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frugally They now liv’d on their Salary: Page 17. Line
3.
WHEN People have small comings in, and are honest
withal, it is then that the Generality of them begin
to be frugal, and not before. Frugality in Ethicks
is call’d that Virtue from the Principle of which Men
abstain from Superfluities, and despising the operose
Contrivances of Art to procure either Ease or
Pleasure, content themselves with the natural
Simplicity of things, and are carefully temperate in
the Enjoyment of them without any Tincture of
Covetousness. Frugality thus limited, is perhaps
scarcer than many may imagine; but what is generally
understood by it is a Quality more often to be met
with, and consists in a Medium between
Profuseness and Avarice, rather leaning to the latter.
As this prudent Oeconomy, which some People call Saving,
is in private Families the most certain Method to
increase an Estate, so some imagine
that whether a Country be barren or fruitful, the same
Method, if generally pursued (which they think
practicable) will have the same Effect upon a whole
Nation,1 and that, for Example, the
English might be much richer than they are, if
they would be as frugal as some of their Neighbours.
This, I think, is an Error, which to prove I shall
first refer the Reader to what has been said upon this
head in Remark (L.) and then go on thus.
Experience teaches us first, that as People differ in
their Views and Perceptions of Things, so they vary in
their Inclinations; one Man is given to Covetousness,
another to Prodigality, and a third is only
Saving. Secondly, that Men are never, or at
least very seldom, reclaimed from their darling
Passions, either by Reason or Precept, and that if any
thing ever draws ’em from what they are naturally
propense to, it must be a Change in their
Circumstances or their Fortunes. If we reflect upon
these Observations, we shall find that to render the
generality of a Nation lavish, the Product of the
Country must be considerable in proportion to the
Inhabitants, and what they are profuse of cheap; that
on the contrary, to make a Nation generally frugal,
the Necessaries of Life must be scarce, and
consequently dear; and that therefore let the best
Politician do what he can, the Profuseness or
Frugality of a People in general, must always depend
upon, and will in spite of his Teeth, be ever
proportion’d to the Fruitfulness and Product of the
Country, the Number of Inhabitants, and the Taxes they
are to bear. If any body
would refute what I have said, let him only prove
from History, that there ever was in any Country a
National Frugality without a National Necessity.
Let us examine then what things are requisite to
aggrandize and enrich a Nation. The first desirable
Blessings for any Society of Men are a fertile
Soil and a happy Climate, a mild Government, and more
Land than People. These Things will render Man easy,
loving, honest and sincere. In this Condition they may
be as Virtuous as they can, without the least Injury
to the Publick, and consequently as happy as they
please themselves. But they shall have no Arts or
Sciences, or be quiet longer than their Neighbours
will let them; they must be poor, ignorant, and almost
wholly destitute of what we call the Comforts of Life,
and all the Cardinal Virtues together won’t so much as
procure a tolerable Coat or a Porridge-Pot among them: For in this
State of slothful Ease and stupid Innocence, as you
need not fear great Vices, so you must not expect any
considerable Virtues. Man never exerts himself but
when he is rous’d by his Desires: While they lie
dormant, and there is nothing to raise them, his
Excellence and Abilities will be for ever
undiscover’d, and the lumpish Machine, without the
Influence of his Passions, may be justly compar’d to a
huge Wind-mill without a breath of Air.
Would you render a Society of Men strong and
powerful, you must touch their Passions. Divide the
Land, tho’ there be never so much to spare, and their
Possessions will make them Covetous: Rouse them, tho’
but in Jest, from their Idleness with Praises, and
Pride will set them to work in earnest: Teach them
Trades and Handicrafts, and you’ll bring Envy and
Emulation among them: To increase their Numbers, set
up a Variety of Manufactures, and leave no Ground
uncultivated; Let Property be inviolably secured, and
Privileges equal to all Men; Suffer no body to act but
what is lawful, and every body to think what he
pleases; for a Country where every body may be
maintained that will be employ’d, and the other Maxims
are observ’d, must always be throng’d and can never
want People, as long as there is any in the World.
Would you have them bold and Warlike, turn to Military
Discipline, make good use of their Fear, and flatter
their Vanity with Art and Assiduity: But would you
moreover render them an opulent, knowing and polite
Nation, teach ’em Commerce with Foreign Countries, and
if possible get into the Sea, which to compass spare
no Labour nor Industry, and let no Difficulty deter
you from it: Then promote Navigation, cherish the
Merchant, and encourage Trade in every Branch of it;
this will bring Riches, and where they are, Arts and
Sciences will soon follow, and by the Help of what I
have named and good Management, it is that Politicians
can make a People potent, renown’d and flourishing.
But would you have a frugal and honest Society, the
best Policy is to preserve Men in their Native
Simplicity, strive not to increase their Numbers; let
them never be acquainted with Strangers or
Superfluities, but remove and keep from them every
thing that might raise their Desires, or improve their
Understanding.
Great Wealth and Foreign Treasure will ever scorn to
come among Men, unless you’ll admit their inseparable
Companions, Avarice and Luxury: Where Trade is
considerable Fraud will intrude. To be at once
well-bred and sincere, is no less than a
Contradiction; and therefore while Man advances in
Knowledge, and his Manners are polish’d, we must
expect to see at the same time his Desires enlarg’d,
his Appetites refin’d, and his Vices increas’d.
The Dutch may ascribe their present
Grandeur to the Virtue and Frugality of their
Ancestors as they please; but what made that
contemptible Spot of Ground so considerable among the
principal Powers of Europe, has been their
Political Wisdom in postponing every thing to
Merchandize and Navigation, the unlimited Liberty of
Conscience that is enjoy’d among them, and the
unwearied Application with which they have always made
use of the most effectual means to encourage and
increase Trade in general.
They never were noted for Frugality before Philip
II. of Spain began to rage over them with
that unheard-of Tyranny. Their Laws were trampled
upon, their Rights and large Immunities taken from
them, and their Constitution torn to pieces. Several
of their Chief Nobles were condemn’d and executed
without legal Form of Process. Complaints and
Remonstrances were punish’d as severely as Resistance,
and those that escaped being massacred, were plundered
by ravenous Soldiers. As this was intolerable to a
People that had always been used to the mildest of
Governments, and enjoy’d greater Privileges than any
of the Neighbouring Nations, so they chose rather to
die in Arms than perish by cruel Executioners. If we
consider the Strength Spain had then, and the
low Circumstances those Distress’d States were in,
there never was heard of a more unequal Strife; yet
such was their Fortitude and Resolution, that only
seven of those Provinces uniting
themselves together, maintain’d against the greatest,
and best-disciplin’d Nation in Europe, the
most tedious and bloody War, that is to be met with in
ancient or modern History.
Rather than to become a Victim to theSpanish
Fury, they were
contented to live upon a third Part of their Revenues,
and lay out far the greatest Part of their Income in
defending themselves against their merciless Enemies.
These Hardships and Calamities of a War within their
Bowels, first put them upon that extraordinary
Frugality, and the Continuance under the same
Difficulties for above Fourscore Years, could not but
render it Customary and Habitual to them. But all
their Arts of Saving, and Penurious way of Living,
could never have enabled them to make head against so
Potent an Enemy, if their Industry in promoting their
Fishery and Navigation in general, had not help’d to
supply the Natural Wants and Disadvantages they
labour’d under.
The Country is so small and so populous, that there
is not Land enough, (though hardly an Inch of it is
unimprov’d) to feed the Tenth Part of the Inhabitants.
Holland it self is full of large Rivers, and
lies lower than the Sea, which would run over it every
Tide, and wash it away in one Winter, if it was not
kept out by vast Banks and huge Walls: The Repairs of
those, as well as their Sluices, Keys, Mills, and
other Necessaries they are forc’d to make use of to
keep themselves from being drown’d, are a greater
Expence to them one Year with another, than could be
rais’d by a general Land Tax of Four Shillings in the
Pound, if to be deducted from the neat Produce of the
Landlord’s Revenue.
Is it a Wonder that
People under such Circumstances, and loaden with
greater Taxes besides than any other Nation, should be
obliged to be saving? But why must they be a Pattern
to others, who besides that they are more happily
situated, are much richer within themselves, and have,
to the same Number of People, above ten times the
Extent of Ground? The Dutch and we often buy
and sell at the same Markets, and so far our Views may
be said to be the same: Otherwise the Interests and
Political Reasons of the two
Nations as to the private Oeconomy of either, are very
different. It is their Interest to be frugal and spend
little: Because they must have every thing from
abroad, except Butter, Cheese and Fish, and therefore
of them, especially the latter, they consume three
times the Quantity, which the same Number of People do
here. It is our Interest to eat plenty of Beef and
Mutton to maintain the Farmer, and further improve our Land, of
which we have enough to feed our selves, and as many
more, if it was better cultivated. The Dutch
perhaps have more Shipping, and more ready Money than
we, but then those are only to
be considered as the Tools they work with. So a
Carrier may have more Horses than a Man of ten times
his Worth, and a Banker that has not above fifteen or
sixteen Hundred Pounds in the World, may have
generally more ready Cash by him than a Gentleman of
two Thousand a Year. He that keeps three or four
Stage-Coaches to get his Bread, is to a Gentleman that
keeps a Coach for his Pleasure, what the Dutch
are in comparison to us; having nothing of their own
but Fish, they are Carriers and Freighters to the rest
of the World, while the Basis of our Trade chiefly
depends upon our own Product.
Another Instance, that what makes the Bulk of the
People saving, are heavy Taxes, scarcity of Land, and
such Things that occasion a Dearth of Provisions, may
be given from what is observable among the Dutch
themselves. In the Province of Holland there
is a vast Trade, and an unconceivable Treasure of
Money. The Land is almost as rich as Dung it self, and
(as I have said once already) not an Inch of it
unimprov’d. In Gelderland and Overyssel
there’s hardly any Trade, and very little Money: The
Soil is very indifferent, and abundance of Ground lies
waste. Then what is the Reason that the same Dutch
in the two latter Provinces, tho’ Poorer than the
first, are yet less stingy and more hospitable?
Nothing but that their Taxes in most Things are less
Extravagant, and in proportion to the Number of
People, they have a great
deal more ground. What they save in Holland,
they save out of their Bellies; ’tis Eatables,
Drinkables and Fewel that their heaviest Taxes are
upon, but they wear better Clothes, and have richer
Furniture, than you’ll find in the other Provinces.
Those that are frugal by Principle, are so in every
Thing, but in Holland the People are only
sparing in such Things as are daily wanted, and soon
consumed; in what is lasting they are quite otherwise:
In Pictures and Marble they are profuse; in their
Buildings and Gardens they are extravagant to Folly.
In other Countries you may meet with stately Courts
and Palaces of great Extent that belong to Princes,
which no body can expect in a Commonwealth, where so
much Equality is observ’d as there is in this; but in
all Europe you shall find no private Buildings
so sumptuously Magnificent, as a great many of the
Merchants and other Gentlemen’s Houses are in Amsterdam,
and some other great Cities of that small Province;
and the generality of those that build there, lay out
a greater proportion of their
Estates on the Houses they dwell in than any People
upon the Earth.
The Nation I speak of was never in greater Straits,
nor their Affairs in a more dismal Posture since they were a
Republick, than in the Year 1671, and the beginning of
1672. What we know
of their Oeconomy and Constitution with any Certainty
has been chiefly owing to Sir William Temple,
whose Observations upon their Manners and Government,
it is evident
from several Passages in his Memoirs, were made about
that time. The Dutch
indeed were then very frugal; but since those Days and
that their Calamities have not been so pressing, (tho’
the common People, on whom the principal Burthen of
all Excises and Impositions lies, are perhaps
much as they were) a great Alteration has been made
among the better sort of People in their Equipages,
Entertainments, and whole manner of living.
Those who would have it that the Frugality of that
Nation flows not so much from Necessity, as a general
Aversion to Vice and Luxury, will put us in mind of
their publick Administration and Smalness of Salaries,
their Prudence in bargaining for and buying Stores and
other Necessaries, the great Care they take not to be
imposed upon by those that serve them, and their
Severity against them that break their Contracts. But
what they would ascribe to the Virtue and Honesty of
Ministers, is wholly due to their strict Regulations,
concerning the management of the publick Treasure,
from which their admirable Form of Government will not
suffer them to depart; and indeed one good Man may
take another’s Word, if they so agree, but a whole
Nation ought never to trust to any Honesty, but what
is built upon Necessity; for unhappy is the People,
and their Constitution will be ever precarious, whose
Welfare must depend upon the Virtues and Consciences
of Ministers and Politicians.
The Dutch generally endeavour to promote as
much Frugality among their Subjects as ’tis possible,
not because it is a Virtue, but because it is,
generally speaking, their Interest, as I have shew’d
before; for as this latter changes, so they alter
their Maxims, as will be plain in the following
Instance.
As soon as their East-India Ships come home,
the Company pays off the Men, and many of them receive
the greatest Part of what they have been earning in
seven or eight, and some fifteen or sixteen Years
time. These poor Fellows are encourag’d to spend their
Money with all Profuseness imaginable; and considering
that most of them, when they set out at first, were
Reprobates, that under the Tuition of a strict
Discipline, and a miserable Diet, have been so long
kept at hard Labour without Money, in the midst of
Danger, it cannot be difficult to make them lavish as
soon as they have Plenty.
They squander away in Wine, Women and Musick, as much
as People of their Taste and Education are well
capable of, and are suffer’d (so they but abstain from
doing of Mischief) to revel and riot with greater
Licentiousness than is customary to be allow’d to
others. You may in some Cities see them accompanied
with three or four lewd Women, few of them sober, run
roaring through the Streets by broad Day-light with a
Fidler before them: And if the Money, to their
thinking, goes not fast enough these ways, they’ll
find out others, and sometimes fling it among the Mob
by handfuls. This Madness continues in most of them
while they have any thing left, which never lasts
long, and for this Reason, by a Nick-name, they are
called, Lords of six Weeks, that being
generally the time by which the Company has other
Ships ready to depart; where these infatuated Wretches
(their Money being gone) are forc’d to enter
themselves again, and may have leisure to repent their
Folly.
In this Stratagem there is a double Policy: First, if
these Sailors that have been inured to the hot
Climates and unwholesome Air and Diet, should be
frugal, and stay in their own Country, the Company
would be continually oblig’d to employ fresh Men, of
which (besides that they are not so fit for their
Business) hardly one in two ever lives in some Places
of the East-Indies, which would often prove a
great Charge as well as Disappointment to them. The
second is, that the large Sums so often distributed
among those Sailors, are by this means made
immediately to circulate throughout the Country, from
whence, by heavy Excises and other
Impositions, the greatest Part of it is soon drawn
back into the publick Treasure.
To convince the Champions for National Frugality by
another Argument, that what they urge is
impracticable, we’ll suppose that I am mistaken in
every thing which in Remark (L.) I have
said in behalf of Luxury, and the necessity of it to
maintain Trade: after that let us examine what a
general Frugality, if it was by Art and Management to
be forc’d upon People whether they have Occasion for
it or not, would produce in such a Nation as
ours. We’ll grant then that all the People in Great
Britain shall consume but four Fifths of what
they do now, and so lay by one Fifth
part of their Income: I shall not speak of what
Influence this would have upon almost every Trade, as
well as the Farmer, the Grazier and the Landlord, but
favourably suppose (what is yet impossible) that the same Work
shall be done, and consequently the same Handicrafts
be employ’d as there are now. The Consequence would
be, that unless Money should all at once fall
prodigiously in Value, and every thing else, contrary
to Reason, grow very dear, at the five Years end all
the working People, and the poorest of Labourers, (for
I won’t meddle with any of the rest) would be worth in
ready Cash as much as they now spend in a whole Year;
which, by the by, would be more Money than ever the
Nation had at once.
Let us now, overjoy’d with this increase of Wealth,
take a View of the Condition the working People would
be in, and reasoning from Experience, and what we
daily observe of them, judge what their Behaviour
would be in such a Case. Every Body knows that there
is a vast number of Journey-men Weavers, Tailors,
Clothworkers, and twenty other Handicrafts; who, if by
four Days Labour in a Week they can maintain
themselves, will hardly be persuaded to work the
fifth; and that there are Thousands of labouring Men
of all sorts, who will, tho’ they can hardly subsist,
put themselves to fifty Inconveniences, disoblige
their Masters, pinch their Bellies, and run in Debt,
to make Holidays. When Men shew such an extraordinary
proclivity to Idleness and Pleasure, what reason have
we to think that they would ever work, unless they
were oblig’d to it by immediate Necessity? When we see
an Artificer that cannot be drove to his Work before
Tuesday, because the Monday Morning he
has two Shillings left of his last Week’s Pay; why
should we imagine he would go to it at all, if he had
fifteen or twenty Pounds in his Pocket?
What would, at this rate, become of our Manufactures?
If the Merchant would send Cloth Abroad, he must make
it himself, for the Clothier cannot get one Man out of
twelve that used to work for him. If what I speak of
was only to befal the Journeymen Shoemakers, and no
body else, in less than a Twelve-month half of us
would go barefoot. The chief and most pressing use
there is for Money in a Nation, is to pay the Labour
of the Poor, and when there is a real Scarcity of it,
those who have a great many Workmen to pay, will
always feel it first; yet notwithstanding this great
Necessity of Coin, it wou!d be easier, where Property
was well secured, to live without Money than without
Poor; for who would do the Work? For this Reason the
quantity of circulating Coin in a Country ought always
to be proportion’d to the number of Hands that are
employ’d; and the Wages of Labourers to the Price of
Provisions. From whence
it is demonstrable, that whatever procures
Plenty makes Labourers cheap, where
the Poor are well managed; who as they ought to be
kept from starving, so they should receive nothing
worth saving. If here and there one of the lowest
Class by uncommon Industry, and pinching his Belly,
lifts himself above the Condition he was brought up
in, no body ought to hinder him; Nay it is undeniably
the wisest course for every Person in the Society, and
for every private Family to be frugal; but it is the
Interest of all rich Nations, that the greatest part
of the Poor should almost never be idle, and yet
continually spend what they get.
All Men, as Sir William Temple observes very
well, are more
prone to Ease and Pleasure than they are to Labour,
when they are not prompted to it by Pride or
Avarice, and those that get their Living by their
daily Labour, are seldom powerfully influenc’d by
either: So that they have nothing to stir them up to
be serviceable but their Wants, which it is Prudence
to relieve, but Folly to cure. The only thing then
that can render the labouring Man
industrious, is a moderate quantity of Money; for as
too little will, according as his Temper is, either
dispirit or make him Desperate, so too much will make
him Insolent and Lazy.
A Man would be laugh’d at by most People, who should
maintain that too much Money could undo a Nation. Yet
this has been the Fate of Spain; to this the
learned Don Diego Savedra ascribes the Ruin of
his Country. The Fruits of
the Earth in former Ages had made Spain so rich, that
King Lewis XI. of France being come to
the Court of Toledo, was
astonish’d at its Splendour, and said, that he had
never seen any thing to be compar’d to it, either in Europe
or Asia; he that in his Travels to the Holy-Land
had run through every Province of them. In the Kingdom
of Castille alone, (if we may believe some
Writers) there were for the
Holy War from all Parts of the World got
together one hundred thousand Foot, ten thousand
Horse, and sixty thousand Carriages for Baggage, which
Alonso III. maintain’d at
his own Charge, and paid every Day as well Soldiers as
Officers and Princes, every one according to his Rank
and Dignity: Nay, down to the Reign of Ferdinand
and Isabella, (who equipp’d Columbus)
and some time after, Spain was a fertile
Country, where Trade and Manufactures flourished, and
had a knowing industrious People to boast of. But as
soon as that mighty Treasure, that was obtain’d with
more Hazard and Cruelty than the World ’till then had
known, and which to come at, by the Spaniard’s
own Confession, had cost the
Lives of twenty Millions of Indians; as soon,
I say, as that Ocean of Treasure came rolling in upon
them, it took away their Senses, and their Industry
forsook them. The Farmer left his Plough, the
Mechanick his Tools, the Merchant his Compting-house,
and every body scorning to work, took his Pleasure and
turn’d Gentleman. They thought they had reason to
value themselves above all their Neighbours, and now
nothing but the Conquest of the World would serve
them.
The Consequence of this has been, that other Nations
have supply’d what their own Sloth and Pride deny’d
them; and when every body saw, that notwithstanding
all the Prohibitions the Government could make against
the Exportation of Bullion, the Spaniard would
part with his Money, and bring it you aboard himself
at the hazard of his Neck, all the World endeavoured
to work for Spain. Gold and Silver being by
this Means yearly divided and shared among all the
trading Countries, have made all Things dear, and most
Nations of Europe industrious, except their
Owners, who ever since their mighty Acquisitions, sit
with their Arms across, and wait every Year with
impatience and anxiety, the arrival of their Revenues
from Abroad, to pay others for what they have spent
already: and thus by too much Money, the
making of Colonies and other Mismanagements, of which
it was the occasion, Spain is from a fruitful
and well-peopled Country, with all its mighty Titles
and Possessions, made a barren and empty Thoroughfare,
thro’ which Gold and Silver pass from America
to the rest of the World; and the Nation, from a rich,
acute, diligent and laborious, become a slow, idle,
proud and beggarly People; so much for Spain.
The next Country where Money may be called the Product
is Portugal, and the Figure which that Kingdom
with all its Gold makes in Europe, I think is
not much to be envied.
The great Art then to make a Nation happy and what we
call flourishing, consists in giving every Body an
Opportunity of being employ’d; which to compass, let a
Government’s first care be to promote as great a
variety of Manufactures, Arts, and Handicrafts, as
Human Wit can invent; and the second to encourage
Agriculture and Fishery in all their Branches, that
the whole Earth may be forc’d to exert it self as well
as Man; for as the one is an infallible Maxim to draw
vast Multitudes of People into a Nation, so the other
is the only Method to maintain them.
It is from this Policy, and not the trifling
Regulations of Lavishness and Frugality, (which will
ever take their own Course, according to the
Circumstances of the People) that the Greatness and
Felicity of Nations must be expected; for let the
Value of Gold and Silver either rise or fall, the
Enjoyment of all Societies will ever depend upon the
Fruits of the Earth, and the Labour of the People; both which
joined together are a more certain, a more
inexhaustible, and a more real Treasure, than the Gold
of Brazil, or the Silver of Potosi.