PUBLIC honours and emoluments ought to be propofed by all governments, to the discoverers of any thing useful in arts, manufactures, and commerce. The invention of a richer dye, or a more beautiful, or more convenient cloth, stuff, or filk, than any now known; might prove of great advantage to the finking fund. In proportion to the praife, which is due to the illuftrious Society of Arts, fuch is the reproach, which falls on the G- -t, which fees itself so shamefully outdone by a private society. IT is reckoned that the Dutch employ twenty thoufand failors, and gain five millions per ann. by the herring fishery in our British feas, which we cannot contrive to make it worth our while to carry on. If one compares the difadvantageous fituation of Holland for the herring-fifhery with our advantages, it will appear very wonderful, that we fhould be fo helpless, as to fee a neighbouring people enrich themselves with a trade, of which we ought to reap the chief profits. Why do not we carry on the fishery in their manner, if we find our own unsuccessful? SMUGGLING, on account of its being a heavy detriment to the revenue, ought, at fuch a time as the prefent, to be particularly difcouraged; of which the government do not feem to be infenfible. It has often been found, that the lowering of duties has increas ed, instead of diminishing (as might have been expected) the revenue, by making it lefs worth while to smuggle. This was remarkably verified in the effects of the abatement lately made in the tea duty. The : The Dutch fubjects are heavily taxed and yet they have little smuggling, because their duties are fo laid as to render it impracticable to wrong greatly the public revenues. This faves them a prodigious annual expence, which we are obliged to lay out, to the great detriment of the finking fund. MIGHT not the boundless tracts of good, but uncultivated, or not fufficiently cultivated land in Britain and Ireland be made to turn to the public advantage, by being either given as a fecurity for the national debt, and a fund toward the payment of the interest ; or a means for maintaining an innumerable multitude of working people for the advantage of the finking fund? COULD the public creditors have real fecurity on fome of the lands acquired in the late war, the danger, to which the flate is obnoxious on account of public credit, would be leffened, because there would thus be a fund to answer the intereft, and realize the principal, or fome part of them. When St. Christopher's was taken in Queen ANNE's wars, the French part of the island was fold for the public benefit. THE peopling and improving of our colonies never was more feasonable than at prefent; nor indeed can a trading nation colonize too much, fo fhe does not depopulate herself. Could we by a chemical procefs hatch human creatures, and fill our immense territories in America, with men and women ready grown up to ftrength for labour, we might be more indifferent as bout our enemy's interfereing with our European comI think it is not to be doubted, that Britain, merce. as as well as our colonies, might have been by this time more populous than they are, if it had not been for the unhappy antipathy of our people to foreigners. It is notorious, that we owe to foreigners the whole of our arts and manufactures [s], and yet, from HORACE'S [] time to the present, we have, on almost all occafions, fhewn an unnatural jealoufy of foreigners. The anxiety we were in through fear of the Jews, is fresh in every body's memory. Even the inhabitants of the northerly parts of our own ifland have been, by fome narrow-minded people, looked on with an evil eye, as if they crouded too fast in upon us. Could fuch perfons think, they would undersland, that, were we to drain away fome thousands of working people yearly from the continent, we fhould only enrich this kingdom, and impoverish those we unpeopled, in proportion as we proceeded in fuch work; and, if we would wish North Britain ruined, and South Britain at the fame time enriched, there is no way fo effectual for that purpose, as to draw all the northern people fouthward [u]. One would wonder that any person who has feen the beginning of his teens, should be so childish, as not to perceive, that if a foreign fhoemaker, for example, comes into Britain, tho' our British Shoemakers may think his arrival a difadvantage to them, yet it must be of advantage to our broad-cloth manufactures [S] SEE ANDERSON's Hift. and Chronol. Deduct. of Commerce. [t] VISAM Britannos hofpitibus feros. [u] SIR Jos. CHILD fays, over-peopled. And indeed the a country cannot be idea of too populous a kingdom, where there is commerce, seems much the fame as that of too flourishing a kingdom. CRITO MINOR. facturers and taylors, because the foreign shoemaker will want cloaths; to our linen manufacturers, because he will want fhirts; to our hofiers, because he will want ftockings; to our hatters, because he will want hats; and to the public revenue, out of which our fleets and armies are paid, because he will confume feveral articles which are taxed. In how many refpects therefore is this foreigner of advantage to our country, all which one narrow-hearted fhoemaker would prevent ? Turn it the other way, and fuppofe, in confequence of the selfishness of the shoemakers of the corporation of London, for example, it were determined, that all fhoemakers, but those, who are at prefent free of the city, fhould, to the number of fome thousands, be exported out of the island; would not this proceeding be feverely felt by the woollen and linen manufacturers, the taylors, the hatters, the hofiers, and the revenue? An increase of the number of his Majefty's fubjects, both in the mother-country and colonies, would increase trade. This would increase the finking fund, which is appropriated, and ought to be ftrictly applied (which, by the by, it never has been) to the leffening of the public burden. Therefore all regulations tending to the increase of the number of his Majefty's fubjects are at this time peculiarly falutary. There are but two ways, by which this great purpose can be gained, viz. Importation of people from other dominjons, and improving population among ourselves. By the former means the ftate makes an acquifition which proves of immediate advantage. For grown perfons, the very day they land in Britain, or the plantations, may may be fet to work, to earn their living [x]: whereas children propagated in the country itself, are little better than a burden the first ten or twelve years of their existence. But, as, in every way, increafing the number of our people is an object of fupreme confequence, the Marriage act, which tends to check matrimony, must be confeffed to be directly ruinous. The author of the Vindication of Commerce and the Arts, fhews that there is a deficiency of teeming women; that is, if all men of a fuitable age for propagation were difpofed to marry, and had it in their power, as far as relates to the expence of a family, there could not be found teeming women enough for them. Be. fides, it is to be observed, that a man is almost as foon capable, and continues fo much longer, than a woman. So that if a man of twenty-five marries a woman of eighteen (in country places fuch matches are fometimes made) he will continue capable of being a father much longer than fhe a mother. If so, it is of the utmost consequence that women be married young; which is precisely what the marriage act difcourages. Every year a female continues unmarried, from eighteen upwards, the King lofes a fubject he has a right to. [u] THE French, in peopling Canada, obliged all masters of trading ships to carry a certain number of paffengers (fettlers, who wanted to go to those parts), freightfree, and allowed fettlers credit for a certain finall fum each, to begin with, requiring one third of the produce of the land annually, as intereft, or rent. By which means they fecured the actual cultivation of their lands in America. We, on the contrary, have generally given to noblemen and gentlemen, grants of whole provinces; and they have neglected peopling them, or have not had fufficient funds for the purpose. CRITO MINOR. |