The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 01 (of 12) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 539 pages of information about The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 01 (of 12).

The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 01 (of 12) eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 539 pages of information about The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 01 (of 12).

“If our rival nations were in the same circumstances with ourselves, the augmentation of our taxes would produce no ill consequences:  if we were obliged to raise our prices, they must, from the same causes, do the like, and could take no advantage by underselling and under-working us.  But the alarming consideration to Great Britain is, that France is not in the same condition.  Her distresses, during the war, were great, but they were immediate; her want of credit, as has been said, compelled her to impoverish her people, by raising the greatest part of her supplies within the year; but the burdens she imposed on them were, in a great measure, temporary, and must be greatly diminished by a few years of peace.  She could procure no considerable loans, therefore she has mortgaged no such oppressive taxes as those Great Britain has imposed in perpetuity for payment of interest.  Peace must, therefore, soon re-establish her commerce and manufactures, especially as the comparative lightness of taxes, and the cheapness of living, in that country, must make France an asylum for British manufacturers and artificers.”  On this the author rests the merit of his whole system.  And on this point I will join issue with him.  If France is not at least in the same condition, even in that very condition which the author falsely represents to be ours,—­if the very reverse of his proposition be not true, then I will admit his state of the nation to be just; and all his inferences from that state to be logical and conclusive.  It is not surprising, that the author should hazard our opinion of his veracity.  That is a virtue on which great statesmen do not perhaps pique themselves so much; but it is somewhat extraordinary, that he should stake on a very poor calculation of chances, all credit for care, for accuracy, and for knowledge of the subject of which he treats.  He is rash and inaccurate, because he thinks he writes to a public ignorant and inattentive.  But he may find himself in that respect, as in many others, greatly mistaken.  In order to contrast the light and vigorous condition of France with that of England, weak, and sinking under her burdens, he states, in his tenth page, that France had raised 50,314,378_l._ sterling by taxes within the several years from the year 1756 to 1762 both inclusive.  All Englishman must stand aghast at such a representation:  To find France able to raise within the year sums little inferior to all that we were able even to borrow on interest with all the resources of the greatest and most established credit in the world!  Europe was filled with astonishment when they saw England borrow in one year twelve millions.  It was thought, and very justly, no small proof of national strength and financial skill, to find a fund for the payment of the interest upon this sum.  The interest of this, computed with the one per cent annuities, amounted only to 600,000_l._ a year.  This, I

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The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 01 (of 12) from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.