intellectual man of business. He married,[36] and formed an establishment
suitable to his means, first near his manufactory in London, and
afterwards at Dulwich. He took great pleasure in such intellectual
society as he could obtain; was specially fond of conversing on political
economy, politics, statistics, and the other subjects with which he
was subsequently so busily occupied.[37] Through life it was one of
his remarkable peculiarities to be a _very animated_ man, talking by
preference and by habit on _inanimate_ subjects. All the _verve_,
vigour, and life which lively people put into exciting pursuits, he put
into topics which are usually thought very dry. He discussed the Currency
or the Corn Laws with a relish and energy which made them interesting
to almost every one. ‘How pleasant it is,’ he used to say, ‘to talk a
subject out,’ and he frequently suggested theories in the excitement
of conversation upon his favourite topics which he had never thought
of before, but to which he ever afterwards attached, as was natural,
much importance. The instructiveness of his conversation was greatly
increased as his mind progressed and his experience accumulated. But his
genial liveliness and animated vigour were the same during his early
years of business life as they were afterwards when he filled important
offices of state in England and in Calcutta. Few men can have led a more
continuously prosperous and happy life than he did during those years.
Unfortunately it was not to continue.
In 1836, or thereabouts, Mr. Wilson was unfortunately induced to commence
a speculation in indigo, in conjunction with a gentleman in Scotland. It
was expected that indigo would be scarce, and that the price would rise
rapidly in consequence. Such would indeed appear to have been the case
for a short period, since the first purchases in which Mr. Wilson took
part yielded a profit. In consequence of this success, he was induced to
try a larger venture,—indeed to embark most of his disposable capital.
Unfortunately, the severe crisis of 1837 disturbed the usual course
of all trades, and from its effect or from some other cause, indigo,
instead of rising rapidly, fell rapidly. The effect on Mr. Wilson’s
position may be easily guessed. A very great capitalist would have been
able to hold till better times, but he was not. ‘On January 1,’ he said
at Devonport, ‘in a given year, my capital was nearer 25,000_l._, than
24,000_l._, and it was all lost.’ Numerous stories were long circulated
most of them exaggerated, and the remainder wholly untrue, as to this
period of misfortune in Mr. Wilson’s life; but the truth is very simple.
As is usual in such cases, various arrangements were proposed and
agreed to, were afterwards abandoned, and others substituted for them.
A large bundle of papers carefully preserved by him records with the
utmost accuracy the whole of the history. The final result will be best
described in his own words at Devonport, which precisely correspond with
the balance sheets and other documents still in existence. They are part
of a speech in answer to a calumnious rumour that had been circulated in
the town:—
‘Now, how did I act on this occasion? and this is what this placard has
reference to. By my own means alone, I was enabled at once to satisfy
in full all claims against me individually, and to provide for the
early payment of one-half of the whole of the demands against the firm,
consisting of myself and three partners. I was further enabled, or the
firm was enabled, at once to assign property of sufficient value, as was
supposed, to the full satisfaction of the whole of the remainder of the
liabilities. An absolute agreement was made, an absolute release was
given to all the partners; there was neither a bankruptcy nor insolvency,
neither was the business stopped for one day. The business was continued
under the new firm, with which I remained a partner, and from which I
ultimately retired in good circumstances. Some years afterwards it turned
out that the foreign property which was assigned for the remaining half
of the debts of the old firm, of which I was formerly a partner, proved
insufficient to discharge them. The legal liability was, as you know,
all gone; the arrangement had been accepted—an arrangement calculated
and believed by all parties to be sufficient to satisfy all claims in
full; but when the affairs of the whole concern were fully wound up,
finding that the foreign property had not realised what was anticipated,
I had it, I am glad to say, in my power to place at my banker’s, having
ascertained the amount, a sum of money to discharge all the remainder
of that debt, which I considered morally, though not legally, due. This
I did without any kind of solicitation—the thing was not named to me,
and I am quite sure never were the gentlemen more taken by surprise than
when a friend of mine waited on them privately in London, and presented
each of them with a cheque for the balance due to them. Now, perhaps,
I have myself to blame for this anonymous attack. I probably brought
it on myself, for I always felt that if this matter were made public,
it might look like an act of ostentatious obtrusion on my part, and
therefore, when I put aside the sum of money necessary for the purpose,
I made a request, in the letter I wrote to my bankers, desiring them
as an especial favour that they would instruct their clerks to mention
the matter to no one; and in order that it should be perfectly private,
I employed a personal friend of my own in the city of London, in whose
care I placed the whole of the cheques, to wait on those gentlemen and
present each of them with a cheque, and I obtained from him a promise,
and he from them, not to name the circumstance to any one.’ The secrecy
thus enjoined was well preserved. Many of the most intimate friends of
Mr. Wilson, and his family also, were entirely unacquainted with what
he had done, and learnt it only through, the accidental medium of an
electioneering speech. It may be added, too, that some of those who
knew the circumstances, and who have watched Mr. Wilson’s subsequent
career, believe that at no part of his life did he show greater business
ability, self command, and energy, than at the crisis of his mercantile
misfortunes.
It is remarkable that the preface to Mr. Wilson’s first pamphlet, on the
‘Influences of the Corn Laws,’ is dated March 1, 1839, the precise time
at which he was negotiating with his creditors for a proper arrangement
of his affairs; and to those who have had an opportunity of observing
how completely pecuniary misfortune unnerves and unmans men—mercantile
men, perhaps, more than any others—it will not seem unworthy of remark
that a careful pamphlet, with elaborate figures, instinct in every line
with vigour and energy, should emanate from a man struggling with extreme
pecuniary calamity, and daily harrassed with the painful details of it.
After 1839 Mr. Wilson continued in business for several years, and with
very fair success, considering that his capital was much diminished, and
that the hat manufacture was in a state of transition. He finally retired
in 1844, and invested most of his capital in the foundation and extension
of the _Economist_.
These facts prove, as we believe, the conclusion which he was very
desirous to make clear—that, though unfortunate on a particular occasion,
Mr. Wilson was by no means, as a rule, unsuccessful in business. He did
not at all like to have it said that he was fit to lay down the rules and
the theory of business, but not fit to transact business itself. And the
whole of his life, on the contrary, proves that he possessed an unusual
capacity for affairs—an extraordinary _transacting_ ability.
It may, however, be admitted that Mr. Wilson was in several respects
by no means an unlikely man to meet, especially in early life, with
occasional misfortune. To the last hour of his life he was always
sanguine. He naturally looked at everything in a bright and cheerful
aspect; his tendency was always to form a somewhat too favourable
judgment both of things and men. One proof of this may be sufficient:
he was five years Secretary of the Treasury, and he did not leave it a
suspicious man.
Moreover, Mr. Wilson’s temperament was very active and his mind was
very fertile. And though in many parts of business these gifts are very
advantageous, in many also they are very dangerous, if not absolutely
disadvantageous. Frequently they are temptations. Capital is always
limited; often it is _very_ limited; and therefore a man of business,
who is managing his own capital, has only defined resources, and can
engage only in a certain number of undertakings. But a person of active
temperament and fertile mind will soon chafe at that restriction. His
inventiveness will show him many ways in which money might easily be
made, and he cannot but feel that with his energies he would like to make
it. If he have besides a sanguine temperament, he will believe that he
can make it. The records of unfortunate commerce abound in instances of
men who have been unsuccessful because they had great mind, great energy,
and great hope, but had not money in proportion. Some part of this
description was, perhaps, applicable to Mr. Wilson in 1839, but exactly
how much cannot, after the lapse of so many years, be now known with any
accuracy.
Mr. Wilson’s position in middle life was by no means unsuitable to a
writer on the subjects in which he afterwards attained eminence. He
had acquired a great knowledge of business through a long course of
industrious years; he had proved by habitual success in business that
his habitual judgment on it was sound and good. If he had been a man of
only ordinary energy and only ordinary ability, he would probably have
continued to grow regularly richer and richer. But by a single error
natural to a very sanguine temperament and a very active mind, he had
destroyed a great part of the results of his industry. He had a new
career to seek. He was willing to expend on it the whole of his great
energies. He was ready to take all the pains which were necessary to fit
himself for success. When he wrote his first pamphlet he used to say
that he thought ‘the sentences never would come right.’ In later life
he considered three leading articles in the _Economist_, full of facts
and figures, an easy morning’s work, which would not prevent his doing a
good deal else too. Mr. Wilson was a finished man of business obliged by
necessity to become a writer on business. Perhaps no previous education
and no temporary circumstances could be conceived more likely to train a
great financial writer and to stimulate his powers.
In 1839, Mr. Wilson published his ‘Influences of the Corn Laws;’ in 1840,
the ‘Fluctuations of Currency, Commerce, and Manufactures;’ in 1841,
‘The Revenue; or, What should the Chancellor do?’ in September, 1843, he
established the ‘Economist.’ The origin of the latter may be interesting
to our readers, Mr. Wilson proposed to the editor of the _Examiner_
that he should furnish gratuitously a certain amount of writing to
that journal on economical and financial subjects; but the offer was
declined, though with some regret, on account of the expense of type and
paper. A special paper was, therefore, established, which proved in the
end as important as the _Examiner_ itself. From the first, Mr. Wilson
was the sole proprietor of the _Economist_, though he obtained pecuniary
assistance—especially from the kindness of Lord Radnor. He embarked some
capital of his own in it from the first, and afterwards repaid all loans
made to him for the purpose of establishing it.
It would not be suitable to the design of this memoir to give any
criticism of Mr. Wilson’s pamphlets, still less would it become
the _Economist_ to pronounce in any manner a judgment on itself.
Nevertheless, it is a part of the melancholy duty we have undertaken to
give some account of Mr. Wilson’s characteristic position as a writer on
Political Economy, and of the somewhat peculiar mode in which he dealt
with that subject.
Mr. Wilson dealt with Political Economy like a practical man. Persons
more familiar with the literature of science might very easily be found.
Mr. Wilson’s faculty of reading was small, nor had he any taste for
the more refined abstractions in which the more specially scientific
political economists had involved themselves. ‘Political Economy,’ said
Sydney Smith, ‘is become, in the hands of Malthus and Ricardo, a school
of metaphysics. All seem to agree what is to be done; the contention
is how the subject is to be divided and defined. _Meddle with no such
matters._’ We are far from alleging that this saying is just; nor would
Mr. Wilson have by any means assented to it. But though he would have
disavowed it in theory, it nevertheless embodies his instinctive feeling
and characteristic practice. He ‘meddled with no such matters;’ though he
did not deny the utility of theoretical refinements, he habitually and
steadily avoided them.
Mr. Wilson’s predominating power was what may be called a
business-imagination. He had a great power of conceiving transactions.
Political economy was to him the science of buying and selling, and
of the ordinary bargains of men he had a very steady and distinct
conception. In explaining such subjects he did not begin, as political
economists have been wittily said to do, with ‘Suppose a a man upon
an island,’ but ‘What they do in the city is this.’ ‘The real course
of business is so and so.’ Most men of business will think this
characteristic a great merit, and even a theoretical economist should
not consider it a defect. The _practical_ value of the science of
political economy (the observation is an old one as to _all_ sciences)
lies in its ‘middle principles.’ The extreme abstractions from which such
intermediate maxims are scientifically deduced lie at some distance
from ordinary experience, and are not easily made intelligible to most
persons, and when they _are_ made intelligible, most persons do not
know how to use them. But the intermediate maxims themselves are not
so difficult; they are easily comprehended and easily used. They have
in them a practical life, and come home at once to the ‘business’ and
the ‘bosoms’ of men. It was in these that Mr. Wilson excelled. His
‘business-imagination’ enabled him to see ‘what men did,’ and ‘why they
did it;’ ‘why they ought to do it,’ and ‘why they ought not to do it.’
His very clear insight into the real nature of mercantile transactions
made him a great and almost an instinctive master of _statistical
selection_. He could not help picking out of a mass of figures those
which would tell most. He saw which were really material; he put them
prominently and plainly forward, and he left the rest alone. Even
now if a student of Parliamentary papers should alight on a return
‘moved for by Mr. Wilson,’ he will do well to give to it a more than
ordinary attention, for it will be sure to contain something attainable,
intelligible, and distinct.
Mr. Wilson’s habit of always beginning with the facts, always arguing
from the facts, and always ending with a result applicable to the facts,
obtained for his writings an influence and a currency more extensive than
would have been anticipated for any writings on political economy. It is
not for the _Economist_ to speak of the _Economist_; but we may observe
that through the pages of this journal certain doctrines, whether true or
false, have been diffused, far more widely than they ever were in England
before—far more widely than from their somewhat abstract nature we could
expect them to be diffused—far more widely than they are diffused in any
other country but this. The business-like method and vigorous simplicity
of Mr. Wilson’s arguments converted very many ordinary men of business,
who would have distrusted any theoretical and abstruse disquisition,
and would not have appreciated any elaborate refinements. Nor was this
special influence confined to mercantile men. It penetrated where it
could not be expected to penetrate. The Duke of Wellington was, perhaps,
more likely to be prejudiced against a theoretical political economist
than any eminent man of his day; he belonged to the ‘prescientific
period;’ he had much of the impatient practicality incident to military
insight; he was not likely to be very partial to the ‘doctrines of
Mr. Huskisson’;—nevertheless, the Duke early pointed out Mr. Wilson’s
writings to Lord Brougham as possessing especial practical value; and
when the Duke at a much later period was disposed to object to the
repeal of the Navigation Laws, Mr. Wilson had a special interview to
convince him of its expediency.
Nor is this faculty of exposition by any means a trifling power. On many
subjects it is a common saying ‘that he only discovers who proves;’
but in practical politics we may almost say that he only discovers
who convinces. It is of no use to have practical truths received by
extraordinary men, unless they are also accepted by ordinary men. Whether
Mr. Wilson was exactly a great writer, we will not discuss: but he was a
great _belief producer_; he had upon his own subjects a singular gift of
_efficient_ argument—a peculiar power of bringing home his opinions by
convincing reasonings to convincible persons.
The time at which Mr. Wilson commenced his career as an economical
writer was a singularly happy one. An economical century has elapsed
since 1839. The Corn Laws were then in full force, and seemed likely
to continue so; the agriculturists believed in them, and other classes
acquiesced in them; the tentative reforms of Mr. Huskisson were half
forgotten; our tariff perhaps contained some specimen of every defect—it
certainly contained many specimens of most defects; duties abounded which
cramped trade, which contributed nothing to the exchequer, which were
maintained that a minority might believe they profited at the expense of
the majority; all the now settled principles of commercial policy were
unsettled; the ‘currency’ was under discussion; the Bank of England had
been reduced to accept a loan from the Bank of France; capitalists were
disheartened and operatives disaffected; the industrial energies, which
have since multiplied our foreign commerce, were then effectually impeded
by legislative fetters and financial restraints. On almost all of these
restraints Mr. Wilson had much to say.
Upon the Corn Laws, Mr. Wilson developed a theory which was rare when
he first stated it, but which was generally adopted afterwards, and
which subsequent experience has confirmed. He was fond of narrating an
anecdote which shows his exact position in 1839. There had just been a
meeting of the Anti-Corn Law League at Manchester, and some speakers had
maintained, with more or less vehemence, that the coming struggle was to
be one of class against class, inasmuch as the Corn Laws were beneficial
to the agriculturists, though they were injurious to manufacturers.
The tendency of the argument was to set one part of the nation against
another part. Mr. Wilson was travelling in the North, and was writing
in a railway carriage part of the ‘Influences of the Corn Laws.’ By
chance a distinguished member of the League, whom Mr. Wilson did not
know, happened to travel with him, and asked him what he was about. ‘I
am writing on the Corn Laws,’ said Mr. Wilson, ‘something in answer
to the rubbish they have been talking at Manchester.’ ‘You are a bold
man,’ was the reply; ‘Protection is a difficult doctrine to support by
argument.’ But it soon appeared that Mr. Wilson was the better Free
trader of the two. He held that the Corn Laws were injurious to all
classes; that the agriculturists suffered from them as much as the
manufacturers; that, in consequence, it was ‘rubbish’ to raise a class
enmity on the subject, for the interest of all classes was the same. ‘We
cannot too much lament,’ he says in his ‘Influences of the Corn Laws,’
‘and deprecate the spirit of violence and exaggeration with which this
subject has always been approached by each party, which no doubt has
been the chief cause why so little of real truth or benefit has resulted
from the efforts of either; the arguments on either side have been
supported by such absurd and magnified statements of the influences of
those prohibitory laws on their separate interests, as only to furnish
each other with a good handle to turn the whole argument into ridicule.
It therefore appears to be necessary to a just settlement of this great
question, that these two parties should be first reconciled to a correct
view of the real influences thus exerted over their interests, and the
interests of the country at large; to a conviction that the imaginary
fears of change on the one hand, and the exaggerated advantages expected
on the other hand, are equally without foundation; that there are in
reality no differences in the solid interests of either party; and that
_individuals_, _communities_, or _countries_ can only be prosperous in
proportion to the prosperity of the whole.’ And he proposed to prove
‘that the agricultural interest has derived no benefit, but great injury,
from the existing laws; and that the fears and apprehensions entertained
of the ruinous consequences which would result to this interest by the
adoption of a free and liberal policy with respect to the trade in corn,
are without any foundation; that the value of this property, instead
of being depreciated, in the aggregate, would be rather enhanced, and
the general interests of the owners most decidedly enhanced thereby;’
and, ‘that while incalculable benefit would arise to the manufacturing
interest and the working population generally, in common with all classes
of the community, from the adoption of such policy, nothing can be more
erroneous than the belief that the price of provisions or labour would
on the average be thereby cheapened, but that, on the contrary, the
tendency would rather be to produce, by a state of generally increased
prosperity, a higher average rate of each.’
Whatever might be thought in 1839, in 1860 we can on one point have no
doubt whatever. The repeal of the Corn Laws has been followed by the
exact effect which Mr. Wilson anticipated. Whether his argument was
right or wrong, the result has corresponded with his anticipation. The
agriculturists have prospered more—the manufacturers, the merchants, the
operatives, all classes in a word, have prospered more since the Corn
Laws were repealed, than they ever did before. As to abstract questions
of politics there will always be many controversies; but upon a patent
contemporaneous fact of this magnitude there cannot be a controversy.
It is indisputable also that, for the purposes of the Anti-Corn Law
agitation, Mr. Wilson’s view was exceedingly opportune. Mr. Cobden said
not long ago (we quote the substance correctly even if the words are
wrong), ‘I never made any progress with the Corn Law question while it
was stated as a question of class against class.’ And a careful inquirer
will find that such is the real moral of the whole struggle. If it had
continued to be considered solely or mainly as a manufacturer’s question,
it might not have been settled to this hour. In support of this opinion,
Mr. Wilson made many speeches at the meetings of the Anti-Corn Law
League, though he had little taste for the task of agitation.
We cannot give even an analysis of Mr. Wilson’s arguments—our space is
too brief—but we will enumerate one or two of the principal points.
He maintained that, under our protective laws, the agriculturists never
had the benefit of a high price, and always suffered the evil of a low
price. When our crop was scanty, it was necessary to sell the small
quantity at a high price, or the farmer could not be remunerated. But
exactly at that moment foreign corn was permitted by law to be imported.
In consequence, during bad years the farmer was exposed to difficulty
and disaster, which were greater because, in expectation of an English
demand, large stocks were often hoarded on the Continent, and at once
poured in to prevent the home-grower compensating himself for a bad
harvest by an equivalent rise of price.
Nor was the farmer better off in very plentiful years. There was a
surplus in this country, and that surplus could not be exported, for the
price of wheat was always lower abroad than here. The effect is evident.
As corn is an article of the first necessity, a certain quantity of it
will always be consumed, but more than that quantity will not be readily
consumed. A slight surplus is, therefore, invariably found to lower the
price of such articles excessively. In very good years the farmer had
to sell his crop at an unremuneratingly low price, while in very bad
years he was prevented from obtaining the high price which alone could
compensate him for his outlay. Between the effects of the two sorts of
years his condition was deplorable, and Parliamentary committees were
constantly appointed to investigate it.