500 PARLIAMENTARY COLBERTISM
\.D.1689 importance to the maintenance of the political connection
~1776. . ‘ yg : :
0 long as with the Americans, as establishing a barrier against Bourbon
solitical pretensions. The dream which he indulged of an empire of
“ontrol was _ 5
natn- federated constitutional monarchies! was premature; even
ained. with the greater facilities for communication, the develop-
ment of democratic institutions at home, and of responsible
government in the colonies, the problem of imperial rule is
difficult enough. It may be doubted whether any statesman
could have controlled the forces that made for disruption ; but
it was undoubtedly the policy of the Whigs, and the stress
they laid on fiscal and economic objects, that occasioned the
breach.
The differences between the Whigs and Tories are also
noticeable when we turn to a consideration of fiscal policy.
The Tories were in favour of placing the finances of the
country on a broad basis, so that all classes of the community
should contribute towards the expenses of the state®. They
were anxious that the moneyed men should pay their quota;
though the difficulties of organising a system of assessment,
which should include them, proved insuperable in the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries. They were also inclined not
to prohibit the French trade’, or any branch of commerce, but
to make it a source of supply, and they desired to adjust the
tariff for revenue purposes, rather than with regard to its
alterior effects on industrial development. So far as their
fiscal policy was concerned, they were inclined to look at
the immediate results; the Whigs carried economic analysis
farther, and laid stress on the ulterior and indirect effects of
the course which they advocated.
With the fostering of manufactures the Tories had
not much sympathy; with the planting and nourishing of
and were
not con-
re rned
supreme legislative authority and superintending power of the parliament of
Great Britain as aforesaid.” Chatham, Correspondence, rv. 533, 534.
1 Hubert Hall, Chatham's Colonial Policy, in American Historical Review,
v. 673. An interesting plea for an Imperial Parliament will be found in an
anonymous Letter to Dr Tucker on his proposal for a separation. 1774. Brit.
Mus. T. 691 (8).
2 See above, p. 425. The opposition of the Tories to the abandonment of the
Hearth Tax in 1689 may have been merely factious as Dalrymple asserts
‘Memoirs, part I. p. 10), but it certainly accorded with their fiscal principles.
* See above, pp. 456, 458.
