THURSDAY. DECEMBER 11, 1930
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Cheer up! Our best times are
still ahead of us!
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The following in its entirety, is here reprinted from Macau
lays Essay on Southey’s Colloquies on Society, published in
Edinburgh Review January, 1830, and clearly shows, though
written 100 years ago, that our best times are still ahead
of us-
Macauley’s review and preview seems strikingly sound as applied to the present business situation, so we
reprint it, hoping it may contribute to far-sighted thinking.
This analysis of the business depression of 1930 with its prophecy for 1930 by the famous English essayist
Macaulay was published recently by the Harriman National Bank and Trust Company of New York.
Chatham Record
T""j ISTORY is full of the signs of this nat
ural progress of society- We see in
almost every part of the annals of mankind
how the industry of individuals, struggling up
against wars, taxes, famines, conflagrations,
mischievous prohibitions and more mischievous
protections, creates faster than governments
can squander, and repairs whatever invaders
can destroy.
We see the capital of nations increasing and
all the arts of life approaching nearer and
nearer to perfection in spite of the grossest
corruption and the wildest profusion on the
part of rulers.
The present moment is one of great distress.
But how small will that distress appear when
we think over the history of the last forty
years;—a war, compared with which all other
wars sink into insignificance;—taxation, such
as the most heavily taxed people of former
times could not have conceived; —a debt larger
than all the public debts that ever existed in
the world added together;—the food of the
people studiously rendered dearer —the cur
rency impudently debased, and improvidently
restored.
Yet is the country poorer than in 1790? We
fully believe that, in spite of all the misgovern
ment of her rulers, she has been almost con
stantly becoming richer and richer. Now and
then there has been a stoppage, now and then
a short retrogression; but as to the general
contingency there can be no doubt. A single
breaker may recede, but the tide is evidently
coming in.
If we were to prophesy that in the year
1930, a population of fifty millions, better fed,
clad and lodged than the English of our time,
will cover these islands, — that Sussex or Hunt
ingdonshire will be wealthier than the wealth
iest parts of the West-Riding of Yorkshire now
are , —that cultivation, rich as that of a flower
garden will be carried up to the very tops of
Ben Nevis and Helvellyn—that machines, con
structed on principles, yet undiscovered, will
be in every house, —that there will be no high
ways but railroads, —no traveling but by
steam, —that our debt, vast as it seems to us,
THE CHATHAM RECORD, PITTSBORO. N. C
will appear to our great-grandchildren a tri
fling encumbrance, which might easily be paid
off in a year or two, — which many people
w T ould think us insane.
We prophesy nothing; but this we say—if
any person had told the Parliament which met
in perplexity and terror after the crash of 1720
that in 1830 the wealth of England would sur
pass all the wildest dreams, that the annual
revenue would equal the principal of that debt
which they considered an intolerable burden—
that for one man of £IO,OOO then living, there
would be five men of £50,000; that London
would be twice as large and twice as populous
and that nevertheless the mortality would have
diminished to one-half what it then was, —that
the postoffice would bring more into the ex
chequer than the excise and customs had
brought in together under Charles 11, that
stage coaches would run from London to York
in twenty-four hours—that men would sail
without wind and would be beginning to ride
without horses—our ancestors would have giv
en as much credit to the prediction as they
gave to Gulliver’s Travels.
Yet the prediction would have been true and
they would have perceived that it was not
altogether absurd, if they had considered that
the country was then raising every year a sum
which would have purchased the fee-simple
of the revenue of the Plantagets—ten times
what the government of Elizabeth, three times
what, in the time of Oliver Cromwell, had
been thought intolerably oppressive. To almost
all men the state of things in which they have
been used to live seems to be the necessary
state of things.
We have heard it said, that five per cent
is the natural interest of money, that twelve
is the natural number of a jury, that forty
shillings is the natural qualification of a coun
ty voter. Hence it is that though, in every age
everybody knows that up to his own time pro
gressive improvement has been taking place,
nobody seems to reckon on any improvement
during the next generation.
We cannot absolutely prove that those are
in error who tell us that society has reached
the turning point—that we have seen our best
days. But so said all whom came before us,
and with just as much apparent reason.
“A million a year will beggar us,” said the
patriots of 1640.
“Two millions a year will grind the country
to powder,” was the cry in 1660.
“Six millions a year and a debt of fifty
millions 4 ” exclaimed Swift—“the high allies
have been the ruin of us.”
“A hundred and forty millions of debt!”
said Junius—“well may we say that we owe
Lord Chatham more than we shall ever pay,
if we owe him such a load as this.”
“Two hundred and forty millions of debt,”
cried all the statesmen of 1783 in chorus—
“what abilities, or what economy on the part
of a minister, can save a country so burden
ed?” We know that if, since 1783, no fresh
debts had been incurred, the increased re
sources of the country would have enabled us
to defray that burden, at which Pitt, Fox and
Burke stood aghast—to defray it over and
over again, and that with much lighter taxa
tion than what we have actually borne. On
what principle is it, that when we see nothing
but improvement behind us, we are to expect
nothing but deterioration before us?
It is not by the intermeddling of Mr. South
ey’s idol—the omniscent and omnipotent State
—but by the prudence and energy of the peo
ple, that England has hitherto been carried
forward in civilization; and it is to the same
prudence and the same energy that we may
look with comfort and good hope.
Our rulers will best promote the improve
ment of the people by strictly confining them
selves to their own legitimate duties—by leav
ing capital to find its most lucrative course,
commodities their fair price industry and in
telligence their natural reward, idleness and
folly their natural punishment—by maintain
ing peace, by defending property, by dimin
ishing the price of law, and by observing strict
economy in every department of the State.
Let the Government do this—the People
will assuredly do the rest.”
Reprinted from The Edinburgh Review, January, 1830—
Pages 563-565.
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