第36章

This therefore shews, that the Increase or Decrease of the People in any Nation, depends more on the Balance of Trade than on any other Consideration whatsoever. For where the Balance is considerably in favour of any Nation, there the People finding Employment do always flow; and contrarywise, if the Balance be considerably against a Nation, the People must foresake it; a melancholy Proof of which some of our Colonies do furnish, many People of all Degrees, if we can rely on our News-Papers, abandoning them. Nor can they ever be recover'd but by their raising Corn and Cattle, which includes almost every Thing, instead of their Staple of Sugar, etc. which they find will not produce enough of the Necessaries and Comforts of Life for all the People. But if they were to raise these necessary Things, and make them so plenty as to inable them to Work full as cheap as the French, who have now got the Staple of Sugars from them, and thereby that Trade from this Nation; our Plantations would soon bring that Staple back again, or at least come in for their Share in it, and all other Branches of Trade which their Soil and Climate are by Nature most adapted to.

And since I have digress'd so far about our Plantations, which I have done for their sakes, I must say, I can't think it good Policy to carry our People to them, whilst we have waste Land enough at home to improve and employ them; since by carrying the People away, we lose so many Consumers of our Produce, etc.

and Occupiers of Rooms, if not of Houses; which necessarily brings a proportionable Loss to the Revenue with it, besides the Charge of transporting and settling them.

Instead of which, did we but cause the Trade of our Colonies to be put on such a Foot as I am pointing out, People enough would soon forsake arbitrary and oppressive Governments, to find so happy a Settlement, as such a State of Trade in our Plantations would of itself produce, and is necessarily connected with. And this I am as certain of, as that Mr Corbert in his Answer to the French King (Guardian No. 52) was certainly in the right, when he told his Majesty, That the People will never stay and starve in any Country, if they know of any other where they can subsist themselves comfortably.

Another Point, whence I argue the State of Trade to be worse than it formerly was, is the great Number of empty Houses, not only in the Suburbs and new Buildings, but in the Strand, Fleet-Street, Ludgatehill, Cheapside, and Cornhil: For I think Houses shut up in Cheapside and Cornhil, ar an unanswerable Proof of the bad State of Trade in this City; and I suppose, if the new Buildings were extended further than they are like to be, Cornhil could hardly be affected by them; since so long as the Royal Exchange stands there, and Ships can't sail thro' London Bridge, it should, I think, be the Seat of Trade, as it is certain it hath heretofore been. But how is its State of Trade alter'd! How many Milliners, Pastry-Cooks, and other inconsiderable Trades fill the Houses, where opulent wholesale Dealers dwelt, whilst several other Houses have been shut up for some Time! And to me it appears absurd, to impute this to any other Cause than the different State of the Trade of this Metropolis,(31*) which Ishall always regard as an Index of the State of Trade of the whole Kingdom.

I have before taken Notice, that the great Number of empty Houses is ascribed to the new Buildings of late Years. But Ican't conceive the Buildings in the last forty Years, to have been near equal to what they must have been in the preceding forty Years, when the Buildings must have been so numerous as to equal the whole Number standing in London, Westminister, and the Suburbs thereof before that Time; because the People having doubled in the next forty Years (as appears by the Bills of Mortality) must needs have double the Habitations to reside in.

and here I wave the Buildings which the Fire of London occasion'd, tho' that must have been prodigious, for it happen'd in this Period of doubling. Nay, it must be evident, the Building this last forty years, can't have been near equal to the Buildings in the preceding forty years, because abundance more Houses wou'd now be empty than there are, if this were the Case, since the People have not increased above 1/7, or thereabout in the last forty Years, tho' they doubled in the preceding 40Years, or thereabouts, as hath been shewn.

Another Point, whence I argue, that Trade is in a much worse state than it formerly was, is that we send Money to Spain, whence we ought most certainly to receive it: For Spain having the Mines of Peru and Mexico, and being so very careful to keep the Riches of them to themselves, that they search all Ships in those Parts, and if they find any Money on Board, confiscate them, and bring all the Treasure of those Mines home to Old Spain, in the King's Ships call'd Galleons, Register-Ships, etc.

Therefore Spain being the great Receiver of this vast Treasure, consequently must have the Prices of all Commodities at as much higher Rates than other Nations, as the Wealth of these Mines continually furnish, is greater than any other nation can receive, who have no Mines but their Trade.