When a Leicestershire landlord is resident on his estate, he employs a certain portion of his land, or, what is the same, ofhis rent, in maintaining the persons who provide for him those commodities and services, which must be produced on thespot where they are consumed. If he should remove to London, he would want the services of Londoners, and the produceof land and capital which previously maintained labourers resident in Leicester, would be sent away to maintain labourersresident in London. The labourers would probably follow, and wages in Leicestershire and London would then beunaltered; but until they did so, wages would rise in the one district and fall in the other. At the same time, as the rise andfall would compensate one another, as the fund for the maintenance of labour, and the number of labourers to bemaintained, would each remain the same, the same amount of wages would be distributed among the same number ofpersons, though not precisely in the same proportion as before.
If he were now to remove to Paris, a new distribution must take place. As the price of raw produce is lower in France thanin England, and the difference in habits and language between the two countries prevents the transfer of labourers from theone to the other, neither the labourers nor the produce of his estates could follow him. He must employ French labourers,and he must convert his share of the produce of his estates, or, what is the same thing, his rent into some exportable formin order to receive it abroad. It may be supposed that he would receive his rent in money. Even if he were to do so, theEnglish labourers would not be injured, for as they do not eat or drink money, provided the same amount of commoditiesremained for their use, they would be unaffected by the export of money. But it is impossible that he could receive his rentin .money unless tie chose to suffer a gratuitous loss. The rate of exchange between London and Paris is generally rather infavour of London, and scarcely ever so deviates from par between any two countries, as to cover the expense oftransferring the precious metals from the one to the other, excepting between the countries which do, and those which donot possess mines. The remittances from England to France must be sent, therefore, in the form of manufactures, eitherdirectly to France, or to some country with which France .has commercial relations. And how would 'these manufacturesbe obtained? Of course in exchange for the landlord's rent. His share of the produce of his estates would now go toBirmingham or Sheffield, or Manchester or London, to maintain the labourers employed in producing manufactures, to besent and sold abroad for his profit. An English absentee employs his income precisely as if he were to remain at home andconsume nothing but hardware and cottons. Instead of the services of gardeners and servants, upholsterers and tailors, hepurchases those of spinners, and weavers, and cutlers. In either case his income is employed in maintaining labourers,though the class of labourers is different; and in either case, the whole fund for the maintenance of labourers, and thenumber of labourers to be maintained, remaining unaltered, the wages of labour would not be affected.
But, in fact, that fund would be rather increased in quantity and rather improved in quality. It would be increased, becauseland previously employed as a park, or in feeding dog's and horses, br hares and pheasants, would now be employed inproducing food or clothing for men. It would be improved, because the increased production of manufactured commoditieswould occasion an increased division of labour, the use of more and better machinery, and the other improvements whichwe long ago ascertained to be its necessary accompaniments.
One disadvantage, and one only, it appears to me would be the result. The absentee in a great measure escapes domestictaxation. I say in a great measure, because he still remains liable, if a proprietor of houses or of land, to those taxes whichfall upon rent: he pays, too, a part of the taxes on the materials of manufactures; and if it were our policy to tax income orexported commodities, he might be forced to pay to the public revenue even more than his former proportion. But, underour present system, which throws the bulk of taxation on commodities produced for internal consumption, he receives thegreater part of his revenue without deduction, and. instead of contributing to the support of the British Government,contributes to support that. of France or Italy. This inconvenience, perhaps, about balances the advantages which I havejust mentioned, and leaves a community which exports only manufactures, neither impoverished nor enriched by theresidence abroad of its unproductive members.
I ought, perhaps, on this occasion again to remind you, that it is to wealth and poverty that my attention is confined. The moral effects of absenteeism must never be neglected by a writer who inquires into the causes which promote the happiness of nations, but are without the province of a political economist. Nor do I regret that, they are so, for they forma subject on which it is far more difficult to obtain satisfactory results. In one respect, indeed, the moral question is themore simple, as it is not complicated by the consideration whether raw produce or manufactures are exported, or whetherthe non-resident landlord is abroad, or in some town within his own country. If his presence is to be morally beneficial itmust be his presence on his own estate. To the inhabitants of that estate, the place to which he absents himself isindifferent. Adam Smith believed his residence to be morally injurious. The residence of a court, he observes (book ii. chap.
