Colony assemblies and Representation

¹⁵¹ Under the present system of management, Great Britain only derives loss from her colonies.

¹⁵² The following proposal never was and never will be adopted by any nation:

• Great Britain should voluntarily give up all authority over her colonies.
• The colonies should be left to elect their own magistrates and enact their own laws.
• The colonies should make peace and war as they might think proper.

No nation ever voluntarily gave up the dominion of any province no matter how:

• troublesome it might be to govern it
• small the revenue it afforded, compared to the expence it created

Such sacrifices are mortifying to the pride of every nation, even if such sacrifices might be agreeable to their interest.

• More importantly, they are always contrary to the private interest of the government.

The government would be deprived of:

• many places of trust and profit
• many opportunities of acquiring wealth and distinction

The possession of the most turbulent and unprofitable province always affords wealth and distinction.

The most visionary enthusiast who proposes freedom for the colonies will not seriously hope it ever being adopted.

• If it were adopted, Great Britain would be immediately freed from the expence of the peace establishment of the colonies.
• She might then settle for a free trade agreement with her former colonies.
  • That free trade would be more advantageous to the people.
  • It would be less advantageous to the merchants than the current monopoly.

The natural affection of the colonies to the mother country was almost extinguished by our recent dissensions.

• By parting as good friends, this affection would perhaps quickly revive.
• By this affection, they might for centuries respect the free trade treaty that they formed at parting with us.

• They might become our most faithful allies instead of enemies.

This would then revive the parental affection of Great Britain and the filial respect of her colonies.

• Such affection and respect was present between the ancient Greek colonies and their mother city.

¹⁵³ For any province to be advantageous to its empire, it should afford a peacetime revenue sufficient for:

• defraying the expence of its own peace establishment
• contributing its proportion to support the empire’s government.

“Every province necessarily contributes to increase the expence of that general government.”

If any province does not contribute, an unequal burden must placed on some other part of the empire. The wartime revenue of every province should be proportional to peacetime revenue of the empire. Neither the ordinary nor extraordinary revenue from British colonies is proportional to the revenue of Great Britain.

The monopoly was supposed to:

• increase British private revenue
• enable the British to pay more taxes to compensate the deficiency of revenue from the colonies.

I have shown that this monopoly is a very grievous tax on the colonies. It may increase the revenue of an order of men in Great Britain, but it reduces the people’s revenue. It consequently reduces the people’s ability to pay taxes. The order of men who get increased revenue from the monopoly is absolutely impossible to tax beyond the proportion of other orders. I shall show in Book 5 that that order is extremely unwise even to attempt to tax beyond that proportion. No resource can be drawn from that order.

Colony Assemblies

¹⁵⁴ The colonies may be taxed by their own assemblies or by the British parliament.

¹⁵⁵ It seems improbable that the colony assemblies can ever levy a public revenue sufficient to;

• maintain their own civil and military establishment
• pay their share of the government expences of the British empire.

It took a long time before even the parliament of England, under the eye of the sovereign, could be:

• brought under such a system of management
• rendered sufficiently liberal in their grants to support the civil and military establishments even of England.

Such a system of management could only be established in the English parliament by distributing among the parliament members a part of:

• the offices
• the disposal of the offices arising from this civil and military establishment

But it is difficult for the sovereign to manage the colony assemblies in the same way as the parliament due to their:

• distance
• number
• dispersed situation
• various constitutions

It would be absolutely impossible to distribute among all the leading members of all the colony assemblies a share of the offices of the general government of the British empire.

Such offices would dispose the leaders to:

• give up their popularity at home
• tax their constituents to support that general government.

Almost the whole emoluments were divided among people who were strangers to them. The following renders such a system of management unfeasible:

The unavoidable ignorance of administration concerning the importance of those assembly members The offences which must frequently be given The blunders which must constantly be committed in attempting to manage them.

¹⁵⁶ “The colony assemblies cannot be the proper judges of what is necessary for the defence and support of the whole empire.”

The care of that defence and support is not entrusted to them.

It is not their business. They have no regular information concerning it.

The assembly of a province, like the vestry of a parish, may judge very properly concerning the affairs of its own district.

But it can have no proper means of judging those of the whole empire. It cannot even judge properly the proportion of its own province to the whole empire. It cannot judge the relative degree of its wealth and importance compared with other provinces.

Because those other provinces are not under the inspection and superintendency of the assembly of a particular province.

Only an assembly which inspects and superintends the affairs of the whole empire can judge:

• what is necessary for the defence and support of the whole empire
• in what proportion each part should contribute.