CHAPTER VIII.

Statements of Quarterly Review on the subject of United States examined. Supposed insecurity of Property.-Conservative Elements.

The

IN an article entitled "Progress of Misgovernment," which appeared in the Quarterly Review*, a summary is given of the financial arrangements of the United States. On perusing this statement, I was surprised at the result which the reviewer deduces from his calculations, the data of which seem to be principally taken from the statistical tables appended to Captain Basil Hall's Travels. writer of this article assumes, that it would be a great error to suppose that " the government of the United States is economical, and that it is, in fact, in proportion to its population, as expensive as that of Great Britain, or more so." As the whole article is redolent of party spirit, and evidently written with a view to influence public opinion on subjects connected with the great measure of reform, the passages in question should not perhaps be regarded as containing positive statistical statements relating merely to

* Vide No. XCII. p. 594, Jan. 1832.

the American financial system, but rather as the special pleading of a counsel, whose object is by no means to lay the whole case clearly and fairly before. the public. Perhaps this may be thought as justifiable in political as in legal arguments.

The mis-statements and singular inaccuracies contained in the article "Progress of Misgovernment" on the subject of America, are doubtless not the result of a wish to deceive the public mind with regard to the real position of that country. The whole article offers internal evidence that its author is personally and practically unacquainted with the people and country of which he speaks, and adds another to the thousand and one instances of the most erroneous inferences being drawn from data depending solely on hearsay or printed information, particularly where a favourite theory is in view, and that theory founded, of course, on conviction, but also turned to aid the arguments of party, with the unhesitating vehemence of political opposition.

With somewhat similar zeal for the dissemination of their own principles, and a corresponding want of practical acquaintance with the nature of European governments, I have heard Americans gravely wondering at the blindness of the English, or of other nations, in not adopting republican institutions and forms of government in all their extent, and not only arguing for the practicability of such adoption, but

foretelling its speedy accomplishment. It is true, that in conversing with many of those who have visited this country, and even, with the better informed Americans, who never had any opportunities of judging personally of the state of things in England, I have found them as well aware of the utter unfitness and impracticability of a republican government in England as any sane Englishman.

If, however, the article in question be not put forward as an ex parte statement, but as expressing the bona fide opinions of the reviewer, it is difficult to conceive how so ingenious a writer can have imbibed such erroneous impressions as his statements are calculated to convey; the mystification must be laid to the account of his sources of information, the writer of this article having evidently never been in the United States; this appears at once, not only from the financial exposé which he gives, but more particularly from the preceding part of his paper, in which he treats incidentally of the stability of the institutions of America, and the security of property in that country. After insinuating that passing the Reform Bill will be the first step towards attacking property itself in its details, if not the Principle of Property in England," he instances the United States as an example of the insecurity to property resulting from a government supported by a "numerical majority."

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The object of these remarks is not to discuss the merits of the Reform Bill; but as an illustration of any direct or indirect attack upon that measure, it

seems that there could not have been a more unfortunate argument for an opponent of reform than this allusion to the degree of stability of property in the United States. Americans, or even those who have passed sufficient time in the United States to become practically acquainted with the nature and working of its institutions, will perhaps only smile at the predictions of a "time not being far distant when the majority shall attack the cause of property, as at variance with their own interests," and at the hints about a sort of agrarian law, &c., which appear in this article. But the extreme ignorance that in fact prevails in this country and in Europe generally on all that relates to the internal organization of government and society in the United States, is such as to give some currency to opinions and prognostics as totally unfounded as these, particularly when supported by such an authority as that of the Quarterly.

It will be my endeavour in the course of these remarks to point out the errors in the financial statements of the Quarterly, after first noticing some of the preliminary observations.

There is no country, he says, where "Property will be so entirely and immediately at the mercy of those who may have, or fancy they have, an interest

in assailing it, as soon as that body shall be sufficiently numerous to form the preponderating class in the community."

'If an American were to reply to these remarks, I could suppose him doing so somewhat in the following manner:

Property is much subdivided, and in the freehold possession of an immense number of individuals in America; the monied institutions,-banks, both of the United States and of each particular state,-canal stock, rail-roads, public or state undertakings, and works of a like nature, as mining associations, bridge companies, steam-boats, &c., offer opportunities for even the smallest capital to be advantageously invested; so that the Americans of every class, profiting by these institutions, have almost all more or less a direct or prospective interest in upholding the present system of their country, and it would, in truth, be difficult to find the "numerical majority," which the reviewer anticipates, opposed to the principle of property.

Besides, the Quarterly subsequently points out "three great causes" for that security of property which has hitherto existed, that would seem to place the period predicted at an immense distance, viz. 1st. The "inexhaustible fund of unoccupied land," preventing the pressure of want; 2d. "The federal mechanism of its constitution, and the strict limita