_The Budget; a Series of Letters, published at intervals, addressed
to Lord John Russell, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Stanley, and Lord
Eliot, on Import Duties, Commercial Reform, Colonization, and the
Condition of England._ By R. Torrens, Esq., F.R.S.
_The Edinburgh Review._ No. CLVII. Article, Free Trade and
Retaliation.
_The Westminster Review._ No. LXXVIII. Article, Colonel Torrens on
Free Trade.
Our readers are not, in general, unacquainted with the public character
and literary reputation of Colonel Torrens. He is, we believe, a
self-taught political economist; and, like Colonel Thompson, early
achieved distinction in a branch of moral science not considered
particularly akin to military pursuits. But in his recent labours, he
has very seriously damaged his reputation, by attempting to bolster up a
policy whose influence on the welfare of the nation has been of the most
deadly and pernicious kind; and we therefore advert to the letters
called the _Budget_, more with the view of showing that they have been
analysed, and their mischievous principles thoroughly refuted, than with
any intention of entering at large into the discussion.
It was, we believe, in the autumn of 1841, immediately following the
accession of the present Government to office, that Colonel Torrens
commenced the publication of his letters called the _Budget_. The two
first were addressed to Lord John Russell, and professed to show that
the commercial propositions of the late Whig Government would, if
adopted, have altered the value of money, increased the pressure of
taxation, and aggravated the distress of the people. The third letter
was on commercial reform, addressed to Sir Robert Peel. The remainder of
the series were on colonization and taxation, on the expediency of
adopting differential duties, &c.; concluding with one on the condition
of England, and on the means of removing the causes of distress; which
was afterwards followed by a _Postscript_, in which the author,
addressing Sir Robert Peel, said--
"I would beg to submit to your consideration what appears to me to
amount to a mathematical demonstration, that a reduction of the
duties upon foreign production, unaccompanied by a corresponding
mitigation of the duties imposed by foreign countries upon British
goods, would cause a further decline of prices, of profits, and of
wages, and would render it doubtful whether the taxes could be
collected, and faith with the public credit or maintained."
Opinions like these, coming from a man considered to be of some little
authority in economical science, were certainly important. The time was
serious--the crisis really alarming. A new Government had come into
power, and it was thought and expected were about to effect great
changes. Even the _Quarterly Review_, alarmed by the aspect of affairs,
came round, in the winter of 1841, to advocate commercial reform. At
this critical period Colonel Torrens stepped forward. What his motives
were we do not know; though we know that men neither harsh nor
uncharitable, and with some opportunities of judging, considered that
Colonel Torrens, soured by political disappointments and personal
feeling, had permitted himself to be biassed by hopes of patronage from
the new Government. The pamphlets composing the _Budget_ only appeared
at intervals: but so far as they were then published, did attract
considerable attention; the mere supporters of pure monopoly did not, of
course, understand them: but that body who may be appropriately enough
termed _middle men_, were not unaware of the value of such support as
that afforded by Colonel Torrens, in staring off changes which seemed
inevitable. Sir Robert Peel, too, was then in the very midst of his
lesson-taking; and as he deeply studied Mr Hume's Import Duties Report,
before he brought out his new Tariff, we need not consider it to be very
discreditable to him, that he read the pamphlets of Colonel Torrens
before he tried his diplomatic commercial policy.
At all events, one of the chief arguments with which Sir Robert Peel and
Mr Gladstone justified the great omissions of the new Tariff, was the
fact that the Government was engaged in negotiations with other
countries in order to obtain treaties of reciprocity. The utter failure
of these efforts Sir Robert Peel has repeatedly confessed, accompanied
with a sigh over the inutility of the attempt; and the last time that he
adverted, in the House of Commons, to the authority of Colonel Torrens
(he was citing the _Postscript_ to the _Letter_ addressed to himself) it
was with the kind of manner which indicated want of confidence in the
guide who had misled him. Whether or no, however, he had relied on that
authority in his negotiations with other countries during his futile
attempts to obtain commercial treaties, this much is certain enough,
that Colonel Torrens did what he could to strengthen the old notion,
that it was of no use for us to enlarge our markets unless other
countries did so also at the same time and in the same way; and in
condemning all reduction of import duties that was not based on
"reciprocity," he certainly added all the weight of his authority to
prop up a system whose injurious influence has affected the very
vitality of our social state, and whose overthrow will yet require no
small amount of moral force to effect.
We are far indeed, from undervaluing treaties of reciprocity; but to
make them a _sine qua non_ in the policy of a country whose condition is
that of an overflowing population, a deficient supply of the first
necessaries of life, and a contracted market for its artificial
productions, is an error of the first magnitude. Therefore, though not
attaching primary importance to the _Budget_ of Colonel Torrens, or
believing that it could ultimately have any great effect in retarding
the effectual settlement of the great question, it was not without some
feeling of satisfaction that we perused the able article in the last
_Edinburgh Review_, in which his delusions are completely set at rest.
We quite agree with the writer (Mr Senior, it is said) that "if the
_Budget_ were to remain unanswered, it would be proclaimed in all the
strongholds of monopoly to which British literature penetrates--in
Parliament, in Congress, in the _Algemeine Zeitung_, and in the councils
of the Zollverein--that Adam Smith and the modern economists had been
refuted by Colonel Torrens; that free trade is good only where
reciprocity is perfect; that a nation can augment its wealth by
restraining a trade that was previously free; can protect itself against
such conduct on the part of its neighbours only by retaliation: and if
it neglect this retaliatory policy, that it will be punished for its
liberality by a progressive decrease of prices, of wages, and of
profits, and an increase of taxation."
The identity of Colonel Torrens's propositions with the exploded
"Mercantile Theory" is very satisfactorily established by the Edinburgh
reviewer; and it is certainly humbling to see a man of his ability
coming forward to revive doctrines which had well nigh gone down to
oblivion. On the subject where Colonel Torrens conceives himself
strongest, the distribution of the precious metals, the reviewer has
given a very able reply, though some points are left for future
amplification and discussion; and, as a whole, if there be any young
political economist whose head the _Budget_ has puzzled, the article in
the _Edinburgh Review_ will be found a very sufficient antidote. With
this, and another able article on the same subject in the last
_Westminster Review_ (in fact, two articles of the _Westminster_ relate
to the subject--one is on Colonel Torrens, the other on Free Trade and
Colonization), we may very safely leave the _Budget_ to the oblivion
into which it has sunk; and, meantime, the novice will not go far astray
who adheres to the "golden rule" of political economy, propounded by the
London merchants in 1820, and re-echoed by Sir Robert Peel in 1842: "The
maxim of buying in the cheapest market, and selling in the dearest,
which regulates every merchant in his individual dealings, is strictly
applicable as the best rule for every nation. As a matter of mere
diplomacy, it may sometimes answer to hold out the removal of particular
prohibitions or high duties as depending on corresponding concessions;
but it does not follow that we should maintain our restrictions where
the desired concessions cannot be obtained; for our restrictions would
not be the less prejudicial to our capital and industry, because other
governments persisted in preserving impolitic regulations."