Editing Batavian Republic (section)

====Public finance reform====
{{History of the Low Countries}}
{{main|Financial history of the Dutch Republic}}
The unitary state was not an end in itself, but a means to higher ends. The republic had been in dire financial straits even before the revolution of 1795. The system of public finance that had been the envy of the world in its [[Dutch Golden Age|Golden Age]],{{Efn|For instance, it took only three days for a consortium of Amsterdam bankers in 1688 to bring together the loan that financed the invasion of England by the Republic's forces, that later became known as the [[Glorious Revolution]].<ref>Israel, pp. 845–851.</ref>}} enabling it to throw far beyond its weight in world politics up to the [[Treaty of Utrecht|Peace of Utrecht]] in 1713, had become a millstone around its neck. By 1713 the [[Government debt|public debt]] of the [[County of Holland]] had reached 310 million guilders; the debt of the [[Generality (Netherlands)#History|Generality]] was 68 million; and the debts of the smaller provinces, and of the cities came on top of this. The debt service of Holland alone in that year required 14 million guilders, which exceeded its regular tax revenue.<ref>De Vries and Van der Woude, p. 119.</ref> Most of this humongous public debt was held by Dutch private citizens, so in a sense it merely engendered an internal money circuit in the Dutch economy. However, it was mostly concentrated in the hands of the ''[[Rentier capitalism|rentier]]'' class, while the debt was serviced by mainly [[regressive tax]]es that weighed on the working population. Most importantly, these were taxes levied by the individual provinces, who serviced their own debt, and paid into the Generality coffers according to a [[Quota share|repartition]] schedule last changed in 1616. Attempts to reform this structure during the 18th century were mainly fruitless.

To ameliorate the situation the old Republic maintained a policy of severe [[austerity]] during the century, especially economizing on its defense outlays (which in large part explains why its military and political role declined so much). Up to the [[Fourth Anglo-Dutch War]] this policy succeeded in bringing down the level of debt, but this war brought a large uptick in the public debt: between 1780 and 1794 the province of Holland alone issued 120 million guilders of new bonds. In 1795, its total debt stood at 455 million guilders. To this should be added the debts of the [[Dutch East India Company|United East India Company]] and its sister, the [[Dutch West India Company|WIC]], and the [[Admiralty of Amsterdam|five Dutch Admiralties]] for a total of about 150 million guilders. The other provinces owed 155 million guilders. The grand total in 1795, at the beginning of the Batavian Republic, came to 760 million guilders;{{Efn|To provide some perspective to this: in 1791 [[Alexander Hamilton]] estimated the total U.S. public debt at $76 million. About $10 million of this was foreign debt, which he proceeded to refinance with a Dutch loan of approximately 20 million guilders.<ref>[[Willard Sterne Randall]], ''Alexander Hamilton: A Life'', Harper Collins 2003, {{ISBN|0-06-095466-3}}, pp. 374–375.</ref>}} this imposed a debt service of 25 million guilders annually.<ref name="De Vries and Van der Woude, p. 126"/> The indemnity of the Treaty of The Hague immediately added 100 million guilders to this total, and the maintenance of the French army of occupation added about 12 million annually<ref>Schama, p. 389.</ref> (while the other funding requirements of the republic added another 20 million annually). To fulfill its engagements to the French Republic, [[Pieter Stadnitski]] joined a committee at the end of July 1795.<ref name="Riley"/> On August 3 it was announced that from that date French soldiers would be paid in sound Dutch currency and no one could be obliged to accept French [[assignats]] anymore.<ref name="papiergeld"/> In 1814 the public debt stood at 1.7 billion guilders.<ref>De Vries and Van der Woude, p. 128.</ref>

The average ordinary revenue of the republic at this time amounted to between 28 and 35 million guilders. However, since the outbreak of the war in 1793 the expenditure had been running at between 40 and 55 millions. For the year 1800 the republic had to find 78 million guilders for its expenditures.<ref>Schama, p. 384.</ref> In other words, the new Agent of Finance, Gogel, was faced with a financial emergency. He needed to generate about 50 million guilders annually in ordinary revenue on a permanent basis urgently. Besides, as the Dutch tax system was heavily skewed toward highly regressive indirect taxes, which inordinately burdened the impoverished population, he wanted to change this to a system that depended more on direct (income and wealth) taxes. Finally, he wanted to do away with the provincial differentiation in the taxation, and construct a nationally standardized system. When he put these reform proposals to the Representative Assembly on 30 September 1799, they met with massive resistance. This led to so much delay in its acceptance that by the time it was to be implemented (in 1801) the re-federalisation of the state by the new ''[[Staatsbewind]]'' regime was already underway. Eventually, Gogel's reforms were only implemented under the successor state of the Kingdom of Holland.<ref>Schama, pp. 385–388.</ref>

These are (important) examples of instances in which the good intentions of the ''Uitvoerend Bewind'' and its ''Agenten'' met with the political and economic realities of the times. Other necessary reforms (the abolition of the guilds, the reform of the system of poor relief to mention but a few examples) equally came to nothing. These defeats progressively led to disenchantment of the population with the regime, that already was in an awkward position because it was also brushed with the tar of the depredations of the French "sister republic" that mainly viewed the Batavian Republic as a [[Dairy cattle|milk cow]], both collectively (in its demands for loans at very low interest rates<ref>Schama, p. 405.</ref>) and individually (in the demands of French officials for bribes and other extortions).<ref>Schama, p. 406.</ref>