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Review of A Scheme for Preventing a Further Increase of the National Debt (1756)

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By Johnson, Samuel

Samuel Johnson: Johnson on Demand

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Review of A Scheme for Preventing a Further Increase of the National Debt (1756)1

A Scheme for preventing a further increase of the National Debt, and for reducing the same. Inscribed to the Right Hon. Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield. 6d. Quarto. Dodsley [1756]

This pamphlet seems to be written with a very honest intention by a man better acquainted with arithmetic than with style.

Page 349

He begins with asserting what no man doubts, and no honest man pretends to doubt, that the French have gained upon our commerce, and that the national debt has swelled so high that it can be no longer safely enlarged. . . .2

To this no objection can be made, but that it cannot be discovered by common eyes, why the debt should be kept up to forty million. Why should it not be reduced to twenty,—— why not to nothing? why should not all these wretches that live on public misery, commissioners of excise, and officers without number, be at once, if it be possible, discarded, and sent to gain a living by honest industry, or to beg it of those whom they are now insulting?

Therefore, after deliberating upon many schemes, and turning my thoughts upon many ways, to bring about so desireable a thing as the increase of our trade and navigation; I could not fix upon any plan so easy as that of Sir Matthew Decker, Bart. which is a total alteration of the present system of raising the supplies, by abolishing all duties, excises and taxes and raising supplies by one general tax. This would make the nation a kind of free port, which would render it in a few years the grand magazine of the world.3

He then proceeds to answer objections, which he appears to state very seriously, and without either scorn or indignation.

Many objections have been made to Sir Matthew Decker’s scheme, and some of them very frivolous, not worth mentioning; the three most material I will mention, in order to obviate, viz. the first, That the ministry will lose their power; the second, That the ministry, and those in great places, will not then have so many ways of serving their dear friends; and the third, That such a scheme will hurt

Page 350

Cleeve’s those who now enjoy places, salaries or have reversionary grants under the government, as most places will then be rendered useless. To remove these difficulties, I reply to the first, The minister would gain esteem, and have much less trouble, as they would not every year be taxing their fellow-subjects, which is one chief cause of the dislike the independent part of the nation have to them; they will thereby have much less business at home, more leisure to pursue the good and true interest of the nation, by making foreign affairs their chief study, and would prevent many families from ruining their fortunes at elections. To the second, I make the general answer now given upon any complaint to the public offices; “The good of the nation must be first considered.” To the last, my answer is, therefore all those who now enjoy any places, pensions, or salaries of any kind, should receive the same during their lives to be paid out of monies raised for the service of the current year, and those who have reversions of places on the decease of the persons in possession, should be paid a sum equal to the full value of their grants.4

It had been surely better to say, that those objections are the reasons for which every wise and honest man desires the immediate execution of the scheme.

He then proposes to raise money by the following method. . . .5

He then by a detail of the houses on this island, formed I know not upon what authority, shews how eight millions may be yearly raised by a tax upon houses, the land-tax being reduced to six-pence in the pound, and all other taxes abolished.

This scheme he enforces by a very curious estimate of the diminution which every man’s fortune is daily suffering in our present condition. . . .6

Page 351

Editorial Notes

1 LM, I.188–91; not in Eddy; accepted by Fleeman, Bibliography (I.687), “Johnson’s Contributions” (item 78), and Brian Hanley, Samuel Johnson as Book Reviewer (2001), p. 238. A Scheme, by Bourchier Cleeve (1715–60), ran to three successively larger editions in 1756. SJ’s quotations suggest he reviewed the first edition.

2 Here SJ quotes A Scheme, pp. 7–8.

3 A Scheme, p. 8; Cleeve refers to Matthew Decker, Serious Considerations on the Several High Duties which the Nation in general . . . labours under: with A Proposal for the Preventing the Running of Goods, Discharging the Trader from any Search, and Raising all the “Publick Supplies, by One Single Tax” (1743).

4 A Scheme, pp. 8–9.

5 SJ here quotes A Scheme, pp. 9–10, where Cleeve proposes government sale of three million pounds in annuities at 6.5 percent for the purpose of reducing the national debt.

6 SJ quotes A Scheme, pp. 15–16, adding one clause of explanation to Cleeve’s column of arithmetic: “[Total 72 6 0] Which taken from 300l. remains 227 14 0.”

Transcription

Document Details

Document TitleReview of A Scheme for Preventing a Further Increase of the National Debt (1756)

AuthorJohnson, Samuel

Creation Date1756

Publ. DateN/A

Alt. TitleN/A

Contrib. AuthorJohnson, Samuel

ClassificationSubject: History; Subject: France; Subject: War; Genre: Book Review

PrinterN/A

PublisherJ. Richardson

Publ. PlaceLondon

VolumeSamuel Johnson: Johnson on Demand

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