_To the Editor of the Edinburgh Weekly Journal_
My dear Mr. Journalist--I am by pedigree a discontented person, so
that you may throw this letter into the fire, if you have any
apprehensions of incurring the displeasure of your superiors. I am, in
fact, the lineal descendant of Sir Mungo Malagrowther, who makes a
figure in the _Fortunes of Nigel_, and have retained a reasonable
proportion of his ill-luck, and, in consequence, of his ill-temper.
If, therefore, I should chance to appear too warm and poignant in my
observations, you must impute it to the hasty and peevish humour which
I derive from my ancestor. But, at the same time, it often happens
that this disposition leads me to speak useful, though unpleasant
truths, when more prudent men hold their tongues and eat their
pudding. A lizard is an ugly and disgusting thing enough; but,
methinks, if a lizard were to run over my face and awaken me, which is
said to be their custom when they observe a snake approach a sleeping
person, I should neither scorn his intimation, nor feel justifiable
in crushing him to death, merely because he is a filthy little
abridgment of a crocodile. Therefore, 'for my love, I pray you, wrong
me not.'
I am old, sir, poor, and peevish, and therefore I may be wrong; but
when I look back on the last fifteen or twenty years, and more
especially on the last ten, I think I see my native country of
Scotland, if it is yet to be called by a title so discriminative,
falling, so far as its national, or rather, perhaps, I ought now to
say its _provincial_, interests are concerned, daily into more
absolute contempt. Our ancestors were a people of some consideration
in the councils of the empire. So late as my own younger days, an
English minister would have paused, even in a favourite measure, if a
reclamation of national rights had been made by a member for Scotland,
supported as it uniformly then was, by the voice of her
representatives and her people. Such ameliorations in our peculiar
system as were thought necessary, in order that North Britain might
keep pace with her sister in the advance of improvement, were
suggested by our own countrymen, persons well acquainted with our
peculiar system of laws (as different from those of England as from
those of France), and who knew exactly how to adapt the desired
alteration to the principle of our legislative enactments, so that the
whole machine might, as mechanics say, work well and easily. For a
long time this wholesome check upon innovation, which requires the
assimilation of a proposed improvement with the general constitution
of the country to which it has been recommended, and which ensures
that important point, by stipulating that the measure shall originate
with those to whom the spirit of the constitution is familiar, has
been, so far as Scotland is concerned, considerably disused. Those who
have stepped forward to repair the gradual failure of our
constitutional system of law, have been persons that, howsoever
qualified in other respects, have had little further knowledge of its
construction than could be acquired by a hasty and partial survey,
taken just before they commenced their labours. Scotland and her laws
have been too often subjected to the alterations of any person who
chose to found himself a reputation, by bringing in a bill to cure
some defect which had never been felt in practice, but which was
represented as a frightful bugbear to English statesmen, who, wisely
and judiciously tenacious of the legal practice and principles
received at home, are proportionally startled at the idea of anything
abroad which cannot be brought to assimilate with them.
The English seem to have made a compromise with the active tendency to
innovation, which is one great characteristic of the day. Wise and
sagacious themselves, they are nervously jealous of innovations in
their own laws--_Nolumus leges Angliae mutari_, is written on the
skirts of their judicial robes, as the most sacred texts of Scripture
were inscribed on the phylacteries of the Rabbis. The belief that the
Common Law of England constitutes the perfection of human reason, is a
maxim bound upon their foreheads. Law Monks they have been called in
other respects, and like monks they are devoted to their own Rule, and
admit no question of its infallibility. There can be no doubt that
their love of a system, which, if not perfect, has so much in it that
is excellent, originates in the most praiseworthy feelings. Call it if
you will the prejudice of education, it is still a prejudice
honourable in itself, and useful to the public. I only find fault with
it, because, like the Friars in the Duenna monopolising the bottle,
these English monks will not tolerate in their lay brethren of the
north the slightest pretence to a similar feeling.
In England, therefore, no innovation can be proposed affecting the
administration of justice, without being subjected to the strict
enquiry of the Guardians of the Law, and afterwards resisted
pertinaciously, until time and the most mature and reiterated
discussion shall have proved its utility, nay, its necessity. The old
saying is still true in all its points--Touch but a cobweb in
Westminster Hall, and the old spider will come out in defence of it.
This caution may sometimes postpone the adoption of useful
amendments, but it operates to prevent all hasty and experimental
innovations; and it is surely better that existing evils should be
endured for some time longer, than that violent remedies should be
hastily adopted, the unforeseen and unprovided for consequences of
which are often so much more extensive than those which had been
foreseen and reckoned upon. An ordinary mason can calculate upon the
exact gap which will be made by the removal of a corner stone in an
old building; but what architect, not intimately acquainted with the
whole edifice, can presume even to guess how much of the structure is,
or is not, to follow?
The English policy in this respect is a wise one, and we have only to
wish they would not insist in keeping it all to themselves. But those
who are most devoted to their own religion have least sympathy for the
feelings of dissenters; and a spirit of proselytism has of late shown
itself in England for extending the benefits of their system, in all
its strength and weakness, to a country which has been hitherto
flourishing and contented under its own. They adopted the conclusion
that all English enactments are right; but the system of municipal law
in Scotland is not English, therefore it is wrong. Under sanction of
this syllogism, our rulers have indulged and encouraged a spirit of
experiment and innovation at our expense, which they resist
obstinately when it is to be carried through at their own risk.
For more than half of last century, this was a practice not to be
thought of. Scotland was during that period disaffected, in bad
humour, armed too, and smarting under various irritating
recollections. This is not the sort of patient for whom an
experimental legislator chooses to prescribe. There was little chance
of making Saunders take the patent pill by persuasion--main force was
a dangerous argument, and some thought claymores had edges.
This period passed away, a happier one arrived, and Scotland, no
longer the object of terror, or at least great uneasiness, to the
British Government, was left from the year 1750 under the guardianship
of her own institutions, to win her silent way to national wealth and
consequence. Contempt probably procured for her the freedom from
interference, which had formerly been granted out of fear; for the
medical faculty are as slack in attending the garrets of paupers as
the caverns of robbers. But neglected as she was, and perhaps
_because_ she was neglected, Scotland, reckoning her progress during
the space from the close of the American War to the present day, has
increased her prosperity in a ratio more than five times greater than
that of her more fortunate and richer sister. She is now worth the
attention of the learned faculty, and God knows she has had plenty of
it. She has been bled and purged, spring and fall, and _talked_ into
courses of physic, for which she had little occasion. She has been of
late a sort of experimental farm, upon which every political student
has been permitted to try his theory--a kind of common property, where
every juvenile statesman has been encouraged to make his inroads, as
in Moray land, where, anciently, according to the idea of the old
Highlanders, all men had a right to take their prey--a subject in a
common dissecting room, left to the scalpel of the junior students,
with the degrading inscription,--_fiat experimentum in corpore vili_.
I do not mean to dispute, Sir, that much alteration was necessary in
our laws, and that much benefit has followed many of the great changes
which have taken place. I do not mean to deprecate a gradual approach
to the English system, especially in commercial law. The Jury Court,
for example, was a fair experiment, in my opinion, cautiously
introduced as such, and placed under such regulations as might best
assimilate its forms with those of the existing Supreme Court. I beg,
therefore, to be considered as not speaking of the alterations
themselves, but of the apparent hostility towards our municipal
institutions, as repeatedly manifested in the course of late
proceedings, tending to force and wrench them into a similarity with
those of England.
The opinions of our own lawyers, nay, of our Judges, than whom wiser
and more honourable men never held that character, have been, if
report speaks true, something too much neglected and controlled in the
course of these important changes, in which, methinks, they ought to
have had a leading and primary voice. They have been almost avowedly
regarded not as persons the best qualified to judge of proposed
innovations, but as prejudiced men, determined to oppose them, right
or wrong. The last public Commission was framed on the very principle,
that if Scotch lawyers were needs to be employed, a sufficient number
of these should consist of gentlemen, who, whatever their talents and
respectability might be in other respects, had been too long estranged
from the study of Scottish law to retain any accurate recollection of
an abstruse science, or any decided partiality for its technical
forms. This was done avowedly for the purpose of evading the natural
partiality of the Scottish Judges and practitioners to their own
system; that partiality which the English themselves hold so sacred a
feeling in their own Judges and Counsel learned in the law. I am not,
I repeat, complaining of the result of the Commissions, but of the
spirit in which the alterations were undertaken. Unquestionably much
was done in brushing up and improving the old machinery of Scottish
Law Courts, and in making it move more rapidly, though scarce, I
think, more correctly than before. Dispatch has been much attended
to. But it may be ultimately found that the timepiece which runs
fastest does not intimate the hour most accurately. At all events, the
changes have been made and established--there let them rest. And had
I, Malachi Malagrowther, the sole power to-morrow of doing so, I would
not restore the old forms of judicial proceedings; because I hold the
constitution of Courts of Justice too serious matters to be put back
or forward at pleasure, like a boy's first watch, merely for
experiment's sake.
What I _do_ complain of is the general spirit of slight and dislike
manifested to our national establishments by those of the sister
country who are so very zealous in defending their own; and not less
do I complain of their jealousy of the opinions of those who cannot
but be much better acquainted than they, both with the merits and
deficiencies of the system, which hasty and imperfectly informed
judges have shown themselves so anxious to revolutionise.
There is no explanation to be given of this but one--namely, the
entire conviction and belief of our English brethren that the true
Themis is worshipped in Westminster Hall, and that her adorers cannot
be too zealous in her service; while she, whose image an ingenious
artist has depicted balancing herself upon a _tee-totum_ on the
southern window of the Parliament House of Edinburgh, is a mere
idol,--a Diana of Ephesus,--whom her votaries worship, either because
her shrine brings great gain to the craftsmen, or out of an ignorant
and dotard superstition, which induces them to prefer the old Scottish
_Mumpsimus_ to the modern English _Sumpsimus_. Now, this is not fair
construction in our friends, whose intentions in our behalf, we allow,
are excellent, but who certainly are scarcely entitled to beg the
question at issue without inquiry or discussion, or to treat us as the
Spaniards treated the Indians, whom they massacred for worshipping the
image of the Sun, while they themselves bowed down to that of the
Virgin Mary. Even Queen Elizabeth was contented with the evasive
answer of Melville, when hard pressed with the trying question,
whether Queen Mary or she were the fairest. We are willing, in the
spirit of that answer, to say that the Themis of Westminster Hall is
the best fitted to preside over the administration of the larger, and
more fertile country of beef and pudding; while she of the tee-totum
(placed in that precarious position, we presume, to express her
instability, since these new lights were struck out) claims a more
limited but equally respectful homage, within her ancient
jurisdiction--_sua paupera regna_--the Land of Cakes. If this
compromise does not appease the ardour of our brethren for converting
us to English forms and fashions, we must use the scriptural question,
"Who hath required these things at your hands?"
The inquiries and result of another Commission are too much to the
purpose to be suppressed. The object was to investigate the conduct of
the Revenue Boards in Ireland and Scotland. In the former, it is well
known, great mismanagement was discovered; for Pat, poor fellow, had
been playing the loon to a considerable extent. In Scotland, _not a
shadow of abuse prevailed_. You would have thought, Mr. Journalist,
that the Irish Boards would have been reformed in some shape, and the
Scotch Establishments honourably acquitted, and suffered to continue
on the footing of independence which they had so long enjoyed, and of
which they had proved themselves so worthy. Not so, sir. The Revenue
Boards, in both countries, underwent exactly the same regulation, were
deprived of their independent consequence, and placed under the
superintendence of English control; the innocent and the guilty being
treated in every respect alike. Now, on the side of Scotland, this was
like Trinculo losing his bottle in the pool--there was not only
dishonour in the thing, but an infinite loss.
I have heard two reasons suggested for this indiscriminating
application of punishment to the innocent and to the culpable.
In the first place, it was honestly confessed that Ireland would never
have quietly submitted to the indignity offered to her, unless poor
inoffensive Scotland had been included in the regulation. The Green
Isle, it seems, was of the mind of a celebrated lady of quality, who,
being about to have a decayed tooth drawn, refused to submit to the
operation till she had seen the dentist extract a sound and
serviceable grinder from the jaws of her waiting-woman--and her humour
was to be gratified. The lady was a termagant dame--the wench a
tame-spirited simpleton--the dentist an obliging operator--and the
teeth of both were drawn accordingly.
This gratification of his humours is gained by Pat's being up with the
pike and shillelagh on any or no occasion. God forbid Scotland should
retrograde towards such a state--much better that the Deil, as in
Burns's song, danced away with the whole excisemen in the country. We
do not want to hear her prate of her number of millions of men, and
her old military exploits. We had better remain in union with England,
even at the risk of becoming a subordinate species of Northumberland,
as far as national consequence is concerned, than remedy ourselves by
even hinting the possibility of a rupture. But there is no harm in
wishing Scotland to have just so much ill-nature, according to her own
proverb, as may keep her good-nature from being abused; so much
national spirit as may determine her to stand by her own rights,
conducting her assertion of them with every feeling of respect and
amity toward England.
The other reason alleged for this equal distribution of _punishment_,
as if it had been the influence of the common sun, or the general
rain, to the just and the unjust, was one which is extremely
predominant at present with our Ministers--the _necessity_ of
_Uniformity_ in all such cases; and the consideration what an awkward
thing it would be to have a Board of Excise or Customs remaining
independent in the one country, solely because they had, without
impeachment, discharged their duty; while the same establishment was
cashiered in another, for no better reason than that it had been
misused.
This reminds us of an incident, said to have befallen at the Castle of
Glammis, when these venerable towers were inhabited by a certain old
Earl of Strathmore, who was as great an admirer of uniformity as the
Chancellor of the Exchequer could have desired. He and his gardener
directed all in the garden and pleasure grounds upon the ancient
principle of exact correspondence between the different parts, so that
each alley had its brother; a principle which, renounced by gardeners,
is now adopted by statesmen. It chanced once upon a time that a fellow
was caught committing some petty theft, and, being taken in the
manner, was sentenced by the Bailie Macwheeble of the jurisdiction to
stand for a certain time in the baronial pillory, called the _jougs_,
being a collar and chain, one of which contrivances was attached to
each side of the portal of the great avenue which led to the castle.
The thief was turned over accordingly to the gardener, as
ground-officer, to see the punishment duly inflicted. When the Thane
of Glammis returned from his morning ride, he was surprised to find
both sides of the gateway accommodated each with a prisoner, like a
pair of heraldic supporters, _chained_ and _collared proper_. He asked
the gardener, whom he found watching the place of punishment, as his
duty required, whether another delinquent had been detected? "No, my
Lord," said the gardener, in the tone of a man excellently well
satisfied with himself,--"but I thought the single fellow looked very
awkward standing on one side of the gateway, so I gave half a crown to
one of the labourers to stand on the other side for _uniformity's
sake_." This is exactly a case in point, and probably the only one
which can be found--with this sole difference, that I do not hear that
the members of the Scottish Revenue Board got any boon for standing in
the pillory with those of Ireland--for uniformity's sake.
Lastly, sir, I come to this business of extending the provisions of
the Bill prohibiting the issue of notes under five pounds to Scotland,
in six months after the period that the regulation shall be adopted in
England.
I am not about to enter upon the question which so much agitates
speculative writers upon the wealth of nations, or attempt to discuss
what proportion of the precious metals ought to be detained within a
country; what are the best means of keeping it there; or to what
extent the want of specie can be supplied by paper credit: I will not
ask if a poor man can be made a rich one, by compelling him to buy a
service of plate, instead of the delf ware which served his turn.
These are questions I am not adequate to solve. But I beg leave to
consider the question in a practical point of view, and to refer
myself entirely to experience.
I assume, without much hazard of contradiction, that Banks have
existed in Scotland for near one hundred and twenty years--that they
have flourished, and the country has flourished with them--and that
during the last fifty years particularly, provincial Banks, or
branches of the principal established and chartered Banks, have
gradually extended themselves in almost every Lowland district in
Scotland; that the notes, and especially the small notes, which they
distribute, entirely supply the demand for a medium of currency; and
that the system has so completely expelled gold from the country of
Scotland, that you never by any chance espy a guinea there, unless in
the purse of an accidental stranger, or in the coffers of these Banks
themselves. This is granting the facts of the case as broadly as can
be asked.
It is not less unquestionable that the consequence of this Banking
system, as conducted in Scotland, has been attended with the greatest
advantage to the country. The facility which it has afforded to the
industrious and enterprising agriculturalist or manufacturer, as well
as to the trustees of the public in executing national works, has
converted Scotland from a poor, miserable, and barren country, into
one, where, if nature has done less, art and industry have done more,
than in perhaps any country in Europe, England herself not excepted.
Through means of the credit which this system has afforded, roads have
been made, bridges built, and canals dug, opening up to reciprocal
communication the most sequestered districts of the country--manufactures
have been established, unequalled in extent or success--wastes have
been converted into productive farms--the productions of the earth for
human use have been multiplied twentyfold, while the wealth of the rich
and the comforts of the poor have been extended in the same proportion.
And all this in a country where the rigour of the climate, and
sterility of the soil, seem united to set improvement at defiance. Let
those who remember Scotland forty years since, bear witness if I speak
truth or falsehood.
There is no doubt that this change has been produced by the facilities
of procuring credit, which the Scottish Banks held forth, both by
discounting bills, and by granting cash-accounts. Every undertaking of
consequence, whether by the public or by individuals, has been carried
on by such means; at least exceptions are extremely rare.
There is as little doubt that the Banks could not have furnished these
necessary funds of cash, without enjoying the reciprocal advantage of
their own notes being circulated in consequence, and by means of the
accommodation thus afforded. It is not to be expected that every
undertaking which the system enabled speculators or adventurers to
commence, should be well-judged, attentively carried on, or successful
in issue. Imprudence in some cases, misfortune in others, have had
their usual quantity of victims. But in Scotland, as elsewhere, it has
happened in many instances that improvements, which turned out ruinous
to those who undertook them, have, notwithstanding, themselves
ultimately produced the most beneficial advantages to the country,
which derived in such instances an addition to its general prosperity,
even from the undertakings which had proved destructive to the private
fortune of the projectors.
Not only did the Banks dispersed throughout Scotland afford the means
of bringing the country to an unexpected and almost marvellous degree
of prosperity, but in no considerable instance, save one, have their
own over-speculating undertakings been the means of interrupting that
prosperity. The solitary exception was the undertaking called the Ayr
Bank, rashly entered into by a large body of country gentlemen and
others, unacquainted with commercial affairs, and who had moreover the
misfortune not only to set out on false principles, but to get false
rogues for their principal agents and managers. The fall of this Bank
brought much calamity on the country; but two things are remarkable in
its history: First, that under its too prodigal, yet beneficial
influence, a fine county (that of Ayr) was converted from a desert
into a fertile land. Secondly, that, though at a distant interval, the
Ayr Bank paid all its engagements, and the loss only fell on the
original stockholders. The warning was, however, a terrible one, and
has been so well attended to in Scotland, that very few attempts seem
to have been afterwards made to establish Banks prematurely--that is,
where the particular district was not in such an advanced state as to
require the support of additional credit; for in every such case, it
was judiciously foreseen, the forcing a capital on the district could
only lead to wild speculation, instead of supporting solid and
promising undertakings.
The character and condition of the persons pursuing the profession
ought to be noticed, however slightly. The Bankers of Scotland have
been, generally speaking, _good_ men, in the mercantile phrase,
showing, by the wealth of which they have died possessed, that their
credit was sound; and _good_ men also, many of them eminently so, in
the more extensive and better sense of the word, manifesting, by the
excellence of their character, the fairness of the means by which
their riches were acquired. There may have been, among so numerous a
body, men of a different character, fishers in troubled waters,
capitalists who sought gain not by the encouragement of fair trade
and honest industry, but by affording temporary fuel to rashness or
avarice. But the number of upright traders in the profession has
narrowed the means of mischief which such Christian Shylocks would
otherwise have possessed. There was loss, there was discredit, in
having recourse to such characters, when honest wants could be fairly
supplied by upright men, and on liberal terms. Such reptiles have been
confined in Scotland to batten upon their proper prey of folly, and
feast, like worms, on the corruption in which they are bred.
Since the period of the Ayr Bank, now near half a century, I recollect
very few instances of Banking Companies issuing notes which have
become insolvent. One, about thirty years since, was the Merchant Bank
of Stirling, which never was in high credit, having been known almost
at the time of its commencement by the odious nickname of _Black in
the West_. Another was within these ten years, the East Lothian
Banking Company, whose affairs had been very ill conducted by a
villainous manager. In both cases, the notes were paid up in full. In
the latter case, they were taken up by one of the most respectable
houses in Edinburgh; so that all current engagements were paid without
the least check to the circulation of their notes, or inconvenience to
poor or rich, who happened to have them in possession. The Union Bank
of Falkirk also became insolvent within these fifteen years, but paid
up its engagements without much loss to the creditors. Other cases
there may have occurred, not coming within my recollection; but I
think none which made any great sensation, or could at all affect the
general confidence of the country in the stability of the system. None
of these bankruptcies excited much attention, or, as we have seen,
caused any considerable loss.
In the present unhappy commercial distress, I have always heard and
understood that the Scottish Banks have done all in their power to
alleviate the evils which came thickening on the country; and far from
acting illiberally, that they have come forward to support the
tottering credit of the commercial world with a frankness which
augured the most perfect confidence in their own resources. We have
heard of only one provincial Bank being even for a moment in the
predicament of suspicion; and of that copartnery the funds and credit
were so well understood, that their correspondents in Edinburgh, as in
the case of the East Lothian Bank formerly mentioned, at once
guaranteed the payment of their notes, and saved the public even from
momentary agitation, and individuals from the possibility of distress.
I ask what must be the stability of a system of credit of which such
an universal earthquake could not displace or shake even the slightest
individual portion?
Thus stands the case in Scotland; and it is clear any restrictive
enactment affecting the Banking system, or their mode of issuing
notes, must be adopted in consequence of evils, operating elsewhere
perhaps, but certainly unknown in this country.
In England, unfortunately, things have been very different, and the
insolvency of many provincial Banking Companies, of the most
established reputation for stability, has greatly distressed the
country, and alarmed London itself, from the necessary reaction of
their misfortunes upon their correspondents in the capital.
I do not think, sir, that the advocate of Scotland is called upon to
go further, in order to plead an exemption from any experiment which
England may think proper to try to cure her own malady, than to say
such malady does not exist in her jurisdiction. It is surely enough to
plead, 'We are well, our pulse and complexion prove it--let those who
are sick take physic.' But the opinion of the English Ministers is
widely different; for, granting our premisses, they deny our
conclusion.
The peculiar humour of a friend, whom I lost some years ago, is the
only one I recollect, which jumps precisely with the reasoning of the
Chancellor of the Exchequer. My friend was an old Scottish laird, a
bachelor and a humorist--wealthy, convivial, and hospitable, and of
course having always plenty of company about him. He had a regular
custom of swallowing every night in the world one of Dr. Anderson's
pills, for which reasons may be readily imagined. But it is not so
easy to account for his insisting on every one of his guests taking
the same medicine, and whether it was by way of patronising the
medicine, which is in some sense a national receipt, or whether the
mischievous old wag amused himself with anticipating the scenes of
delicate embarrassment, which the dispensation sometimes produced in
the course of the night, I really cannot even guess. What is equally
strange, he pressed the request with a sort of eloquence which
succeeded with every guest. No man escaped, though there were few who
did not make resistance. His powers of persuasion would have been
invaluable to a minister of state. 'What! not one _Leetle Anderson_,
to oblige your friend, your host, your entertainer! He had taken one
himself--he would take another, if you pleased--surely what was good
for his complaint must of course be beneficial to yours?' It was in
vain you pleaded your being perfectly well,--your detesting the
medicine,--your being certain it would not agree with you--none of the
apologies were received as valid. You might be warm, pathetic or
sulky, fretful or patient, grave or serious in testifying your
repugnance, but you were equally a doomed man; escape was impossible.
Your host was in his turn eloquent,--authoritative,--facetious,
--argumentative,--precatory,--pathetic, above all, pertinacious. No
guest was known to escape the _Leetle Anderson_. The last time I
experienced the laird's hospitality there were present at the evening
meal the following catalogue of guests:--a Bond-street dandy, of the most
brilliant water, drawn thither by the temptation of grouse-shooting--a
writer from the neighbouring borough (the lairds _doer_, I
believe),--two country lairds, men of reserved and stiff habits--three
sheep-farmers, as stiff-necked and stubborn as their own haltered
rams--and I, Malachi Malagrowther, not facile or obvious to persuasion.
There was also the Esculapius of the vicinity--one who gave, but
elsewhere was never known to _take_ medicine. All succumbed--each took,
after various degrees of resistance according to his peculiar fashion,
his own _Leetle Anderson_. The doer took a brace. On the event I
am silent. None had reason to congratulate himself on his complaisance.
The laird has slept with his ancestors for some years, remembered
sometimes with a smile on account of his humorous eccentricities, always
with a sigh when his surviving friends and neighbours reflect on his
kindliness and genuine beneficence. I have only to add that I hope he
has not bequeathed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, otherwise so
highly gifted, his invincible powers of persuading folks to take
medicine, which their constitutions do not require.
Have I argued my case too high in supposing that the present intended
legislative enactment is as inapplicable to Scotland as a pair of
elaborate knee-buckles would be to the dress of a kilted Highlander? I
think not.
I understand Lord Liverpool and the Chancellor of the Exchequer
distinctly to have admitted the fact, that no distress whatever had
originated in Scotland from the present issuing of small notes of the
bankers established there, whether provincial in the strict sense, or
sent abroad by branches of the larger establishments settled in the
metropolis. No proof can be desired better than the admission of the
adversary.
Nevertheless, we have been positively informed by the newspapers that
Ministers see no reason why any law adopted on this subject should not
be imperative over all his Majesty's dominions, including Scotland,
_for uniformity's sake_. In my opinion they might as well make a law
that the Scotsman, for uniformity's sake, should not eat oatmeal,
because it is found to give Englishmen the heartburn. If an ordinance
prohibiting the oatcake, can be accompanied with a regulation capable
of being enforced, that in future, for uniformity's sake, our moors
and uplands shall henceforth bear the purest wheat, I for one have no
objection to the regulation. But till Ben Nevis be level with
Norfolkshire, though the natural wants of the two nations may be the
same, the extent of these wants, natural or commercial, and the mode
of supplying them, must be widely different, let the rule of
uniformity be as absolute as it will. The nation which cannot raise
wheat, must be allowed to eat oat-bread; the nation which is too poor
to retain a circulating medium of the precious metals, must be
permitted to supply its place with paper credit; otherwise, they must
go without food, and without currency.
If I were called on, Mr. Journalist, I think I could give some reasons
why the system of banking which has been found well adapted for
Scotland is not proper for England, and why there is no reason for
inflicting upon us the intended remedy; in other words, why this
political balsam of Fierabras which is to relieve Don Quixote, may
have a great chance to poison Sancho. With this view, I will mention
briefly some strong points of distinction affecting the comparative
credit of the banks in England and in Scotland; and they seem to
furnish, to one inexperienced in political economies (upon the
transcendental doctrines of which so much stress is now laid), very
satisfactory reasons for the difference which is not denied to exist
betwixt the effects of the same general system in different countries.
In Scotland, almost all Banking Companies consist of a considerable
number of persons, many of them men of landed property, whose landed
estates, with the burthens legally affecting them, may be learned from
the records, for the expense of a few shillings; so that all the
world knows, or may know, the general basis on which their credit
rests, and the extent of real property, which, independent of their
personal means, is responsible for their commercial engagements. In
most banking establishments this fund of credit is considerable, in
others immense; especially in those where the shares are numerous, and
are held in small proportions, many of them by persons of landed
estates, whose fortunes, however large, and however small their share
of stock, must all be liable to the engagements of the Bank. In
England, as I believe, the number of the partners engaged in a banking
concern cannot exceed five; and though of late years their landed
property has been declared subject to be attacked by their commercial
creditors, yet no one can learn, without incalculable trouble, the
real value of that land, or with what mortgages it is burthened. Thus,
_cæteris paribus_, the English banker cannot make his solvency
manifest to the public, therefore cannot expect, or receive, the same
unlimited trust, which is willingly and securely reposed in those of
the same profession in Scotland.
Secondly, the circulation of the Scottish bank-notes is free and
unlimited; an advantage arising from their superior degree of credit.
They pass without a shadow of objection through the whole limits of
Scotland, and, though they cannot be legally tendered, are current
nearly as far as York in England. Those of English Banking Companies
seldom extend beyond a very limited horizon: in two or three stages
from the place where they are issued, many of them are objected to,
and give perpetual trouble to any traveller who has happened to take
them in change on the road. Even the most creditable provincial notes
never approach London in a free tide--never circulate like blood to
the heart, and from thence to the extremities, but are current within
a limited circle; often, indeed, so very limited, that the notes
issued in the morning, to use an old simile, fly out like pigeons from
the dovecot, and are sure to return in the evening to the spot which
they have left at break of day.
Owing to these causes, and others which I forbear mentioning, the
profession of provincial Bankers in England is limited in its regular
profits, and uncertain in its returns, to a degree unknown in
Scotland; and is, therefore, more apt to be adopted in the South by
men of sanguine hopes and bold adventure (both frequently
disproportioned to the extent of their capital), who sink in mines or
other hazardous speculations the funds which their banking credit
enables them to command, and deluge the country with notes, which, on
some unhappy morning, are found not worth a penny--as those to whom
the foul fiend has given apparent treasures are said in due time to
discover they are only pieces of slate.
I am aware it may be urged that the restrictions imposed on those
English provincial Banks are necessary to secure the supremacy of the
Bank of England; on the same principle on which dogs, kept near the
purlieus of a royal forest, were anciently lamed by the cutting off of
one of the claws, to prevent their interfering with the royal sport.
This is a very good regulation for England, for what I know; but why
should the Scottish institutions, which do not, and cannot interfere
with the influence of the Bank of England, be put on a level with
those of which such jealousy is, justly or unjustly, entertained? We
receive no benefit from that immense establishment, which, like a
great oak, overshadows England from Tweed to Cornwall. Why should our
national plantations be cut down or cramped for the sake of what
affords us neither shade nor shelter, and which, besides, can take no
advantage by the injury done to us? Why should we be subjected to a
monopoly from which we derive no national benefit?
I have only to add that Scotland has not felt the slightest
inconvenience from the want of specie, nay, that it has never been in
request among them. A tradesman will take a guinea more unwillingly
than a note of the same value--to the peasant the coin is unknown. No
one ever wishes for specie save when upon a journey to England. In
occasional runs upon particular houses, the notes of other Banking
Companies have always been the value asked for--no holder of these
notes ever demanded specie. The credit of one establishment might be
doubted for the time--that of the general system was never brought
into question. Even avarice, the most suspicious of passions, has in
no instance I ever heard of, desired to compose her hoards by an
accumulation of the precious metals. The confidence in the credit of
our ordinary medium has not been doubted even in the dreams of the
most irritable and jealous of human passions.
All these considerations are so obvious that a statesman so acute as
Mr. Robinson must have taken them in at the first glance, and must at
the same time have deemed them of no weight, compared with the
necessary conformity between the laws of the two kingdoms. I must,
therefore, speak to the justice of this point of uniformity.
Sir, my respected ancestor, Sir Mungo, when he had the distinguished
honour to be _whipping_, or rather _whipped boy_, to his Majesty King
James the Sixth of gracious memory, was always, in virtue of his
office, scourged when the king deserved flogging; and the same
equitable rule seems to distinguish the conduct of Government towards
Scotland, as one of the three United Kingdoms. If Pat is guilty of
peculation, Sister Peg loses her Boards of Revenue--if John Bull's
cashiers mismanage his money-matters, those who have conducted Sister
Margaret's to their own great honour, and her no less advantage, must
be deprived of the power of serving her in future; at least that power
must be greatly restricted and limited.
'Quidquid delirant reges plectuntur Achivi.'
That is to say, if our superiors of England and Ireland eat sour
grapes, the Scottish teeth must be set on edge as well as their own.
An uniformity in benefits may be well--an uniformity in penal
measures, towards the innocent and the guilty, in prohibitory
regulations, whether necessary or not, seems harsh law, and worse
justice.
This levelling system, not equitable in itself, is infinitely unjust,
if a story, often told by my poor old grandfather, was true, which I
own I am inclined to doubt. The old man, sir, had learned in his
youth, or dreamed in his dotage, that Scotland had become an integral
part of England,--not in right of conquest, or rendition, or through
any right of inheritance--but in virtue of a solemn Treaty of Union.
Nay, so distinct an idea had he of this supposed Treaty, that he used
to recite one of its articles to this effect:--'That the laws in use
within the kingdom of Scotland, do, after the Union, remain in the
same force as before, but alterable by the Parliament of Great
Britain, with this difference between the laws concerning public
right, policy, and civil government, and those which concern private
right, that the former may be made the same through the whole United
Kingdom; but that no alteration be made on laws which concern private
right, _excepting for the evident utility of the subjects within
Scotland_.' When the old gentleman came to the passage, which you will
mark in italics, he always clenched his fist, and exclaimed, 'Nemo me
impune lacessit!' which, I presume, are words belonging to the black
art, since there is no one in the Modern Athens conjuror enough to
understand their meaning, or at least to comprehend the spirit of the
sentiment which my grandfather thought they conveyed.
I cannot help thinking, sir, that if there had been any truth in my
grandfather's story, some Scottish member would, on the late occasion,
have informed the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that, in virtue of this
Treaty, it was no sufficient reason for innovating upon the private
rights of Scotsmen in a most tender and delicate point, merely that
the Right Honourable Gentleman saw no reason why the same law should
not be current through the whole of his Majesty's dominions; and that,
on the contrary, it was incumbent upon him to go a step further, and
to show that the alteration proposed _was_ for the EVIDENT UTILITY _of
the subjects within Scotland_,--a proposition disavowed by the Right
Honourable Gentleman's candid admission, as well as by that of the
Prime Minister, and contradicted in every circumstance by the actual
state of the case.
Methinks, sir, our 'Chosen Five and Forty,' supposing they had bound
themselves to Ministers by such oaths of silence and obedience as are
taken by Carthusian friars, must have had free-will and speech to
express their sentiments, had they been possessed of so irrefragable
an argument in such a case of extremity. The sight of a father's life
in danger is said to have restored the power of language to the dumb;
and truly, the necessary defence of the rights of our native country
is not, or at least ought not to be, a less animating motive. Lord
Lauderdale almost alone interfered, and procured, to his infinite
honour, a delay of six months in the extension of this act,--a sort of
reprieve from the southern _jougs_,--by which we may have some chance
of profiting, if, during the interval, we can show ourselves true
Scotsmen, by some better proof than merely by being 'wise behind the
hand.'
In the first place, sir, I would have this old Treaty searched for,
and should it be found to be still existing, I think it decides the
question. For, how can it be possible that it should be for the
'evident utility' of Scotland to alter her laws of private right, to
the total subversion of a system under which she is admitted to have
flourished for a century, and which has never within North Britain
been attended with the inconveniences charged against it in the sister
country, where, by the way, it never existed? Even if the old
parchment should be voted obsolete, there would be some satisfaction
in having it looked out and preserved--not in the Register-Office, or
Advocates' Library, where it might awaken painful recollections--but
in the Museum of the Antiquaries, where, with the Solemn League and
Covenant, the Letter of the Scottish Nobles to the Pope on the
independence of their country, and other antiquated documents, once
held in reverence, it might silently contract dust, yet remain to bear
witness that such things had been.
I earnestly hope, however, that an international league of such
importance may still be found obligatory on both the _high_ and the
_low_ contracting parties; on that which has the power, and apparently
the will, to break it, as well as on the weaker nation, who cannot,
without incurring still worse, and more miserable consequences, oppose
aggression, otherwise than by invoking the faith of treaties, and the
national honour of Old England.
In the second place, all ranks and bodies of men in North Britain (for
all are concerned, the poor as well as the rich) should express by
petition their sense of the injustice which is offered to the country,
and the distress which will probably be the necessary consequence.
Without the power of issuing their own notes the Banks cannot supply
the manufacturer with that credit which enables him to pay his
workmen, and wait his return; or accommodate the farmer with that
fund which makes it easy for him to discharge his rent, and give wages
to his labourers, while in the act of performing expensive operations
which are to treble or quadruple the produce of his farm. The trustees
on the high-roads and other public works, so ready to stake their
personal credit for carrying on public improvements, will no longer
possess the power of raising funds by doing so. The whole existing
state of credit is to be altered from top to bottom, and Ministers are
silent on any remedy which such a state of things would imperiously
require.
These are subjects worth struggling for, and rather of more importance
than generally come before County Meetings. The English legislature
seems inclined to stultify our Law Authorities in their department;
but let us at least try if they will listen to the united voice of a
Nation in matters which so intimately concern its welfare, that almost
every man must have formed a judgment on the subject, from something
like personal experience. For my part, I cannot doubt the result.
Times are undoubtedly different from those of Queen Anne, when, Dean
Swift having in a political pamphlet passed some sarcasms on the
Scottish nation, as a poor and fierce people, the Scythians of
Britain,--the Scottish peers, headed by the Duke of Argyll, went in
a body to the ministers, and compelled them to disown the sentiments
which had been expressed by their partisan, and offer a reward of
three hundred pounds for the author of the libel, well known to be the
best advocate and most intimate friend of the existing administration.
They demanded also that the printer and publisher should be prosecuted
before the House of Peers; and Harley, however unwillingly, was
obliged to yield to their demand.
In the celebrated case of Porteous, the English legislature saw
themselves compelled to desist from vindictive measures, on account of
a gross offence committed in the metropolis of Scotland. In that of
the Roman Catholic bill they yielded to the voice of the Scottish
people, or rather of the Scottish mob, and declared the proposed
alteration of the law should not extend to North Britain. The cases
were different, in point of merit, though the Scots were successful in
both. In the one, a boon of clemency was extorted; in the other,
concession was an act of decided weakness. But ought the present
administration of Great Britain to show less deference to our
temperate and general remonstrance on a matter concerning ourselves
only, than their predecessors did to the passions, and even the
ill-founded and unjust prejudices, of our ancestors?
Times, indeed, have changed since those days, and circumstances also.
We are no longer a poor, that is, so _very poor_ a country and
people; and as we have increased in wealth, we have become somewhat
poorer in spirit, and more loath to incur displeasure by contests upon
mere etiquette, or national prejudice. But we have some grounds to
plead for favour with England. We have borne our pecuniary impositions
during a long war, with a patience the more exemplary, as they lay
heavier on us from our comparative want of means--our blood has flowed
as freely as that of England or of Ireland--our lives and fortunes
have become unhesitatingly devoted to the defence of the empire--our
loyalty as warmly and willingly displayed towards the person of our
Sovereign. We have consented with submission, if not with
cheerfulness, to reductions and abolitions of public offices, required
for the good of the state at large, but which must affect materially
the condition, and even the respectability, of our overburthened
aristocracy. We have in every respect conducted ourselves as good and
faithful subjects of the general empire.
We do not boast of these things as actual merits; but they are at
least duties discharged, and in an appeal to men of honour and of
judgment, must entitle us to be heard with patience, and even
deference, on the management of our own affairs, if we speak
unanimously, lay aside party feeling, and use the voice of one leaf of
the holy Trefoil,--one distinct and component part of the United
Kingdoms.
Let no consideration deter us from pleading our own cause temperately
but firmly, and we shall certainly receive a favourable audience. Even
our acquisition of a little wealth, which might abate our courage on
other occasions, should invigorate us to unanimous perseverance at the
present crisis, when the very source of our national prosperity is
directly, though unwittingly, struck at. Our plaids are, I trust, not
yet sunk into Jewish gaberdines, to be wantonly spit upon; nor are we
yet bound to 'receive the insult with a patient shrug.' But exertion
is now demanded on other accounts than those of mere honourable
punctilio. Misers themselves will struggle in defence of their
property, though tolerant of all aggressions by which that is not
threatened. Avarice herself, however mean-spirited, will rouse to
defend the wealth she possesses, and preserve the means of gaining
more. Scotland is now called upon to rally in defence of the sources
of her national improvement, and the means of increasing it; upon
which, as none are so much concerned in the subject, none can be such
competent judges as Scotsmen themselves.
I cannot believe so generous a people as the English, so wise an
administration as the present, will disregard our humble
remonstrances, merely because they are made in the form of peaceful
entreaty, and not _secundum perfervidum ingenium Scotorum_, with
'durk and pistol at our belt.' It would be a dangerous lesson to teach
the empire at large, that threats can extort what is not yielded to
reasonable and respectful remonstrance.
But this is not all. The principle of 'uniformity of laws,' if not
manfully withstood, may have other blessings in store for us. Suppose,
that when finished with blistering Scotland when in perfect health,
England should find time and courage to withdraw the veil from the
deep cancer which is gnawing her own bowels, and make an attempt to
stop the fatal progress of her _poor-rates_. Some system or other must
be proposed in its place--a grinding one it must be, for it is not an
evil to be cured by palliatives. Suppose the English, for uniformity's
sake, insist that Scotland, which is at present free from this foul
and shameful disorder, should nevertheless be included in the severe
_treatment_ which the disease demands, how would the landholders of
Scotland like to undergo the scalpel and cautery, merely because
England requires to be scarified?
Or again;--Supposing England should take a fancy to impart to us her
sanguinary criminal code, which, too cruel to be carried into effect,
gives every wretch that is condemned a chance of one to twelve that he
shall not be executed, and so turns the law into a lottery--would this
be an agreeable boon to North Britain?
Once more;--What if the English ministers should feel disposed to
extend to us their equitable system of process respecting civil debt,
which divides the advantages so admirably betwixt debtor and
creditor--_That_ equal dispensation of justice, which provides that an
imprisoned debtor, if a rogue, may remain in undisturbed possession of
a great landed estate, and enjoy in a jail all the luxuries of
Sardanapalus, while the wretch to whom he owes money is starving; and
that, to balance the matter, a creditor, if cruel, may detain a debtor
in prison for a lifetime, and make, as the established phrase goes,
_dice of his bones_--would this admirable reciprocity of privilege,
indulged alternately to knave and tyrant, please Saunders better than
his own humane action of Cessio, and his equitable process of
Adjudication?
I will not insist further on such topics, for I daresay that these
apparent enormities in principle are, in England where they have
operation, modified and corrected in practice by circumstances unknown
to me; so that, in passing judgment on them, I may myself fall into
the error I deprecate, of judging of foreign laws without being aware
of all the premisses. Neither do I mean that we should struggle with
illiberality against any improvements which can be borrowed from
English principle. I would only desire that such ameliorations were
adopted, not merely because they are English, but because they are
suited to be assimilated with the laws of Scotland, and lead, in
short, _to her evident utility_; and this on the principle, that in
transplanting a tree, little attention need be paid to the character
of the climate and soil from which it is brought, although the
greatest care must be taken that those of the situation to which it is
transplanted are fitted to receive it. It would be no reason for
planting mulberry-trees in Scotland, that they luxuriate in the south
of England. There is sense in the old proverb, 'Ilk land has its ain
lauch.'
In the present case, it is impossible to believe the extension of
these restrictions to Scotland can be for the _evident utility_ of the
country, which has prospered so long and so uniformly under directly
the contrary system.
It is very probable I may be deemed illiberal in all this reasoning;
but if to look for information to practical results, rather than to
theoretical principles, and to argue from the effect of the experience
of a century, rather than the deductions of a modern hypothesis, be
illiberal, I must sit down content with a censure, which will include
wiser men than I. The philosophical tailors of Laputa, who wrought by
mathematical calculation, had, no doubt, a supreme contempt for those
humble fashioners who went to work by measuring the person of their
customer; but Gulliver tells us, that the worst clothes he ever wore,
were constructed upon abstract principles; and truly, I think, we have
seen some laws, and may see more, not much better adapted to existing
circumstances, than the Captain's philosophical uniform to his actual
person.
It is true, that every wise statesman keeps sound and general
political principles in his eye, as the pilot looks upon his compass
to discover his true course. But this true course cannot always be
followed out straight and diametrically; it must be altered from time
to time, nay sometimes apparently abandoned, on account of shoals,
breakers, and headlands, not to mention contrary winds. The same
obstacles occur to the course of the statesman. The point at which he
aims may be important, the principle on which he steers may be just;
yet the obstacles arising from rooted prejudices, from intemperate
passions, from ancient practices, from a different character of
people, from varieties in climate and soil, may cause a direct
movement upon his ultimate object to be attended with distress to
individuals, and loss to the community, which no good man would wish
to occasion, and with dangers which no wise man would voluntarily
choose to encounter.
Although I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been rather
precipitate in the decided opinion which he is represented to have
expressed on this occasion, I am far from entertaining the slightest
disrespect for the right honourable gentleman. 'I hear as good
exclamation upon him as on any man in Messina, and though I am but a
poor man, I am glad to hear it.' But a decided attachment to abstract
principle, and to a spirit of generalising, is--like a rash rider on a
headstrong horse--very apt to run foul of local obstacles, which might
have been avoided by a more deliberate career, where the nature of the
ground had been previously considered.
I make allowance for the temptation natural to an ingenious and active
mind. There is a natural pride in following out an universal and
levelling principle. It seems to augur genius, force of conception,
and steadiness of purpose; qualities which every legislator is
desirous of being thought to possess. On the other hand, the study of
local advantages and impediments demands labour and inquiry, and is
rewarded after all only with the cold and parsimonious praise due to
humble industry. It is no less true, however, that measures which go
straight and direct to a great general object, without noticing
intervening impediments, must often resemble the fierce progress of
the thunderbolt or the cannon-ball, those dreadful agents, which, in
rushing right to their point, care not what ruin they make by the way.
The sounder and more moderate policy, accommodating its measures to
exterior circumstances, rather resembles the judicious course of a
well-conducted highway, which, turning aside frequently from its
direct course,
'Winds round the corn-field and the hill of vines,'
and becomes devious, that it may respect property and avoid obstacles;
thus escaping even temporary evils, and serving the public no less in
its more circuitous, than it would have done in its direct course.
Can you tell me, sir, if this _uniformity_ of civil institutions,
which calls for such sacrifices, be at all descended from, or related
to, a doctrine nearly of the same nature, called Conformity in
religious doctrine, very fashionable about one hundred and fifty years
since, which undertook to unite the jarring creeds of the United
Kingdom to one common standard, and excited a universal strife by the
vain attempt, and a thousand fierce disputes, in which she
'----umpire sate,
And by decision more embroiled the fray'?
Should Uniformity have the same pedigree, Malachi Malagrowther
proclaims her 'a hawk of a very bad nest.'
The universal opinion of a whole kingdom, founded upon a century's
experience, ought not to be lightly considered as founded in ignorance
and prejudice. I am something of an agriculturist; and in travelling
through the country I have often had occasion to wonder that the
inhabitants of particular districts had not adopted certain obvious
improvements in cultivation. But, upon inquiry, I have usually found
out that appearances had deceived me, and that I had not reckoned on
particular local circumstances, which either prevented the execution
of the system I should have theoretically recommended, or rendered
some other more advantageous in the particular circumstances.
I do not therefore resist theoretical innovation in general; I only
humbly desire it may not outrun the suggestions arising from the
experience of ages. I would have the necessity felt and acknowledged
before old institutions are demolished--the _evident utility_ of every
alteration demonstrated before it is adopted upon mere speculation. I
submit our ancient system to the primary knife of the legislature, but
would not willingly see our reformers employ a weapon, which, like the
sword of Jack the Giant-Killer, _cuts before the point_.
It is always to be considered, that in human affairs, the very best
imaginable result is seldom to be obtained, and that it is wise to
content ourselves with the best which can be got. This principle
speaks with a voice of thunder against violent innovation, for the
sake of possible improvement, where things are already well. We ought
not to desire better bread than is made of wheat. Our Scotch proverb
warns us to _Let weel bide_; and all the world has heard of the
untranslatable Italian epitaph upon the man, who died of taking physic
to make him better, when he was already in health.--I am, Mr.
Journalist, yours,