Wilson Lloyd Bevan

“ Every one should try to do something new. The world is already filled with transcriptions of work already done. An ordinary trade education only teaches men how to supplant one another. The true politics is how to preserve the subject in peace and plenty. The foundation of this science is to understand each country according to its natural divisions. Both trade and government might be made certain if such statistical information as the "Bills" contain could be made use of and its application extended. ”

“ All public works and internal improvements could be systematically carried out by using the labor of the unemployed classes. The educational system should be placed under the control of the state. Its whole aim should be directed to develop human energy and human skill. Education which confines itself to the study of unprofitable subjects is only a preparation for a merely speculative life, and is consequently worse than useless. ”

“ In these literary work-houses a child would not only learn reading and writing. He should be taught to do something towards supporting himself. Education should begin by training the powers of observation and strengthening the memory, by directing both to the objects of sense. Drawing and design are indispensable. Of studies, arithmetic and geometry alone are absolutely necessary. Foreign languages can be readily dispensed with. If they are to be learned, they might be taught by methods more satisfactory and less wasteful of time. ”

“ Only one in four hundred would die yearly if this were so. How can we estimate the population exactly? To get the result 384,000, which he offers as the true number, he uses three different methods; all are conjectural. In the first method, from the christening list is deduced the number of mothers, and from these the number of families; finally, by allowing eight persons in each family, the total population. A table of mortality by decades, constructed by guess-work, is fitly followed by the astounding statement that London doubles its population in eight years. ”

“ Of all excises, hearth or smoke money seems the best. It is "the easiest, and clearest, and fittest to ground a certain revenue upon." The tax must be small or it may become unbearable. If the incidence of the tax is shifted from the tenant to the landlord, the tax becomes a tax on housing.
The advantages of a proper excise are: "The natural justice that every man should pay according to what he actually enjoyeth." If it be not farmed, but regularly collected, it encourages thrift. "No man pays double or twice for the same thing, forasmuch as nothing can be spent but once." ”

“ The wages of labor and the rent of land vary inversely. If the wages of labor get a larger share of the product then rent must fall (233) . We have already seen from his experiment for finding natural rent what he understands by the natural wages of labor. As he estimated in a rough way the extrinsic value of the rent of land, so the value of each individual as a labor unit might be had by using the ordinary or average price for a slave in the markets of the East. There is, however, a more exact way. Suppose the people of England be 6 millions and the expense annually per head 40 millions. ”

“ Petty's residence in Holland had made him familiar with the banking system of that country. "The trade of banks," he explains, "is the buying and selling of interest and exchange." (Quant.) Their honesty is enforced by the peril of losing their business. The great advantage of the banking system is that it enables a country to diminish the amount of precious metals in circulation as currency. Supposing that £100,000 will drive the trade of a nation, and there is but £60,000 in the country. ”

“ If a certain industry becomes temporarily unprofitable it should not be discontinued. Those employed in it may by inaction lose their aptitude for labor. He cites with approval the case of Norwich where children were employed, and proposes that child-labor should be introduced into other parts of the country (276) . Labor, then, is the corner-stone of the prosperity of the state. He does not forget to assure us, however, that a millenium may come when such forms of human activity may pass into something higher. ”

“ There is no reason why the laws should prohibit usury. If exchange is allowed, why should interest be restricted? The two are closely related in principle. Exchange is the reward given for the convenience of having money in the place you wish, and interest is the reward for having it for the time you wish (35) . The reason for allowing interest lies in the natural order of things, against which civil positive laws are fruitless. The rate of interest is determined by the rent of land which the same amount of money will buy, where the security is undoubted. ”

“ Observing that few deaths are due to starvation, it seems a proof of the plentifulness of food. Beggars generally look healthy and strong. It would be best that they should be maintained at the expense of the state by taxation, as is done in Holland. They should be taught some trade. Their value, from this point of view, without such training is small, for unskilled labor is in reality dearer than skilled labor. The small number of murders occurring in London compared with Paris, he accounts for by the free character of the English constitution, London being guarded by free citizens. ”

“ In these different forms labor has not the same value. More is to be gained by manufactures than by husbandry, and by merchandise than by manufactures (220) .
In the highest place in the scale of labor is the seaman. "Every seaman," he says, "is not only a navigator, but a merchant and also a soldier." The wage of a husbandman is only one-third of that of a seaman. Holland is the model commonwealth, because in Holland there is little plowing or sowing of corn or little breeding of cattle. They have rid their hands of the "old patriarchal trade of being cow-keepers" (232) . ”

“ It is clear that Petty's studies in natural science had a great influence on his conception of nature. His method is indeed from Hobbes, but in his conception of the validity of natural laws he diverges from that thinker. Petty shows decided traces of that reverence for natural conditions which characterizes Locke and the philosophic school of the next century. If one has an optimistic view of nature it is probable that one will use arguments against the existing state of things, if they seem to violate the natural order. ”

“ The tokens used in exchange for retail by particular men are not base, if the credit of those who issue them is good, and if they can be changed for silver.
Finally he takes up the whole question of money exports, and treats it by a new method (Quant.) . The laws against export of money are not natural. Countries which abound in money have no such laws. Countries that forbid export are alike destitute of money and merchandise. Besides, as we have already seen, it does not follow that a country is poor because it has little money. We know that private individuals thrive without hoarding. ”

“ Vessels will be made of it if more commodities can be exchanged for it in this way than by employing the same silver by way of trade. Only one of the two precious metals is "a fit matter for money;" the other metal is only a commodity (347) . The proportional value of gold and silver fluctuates as the earth and the industry of man produce more of one than of the other. The only way of pitching upon the true proportion between them is by reducing each to the amount of labor required in the mining and refining of each. The man who has the ability to hire the most labor is the richest (38) . ”

“ Every man is valuable because he represents a certain fraction of that labor power by which the State is enriched. The State should take care in no way to impair this energy, but at the same time it can interfere to secure the benefit to itself of the labor of its subjects. ”

“ There is not a better Latin poet living when he gives himself that diversion; nor is his excellence less in council and prudent matters of state; but he is so exceeding nice in sifting and examining all possible contingencies, that he adventures at nothing which is not demonstration. ”

“ As deductions of this kind have played so large a role in the science of economics, it is interesting to scrutinise them in the pages of Petty's works. His employment of deductive method is concerned in reducing complex facts to simplicity. He only means, he says, to consider "such causes as have visible foundations in nature." He does not intend to consider those causes "that depend upon the mutable minds, opinions, appetites, and passions of particular men." And again, he states that he only uses "arguments of sense." [4] This gives his conception of nature. ”

“ Again, it may be due to enforced money payments at inconvenient times, or to legal difficulties as to right of imposition, or to scarcity of money, or to small number of industrial class, or to the want of proper trade statistics. The charges of religion, education, justice, the poor, internal improvements, are considered in the same thorough way and remedies are proposed for lessening these several burdens.
The road to all reform is the possession of accurate statistics. All unprofitable labor should be limited by an effective State control of education and religion. ”

“ In order to procure money for public uses people must either work harder or introduce labor-saving processes. The great misfortune of Ireland is, as we have seen, the simple life led by the natives. They need so few goods. ”

“ We have traced in a general way the debt Petty owed to Hobbes. We believe his influence is apparent chiefly on Petty's method and in the characteristics of his thoughts. It is possible to find actual resemblances; for example, in the analysis of wealth into land and labor. [7] But I do not think that verbal identity is so likely to prove Hobbes' influence over him as does the kind of affinity upon which I have already commented. Petty is hardly the man who could be a mere copyist. ”

“ The legal system should be simplified in all its parts, in order to diminish a class of men whose gains are like those of gamesters, because their labor produces nothing. The principles of the criminal law ought to be modified. ”

“ The tax as imposed in England is unjust. It is a tax on position or title, and takes no account of the riches of the individual taxed. Single rich persons are taxed at the lowest rates, while poor knights are rated at £20. A real poll-tax taxes every individual alike. The objection to this form of tax is that it is only apparently equal, men who are of unequal abilities being rated at the same amount. ”

“ His tracts on the Low Countries and on Irish trade deal with subjects treated fully by Petty. When two very intelligent men are both reviewing the same ground, it is probable that we shall find remarks in one easily paralleled by the other. The smallness of the Irish trade, Temple tells us, is due to revolutions, political intrigue, bad government and absenteeism. [8] All this is familiar, but we look in vain for the peculiarities of Petty. There is no use made of statistical information; there are no attempts to interpret the facts in any but the ordinary way of intelligent observation. ”