twentypence; for which he demands two shillings.
His coinage he computes at sixpence per pound weight; therefore,
he laying out only twentypence, and gaining fourpence,
he makes per cent. profit, 20
The sixpence per pound weight, allowed for coinage,
makes per cent. 30
The want of weight in his halfpenny, compared as above,
is per cent. 10
By all which (viz. coinage, profit, and want of weight)
--the public loses per cent. 60
If Mr. M'Culla's coins will not pass, and he refuses to receive them
back, the owner cannot sell them at above twelvepence per pound weight;
whereby, with the defect of weight of 10 per cent., he will lose 60 per
cent.
The scheme of the society, raised as high as it can possibly be, will be
only thus:
For interest of their money, per cent. 8
For coinage, instead of 10, suppose at most per cent. 20
For _l.300_ laid out for tools, a mint, and house-rent,
charge 3 per cent. upon the coinage of _l.10,000_, 3
----
Charges in all upon interest, coinage, &c. per cent., 31
Which, with all the advantages above-mentioned, of the goodness of the
metal, the largeness of the coin, the deepness and fairness of the
impression, the assurance of the society confining itself to such a sum
as they undertake, or as the kingdom shall approve; and lastly, their
paying in gold or silver for all their coin returned upon their hands
without any defalcation, would be of mighty benefit to the kingdom; and,
with a little steadiness and activity, could, I doubt not, be easily
compassed.
I would not in this scheme recommend the method of promissory notes,
after Mr. M'Culla's manner; but, as I have seen in old Irish coins, the
words CIVITAS DVBLIN, on one side, with the year of our Lord
and the Irish harp on the reverse.
A PROPOSAL
THAT
ALL THE LADIES AND WOMEN OF IRELAND
SHOULD APPEAR CONSTANTLY IN
IRISH MANUFACTURES.
NOTE.
The arguments advanced in this tract are practically repetitions of
those already given in previous pieces. Swift laid much stress on
the people buying and wearing goods made in Ireland, since in that
way the money would remain in the country. In this little tract he
winds up with a special appeal to the women of Ireland.
* * * * *
The present text is based on that of the quarto edition (vol.
viii.) of 1765, and compared with Faulkner's of 1772.
[T. S.]
A PROPOSAL THAT ALL THE LADIES AND WOMEN OF IRELAND SHOULD APPEAR
CONSTANTLY IN IRISH MANUFACTURES.
There was a treatise written about nine years ago, to persuade the
people of Ireland to wear their own manufactures.[119] This treatise was
allowed to have not one syllable in it of party or disaffection; but was
wholly founded upon the growing poverty of the nation, occasioned by the
utter want of trade in every branch, except that ruinous importation of
all foreign extravagancies from other countries. This treatise was
presented, by the grand jury of the city and county of Dublin, as a
scandalous, seditious, and factious pamphlet. I forget who was the
foreman of the city grand jury; but the foreman for the county was one
Doctor Seal, register to the Archbishop of Dublin, wherein he differed
much from the sentiments of his lord.[120] The printer[121] was tried
before the late Mr. Whitshed, that famous Lord chief-justice; who, on
the bench, laying his hand on his heart, declared, upon his salvation,
that the author was a Jacobite, and had a design to beget a quarrel
between the two nations.[122] In the midst of this prosecution, about
fifteen hundred weavers were forced to beg their bread, and had a
general contribution made for their relief, which just served to make
them drunk for a week; and then they were forced to turn rogues, or
strolling beggars, or to leave the kingdom.
The Duke of Grafton,[123] who was then Lieutenant, being perfectly
ashamed of so infamous and unpopular a proceeding, obtained from England
a _noli prosequi_ for the printer. Yet the grand jury had solemn thanks
given them from the Secretary of State.
I mention this passage (perhaps too much forgotten,) to shew how
dangerous it hath been for the best meaning person to write one syllable
in the defence of his country, or discover the miserable condition it is
in.
And to prove this truth, I will produce one instance more; wholly
omitting the famous case of the Drapier, and the proclamation against
him, as well as the perverseness of another jury against the same Mr.
Whitshed, who was violently bent to act the second part in another
scene.[124]
About two years ago, there was a small paper printed, which was called,
"A Short View of the State of Ireland," relating the several causes
whereby any country may grow rich, and applying them to Ireland.[125]
Whitshed was dead, and consequently the printer was not troubled. Mist,
the famous journalist, happened to reprint this paper in London, for
which his press-folks were prosecuted for almost a twelve-month; and,
for aught I know, are not yet discharged.[126]
This is our case; insomuch, that although I am often without money in my
pocket, I dare not own it in some company, for fear of being thought
disaffected.
But, since I am determined to take care that the author of this paper
shall not be discovered (following herein the most prudent practice of
the Drapier,) I will venture to affirm, that the three seasons wherein
our corn hath miscarried, did no more contribute to our present misery,
than one spoonful of water thrown upon a rat already drowned would
contribute to his death; and that the present plentiful harvest,
although it should be followed by a dozen ensuing, would no more restore
us, than it would the rat aforesaid to put him near the fire, which
might indeed warm his fur coat, but never bring him back to life.
The short of the matter is this: The distresses of the kingdom are
operating more and more every day, by very large degrees, and so have
been doing for above a dozen years past.
If you demand from whence these distresses have arisen, I desire to ask
the following question:
If two-thirds of any kingdom's revenue be exported to another country,
without one farthing of value in return; and if the said kingdom be
forbidden the most profitable branches of trade wherein to employ the
other third, and only allowed to traffic in importing those commodities
which are most ruinous to itself[127]; how shall that kingdom stand?
If this question were formed into the first proposition of an
hypothetical syllogism, I defy the man born in Ireland, who is now in
the fairest way of getting a collectorship, or a cornet's post, to give
a good reason for denying it.
Let me put another case. Suppose a gentleman's estate of two hundred
pounds a year should sink to one hundred, by some accident, whether by
an earthquake, or inundation, it matters not: and suppose the said
gentleman utterly hopeless and unqualified ever to retrieve the loss;
how is he otherwise to proceed in his future economy, than by reducing
it on every article to one half less, unless he will be content to fly
his country, or rot in jail? This is a representation of Ireland's
condition; only with one fault, that it is a little too favourable.
Neither am I able to propose a full remedy for this, that shall ever be
granted, but only a small prolongation of life, until God shall
miraculously dispose the hearts of our neighbours, our kinsmen, our
fellow-protestants, fellow-subjects, and fellow rational creatures, to
permit us to starve without running further in debt. I am informed that
our national debt (and God knows how we wretches came by that
fashionable thing a national debt) is about two hundred and fifty
thousand pounds; which is at least one-third of the whole kingdom's
rents, after our absentees and other foreign drains are paid, and about
fifty thousand pounds more than all the cash.
It seems there are several schemes for raising a fund to pay the
interest of this formidable sum (not the principal, for this is allowed
impossible). The necessity of raising such a fund, is strongly and
regularly pleaded, from the late deficiencies in the duties and customs.
And is it the fault of Ireland that these funds are deficient? If they
depend on trade, can it possibly be otherwise, while we have neither
liberty to trade, nor money to trade with; neither hands to work, nor
business to employ them, if we had? Our diseases are visible enough both
in their causes and effects; and the cures are well known, but
impossible to be applied.
If my steward comes and tells me, that my rents are sunk so low, that
they are very little more than sufficient to pay my servants their
wages; have I any other course left than to cashier four in six of my
rascally footmen, and a number of other varlets in my family, of whose
insolence the whole neighbourhood complains? And I should think it
extremely severe in any law, to force me to maintain a household of
fifty servants, and fix their wages, before I had offered my rent-roll
upon oath to the legislators.
To return from digressing: I am told one scheme for raising a fund to
pay the interest of our national debt, is, by a further duty of forty
shillings a tun upon wine. Some gentlemen would carry this matter much
further, by raising it to twelve pounds; which, in a manner, would
amount to a prohibition: thus weakly arguing from the practice of
England.
I have often taken notice, both in print and in discourse, that there is
no topic so fallacious, either in talk or in writing, as to argue how we
ought to act in Ireland, from the example of England, Holland, France,
or any other country, whose inhabitants are allowed the common rights
and liberties of humankind. I could undertake to name six or seven of
the most uncontrolled maxims in government, which are utterly false in
this kingdom.
As to the additional duty on wine, I think any person may deliver his
opinion upon it, until it shall have passed into a law; and till then, I
declare mine to be positively against it.
First, Because there is no nation yet known, in either hemisphere, where
the people of all conditions are more in want of some cordial to keep up
their spirits, than in this of ours. I am not in jest; and if the fact
will not be allowed me, I shall not argue it.
Secondly, It is too well and generally known, that this tax of forty
shillings additional on every tun of wine, (which will be double, at
least, to the home consumer) will increase equally every new session of
Parliament, until, perhaps, it comes to twelve pounds.
Thirdly, Because, as the merchants inform me, and as I have known many
the like instances in England, this additional tax will more probably
lessen this branch of the revenue, than increase it. And therefore Sir
John Stanley, a commissioner of the customs in England, used to say,
that the House of Commons were generally mistaken in matters of trade,
by an erroneous opinion that two and two make four. Thus, if you should
lay an additional duty of one penny a pound on raisins or sugar, the
revenue, instead of rising, would certainly sink; and the consequence
would only be, to lessen the number of plum-puddings, and ruin the
confectioner.
Fourthly, I am likewise assured by merchants, that upon this additional
forty shillings, the French will at least equally raise their duties
upon all commodities we export thither.
Fifthly, If an original extract of the exports and imports be true, we
have been gainers, upon the balance, by our trade with France, for
several years past; and, although our gain amounts to no great sum, we
ought to be satisfied, since we are no losers, with the only consolation
we are capable of receiving.
Lastly, The worst consequence is behind. If we raise the duty on wine to
a considerable height, we lose the only hold we have of keeping among us
the few gentlemen of any tolerable estates. I am confident there is
hardly a gentleman of eight hundred pounds a year and upwards, in this
kingdom, who would balance half an hour to consider whether he should
live here or in England, if a family could be as cheaply maintained in
the one as the other. As to eatables, they are as cheap in many fine
counties of England, as in some very indifferent ones here; or, if there
be any difference, that vein of thrift and prudence in economy, which
passes there without reproach, (and chiefly in London itself,) would
amply make up the difference. But the article of French wine is hardly
tolerable, in any degree of plenty, to a middling fortune; and this is
it, which, by growing habitual, wholly turns the scale with those few
landed men, disengaged from employments, who content themselves to live
hospitably with plenty of good wine in their own country, rather than in
penury and obscurity in another, with bad, or with none at all.
Having, therefore, as far as in me lies, abolished this additional duty
upon wine; for I am not under the least concern about paying the
interest of the national debt, but leave it, as in loyalty bound, wholly
to the wisdom of the honourable House of Commons; I come now to consider
by what methods we may be able to put off and delay our utter undoing as
long as it is possible.
I never have discoursed with any reasonable man upon this subject, who
did not allow that there was no remedy left us, but to lessen the
importation of all unnecessary commodities as much as it was possible;
and likewise either to persuade our absentees to spend their money at
home, which is impossible; or tax them at five shillings in the pound
during their absence, with such allowances, upon necessary occasions, as
it shall be thought convenient: or, by permitting us a free trade, which
is denied to no other nation upon earth. The three last methods are
treated by Mr. Prior, in his most useful treatise, added to his list of
absentees.[128]
It is to gratify the vanity, and pride, and luxury of the women, and of
the young fops who admire them, that we owe this insupportable
grievance, of bringing in the instruments of our ruin. There is annually
brought over to this kingdom near ninety thousand pounds worth of silk,
whereof the greater part is manufactured. Thirty thousand pounds more is
expended in muslin, holland, cambric, and calico. What the price of lace
amounts to, is not easy to be collected from the custom-house book,
being a kind of goods that takes up little room, and is easily run; but,
considering the prodigious price of a woman's head-dress, at ten,
twelve, twenty pounds a yard, must be very great. The tea, rated at
seven shillings per pound, comes to near twelve thousand pounds; but,
considering it as the common luxury of every chambermaid, sempstress,
and tradesman's wife, both in town and country, however they come by it,
must needs cost the kingdom double that sum. Coffee is somewhere above
seven thousand pounds. I have seen no account of the chocolate, and some
other Indian or American goods. The drapery imported is about
four-and-twenty thousand pounds. The whole amounts (with one or two
other particulars) to one hundred and fifty thousand pounds. The
lavishing of all which money is just as prudent and necessary, as to see
a man in an embroidered coat, begging out of Newgate in an old shoe.
I allow that the thrown and raw silk is less pernicious, because we have
some share in the manufacture: but we are not now in circumstances to
trifle. It costs us above forty thousand pounds a-year; and if the
ladies, till better times, will not be content to go in their own
country shifts, I wish they may go in rags.
Let them vie with each other in the fineness of their native linen:
their beauty and gentleness will as well appear, as if they were covered
over with diamonds and brocade.
I believe no man is so weak, as to hope or expect that such a
reformation can be brought about by a law. But a thorough hearty,
unanimous vote, in both houses of Parliament, might perhaps answer as
well: every senator, noble or plebeian, giving his honour, that neither
himself, nor any of his family, would, in their dress, or furniture of
their houses, make use of anything except what was of the growth and
manufacture of this kingdom; and that they would use the utmost of their
power, influence, and credit, to prevail on their tenants, dependants,
and friends, to follow their example.
A
MODEST PROPOSAL
FOR PREVENTING THE CHILDREN OF POOR PEOPLE
FROM BEING A BURTHEN TO THEIR PARENTS
OR COUNTRY, AND FOR MAKING THEM BENEFICIAL
TO THE PUBLIC.
NOTE.
Perhaps in no literature is there to be found a piece of writing in
any sense comparable to this "Modest Proposal." Written,
apparently, in a light and comic vein, it might deceive the casual
reader into the belief that Swift had achieved a joke. It has the
air of a smiling and indifferent _raconteur_ amusing an
after-dinner table. In truth, however, this piece of writing is a
terrible indictment made by an advocate speaking against the result
of a tyranny of power which, through wicked stupidity or complacent
indifference, had afflicted a people almost to extinction. The
restraint of the writer evinced in this tract, is the more
remarkable, when we remember that he was Ireland's foremost
patriot, that he had been her champion for liberty and
independence, and that an indignation filled him at all times,
lacerating his heart, against the cruelty and oppression and
wretchedness of humanity generally. Here, he sits down and writes
as calmly as if composing an ordinary sermon, and proposes, in cold
blood, to alleviate the poverty of the Irish people by the sale of
their children as table food for the rich. He even goes into
calculations as to cost of breeding, and shows how a mother might
earn eight shillings a year on each child, by disposing of its
carcass for ten shillings. Of the million and a half people who
inhabit the country, he assumes that there are 200,000 who beget
children; of these about 30,000 are able to provide for their
offspring, but the balance of 170,000 must inevitably become a
burden. What is to become of them? Many schemes have been proposed
to meet their case, but not one of them has answered. Trade and
agriculture gave them no opportunity, since the trade of the
country was almost at a standstill, and land was now either too
dear to keep or too poor to cultivate. At the time of Swift's
writing Ireland had passed through three frightful years of famine.
Corn had become so dear that riots occurred at the ports where what
corn remained was being exported. The land, as Swift wrote to Pope
(August 11th, 1729) was in every place strewn with beggars. The
poor labourer, had work been found for him, was too weak in body to
undertake it. Thousands had already died of starvation and the
diseases consequent on hunger. Those that managed to exist did so
in filth, and dying every day, as Swift wrote on another occasion,
"and rotting, by cold and famine, and filth and vermin."
No, there was only one way out of the difficulty, and that was to
have these poor people breed children, which they could profitably
dispose of for food. Let them fatten their offspring as best they
could and sell them dead or alive for cooking. The irony of the
proposition may sound appalling to us in this century, but Swift
was not exaggerating the distress of his day. Even Primate Boulter,
who was certainly the last man to overstate an Irish case, sent
such reports as gave the English Government anxiety. To Swift it
was no time for polite speeches and calm proposals. He had already
given them in abundance. Now was the time for something merry and
with laughter:
"I may storm and rage in vain;
It but stupifies your brain.
But with raillery to nettle,
Set your thoughts upon their mettle."
It was in this spirit that the "Modest Proposal" was written. Swift
concludes with a final touch by telling us that he has nothing to
gain personally by his suggestion, since his "youngest child is
nine and his wife past child-bearing."
* * * * *
The text of the present edition is that of the original issue
collated with that given by Faulkner.
[T. S.]
A MODEST
PROPOSAL
For preventing the
CHILDREN
OF
POOR PEOPLE
From ~being a Burthen~ to
Their Parents or Country,
AND
For making them Beneficial to the
PUBLICK.
* * * * *
By Dr. Swift.
* * * * *
_Dublin_, Printed by _S. Harding_:
_London_, Reprinted; and sold by _J. Roberts_ in _Warwick-lane_, and
the Pamphlet-Shops.
M.DCC.XXIX.
A MODEST PROPOSAL
FOR PREVENTING THE CHILDREN OF POOR PEOPLE FROM BEING A BURTHEN TO THEIR
PARENTS OR COUNTRY, AND FOR MAKING THEM BENEFICIAL TO THE PUBLIC.
It is a melancholy object to those, who walk through this great town, or
travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and
cabin-doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three,
four, or six children, _all in rags_, and importuning every passenger
for an alms. These mothers instead of being able to work for their
honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in strolling, to
beg sustenance for their helpless infants, who, as they grow up, either
turn thieves for want of work, or leave their dear Native Country to
fight for the Pretender in Spain,[129] or sell themselves to the
Barbadoes.
I think it is agreed by all parties, that this prodigious number of
children, in the arms, or on the backs, or at the heels of their
mothers, and frequently of their fathers, is in the present deplorable
state of the kingdom, a very great additional grievance; and therefore
whoever could find out a fair, cheap and easy method of making these
children sound useful members of the commonwealth would deserve so well
of the public, as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the
nation.
But my intention is very far from being confined to provide only for
the children of professed beggars, it is of a much greater extent, and
shall take in the whole number of infants at a certain age, who are born
of parents in effect as little able to support them, as those who demand
our charity in the streets.
As to my own part, having turned my thoughts, for many years, upon this
important subject, and maturely weighed the several schemes of other
projectors, I have always found them grossly mistaken in their
computation. It is true a child, just dropped from its dam, may be
supported by her milk for a solar year with little other nourishment, at
most not above the value of two shillings, which the mother may
certainly get, or the value in scraps, by her lawful occupation of
begging, and it is exactly at one year old that I propose to provide for
them, in such a manner, as, instead of being a charge upon their
parents, or the parish, or wanting food and raiment for the rest of
their lives, they shall, on the contrary, contribute to the feeding and
partly to the clothing of many thousands.
There as likewise another great advantage in my scheme, that it will
prevent those voluntary abortions, and that horrid practice of women
murdering their bastard children, alas, too frequent among us,
sacrificing the poor innocent babes, I doubt, more to avoid the expense,
than the shame, which would move tears and pity in the most savage and
inhuman breast.