The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes by Samuel Johnson

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The wines of France, Portugal, and Spain, are now the best; while Italy
can only boast of the wine made in Tuscany. The breeding of cattle is
now chiefly confined to Denmark and Ireland. The corn of Sicily is still
in great esteem, as well as what is produced in the northern countries:
but England is the happiest spot in the universe for all the principal
kinds of agriculture, and especially its great produce of corn.

The improvement of our landed estates is the enrichment of the kingdom;
for, without this, how could we carry on our manufactures, or prosecute
our commerce? We should look upon the English farmer as the most useful
member of society. His arable grounds not only supply his fellow-subjects
with all kinds of the best grain, but his industry enables him to export
great quantities to other kingdoms, which might otherwise starve;
particularly Spain and Portugal; for, in one year, there have been
exported 51,520 quarters of barley, 219,781 of malt, 1,920 of oatmeal,
1,329 of rye, and 153,343 of wheat; the bounty on which amounted to
72,433 pounds. What a fund of treasure arises from his pasture lands,
which breed such innumerable flocks of sheep, and afford such fine herds
of cattle, to feed Britons, and clothe mankind! He rears flax and hemp
for the making of linen; while his plantations of apples and hops supply
him with generous kinds of liquors.

The land-tax, when at four shillings in the pound, produces 2,000,000
pounds a year. This arises from the labour of the husbandman: it is a
great sum; but how greatly is it increased by the means it furnishes for
trade! Without the industry of the farmer, the manufacturer could have
no goods to supply the merchant, nor the merchant find any employment
for the mariners: trade would be stagnated; riches would be of no
advantage to the great; and labour of no service to the poor.

The Romans, as historians all allow,
Sought, in extreme distress, the rural plough;
_Io triumphe!_ for the village swain,
Retired to be a nobleman[2] again.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] From the Universal Visiter, for February, 1756, p. 59.--Smart, the
poet, had a considerable hand in this miscellany. The very first
sentence, however, may convince any reader that Dr. Johnson did not
write these Thoughts: they are inserted here merely as an
introduction to the Further Thoughts, which follow, and which are
undoubtedly his.

[2] Cincinnatus.

FURTHER THOUGHTS ON AGRICULTURE[1].
[1] From the Visiter for March, 1756, p. 111.

At my last visit, I took the liberty of mentioning a subject, which, I
think, is not considered with attention proportionate to its importance.
Nothing can more fully prove the ingratitude of mankind, a crime often
charged upon them, and often denied, than the little regard which the
disposers of honorary rewards have paid to agriculture, which is treated
as a subject so remote from common life, by all those who do not
immediately hold the plough, or give fodder to the ox, that I think
there is room to question, whether a great part of mankind has yet been
informed that life is sustained by the fruits of the earth. I was once,
indeed, provoked to ask a lady of great eminence for genius, "Whether
she knew of what bread is made?"

I have already observed, how differently agriculture was considered by
the heroes and wise men of the Roman commonwealth, and shall now only
add, that even after the emperours had made great alteration in the
system of life, and taught men to portion out their esteem to other
qualities than usefulness, agriculture still maintained its reputation,
and was taught by the polite and elegant Celsus among the other arts.

The usefulness of agriculture I have already shown; I shall now,
therefore, prove its necessity: and, having before declared, that it
produces the chief riches of a nation, I shall proceed to show, that it
gives its only riches, the only riches which we can call our own, and of
which we need not fear either deprivation or diminution.

Of nations, as of individuals, the first blessing is independence.
Neither the man nor the people can be happy to whom any human power can
deny the necessaries or conveniencies of life. There is no way of living
without the need of foreign assistance, but by the product of our own
land, improved by our own labour. Every other source of plenty is
perishable or casual.

Trade and manufactures must be confessed often to enrich countries; and
we ourselves are indebted to them for those ships by which we now
command the sea from the equator to the poles, and for those sums with
which we have shown ourselves able to arm the nations of the north in
defence of regions in the western hemisphere. But trade and
manufactures, however profitable, must yield to the cultivation of lands
in usefulness and dignity.

Commerce, however we may please ourselves with the contrary opinion, is
one of the daughters of Fortune, inconstant and deceitful as her mother;
she chooses her residence where she is least expected, and shifts her
abode when her continuance is, in appearance, most firmly settled. Who
can read of the present distresses of the Genoese, whose only choice now
remaining is, from what monarch they shall solicit protection? Who can
see the Hanseatick towns in ruins, where, perhaps, the inhabitants do
not always equal the number of the houses, but he will say to himself,
these are the cities, whose trade enabled them once to give laws to the
world, to whose merchants princes sent their jewels in pawn, from whose
treasuries armies were paid, and navies supplied? And who can then
forbear to consider trade as a weak and uncertain basis of power, and
wish to his own country greatness more solid, and felicity more durable?

It is apparent, that every trading nation flourishes, while it can be
said to flourish, by the courtesy of others. We cannot compel any people
to buy from us, or to sell to us. A thousand accidents may prejudice
them in favour of our rivals; the workmen of another nation may labour
for less price, or some accidental improvement, or natural advantage,
may procure a just preference to their commodities; as experience has
shown, that there is no work of the hands, which, at different times, is
not best performed in different places.

Traffick, even while it continues in its state of prosperity, must owe
its success to agriculture; the materials of manufacture are the produce
of the earth. The wool which we weave into cloth, the wood which is
formed into cabinets, the metals which are forged into weapons, are
supplied by nature with the help of art. Manufactures, indeed, and
profitable manufactures, are sometimes raised from imported materials,
but then we are subjected, a second time, to the caprice of our
neighbours. The natives of Lombardy might easily resolve to retain their
silk at home, and employ workmen of their own to weave it. And this will
certainly be done when they grow wise and industrious, when they have
sagacity to discern their true interest, and vigour to pursue it.

Mines are generally considered as the great sources of wealth, and
superficial observers have thought the possession of great quantities of
precious metals the first national happiness. But Europe has long seen,
with wonder and contempt, the poverty of Spain, who thought herself
exempted from the labour of tilling the ground, by the conquest of Peru,
with its veins of silver. Time, however, has taught even this obstinate
and haughty nation, that without agriculture they may, indeed, be the
transmitters of money, but can never be the possessours. They may dig it
out of the earth, but must immediately send it away to purchase cloth or
bread, and it must at last remain with some people wise enough to sell
much, and to buy little; to live upon their own lands, without a wish
for those things which nature has denied them.

Mines are themselves of no use, without some kind of agriculture. We
have, in our own country, inexhaustible stores of iron, which lie
useless in the ore for want of wood. It was never the design of
Providence to feed man without his own concurrence; we have from nature
only what we cannot provide for ourselves; she gives us wild fruits,
which art must meliorate, and drossy metals, which labour must refine.

Particular metals are valuable, because they are scarce; and they are
scarce, because the mines that yield them are emptied in time. But the
surface of the earth is more liberal than its caverns. The field, which
is this autumn laid naked by the sickle, will be covered, in the
succeeding summer, by a new harvest; the grass, which the cattle are
devouring, shoots up again when they have passed over it.

Agriculture, therefore, and agriculture alone, can support us without
the help of others, in certain plenty, and genuine dignity. Whatever we
buy from without, the sellers may refuse; whatever we sell, manufactured
by art, the purchasers may reject; but, while our ground is covered with
corn and cattle, we can want nothing; and if imagination should grow
sick of native plenty, and call for delicacies or embellishments from
other countries, there is nothing which corn and cattle will not
purchase.

Our country is, perhaps, beyond all others, productive of things
necessary to life. The pineapple thrives better between the tropicks,
and better furs are found in the northern regions. But let us not envy
these unnecessary privileges. Mankind cannot subsist upon the
indulgences of nature, but must be supported by her more common gifts.
They must feed upon bread, and be clothed with wool; and the nation that
can furnish these universal commodities, may have her ships welcomed at
a thousand ports, or sit at home and receive the tribute of foreign
countries, enjoy their arts, or treasure up their gold.

It is well known to those who have examined the state of other
countries, that the vineyards of France are more than equivalent to the
mines of America; and that one great use of Indian gold, and Peruvian
silver, is to procure the wines of Champaigne and Burgundy. The
advantage is, indeed, always rising on the side of France, who will
certainly have wines, when Spain, by a thousand natural or accidental
causes, may want silver. But, surely, the valleys of England have more
certain stores of wealth. Wines are chosen by caprice; the products of
France have not always been equally esteemed; but there never was any
age, or people, that reckoned bread among superfluities, when once it
was known. The price of wheat and barley suffers not any variation, but
what is caused by the uncertainty of seasons.

I am far from intending to persuade my countrymen to quit all other
employments for that of manuring the ground. I mean only to prove, that
we have, at home, all that we can want, and that, therefore, we need
feel no great anxiety about the schemes of other nations for improving
their arts, or extending their traffick. But there is no necessity to
infer, that we should cease from commerce, before the revolution of
things shall transfer it to some other regions! Such vicissitudes the
world has often seen; and, therefore, such we have reason to expect. We
hear many clamours of declining trade, which are not, in my opinion,
always true; and many imputations of that decline to governours and
ministers, which may be sometimes just, and sometimes calumnious. But it
is foolish to imagine, that any care or policy can keep commerce at a
stand, which almost every nation has enjoyed and lost, and which we must
expect to lose as we have long enjoyed.

There is some danger, lest our neglect of agriculture should hasten its
departure. Our industry has, for many ages, been employed in destroying
the woods which our ancestors have planted. It is well known that
commerce is carried on by ships, and that ships are built out of trees;
and, therefore, when I travel over naked plains, to which tradition has
preserved the name of forests, or see hills arising on either hand
barren and useless, I cannot forbear to wonder, how that commerce, of
which we promise ourselves the perpetuity, shall be continued by our
descendants; nor can restrain a sigh, when I think on the time, a time
at no great distance, when our neighbours may deprive us of our naval
influence, by refusing us their timber.

By agriculture only can commerce be perpetuated; and by agriculture
alone can we live in plenty without intercourse with other nations.
This, therefore, is the great art, which every government ought to
protect, every proprietor of lands to practise, and every inquirer into
nature to improve.

CONSIDERATION ON THE CORN LAWS[1].

By what causes the necessaries of life have risen to a price, at which a
great part of the people are unable to procure them, how the present
scarcity may be remedied, and calamities of the same kind may, for the
future, be prevented, is an inquiry of the first importance; an inquiry,
before which all the considerations which commonly busy the legislature
vanish from the view.

The interruption of trade, though it may distress part of the community,
leaves the rest power to communicate relief: the decay of one
manufacture may be compensated by the advancement of another: a defeat
may be repaired by victory: a rupture with one nation may be balanced by
an alliance with another. These are partial and slight misfortunes,
which leave us still in the possession of our chief comforts. They may
lop some of our superfluous pleasures, and repress some of our
exorbitant hopes; but we may still retain the essential part of civil
and of private happiness--the security of law, and the tranquillity of
content. They are small obstructions of the stream, which raise a foam
and noise, where they happen to be found, but, at a little distance, are
neither seen nor felt, and suffer the main current to pass forward in
its natural course.

But scarcity is an evil that extends at once to the whole community:
that neither leaves quiet to the poor, nor safety to the rich; that, in
its approaches, distresses all the subordinate ranks of mankind; and, in
its extremity, must subvert government, drive the populace upon their
rulers, and end in bloodshed and massacre. Those who want the supports
of life will seize them wherever they can be found. If in any place
there are more than can be fed, some must be expelled, or some must be
destroyed.

Of this dreadful scene there is no immediate danger; but there is
already evil sufficient to deserve and require all our diligence and all
our wisdom. The miseries of the poor are such as cannot easily be borne;
such as have already incited them, in many parts of the kingdom, to an
open defiance of government, and produced one of the greatest of
political evils--the necessity of ruling by immediate force.

Caesar declared, after the battle of Munda, that he had often fought for
victory, but that he had, that day, fought for life. We have often
deliberated, how we should prosper; we are now to inquire, how we shall
subsist.

The present scarcity is imputed, by some, to the bounty for exporting
corn, which is considered as having a necessary and perpetual tendency
to pour the grain of this country into other nations.

This position involves two questions: whether the present scarcity has
been caused by the bounty? and whether the bounty is likely to produce
scarcity in future times?

It is an uncontroverted principle, that "sublata causa tollitur
effectus;" if, therefore, the effect continues when the supposed cause
has ceased, that effect must be imputed to some other agency.

The bounty has ceased, and the exportation would still continue, if
exportation were permitted. The true reason of the scarcity is the
failure of the harvest; and the cause of exportation is the like failure
in other countries, where they grow less, and where they are, therefore,
always nearer to the danger of want.

This want is such, that in countries where money is at a much higher
value than with us, the inhabitants are yet desirous to buy our corn at
a price to which our own markets have not risen.

If we consider the state of those countries, which, being accustomed to
buy our corn cheaper than ourselves, when it was cheap, are now reduced
to the necessity of buying it dearer than ourselves, when it is dear, we
shall yet have reason to rejoice in our own exemption from the extremity
of this wide-extended calamity; and, if it be necessary, to inquire why
we suffer scarcity, it may be fit to consider, likewise, why we suffer
yet less scarcity than our neighbours.

That the bounty upon corn has produced plenty, is apparent:

Because, ever since the grant of the bounty, agriculture has increased;
scarce a sessions has passed without a law for enclosing commons and
waste grounds:

Much land has been subjected to tillage, which lay uncultivated with
little profit:

Yet, though the quantity of land has been thus increased, the rent,
which is the price of land, has generally increased at the same time.

That more land is appropriated to tillage, is a proof that more corn is
raised; and that the rents have not fallen, proves that no more is
raised than can readily be sold.

But it is urged, that exportation, though it increases our produce,
diminishes our plenty; that the merchant has more encouragement for
exportation than the farmer for agriculture.

This is a paradox which all the principles of commerce and all the
experience of policy concur to confute. Whatever is done for gain, will
be done more, as more gain is to be obtained.

Let the effects of the bounty be minutely considered.

The state of every country, with respect to corn, is varied by the
chances of the year.

Those to whom we sell our corn, must have every year either more corn
than they want, or less than they want. We, likewise, are naturally
subject to the same varieties.

When they have corn equal to their wants, or more, the bounty has no
effect; for they will not buy what they do not want, unless our
exuberance be such as tempts them to store it for another year. This
case must suppose that our produce is redundant and useless to
ourselves; and, therefore, the profit of exportation produces no
inconvenience.

When they want corn, they must buy of us, and buy at a higher price: in
this case, if we have corn more than enough for ourselves, we are again
benefited by supplying them.

But they may want when we have no superfluity. When our markets rise,
the bounty ceases; and, therefore, produces no evil. They cannot buy our
corn but at a higher rate than it is sold at home. If their necessities,
as now has happened, force them to give a higher price, that event is no
longer to be charged upon the bounty. We may then stop our corn in our
ports, and pour it back upon our own markets.

It is, in all cases, to be considered, what events are physical and
certain, and what are political and arbitrary.

The first effect of the bounty is the increase of agriculture, and, by
consequence, the promotion of plenty. This is an effect physically good,
and morally certain. While men are desirous to be rich, where there is
profit there will be diligence. If much corn can be sold, much will be
raised.

The second effect of the bounty is the diminution by exportation of that
product which it occasioned. But this effect is political and arbitrary;
we have it wholly in our own hands; we can prescribe its limits, and
regulate its quantity. Whenever we feel want, or fear it, we retain our
corn, and feed ourselves upon that which was sown and raised to feed
other nations.

It is, perhaps, impossible for human wisdom to go further, than to
contrive a law of which the good is certain and uniform, and the evil,
though possible in itself, yet always subject to certain and effectual
restraints.

This is the true state of the bounty upon corn: it certainly and
necessarily increases our crops, and can never lessen them but by our
own permission.

That, notwithstanding the bounty, there have been, from time to time,
years of scarcity, cannot be denied. But who can regulate the seasons?
In the dearest years we owe to the bounty that they have not been
dearer. We must always suppose part of our ground sown for our own
consumption, and part in hope of a foreign sale. The time sometimes
comes, when the product of all this land is scarcely sufficient: but if
the whole be too little, how great would have been the deficiency, if we
had sown only that part which was designed for ourselves!

"But, perhaps, if exportation were less encouraged, the superfluous
stores of plentiful years might be laid up by the farmer against years
of scarcity."

This may be justly answered by affirming, that, if exportation were
discouraged, we should have no years of plenty. Cheapness is produced by
the possibility of dearness. Our farmers, at present, plough and sow
with the hope that some country will always be in want, and that they
shall grow rich by supplying. Indefinite hopes are always carried by the
frailty of human nature beyond reason. While, therefore, exportation is
encouraged, as much corn will be raised as the farmer can hope to sell,
and, therefore, generally more than can be sold at the price of which he
dreamed, when he ploughed and sowed.

The greatest part of our corn is well known to be raised by those, who
pay rent for the ground which they employ, and of whom, few can bear to
delay the sale of one year's produce to another.

It is, therefore, vain to hope that large stocks of grain will ever
remain in private hands: he that has not sold the corn of last year,
will, with diffidence and reluctance, till his field again; the
accumulation of a few years would end in a vacation of agriculture, and
the husbandman would apply himself to some more profitable calling.

If the exportation of corn were totally prohibited, the quantity,
possible to be consumed among us, would be quickly known, and, being
known, would rarely be exceeded; for why should corn be gathered which
cannot be sold? We should, therefore, have little superfluity in the
most favourable seasons; for the farmer, like the rest of mankind, acts
in hope of success, and the harvest seldom outgoes the expectation of
the spring. But for droughts or blights, we should never be provided:
any intemperature of seasons would reduce us to distress, which we now
only read of in our histories; what is now scarcity would then be
famine.

What would be caused by prohibiting exportation, will be caused, in a
less degree, by obstructing it, and, in some degree, by every deduction
of encouragement; as we lessen hope, we shall lessen labour; as we
lessen labour, we shall lessen plenty.

It must always be steadily remembered, that the good of the bounty is
certain, and evil avoidable; that by the hope of exportation corn will
be increased, and that this increase may be kept at home.

Plenty can only be produced by encouraging agriculture; and agriculture
can be encouraged only by making it gainful. No influence can dispose
the farmer to sow what he cannot sell; and, if he is not to have the
chance of scarcity in his favour, he will take care that there never
shall be plenty.

The truth of these principles our ancestors discovered by reason, and
the French have now found it by experience. In this regulation we have
the honour of being masters to those, who, in commercial policy, have
been long accounted the masters of the world. Their prejudices, their
emulation, and their vanity, have, at last, submitted to learn of us how
to ensure the bounties of nature; and it forms a strange vicissitude of
opinions, that should incline us to repeal the law which our rivals are
adopting.

It may be speciously enough proposed, that the bounty should be
discontinued sooner. Of this every man will have his own opinion; which,
as no general principles can reach it, will always seem to him more
reasonable than that of another. This is a question of which the state
is always changing with time and place, and which it is, therefore, very
difficult to state or to discuss.

It may, however, be considered, that the change of old establishments is
always an evil; and that, therefore, where the good of the change is not
certain and constant, it is better to preserve that reverence and that
confidence, which is produced by consistency of conduct and permanency
of laws:

That, since the bounty was so fixed, the price of money has been much
diminished; so that the bounty does not operate so far as when it was
first fixed, but the price at which it ceases, though nominally the
same, has, in effect and in reality, gradually diminished.

It is difficult to discover any reason why that bounty, which has
produced so much good, and has hitherto produced no harm, should be
withdrawn or abated. It is possible, that if it were reduced lower, it
would still be the motive of agriculture, and the cause of plenty; but
why we should desert experience for conjecture, and exchange a known for
a possible good, will not easily be discovered. If, by a balance of
probabilities, in which a grain of dust may turn the scale--or, by a
curious scheme of calculation, in which, if one postulate in a thousand
be erroneous, the deduction which promises plenty may end in famine;--
if, by a specious mode of uncertain ratiocination, the critical point at
which the bounty should stop, might seem to be discovered, I shall still
continue to believe that it is more safe to trust what we have already
tried; and cannot but think bread a product of too much importance to be
made the sport of subtilty, and the topick of hypothetical disputation.

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