BY WHICH THE NUMBER OF LANDED GENTRY AND SUBSTANTIAL FARMERS WILL BE
CONSIDERABLY INCREASED, AND NO ONE PERSON WILL BE THE POORER, OR
CONTRIBUTE ONE FARTHING TO THE CHARGE.
NOTE.
In volume three of the present edition two tracts are given
relating to attempts made by the bishops of Ireland for
enlarging
their powers. These tracts are entitled: “On the Bill for the
Clergy's residing on their Livings,” and “Considerations upon
two
Bills, sent down from the House of Lords and the House of
Commons
in Ireland relating to the Clergy of Ireland” (pp. 249-272).
The
bills which Swift argued against were evidently intended to
give
the bishops further powers and increased opportunities for
making
money. (The matter is gone into at length in the notes
prefixed to
the above reprints.) The bishops sought rights which would
enable
them to obtain large powers in letting leases, and their
eagerness
to get such powers, coupled with the efforts they expended,
showed
that they had less regard for the Church's interest than for
their
own.
In the present tract Swift, with his usual assumption of grave
consideration of an important question, but in reality with
cutting
irony, proposes to dispose of all the Church lands for a lump
sum,
give the bishops their full just share, including the amount
of
fines for possible renewals of leases, and, at the same time,
pay
off the national debt with the money that remains. With an air
of
strict seriousness he solemnly computes the exact sums
obtainable,
and impartially divides the amounts with accurate care. Then,
with
a dig at the strangers England was continually sending to
Irish
preferments, among whom he counts himself, he concludes by
saying
that although the interests of such cannot be expected to be
those
of the country to which they have been translated, yet he, as
one
of them, is quite willing, and indeed feels himself in duty
bound
“to consult the interest of people among whom I have been so
well
received. And if I can be any way instrumental toward
contributing
to reduce this excellent proposal into a law ... my sincere
endeavours to serve this Church and kingdom will be rewarded.”
* * * * *
The text of this pamphlet is based on that given at the end of
the
volume containing the first edition of “Considerations upon
two
Bills,” etc., published in 1732.
[T. S.]
A PROPOSAL FOR AN ACT OF PARLIAMENT, TO PAY OFF THE DEBT OF THE
NATION, WITHOUT TAXING THE SUBJECT.
The debts contracted some years past for the service and safety of
the nation, are grown so great, that under our present distressed
condition by the want of trade, the great remittances to pay absentees,
regiments serving abroad, and many other drains of money, well enough
known and felt; the kingdom seems altogether unable to discharge them
by the common methods of payment: And either a poll or land tax would
be too odious to think of, especially the latter, because the lands,
which have been let for these ten or dozen years past, were raised so
high, that the owners can, at present, hardly receive any rent at all.
For, it is the usual practice of an Irish tenant, rather than want
land, to offer more for a farm than he knows he can be ever able to
pay, and in that case he grows desperate, and pays nothing at all. So
that a land-tax upon a racked estate would be a burthen wholly
insupportable.
The question will then be, how these national debts can be paid, and
how I can make good the several particulars of my proposal, which I
shall now lay open to the public.
The revenues of their Graces and Lordships the Archbishops and
Bishops of this kingdom (excluding the fines) do amount by a moderate
computation to 36,800l. per ann. I mean the rents which
the bishops receive from their tenants. But the real value of those
lands at a full rent, taking the several sees one with another, is
reckoned to be at least three-fourths more, so that multiplying
36,800l. by four, the full rent of all the bishops' lands will
amount to 147,200l. per ann. from which subtracting the
present rent received by their lordships, that is 36,800l. the
profits of the lands received by the first and second tenants (who both
have great bargains) will rise to the sum of 110,400l. per
ann. which lands, if they were to be sold at twenty-two years'
purchase, would raise a sum of 2,428,800l. reserving to the
Bishops their present rents, only excluding fines.[171]
Of this sum I propose, that out of the one-half which amounts to
1,214,400l. so much be applied as will entirely discharge the debts
of the nation, and the remainder laid up in the treasury, to supply
contingencies, as well as to discharge some of our heavy taxes, until
the kingdom shall be in a better condition.
But whereas the present set of bishops would be great losers by this
scheme for want of their fines, which would be hard treatment to such
religious, loyal and deserving personages, I have therefore set apart
the other half to supply that defect, which it will more than
sufficiently do.
A bishop's lease for the full term, is reckoned to be worth eleven
years' purchase, but if we take the bishops round, I suppose, there may
be four years of each lease elapsed, and many of the bishops being well
stricken in years, I cannot think their lives round to be worth more
than seven years' purchase; so that the purchasers may very well afford
fifteen years' purchase for the reversion, especially by one great
additional advantage, which I shall soon mention.
This sum of 2,428,800l. must likewise be sunk very
considerably, because the lands are to be sold only at fifteen years'
purchase, and this lessens the sum to about 1,656,000l. of which
I propose twelve hundred thousand pounds to be applied partly for the
payment of the national debt, and partly as a fund for future
exigencies, and the remaining 456,000l. I propose as a fund for
paying the present set of bishops their fines, which it will abundantly
do, and a great part remain as an addition to the public stock.
Although the bishops round do not in reality receive three fines
a-piece, which take up 21 years, yet I allow it to be so; but then I
will suppose them to take but one year's rent, in recompense of giving
them so large a term of life, and thus multiplying 36,800l. by 3
the product will be only 110,400l. so that above three-fourths
will remain to be applied to public use.
If I have made wrong computations, I hope to be excused, as a
stranger to the kingdom, which I never saw till I was called to an
employment, and yet where I intend to pass the rest of my days; but I
took care to get the best information I could, and from the most proper
persons; however, the mistakes I may have been guilty of, will very
little affect the main of my proposal, although they should cause a
difference of one hundred thousand pounds more or less.
These fines, are only to be paid to the bishop during his incumbency
in the same see; if he changeth it for a better, the purchasers of the
vacant see lands, are to come immediately into possession of the see he
hath left, and both the bishop who is removed, and he who comes into
his place, are to have no more fines, for the removed bishop will find
his account by a larger revenue; and the other see will find candidates
enough. For the law maxim will here have place, that caveat, &c.
I mean the persons who succeed may choose whether they will accept or
no.
As to the purchasers, they will probably be tenants to the see, who
are already in possession, and can afford to give more than any other
bidders.
I will further explain myself. If a person already a bishop, be
removed into a richer see, he must be content with the bare revenues,
without any fines, and so must he who comes into a bishopric vacant by
death: And this will bring the matter sooner to bear; which if the
Crown shall think fit to countenance, will soon change the present set
of bishops, and consequently encourage purchasers of their lands. For
example, If a Primate should die, and the gradation be wisely made,
almost the whole set of bishops might be changed in a month, each to
his great advantage, although no fines were to be got, and thereby save
a great part of that sum which I have appropriated towards supplying
the deficiency of fines.
I have valued the bishops' lands two years' purchase above the usual
computed rate, because those lands will have a sanction from the King
and Council in England, and be confirmed by an Act of Parliament here;
besides, it is well known, that higher prices are given every day, for
worse lands, at the remotest distances, and at rack rents, which I take
to be occasioned by want of trade, when there are few borrowers, and
the little money in private hands lying dead, there is no other way to
dispose of it but in buying of land, which consequently makes the
owners hold it so high.
Besides paying the nation's debts, the sale of these lands would
have many other good effects upon the nation; it will considerably
increase the number of gentry, where the bishops' tenants are not able
or willing to purchase; for the lands will afford an hundred gentlemen
a good revenue to each; several persons from England will probably be
glad to come over hither, and be the buyers, rather than give thirty
years' purchase at home, under the loads of taxes for the public and
the poor, as well as repairs, by which means much money may be brought
among us, and probably some of the purchasers themselves may be content
to live cheap in a worse country, rather than be at the charge of
exchange and agencies, and perhaps of non-solvencies in absence, if
they let their lands too high.
This proposal will also multiply farmers, when the purchasers will
have lands in their own power, to give long and easy leases to
industrious husbandmen.
I have allowed some bishoprics of equal income to be of more or less
value to the purchaser, according as they are circumstanced. For
instance, The lands of the primacy and some other sees, are let so low,
that they hardly pay a fifth penny of the real value to the bishop, and
there the fines are the greater. On the contrary, the sees of Meath and
Clonfert, consisting, as I am told, much of tithes, those tithes are
annually let to the tenants without any fines. So the see of Dublin is
said to have many fee-farms which pay no fines, and some leases for
lives which pay very little, and not so soon nor so duly.
I cannot but be confident, that their Graces my Lords the
Archbishops, and my Lords the Bishops will heartily join in this
proposal, out of gratitude to his late and present Majesty, the best of
Kings, who have bestowed such high and opulent stations, as well as in
pity to this country which is now become their own; whereby they will
be instrumental towards paying the nation's debts, without
impoverishing themselves, enrich an hundred gentlemen, as well as free
them from dependence, and thus remove that envy which is apt to fall
upon their Graces and Lordships from considerable persons, whose birth
and fortunes rather qualify them to be lords of manors, than servile
dependants upon Churchmen however dignified or distinguished.
If I do not flatter myself, there could not be any law more popular
than this; for the immediate tenants to bishops, being some of them
persons of quality, and good estates, and more of them grown up to be
gentlemen by the profits of these very leases, under a succession of
bishops, think it a disgrace to be subject both to rents and fines, at
the pleasure of their landlords. Then the bulk of the tenants,
especially the dissenters, who are our loyal Protestant brethren, look
upon it both as an unnatural and iniquitous thing that bishops should
be owners of land at all; (wherein I beg to differ from them) being a
point so contrary to the practice of the Apostles, whose successors
they are deemed to be, and who although they were contented that land
should be sold, for the common use of the brethren, yet would not buy
it themselves, but had it laid at their feet, to be distributed to poor
proselytes.
I will add one word more, that by such a wholesome law, all the
oppressions felt by under-tenants of Church leases, which are now laid
on by the bishops would entirely be prevented, by their Graces and
Lordships consenting to have their lands sold for payment of the
nation's debts, reserving only the present rent for their own plentiful
and honourable support.
I beg leave to add one particular, that, when heads of a Bill (as I
find the style runs in this kingdom) shall be brought in for forming
this proposal into a law; I should humbly offer that there might be a
power given to every bishop (except those who reside in Dublin) for
applying one hundred acres of profitable land that lies nearest to his
palace, as a demesne for the conveniency of his family.
I know very well, that this scheme hath been much talked of for some
time past, and is in the thoughts of many patriots, neither was it
properly mine, although I fell readily into it, when it was first
communicated to me.
Though I am almost a perfect stranger in this kingdom, yet since I
have accepted an employment here, of some consequence as well as
profit, I cannot but think myself in duty bound to consult the interest
of a people, among whom I have been so well received. And if I can be
any way instrumental towards contributing to reduce this excellent
proposal into a law which being not in the least injurious to England,
will, I am confident, meet with no opposition from that side, my
sincere endeavours to serve this Church and kingdom will be well
rewarded.