Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 70, No. 434, December, 1851
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Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 70, No. 434, December, 1851
TO THE SHOPKEEPERS OF GREAT BRITAIN
Gentlemen, – As it is customary for most men about this season of the year, when accounts are balanced and squared, to take a serious survey of the posture of their affairs, and to examine into their business prospects, perhaps you may not consider a few observations, touching the welfare and position of that important class of the community to which you belong, either impertinent or ill-timed. You are aware that, for the last year or two, Her Majesty's Ministers have been in the habit of opening Parliament with a congratulatory assurance of the continued, and even augmented, prosperity of the country. The reason why such statements were made, altogether irrespective of their truth or falsehood, is obvious enough. In a political point of view, they were necessary for the vindication of the measures which Government either originated or adopted. To have admitted that the country was not prospering under the new commercial system, would have been considered by the public as tantamount to an acknowledgment that the policy which dictated those measures was vicious; and that the Whig ministry, if not deficient in duty, had at least erred sorely in judgment. In private life, we rarely meet with that degree of candour which amounts to an unequivocal admission of error in point of judgment – in public life, such an admission is altogether unknown. Failure may indeed be acknowledged when the fact becomes too evident to admit of further denial; but the causes of that failure are never attributed to their real source. Not only the purity of the motive, but the wisdom of the conception, is vindicated to the last. In this case, however, failure is totally denied. So far from being put upon their defence, the Whigs maintain that they have achieved a triumph. Their averment is, that, with the exception of the agricultural producers, among whom they allow that a certain degree of distress prevails, all other classes of the community are prosperous. Even for the agriculturists there is balm in store. The prosperity of the other classes is to react upon them; so that, within some indefinite period of time, we shall all find ourselves in circumstances of ease and comfort which have hitherto been unknown in our land.
With you the benefit is represented, not as prospective, but as present. The agriculturist may have to wait a little longer, but you are already provided for. Your cake is baked; and we are assured that you are eating it in thankfulness and joy. If this is really the case, there is no more to be said on the subject. If the harvest of Free Trade has actually yielded you such a large measure of profit, it would be madness in anyone to decry that line of policy in your hearing. You constitute the class which, from its peculiar position and vocation, is better qualified than any other to judge accurately, and from experience, of the degree of prosperity which is actually known in the country. The verdict of twelve shopkeepers, given after an inspection of their books for an average of years, ought to be of more weight, in settling the merits of any disputed commercial question, than the random assurances of a dozen cabinet ministers whose reputation and official existence are bound up in the vindication of their own policy. The reason of this is perfectly obvious. Your profit is simply a commission upon your sales. You do not produce or manufacture articles of consumption – you simply retail them. Your profit depends upon the briskness of trade, that is, the amount of demand. It rises or falls according to the general circumstances of your customers. In good times you make large profits; in bad times those profits decrease. One while your stock sells off rapidly; at another, it remains upon your hands. Your interest is inseparable from that of the great body of consumers by whom you live. You have little or nothing to do with the foreign t