THAT ALL FORMS OF GOVERNMENT DO NOT SUIT ALL COUNTRIES
Liberty not being a fruit of all climates, is not within the reach of
all peoples. The more this principle, laid down by Montesquieu, is
considered, the more its truth is felt; the more it is combated, the
more chance is given to confirm it by new proofs.
In all the governments that there are, the public person consumes
without producing. Whence then does it get what it consumes? From the
labour of its members. The necessities of the public are supplied out
of the superfluities of individuals. It follows that the civil State
can subsist only so long as men's labour brings them a return greater
than their needs.
The amount of this excess is not the same in all countries. In some
it is considerable, in others middling, in yet others nil, in some
even negative. The relation of product to subsistence depends on the
fertility of the climate, on the sort of labour the land demands, on
the nature of its products, on the strength of its inhabitants, on the
greater or less consumption they find necessary, and on several further
considerations of which the whole relation is made up.
On the other side, all governments are not of the same nature: some are
less voracious than others, and the differences between them are based
on this second principle, that the further from their source the public
contributions are removed, the more burdensome they become.
The charge should be measured not by the amount of the impositions, but
by the path they have to travel in order to get back to those from whom
they came. When the circulation is prompt and well-established, it does
not matter whether much or little is paid; the people is always rich
and, financially speaking, all is well. On the contrary, however little
the people gives, if that little does not return to it, it is soon
exhausted by giving continually: the State is then never rich, and the
people is always a people of beggars.
It follows that, the more the distance between people and government
increases, the more burdensome tribute becomes: thus, in a democracy,
the people bears the least charge; in an aristocracy, a greater charge;
and, in monarchy, the weight becomes heaviest. Monarchy therefore suits
only wealthy nations; aristocracy, States of middling size and wealth;
and democracy, States that are small and poor.
In fact, the more we reflect, the more we find the difference between
free and monarchical States to be this: in the former, everything is
used for the public advantage; in the latter, the public forces and
those of individuals are affected by each other, and either increases
as the other grows weak; finally, instead of governing subjects to make
them happy, despotism makes them wretched in order to govern them.
We find then, in every climate, natural causes according to which the
form of government which it requires can be assigned, and we can even
say what sort of inhabitants it should have.
Unfriendly and barren lands, where the product does; not repay the
labour, should remain desert and uncultivated, or peopled only by
savages; lands where men's labour brings in no more than the exact
_minimum_ necessary to subsistence should be inhabited by barbarous
peoples: in such places all polity is impossible. Lands where the
surplus of product over labour is only middling are suitable for free
peoples; those in which the soil is abundant and fertile and gives a
great product for a little labour call for monarchical government,
in order that the surplus of superfluities among the subjects may be
consumed by the luxury of the prince: for it is better for this excess
to be absorbed by the government than dissipated among the individuals.
I am aware that there are exceptions; but these exceptions themselves
confirm the rule, in that sooner or later they produce revolutions
which restore things to the natural order.
General laws should always be distinguished from individual causes that
may modify their effects. If all the South were covered with Republics
and all the North with despotic States, it would be none the less true
that, in point of climate, despotism is suitable to hot countries,
barbarism to cold countries, and good polity to temperate regions. I
see also that, the principle being granted, there may be disputes on
its application; it may be said that there are cold countries that are
very fertile, and tropical countries that are very unproductive. But
this difficulty exists only for those who do not consider the question
in all its aspects. We must, as I have already said, take labour,
strength, consumption, etc., into account.
Take two tracts of equal extent, one of which brings in five and the
other ten. If the inhabitants of the first consume four and those of
the second nine, the surplus of the first product will be a fifth and
that of the second a tenth. The ratio of these two surpluses will then
be inverse to that of the products, and the tract which produces only
five will give a surplus double that of the tract which produces ten.
But there is no question of a double product, and I think no one would
put the fertility of cold countries, as a general rule, on an equality
with that of hot ones. Let us, however, suppose this equality to exist:
let us, if you will, regard England as on the same level as Sicily, and
Poland as Egypt--further south, we shall have Africa and the Indies;
further north, nothing at all. To get this equality of product, what
a difference there must be in tillage: in Sicily, there is only need
to scratch the ground; in England, how men must toil! But, where
more hands are needed to get the same product, the superfluity must
necessarily be less.
Consider, besides, that the same number of men consume much less in
hot countries. The climate requires sobriety for the sake of health;
and Europeans who try to live there as they would at home all perish
of dysentery and indigestion. "We are," says Chardin, "carnivorous
animals, wolves, in comparison with the Asiatics. Some attribute
the sobriety of the Persians to the fact that their country is less
cultivated; but it is my belief that their country abounds less in
commodities because the inhabitants need less. If their frugality," he
goes on, "were the effect of the nakedness of the land, only the poor
would eat little; but everybody does so. Again, less or more would be
eaten in various provinces, according to the land's fertility; but the
same sobriety is found throughout the kingdom. They are very proud of
their manner of life, saying that you have only to look at their hue
to recognise how far it excels that of the Christians. In fact, the
Persians are of an even hue; their skins are fair, fine and smooth;
while the hue of their subjects, the Armenians, who live after the
European fashion, is rough and blotchy, and their bodies are gross and
unwieldy."
The nearer you get to the equator, the less people live on. Meat
they hardly touch; rice, maize, curcur, millet and cassava are
their ordinary food. There are in the Indies millions of men whose
subsistence does not cost a halfpenny a day. Even in Europe we find
considerable differences of appetite between Northern and Southern
peoples. A Spaniard will live for a week on a German's dinner. In the
countries in which men are more voracious, luxury therefore turns
in the direction of consumption. In England, luxury appears in a
well-filled table; in Italy, you feast on sugar and flowers.
Luxury in clothes shows similar differences. In climates in which the
changes of season are prompt and violent, men have better and simpler
clothes; where they clothe themselves only for adornment, what is
striking is more thought of than what is useful; clothes themselves are
then a luxury. At Naples, you may see daily walking in the Pausilippeum
men in gold-embroidered upper garments and nothing else. It is the same
with buildings; magnificence is the sole consideration where there is
nothing to fear from the air. In Paris and London, you desire to be
lodged warmly and comfortably; in Madrid, you have superb salons, but
not a window that closes, and you go to bed in a mere hole.
In hot countries foods are much more substantial and succulent; and
the third difference cannot but have an influence on the second. Why
are so many vegetables eaten in Italy? Because there they are good,
nutritious and excellent in taste. In France, where they are nourished
only on water, they are far from nutritious and are thought nothing of
at table. They take up all the same no less ground, and cost at least
as much pains to cultivate. It is a proved fact that the wheat of
Barbary, in other respects inferior to that of France, yields much more
flour, and that the wheat of France in turn yields more than that of
northern countries; from which it may be inferred that a like gradation
in the same direction, from equator to pole, is found generally. But
is it not an obvious disadvantage for an equal product to contain less
nourishment?
To all these points may be added another, which at once depends on
and strengthens them. Hot countries need inhabitants less than cold
countries, and can support more of them. There is thus a double
surplus, which is all to the advantage of despotism. The greater the
territory occupied by a fixed number of inhabitants, the more difficult
revolt becomes, because rapid or secret concerted action is impossible,
and the government can easily unmask projects and cut communications;
but the more a numerous people is gathered together, the less can
the government usurp the Sovereign's place: the people's leaders can
deliberate as safely in their houses as the prince in council, and
the crowd gathers as rapidly in the squares as the prince's troops in
their quarters. The advantage of tyrannical government therefore lies
in acting at great distances. With the help of the rallying-points
it establishes, its strength, like that of the lever,[1] grows with
distance. The strength of the people, on the other hand, acts only when
concentrated: when spread abroad, it evaporates and is lost, like
powder scattered on the ground, which catches fire only grain by grain.
The least populous countries are thus the fittest for tyranny: fierce
animals reign only in deserts.
[1] This does not contradict what I said before (Book ii, ch. ix) about
the disadvantages of great States; for we were then dealing with the
authority of the government over the members, while here we are dealing
with its force against the subjects. Its scattered members serve it as
rallying-points for action against the people at a distance, but it has
no rallying-point for direct action on its members themselves. Thus the
length of the lever is its weakness in the one case, and its strength
in the other.