2. Bellers’ Essays and Other Writings

We must suppose that the general public did not evince sufficient interest for Bellers’ proposals and that new objections were raised. Anyhow, in 1699 Bellers published a new pamphlet which, to a great extent, turns upon the views set forth in the Proposals. This is the publication entitled Essays about the poor, Manufactures, Trade, Plantations and Immorality, and of the Excellency and Divinity of Inward Light.

The essays are remarkable in many respects and worthy of the best passages of the Proposals.

In a dedication addressed to the Houses of Parliament, the pamphlet opens with a reference to the weavers’ disturbances in London during the preceding Parliamentary session. If the indigent of any single trade could venture to defy, for a time, the whole of Parliament, what might be expected if a hungry multitude entered the houses of some of the possessing class? The legislators should consider this. The possessing classes might be influenced by fines, the healthy by the infliction of bodily pain; but “what can awe the misery of starving?” This is followed by a short discussion of three questions with reference to establishments for the employment of healthy unemployed. The question as to whether the working of these establishments by the State or by private persons is preferable is answered by Bellers in favour of the latter. He says that the State works expensively and administers badly.

The State should only be left to provide for those totally unable to work. The question as to whether it would be better to select certain specified trades for the employment of the unemployed poor, or whether it would be better to place the poor in individual households, is answered by Bellers with the arguments already known to us in favour of joint housekeeping and of co-ordinating the most various branches of production and employment.

Bellers then deals with the question, “How the Poor’s Wants will be best answered, and the nation’s strength and riches increased.”

He says that the poor suffer from four evils, namely: bad education in their youth, want of regular employment, want of constant sale for the products of their work, and want of sufficient sustenance in return for the work performed. All these evils could be remedied by the colleges or colonies proposed by him. They would at the same time increase the value of the land of the nobility and gentry, populate districts which were then thinly populated, and counteract the congestion in other places. Thus they would, for instance, draw away the excess of population from London, which, containing 10 per cent. of the total population of the country, was decidedly too populous. “The nation can maintain but a number of tradesmen and gentry, in proportion to the number of labourers that are in the nation to work for them.”

The first essay is to “shew that 500 Labourers, Regularly Imploy’d, are capable of Earning £3,000 a year more than will keep them”.

The demonstration, supported by figures, is introduced with the remark that if productive labour had not from the first produced more than it had cost, the human race would have vanished long ago. “By computation, there is not above two-thirds of the People or Families of England that do raise all necessaries for Themselves, and the rest of the people by their labour; and if the one-third; wh. are not Labourers, did not spend more than the two-thirds wh. are Labourers, one-half of the People or Families Labouring cd supply all the nation.” People might object to his budget that according to it every worker was, on an average, to earn 16d. per day, while in reality at the time many, with the greatest exertion, would scarcely earn 6d. or 8d. This, he says, is quite correct, but it was so just because the other 8d. or 10d, went into the pocket of the ground-owner or dealer. “For it the products commonly stands the user in double the price the master had.” Again, the great difference between the amount paid to the actual producer – the artisan-and the price of the goods was also due to the bad social organization of production. It “is the great Unhappiness of many of our mechanicks, that they make Commodities when nobody wants them”. With a better organization of labour, therefore, more wages could be given and less work could be demanded from the individual, and still the working of the colony would remunerate the investors of capital.

The second essay endeavours to “shew how 500,000 poor are capable to add 43 millions value to the nation”.

As regards the calculation, the proof relies on the surplus work which the poor are capable of performing and which Bellers “capitalizes” at 5 per cent., as well as on the value imparted by their work to land. More interesting than this antiquated calculation are the propositions brought forward by Bellers in support of his ever-repeated thesis that “the Increase of regular labouring people is the Kingdom’s greatest treasure, strength and honour”.

Land, cattle, houses, goods and money are but the carcas of riches, they are dead without people; men being the life and soul of them.

Double our Labouring People and we shall be capable of having double the noblemen and gentlemen that we have; or their estates will be worth double what they are now: But if it were possible to increase our houses and treasure (and not our people) in such excess, that the poorest man in the Kingdom were worth a million of money. There must be as many of those rich men hewers of wood and drawers of water, plowmen and threshers, as we have of such Labourers now in the Kingdom, or else we shd be under Midas’ Golden Curse, starve for want of bread, tho’ we had our hands fill’d with gold.

To say foreigners wd supply us for money. Yes, but it is their labouring people must do it; who also being subjects to foreign princes, may take their turn to come and plunder as well as feed us.

There are no increasing of rich men, but as poor labourers increase with them; where there is no servants, there can be no masters.

Passing on to the question of the organization of labour, Bellers points, among other things, to the increase of the “necessitous poor” through “the uncertainty of fashion”, a subject which he, as a Quaker, had particularly at heart. He points out that in winter many industrial labourers were out of work because dealers and master weavers would not invest any money before they knew what would be the next fashion. In the spring, on the other hand, sufficient hands could not be obtained at short notice. Then large numbers of apprentices and chance helpers were set to work, hands were withdrawn from the plough, and future beggars were introduced in the town.

Passing over a rather interesting digression to the effect that “dear bread will make dear manufactures and ruin trade”, in which almost the whole Free-Trade gospel is anticipated, we will turn to Bellers’ criticism of trade in general, and of foreign trade in particular.

In the Essay on Tradesmen he writes: “Merchants and tradesmen are to a nation as Stewards, Bayliffs, and Butlers are to great Families,” and are therefore useful as a good government is to a nation. “But as traders are useful in distributing, it’s only the Labour of the Poor that increaseth the Riches of a nation, and tho’ there cannot be too many Labourers in a nation, if their imployments are in a due proportion; yet there may be too many traders in a country for the number of labourers.” Tradesmen might become rich while the nation might be impoverished through “extravagancy”. An instance as to the consumption of wine forms the transition to the Essay on Foreign Trade. He says that this trade also is useful by introducing into the country, among other things, articles of art and of consumption which the country itself ,::does not produce, but this trade also is profitable to a country inasmuch as “ornamental or delightful” things are brought over which are not produced in the country. But in this matter a “voluptuous age may easily fall into excess, with dress and pleasure, whilst nothing can be strictly said to inrich a nation but what increaseth its people ... But how much of the silks, oyls, pickles, fruits and wine we receive from Turkey, Italy, Spain and France ... are an equivalent and of equal use to us, wh. the more lasting and needful clothes and provision we send out for them wa be, may be some question.”

Supposing we send 400 thousand pound a year of English manufacture to them 4. Countries, and by the returns, the merchants and retailers may get 30 per cent. wh. makes 250 thousand pounds value imported, to be spent in England. Now, Quere, whether this 400 thousand pounds first sent out, is not rather the nation’s expence, than the 120 thousand pounds the traders get, may be supposed to add to the nation’s stock? And another question is, what of it is prudently spent with comfort, and how much is extravagantly wasted, to the ruin of the bodies and estates of the spenders?

If we send 100 thousand pound of manufactures to Holland and Germany, we have commonly some useful manufactures for them; however, if we did employ our own idle poor upon them things, it’s possible they wd be able to raise most of them foreign goods we want.

“But then our woollen manufacturers that supply them countries wd complain of such new manufacturers; as some Lancashire men lately petitioned the Parliament, that Flanders lace shd be allowed to come into England that thereby they might have better vent for their cloth in Flanders. And thus”, Bellers writes, and in doing so he really says the last word on the eternal dispute of free trade and protection, “whilst our manufactures are disproportioned to our husbandmen, we are, and shall be like limbs out of joint, always complaining, lay us wh. way you will. For wh. reason several Laws, made for incouraging of Trade, doth but raise an intestine war among our mechanics, because the advantage of one Trade is often the ruin of another.”

And the essay concludes with the query: “If we do not depopulate our country by pineing many at home for want of them manufactures, and especially food, wh. we send abroad, to supply the pride and luxury of others by the returns?” “120 thousand pounds”, adds Bellers, “imported to be spent at home, for 100 thousand pound sent out, leaves the publick never the richer at the yeare’s end.”

There follows next an Essay on Money. It expands the ideas set forth in the introduction to the Proposals. “Land, stock upon it, Buildings, and money are the body of our riches, and of all these”, Bellers says, “money is of least use.” . . . “Land and live stock increase by keeping, buildings and manufactures are useful, whilst kept, but money neither increaseth, nor is useful, but when it’s parted with.” “So what money is more than of absolute necessity for a home Trade, is dead Stock ... Money hath two qualities, it is a pledge for what it is given for, and it’s the measure and scales by wh. we measure and value all other things, it being portable and durable, and yet it hath altered far more in value to all things than other things have among themselves, when there was but the one 2oth part of the money in England to what there is now ... the same number of days’ work of a man wd pay for a sheep or cow 300 years ago as will now, and the same labour will plough an acre of land now as would then.”

We must remember that this was written when the methods of agriculture and manufacture changed but slowly. And even where Bellers starts from false premises, the idea which he aims at is nevertheless correct.

The essay on the Abating of Immoralities asserts that all economical improvements are useless unless they are combined with moral elevation. The essay Against Capital Punishment, or, as Bellers entitled it, Some Reasons Against Putting of Felons to Death, is a very fine anticipation of the best works of Beccaria and others. He calls the premature death inflicted by the State “a stain to religion”, and compares the relation of the criminal to society to that of a scapegrace to his family. “If a man had a child or near relation, that shd fall into a capital crime, he wd use all his interest to preserve his life, howmuch soever he abhorred his fact, in hopes he might live to grow better, especially if he cd have such a power of confinement upon him, as might prevent his acting such enormities for the future. And this child, and near relation, is every one to the publick.” Moreover, it should not be forgotten that man is not wholly responsible. “The idle and profane education of some, and the necessities of others bring habits almost invincible.”

Bellers stresses the economic loss caused to society by killing criminals instead of employing them in useful work in penitentiaries, but adds that this is not the cardinal point. He appeals to the petition in the Lord’s Prayer, “Forgive us our trespasses”, and inveighs against the excessive punishment then in vogue, of the gallows or penal servitude for small thefts. Finally, he demands that the detestable conditions existing in the prisons should be altered, and that the prisons should be freed from exploitation by speculative gaolers.

The booklet, which concludes with the Essay on the Inward Light, stamps Bellers as one of the most unprejudiced minds of his time, not on all points free from its errors, but almost in all points far in advance of the majority of even his more enlightened contemporaries.

The same may be said touching the next publication of Bellers, the contents of which are sufficiently indicated by its title, which we; therefore reproduce in full: “Some Reasons for an European State proposed to the Powers of Europe, by an universal guarantee and an Annual Congress, Senate, Dyet or Parliament, To settle any Disputes about the Bounds and Rights of Princes and States hereafter. With an abstract of a scheme formed by King Henry the Fourth of France, upon the same subject. And also A Proposal for a General Council or Convocation of all the different Religious Persuasions in Christendom (not to Dispute what they Differ about but) to Settle the General Principles they Agree in: By wh. it will appear, that they may be good subjects and neighbours, tho’ of different Apprehensions of the way to Heaven. In order to prevent Broils and War at home, when Foreign Wars are ended.” London, 1710.

In this, as in his other proposals, is notably in advance of his predecessors, although Bellers he is careful to make allowance for existing circumstances. This pamphlet is by no means an abstract essay, but is closely related to contemporary occurrences, from which he endeavours to show the expediency of his proposals. The War of the Spanish Succession, which had been raging since 1701, had involved great sacrifices in money and blood, and still seemed to be no nearer its end; it was from this that Bellers derived an argument in favour of his proposal of an international confederation. In a dedication addressed to Queen Anne he points to the sacrifices incurred and the alliance concluded (between England, Holland, and Austria or Germany) in order to secure peace after the end of the war, and how little guarantee after all this alliance afforded, on how many contingencies its maintenance depended, seeing that each one of the allied States had to take other conditions and circumstances into account. In an address to the Powers he further calculates the expenditure in men, money, and economical welfare, incurred through war, directly or indirectly, by European nations since 1688 alone. The method of calculation in this case also is one which is thoroughly original for that period. Finally, he unfolds his proposal. Europe is to be divided into a number of districts (say one hundred) of equal size (cantons or provinces), and each State is to send one member per canton to the Parliament of States, that is to say, each State shall be represented therein in proportion to its size and population. This Parliament, which shall only deal with the external and general relations of States to each other, without interfering with their internal affairs, is to determine how many combatants, or vessels, and how much money each State is to provide per canton, in case a joint action should be required against truce-breakers; and according to the obligations undertaken in this respect by the various States, the number of their votes in the joint Parliament will be proportioned, so that, in addition to their geographical extent, their capabilities will be taken into account. Parliament will then arrange as to the reduction of standing armies and the number of men per canton to be kept under arms in peace-time.

In other respects, too, Bellers shows himself in this essay far ahead of his age. As the title suggests, he reproduces in it a similar project of Henry IV of France. In his comments thereon he remarks that Henry had excluded the “Muscovites” (Russia) and Turkey from his scheme, which, in his opinion, was done only in deference to the Roman See. But, says he, “The Muscovites are Christians, and the Mahometans men, and have the same faculties and reason as other men, they only want the same opportunities and applications of their understandings to be the same men: But to beat their Brains out, to put sense into them, is a great Mistake, and wd leave Europe too much in a state of war; whereas the farther this civil Union is possible to be extended, the greater will be the Peace on earth, and good will among men.”

In 1710 it required not only a high degree of intellectual freedom but also no small meed of courage to give expression to this view. The other proposal in this pamphlet, the “religious Parliament”, which is not to discuss the things that separate religions, meaning dogmas, but is to ascertain what the various religions have in common, which could only be certain ethical maxims, is also a remarkable one for its time, however slender its prospects of success. It breathes a new catholicity. It was an appropriate and dignified reply to the crusade against all denominations not belonging to the Established Church which had been set on foot in the summer of 1709 by Sacheverell, and which, in 1710, was instrumental in raising the Harley-St. John Tory coalition into power.

One of the first acts of the new Government (1711) was to tighten the franchise by establishing a minimum property qualification. This may have prompted Bellers to publish in 1712 an essay in favour of electoral reform, or, as the title says, An Essay towards the Ease of Elections of Members of Parliament. It relates chiefly to precautions against bribery, abuse of oaths, etc., at elections. Cases of bribery shall be visited on the bribers, as the seducers, with punishments up to five times as high as the bribed, and the making of oaths shall be replaced by affidavits with legally binding force.

In 1714 he published a larger treatise, in which he anticipates a national health service. This, in fact, is the scope of the essay “About the Improvement of Physick, in 12 proposals, By wh. the Lives of many Thousands of the Rich, as well as of the Poor may be saved yearly. With an Essay for Imploying the Able Poor By wh. the Riches of the Kingdom may be greatly Increased. Humbly dedicated to the Parliament of Great Britain.” London, 1714.

The most important proposal of this treatise is to establish a systematic connection between the study of medicine and the practice of medical science with the hospital system, which is to be organized and financed everywhere by the public bodies – Parishes, or Hundredths, Counties, or the State. Bellers also enlarges on the equipment and arrangements of hospitals, pleads for the establishment of separate wings or special hospitals for certain diseases, and finally discusses curative methods (as we observed in the Introduction, he was on intimate terms with one of the most eminent physicians of the day), but of course his remarks on this subject are antiquated.

An appendix recapitulates briefly the proposal of the “College”, which Bellers never tired of preaching up to his last breath.

Thus as late as in 1723 he published a new essay entitled An Essay for Employing the Poor to Profit, with the motto, “If there were no Labourers there would be no Lords; and if the Labourers did not raise more food and manufactures than what did subsist themselves, every Gentleman must be a Labourer, and Idle Man must starve.”

The arguments do not differ from those in the former essays, except that those relating to money and foreign trade are put more tersely. Again and again he points to the vicissitudes of life and appeals to “duty and interest” as mighty advocates for stimulating the rich to active provision for the poor. We may refer, as a remarkable feature in this essay, to the attitude adopted by Bellers to the struggle which was proceeding with increasing intensity between the manufacturers and the mechanics over the introduction of technical improvements in manufacturing processes. Bellers, who is so impartial with regard to manufactures as to declare it to be a great mistake to stimulate them without a simultaneous development of agriculture – to be like “placing more Men to a Table without putting more Food there”, yet most decidedly opposes all legislation directed against machinery. In this respect his friendliness towards the workers does not blind him for a single moment. Laws against reduction of labour (that is to say against labour-saving machinery and methods) are as unreasonable, he writes, as if one would tie fast one hand of each worker to his back so that two might always be required instead of one. On this topic too he had perfectly modern ideas.

The pamphlet asks for the appointment of a Parliamentary committee to examine its proposals.

In the spring of 1724 Bellers published An Epistle to Friends of the Yearly, Quarterly, and Monthly Meetings, that is to say, of the Quaker organizations, wherein he urgently recommends to them active care of the inmates of prisons and hospitals, partly for purposes of propaganda among them, and partly in order to improve their material position as far as possible.

And he sang his swan-song the same year in “An abstract of George Fox’s Advice and Warning To the Magistrates of London in the year 1657. Concerning the Poor, with some Observations thereupon, and Recommendations of them to the Sincerely Religious, but more particularly to the Friends of London, and Morning-Meeting of these times.” It is a warmhearted and impressive admonition to his co-religionists not to neglect the cause of the poor, nor to confine themselves to mere almsgiving. It was to the Friends that he first directed his plan for the organization of industrial colleges, and his last word in favour of the creation of methodical arrangements for the useful and profitable employment of the unemployed is again addressed “more particularly to the Friends”. In the year 1725 death snatched from his hand the pen which he had indefatigably wielded on behalf of the poor.

What he did by way of direct assistance for the poor and needy is outside the scope of this work; the remark may suffice that he was not simply a benefactor in theory. It would also be beyond the scope of this work to inquire into the effect of Bellers’ writings upon the corresponding literature of his and the following ages. In speaking of him we have already gone ahead of the period we had set ourselves to investigate. But this could not be avoided, as not only chronologically, but also as regards the character of his ideas, he stands out as a landmark between the communism of the seventeenth and the reform movements of the eighteenth century.