subjects lightly, used the taxes which he drew judiciously for the public service and establishment, and imposed no burden upon posterity.
The peculiar, and, to them, fatal policy of the Stuart family was this, that they sought to reign as much as possible independent of the control of parliaments. Had they not been blinded by old traditions, they must have seen that, in attempting to do so, they were grasping at the shadow without the possibility of attaining the substance. They came to the English throne too late to command the public purse, and at a period of time when voluntary subsidies were visionary. They looked upon parliaments with an eye of extreme jealousy; and parliaments, in return, were exceedingly chary of voting them the necessary supplies. Corruption, as it afterwards crept into the senate, was never used by the Stuarts as a direct engine of power. The sales of dignities by the first James, detrimental as they proved to the dignity of the crown, were in substitution of direct taxation from the people. When supplies were withheld, or only granted with a niggardly hand, it was but natural in the monarch to attempt to recruit his exchequer by means of extraordinary and often most questionable expedients. The second James, had he chosen to bribe the Commons, might have been utterly too strong for any combination of the nobles. William III. was troubled with no scruples on the score of prerogative. He saw clearly the intimate and indissoluble connexion between power and money: he secured both by acquiescing in a violent change of the constitution as it had hitherto existed; held them during his life, and used them for the furtherance of his own designs; and left us as his legacy, the nucleus of a debt constructed on such a scheme that its influence must be felt to the remotest range of posterity.
That the exigencies of every state must be met by loans, is a proposition which it would be useless to question.