220 OF ABSENTEEISM. Absentem rodit. Horace. RECENT as the origin of political economy is, its uncertainty is almost proverbial. There seems to be no moral science in which it is so difficult to arrive at a conclusion universally true. The causes of this appear to be twofold. The first and principal is the difficulty, or rather the impossibility, of ascertaining facts in every instance precisely as they occur, of determining the separate importance of each fact individually, the aggregate importance of many facts collectively, the relative importance of each link of a long train of facts, and the relative importance of different trains: the second cause is the mode of treating political economy adopted by 'some writers, namely, of arriving at conclusions rather by reasoning à priori, than by patient and cautious induction from observation and experience. They are in too great a hurry to contradict received opinions. There are many instances in the history of scientific discovery of antiquated opinions, scoffed at by successive generations of sneerers, yet demonstrated at last to be true; it is not therefore absolutely impossible but that in some of the modern dogmas of political economy, time will prove us not so very much wiser than our ancestors as we suppose. Few men have cultivated political economy with more diligence and success than Mr. M'Culloch. No one perhaps has done so much towards increasing our stock of statistical knowledge. Yet he is the principal supporter of one of the most startling paradoxes which the political economists have as yet ventured to broach. Mr. McCulloch contends that the injury supposed to be occasioned to the tradesmen, labourers, and industrious people of any given country, by the landlords spending their incomes abroad instead of on their own estates, is altogether imaginary. His general argument is briefly this.-Let Ireland be the country in question. An Irish agent wishes to transmit to an absentee landlord, resident in London, the rents he has received on his account. For this purpose he purchases a bill of exchange of a Dublin merchant, who, to enable him to draw upon London, must have previously sold to a London merchant a certain quantity of Irish produce. The actual rent therefore is not exported, but the produce only, which enabled the Dublin merchant to draw upon London. The Dublin merchant thus stands in the landlord's place, and lays out the rent he received from the agent "in the purchase of Irish commodities, just as the landlord did when he was at home." But what equivalent does Ireland receive for the Irish produce exported by the Dublin merchant? Suppose the landlord to have been resident; in that case the London merchant, instead of transmitting a bill of exchange, would have shipped goods for Ireland equal in value to the Irish produce exported by the Dublin merchant. The nonresidence of the landlord therefore causes an excess of Irish exports over Irish imports, and a loss to Ireland of the difference; an excess which, as we shall see presently, is very considerable, and probably large enough to include the whole amount of the rents, forwarded in the manner Mr. M'Culloch supposes, to absentee landlords. In the particular case the London merchant liquidates his debt to the Dublin merchant for exported Irish produce, by paying the amount of the bill of exchange to the absentee landlord, which amount is exactly what Ireland loses by the transaction. It appears from the tables of Irish imports and exports printed in the Appendix, No. 8. of Sir Henry * Edinburgh Review, vol. xliii. p. 57. Parnell's valuable work on Financial Reform, that the annual average amount of the Irish imports for the three years ending January 1826 was 7,491,8907; the annual average amount of exports for the same period, 8,454,9187.; leaving a balance of the exports over the imports of 963,0287. As the record of the cross-channel trade was discontinued in January 1826, we have no means of ascertaining the amount of Irish imports and exports since that period. There does not appear to be any good ground for doubting these facts, nor does Mr. M'Culloch deny them, or the inference we draw from them, that this excess of exports over imports is caused by remittances to absentee landlords. To a plain understanding these facts appear conclusive of the question. Mr. M'Culloch's mode of getting over the difficulty is curious. In his evidence before the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the state of the poor in Ireland, in June 1830, we find the following question put to him: "Can you say what is given in return to Ireland for that portion of the produce which goes to the expenditure of absentee proprietors resident in England?" "The return is that she gets the absentees kept in England; she gets those persons kept here, who, if there were a stoppage of their remittances she would be obliged to keep at home; and she keeps them cheaper in England than she can keep them at home, a fact which is evinced by the circumstance of their coming over here."- Minutes of Evidence, p. 599. Now this is really nothing more than an assertion, and a most startling assertion too. Surely Mr. M'Culloch will not contend that Ireland keeps the Duke of Devonshire cheaper at Chatsworth than she could keep him at Lismore Castle; and yet this is a necessary inference from his position that Irish landlords are kept cheaper in England than at home. Do Irishmen come over to England to live cheap? Mr. M'Culloch argues in a circle; Irishmen come over to England because they are kept cheaper in England; Irishmen are kept cheaper in England because they come over to England. It is necessary to prove that Irish landlords are kept cheaper in England than in Ireland by statistical facts, which Mr. M'Culloch has not done, and, we are satisfied, cannot do. England is generally supposed to be the dearest country in the world. The reasons why Irishman come over here are sufficiently obvious. They come over for pleasure, for profit, to enjoy themselves, to advance their fortunes; for any or all of the reasons which induce men to leave a poor country for a rich one; some too perhaps |