GIass__tl^l4-Z 
 
 Book_J- 
 
THE PAST, THE PRESENT, 
 
 /7$ 
 
 AND 
 
 ^y/ 
 
 THE FUTURE. 
 
 BY 
 
 H. C. CAREY, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "PRINCIPLES OF POLITICAL ECONOMY," &c. 
 
 IF ANT MAN WILL DO HIS WILL, HE SHALL KNOW OF THE DOCTRINE, 
 WHETHER IT BE OF GOD, OR WHETHER I SPEAK OF MYSELF. 
 
 John vii. 17. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 
 HENRY CAREY BAIRD. 
 
 18 59. 
 
rr, 
 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1847, by 
 
 H. C. CAREY, 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 
 
 STEREOTYPED BY L. JOHNSON AND ca 
 
 PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 PRINTED BY COLLINS. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The volume now offered to the public is designed to 
 demonstrate the existence of a simple and beautiful law of 
 nature, governing man in all his efforts for the maintenance 
 and improvement of his condition, a law so powerful and 
 universal that escape from it is impossible, but which, 
 nevertheless, has heretofore remained unnoticed. The further 
 object of these pages is, by aid of this law, to examine and 
 to solve various questions of great interest. In doing this, it 
 has been necessary to refer to the history of various nations, 
 in order to show that certain causes have invariably produced 
 certain effects ; and thus to account for the differences ob- 
 servable in their present condition, and in their modes of 
 thought and action. If in so doing the author be found to 
 have expressed himself strongly in regard to some of the 
 nations of Europe, he begs the reader to beHeve that he has 
 done so not because he is not of them, but because they are 
 not of those who have maintained peace and permitted the 
 laws of nature to take effect : and if, on the contrary, he has 
 spoken highly of the course pursued by the United States, and 
 has placed in a strong point of view the results here realised, 
 he begs the reader also to believe that he has done so, not 
 merely because he is of them, but because they have, to an 
 extent hitherto unprecedented, followed " the things that make 
 for peace ;" and because they, less than any other people, have 
 
 1* 5 
 
6 PREFACE. 
 
 interfered with the great natural laws under which man Hves, 
 and moves, and has his being. "God," says the wise man, 
 " hath made man upright, but he has sought out many inven- 
 tions." We find fewer of these "inventions" in the history 
 of the United States than in that of any other nation, and it 
 is due to the great cause of Truth and Human Happiness to 
 exhibit as strongly as possible the contrast between the unre- 
 stricted operation of the laws of God on the one hand, and the 
 results of the " inventions" of man, on the other. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Chapter 1. MAN AND LAND 9 
 
 11. MAN AND FOOD 77 
 
 III. WEALTH 94 
 
 IV. WEALTH AND LAND 137 
 
 V. MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE 157 
 
 VL MAN AND HIS FELLOW MAN 213 
 
 VIL MAN 247 
 
 Vm. MAN AND HIS HELPMATE 262 
 
 IX. MAN AND HIS FAMILY 274 
 
 X. CONCENTRATION AND CENTRALIZATION 284 
 
 XL COLONIZATION 315 
 
 XIL IRELAND '. 378 
 
 XIIL INDIA 392 
 
 XIV. ANNEXATION 410 
 
 XV. CIVILIZATION 415 
 
 THE FUTURE 429 
 
 7 
 
THE LESSON OF THE PAST 
 
 TO 
 
 THE PRESENT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 MAN AND LAND. 
 
 The first cultivator, the Robinson Crusoe of his day, 
 provided however with a wife, has neither axe nor spade. 
 He works alone. Population being small, land is, of 
 course, abundant. He may select for himself, without 
 fear of his title being disputed. He is surrounded by 
 soils possessed, in the highest possible degree, of the 
 qualities that fit them for yielding large returns to labour. 
 They are, however, covered wdth immense trees that he 
 cannot fell, or they are swamps that he cannot drain. 
 To pass through them even is attended with no small 
 difficulty. The first is a mass of roots, stumps, decay- 
 ing logs, and shrubs, while into the other he sinks half 
 leg deep at every step. The atmosphere, too, is impure. 
 Fogs settle upon the low lands, and the dense foliage 
 of the wood prevents the circulation of the air. He has 
 no axe, but if he had, he would not venture there, for to 
 do so, would be attended with certain loss of health and 
 great risk of life. Vegetation, too, is so luxuriant, that 
 before he could, with the imperfect machinery at his 
 command, clear a single acre, a portion of it would be 
 again so overgrown that he would have to recom- 
 mence his labour, which would be almost, if not quite, 
 that of Sisyphus. The higher lands, comparatively bare 
 of timber, are ill calculated to yield a return to his 
 B 9 
 
 m> 
 
10 MAN AND LAND. 
 
 labour. Nevertheless there are spots on the hill where 
 the thin soil has prevented the growth of trees and shrubs, 
 or there are spaces among the trees, that can be culti- 
 vated while they still remain standing, and when he pulls 
 up by the roots the few shrubs scattered over the surface, 
 he feels no apprehension of their being speedily replaced. 
 With his hands he may even succeed in barking the 
 trees, or, by the aid of fire, he may so far destroy them 
 that time alone is needed to give him a few cleared acres, 
 upon which he may plant his grain, with little fear of 
 weeds. To attempt these things upon the richer lands 
 would be loss of labour. In some places the ground is 
 always wet. In others, the trees are too large to be seri- 
 ously injured by fire, and its only effect would be to stimu- 
 late the growth of weeds and brush. He, therefore, 
 commences the work of cultivation far up the hill, where, 
 making with his stick holes in the light soil that drains 
 itself, he drops the grain an inch or two below the sur- 
 face, and in due season obtains a return of double the 
 amount of his seed. He pounds this between stones, 
 and obtains bread. His condition is improved. He has 
 succeeded in making the earth labour for him, while 
 himself engaged in trapping rabbits or squirrels, and 
 in gathering fruits. In process of time, he succeeds in 
 sharpening a stone, and thus obtains a hatchet by aid of 
 which he is enabled to proceed more rapidly in girdling 
 the trees, and in removing the sprouts and their roots, 
 which is nevertheless a very slow and laborious opera- 
 tion. At the next step, we find him bringing into acti- 
 vity a new soil, whose food-producing powers were less 
 obvious to sight than those of that first attempted. He 
 finds an ore of copper, and by the aid of some of his 
 fallen and decayed timber, succeeds in burning it, and 
 thus obtains a better axe, with far less labour than was 
 required for the first. He has also something like a spade. 
 
MAN AND LAND. 11 
 
 He can now make holes four inches deep with less la- 
 bour than with his stick he could make those of two. 
 He penetrates to a lower soil, and being enabled to stir 
 the earth and loosen it, the rain is now absorbed instead 
 of running off from the hard ground, and he finds his new 
 one far better and more easily worked than that upon 
 which he has heretofore wasted his labour. His seed, 
 better protected, is less liable to be frozen out in winter, 
 or parched in summer, the consequence of which is that 
 he gathers thrice the quantity sown. His new soil 
 gives him larger returns with less labour. At the next 
 step, we find him bringing into action another new soil. 
 He has found that which, on burning, yields him zinc, 
 and by combining this with his copper he has brass. 
 His machinery improves, and he proceeds more rapidly. 
 He sinks deeper into the land first occupied, and is en- 
 abled to clear other lands upon which vegetation grows 
 more luxuriantly, because he can now exterminate the 
 shrubs with some hope of occupjdng the land before they 
 are replaced with others equally valueless for the sup- 
 ply of his wants. His children, too, have grown, and 
 they can weed the ground and assist him in removing 
 the obstacles by which his progress is impeded. At an- 
 other step, we find him burning a piece of the iron soil 
 which surrounds him in all directions, and now he is en- 
 abled to obtain a real axe and spade, inferior in quality, but 
 still much superior to those by which his labour has been 
 thus far aided. He next, with the aid of his sons, grown 
 to man's estate, removes the light pine of the hill-side, 
 leaving still untouched, however, the heavy oak of the 
 river bottom. His cultivable ground is increased in ex- 
 tent, while he is enabled with his spade to penetrate still 
 deeper than before, thus bringing into action the powers 
 of the several soils lying within half a dozen inches of the 
 surface. He finds, with great pleasure, that the light 
 
12 MAN AND LAND. 
 
 soil is underlaid with clay, and that by combining the 
 two he obtains a new one far more productive than that 
 first brought into activity. He finds, too, that by turning 
 the top soil down, the process of decomposition is facili- 
 tated, and that thus, with each new operation, he receives 
 an increasing reward for his labour. His family has in- 
 creased, and he has obtained the important advantage 
 of combination of exertion. Things that were needed to 
 be done to render his land more rapidly productive, but 
 which were to one man impracticable, become simple and 
 easy when now attempted by himself and his half dozen 
 sons, each of whom obtains far more food than he alone 
 could at first command, and in return for far less severe 
 exertion. He next extends his operations downwards, 
 towards the low grounds of the stream, girdling the large 
 trees, and burning the brush, and thus facilitating the pas- 
 sage of air so as to render the land by degrees fitted for 
 occupation. He now finds that his sons can perform all 
 the labours of the field, and that by devoting his own at- 
 tention to the cultivation of the iron soil, he can render 
 more aid, and with less severe labour, than in any other 
 manner. He invents a hoe, by means of which his grand- 
 children are enabled to keep the ground free from weeds, 
 and to tear up some of the roots by which his best lands 
 — those last brought into cultivation — are yet infested. 
 He has succeeded in taming the ox, but as yet has had 
 no use for his services. He now invents the plough, and 
 by means of a piece of twisted hide is enabled to attach 
 the ox, and to turn up a deeper soil, while extending his 
 cultivation over land more distant from the place of his 
 first little cabin, on the spot first occupied. His family 
 grows, and with it grows his wealth. He has better ma- 
 «:hinery, and he has reduced to cultivation more and bet- 
 ter lands. Food and clothing are more abundant, and 
 the air on the lower lands is improved by the clearing of 
 
]MAN AND LAND. 13 
 
 the trees. His house, too, is better. In the outset, it was 
 a hole in the ground. Afterwards it was composed of such 
 decayed logs as his unaided efforts could succeed in roll- 
 ing and placing one upon the other. A chimney was an 
 unhoped-for luxury, and he must live in perpetual smoke, 
 or almost perish of cold. A window was a luxury un- 
 thought of. If the severity of the weather required him 
 to close his doors, he was stifled with smoke, and he 
 passed his days in darkness. His time, therefore, during 
 a large portion of the year, was totally unproductive, 
 while his life was liable to be shortened by disease pro- 
 duced by foul air wdthin, or severe cold without, his 
 miserable hut. With increase of population he has ac- 
 quired wealth, derived from the cultivation of new and 
 better soils ; and he has acquired also the power of com- 
 bining his labour with that of others, thus rendering 
 that of all more productive. They now fell the heavy 
 oak and the enormous pine, and avail themselves thereof 
 for the construction of additional houses, each in regular 
 succession better than the first. Health improves, and 
 population increases more rapidly. Some of the sons 
 are now employed in the field, while others prepare the 
 skins and render them more fit for clothing : and a third 
 set make axes, spades, hoes, ploughs, and other imple- 
 ments calculated to aid the labours of the field, and those 
 of construction. The supply of food increases rapidly, and 
 with it the power of accumulation. In the first years, 
 there was perpetual danger of famine. Now, there is a 
 surplus, and a part is stored to provide against the dan- 
 ger of short crops. Cultivation extends itself along the 
 hill-side, where deeper soils now laid open by the plough, 
 afford a better return, while down the slope of the hill each 
 successive year is marked by the disappearance of the 
 great trees by which the richer lands have heretofore been 
 occupied, the intermediate spaces becoming meanwhile 
 
 2 
 
14 MAN AND LAND. 
 
 enriched by the decomposition of the enormous roots, and 
 more readily ploughed because of the gradual decay of 
 the stumps. A single ox to the plough can now turn up 
 a greater space than in the outset could be done by two. 
 A single ploughman can now do more than on the grounu 
 first cultivated could have been done by a hundred men 
 armed with pointed sticks. The family are next enabled 
 to drain some of the lower lands, and copious harvests 
 of grain are obtained from the new soil now first cultivated. 
 The oxen have heretofore roamed the woods, gathering 
 what they could. The meadow is now granted to their 
 use, the axe and the saw enabling the family to enclose 
 them, and thus to lessen the labour attendant upon ob- 
 taining supplies of meat, milk, butter and hides. Here- 
 tofore their chief domestic animal has been the hog, 
 which could live on mast. Now, they add beef, and per- 
 haps mutton, the lands first cultivated being abandoned 
 to the sheep. They obtain far more meat and grain, and 
 with less labour than at any former period, although their 
 numbers have so greatly increased. The father and 
 grandfather have passed away, and the younger generations 
 are now profiting by the wealth they had accumulated, 
 while applying their own labour with daily increasing 
 advantage : and obtaining a constantly increasing return, 
 with increasing power of accumulation, and decreasing 
 severity of application. They now bring new powers 
 to their aid, and the water no longer is allowed to run 
 to waste : the air itself is made to work. Windmills 
 grind the grain, and sawmills cut the timber, which dis- 
 appears more rapidly, while the work of drainage is in 
 course of being improved by more efficient spades and 
 ploughs. The little furnace makes its appearance and char- 
 coal is now applied to the reduction of the soil yielding 
 iron, when it is found that the labour of a single day be- 
 comes more productive than was before that of half a dozen. 
 
MAN AND LAND. 15 
 
 Population spreads itself along the faces of the hills 
 and down into the lower lands, becoming more and 
 more dense at the seat of the original settlement, and 
 with every step we find increasing tendency to com- 
 bination of action for the production of food, the manufac- 
 ture of clothing and household utensils, the construction 
 of houses, and the preparation of machinery for aiding 
 in all these operations. The heaviest timber : that grow- 
 ing on the most fertile land : now disappears, and the 
 deepest marshes are now drained. Roads are next made 
 to facilitate the intercourse between the old settlement 
 and the newer ones that have been formed around it, and 
 to enable the grower of corn to exchange his product for 
 improved spades and ploughs, and for clothing and furni- 
 ture. Population again increases, and wealth still further 
 increases, and therewith man acquires more leisure for 
 reflection on the results furnished by the experience of 
 himself and his predecessors. His mind becomes more 
 and more stimulated into action. The sand in the neigh- 
 bourhood is found to be underlaid with marl, and by the 
 aid of the improved machinery now in use, the two are 
 brought into combination, thereby producing a soil of 
 power far exceeding that of those heretofore cultivated. 
 The return to labour increases, and all are better fed, and 
 clothed, and housed, and all are incited to new exertions, 
 while improved health and the power of working in-doors 
 and out-of-doors, according to the season, enable them 
 to apply their labour more steadily and regularly. Thus 
 far, how^ever, they have found it difficult to gather their 
 crops in season. The harvest time is short, and the 
 whole strength of the community has been found in- 
 sufficient to prevent much of the grain remaining on the 
 ground until, over ripe, it was shaken out by the wind, 
 or in the attempt to gather it : and not unfrequently it has 
 been totally rained by changes of weather after it was 
 
16 MAN AND LAND. 
 
 jfit to be harvested. The progress of cultivation has 
 thereby been arrested, and labour has been superabund- 
 ant during the year, while harvest produced a demand 
 for it that could not be supplied. The reaping-hook 
 takes the place of the hand, and the scythe enables the 
 farmer to cut his hay. The cradle and the horse-rake 
 follow, and all tend to increase the facility of accumula- 
 tion, and thus to increase the power of applying labour 
 to new soils, deeper or more distant, more heavily bur- 
 dened with timber, or more liable to be flooded, and 
 thus requiring embankment as well as drainage. New 
 combinations, too, are formed. The clay is found to be 
 underlaid with the soil called lime, which latter, like the 
 iron soil, requires preparation to fit it for the task of com- 
 bination. The road, the wagon, and the horse facilitate 
 the work, by enabling the farmer readily to obtain sup- 
 plies of the carbon-yielding soil, called coal, and he now 
 obtains, by burning the lime and combining it with the 
 clay, a better soil than at any former period : one that will 
 yield more corn, and that requires far less severe labour 
 from himself, his oxen, or his horses. Population and 
 wealth again increase, and the steam-engine facilitates 
 the work of drainage, while the railroad and the engine 
 facilitate the transportation to market of his products. 
 His cattle are now fattened at home, and a large por- 
 tion of the produce of his rich meadow-land is left at 
 home, in the form of manure, to be applied to other soils, 
 yet found incapable of yielding a return to labour. In- 
 stead of sending food to fatten them at market, he now 
 obtainsyrom market their refuse in the form of bones, 
 and the productiveness of labour is greatly increased. 
 Passing thus, at every step, from the poor to the better 
 soils, the supply of food, and of all other of the necessa- 
 ries of life increases daily, and men consume more, while 
 accumulating wealth with constantly increasing rapidity. 
 
MAN AND LAND. 17 
 
 The danger of famine and disease passes away. In- 
 creased returns to labour and daily improving condition 
 render labour pleasant, and man applies himself more 
 steadily as his work becomes less severe. Population in- 
 creases, and the rapidity of its increase is seen to be 
 greater with each successive generation; and with each is 
 seen an increase of the power of living in connection 
 with each other, by reason of the power of obtaining con- 
 stantly increasing supplies from the same surface : with 
 each is seen an increase in the tendency to combination 
 of action, by which their labours are rendered more 
 productive — their wants increased — the desire and the 
 facilities of commerce augmented: tending to produce 
 harmony and peace, and security of person and property 
 among themselves, and with the world : accompanied by 
 constant increase of numbers, wealth, prosperity and 
 happiness. 
 
 Nearly forty years have elapsed since Mr. Ricardo 
 communicated to the world his discovery of the nature 
 and causes of rent, and of the law of its progress. The 
 work by means of which it was first made known has since 
 been the text-book of that portion of the English com- 
 munity, who style themselves, par excellence, political 
 economists, and any thing short of absolute faith in its 
 contents is regarded as heresy, worthy of excommunica- 
 tion, or as evidence of an incapacity to comprehend them, 
 worthy only of contempt. Nevertheless, imitating in this 
 the action of the followers of Mahomet, in regard to the Ko- 
 ran, the professors, one and all, who have undertaken to 
 teach this doctrine, insist upon construing it after their 
 own fashion, and modifying it to suit their own views 
 and the apparent necessities of the case ; the consequence 
 C 2* 
 
18 - MAN AND LAND. 
 
 of which is, that the inquirer is at a loss to determine 
 what it is that he is required to believe. Having studied 
 careMly the works of the most eminent of the recent 
 writers on the subject, and having found no two of them 
 to agree, he turns, in despair, to Mr. Ricardo himself, 
 and there he finds, in the celebrated chapter on rent, con- 
 tradictions that cannot be reconciled, and a series of com- 
 plications such as never before, as we believe, was found 
 in the same number of lines. The more he studies, the 
 more he is puzzled, and the less difficulty does he find in 
 accounting for the variety of doctrines taught by men 
 who profess to belong to the same school, and who all 
 agree, if in little else, in regarding the new theory of 
 rent as the great discovery of the age. 
 
 In looking round, he sees that all the recognised laws 
 of nature are characterized by the most perfect simpli- 
 city, and the greatest breadth. He sees that they are of 
 universal application, and that those by whom they are 
 taught are freed from any necessity for resorting to nar- 
 row exceptions to account for particular facts. The sim- 
 plicity of Kepler's law of 'equal areas in equal times' is 
 perfect. Its truth is universal, and all to whom it is ex- 
 plained feel assured not only that it is true, but that it 
 must continue to be so in relation to all the planets that 
 may be discovered, numerous though they may be, and 
 however distant from the sun and from us. A child may 
 comprehend it, and the merest novice may make himself 
 so fully master of it as to enable him to teach it to others. 
 It needs no commentary, no modification. Such is not 
 the case with the law to which we now desire to call the 
 attention of our readers. Whatever else may be its me- 
 rits, it cannot be charged with either simplicity or uni- 
 versality. 
 
 At first sight, it looks, however, to be exceedingly 
 simrtle. Rent is said to be paid for land of the first 
 
MAN AND LAND. 19 
 
 quality, yielding one hundred quarters in return to a given 
 quantity of labour, when it becomes necessary, with the 
 increase of population, to cultivate land of the second 
 quality, capable of yielding but ninety quarters in re- 
 turn to the same quantity of labour: and the amount of 
 rent then paid for No. 1 is equal to the difference 
 between their respective products. No proposition 
 could be calculated to command more universal as- 
 sent. Every man who hears it sees around him land 
 that pays rent. He sees that that which yields forty 
 bushels to the acre pays more rent than that which yields 
 but thirty, and that the difference is nearly equal to the 
 difference of product. He becomes at once a disciple 
 of Mr. Ricardo, admitting that the reason why prices are 
 paid for the use of land is that soils are different in their 
 qualities, when he would, at the same moment, regard it 
 as in the highest degree absurd if any one were to un- 
 dertake to prove that prices are paid for oxen because one 
 ox is heavier than another : that rents are paid for houses 
 because some will accommodate twenty persons and 
 others only ten : or that all ships command freights be- 
 cause some ships differ from others in their capacity. 
 
 A certain portion of the world now thinks that it sees 
 in this difference in the qualities of soils the reason why 
 rent is paid for any soils. It is not a very large portion, 
 for the theory has made but little way out of England. 
 It is taught by a few in France, and by some in Ame- 
 rica, but elsewhere, it has, we believe, made no progress 
 whatsoever, which would certainly not have been the case 
 had it been, like other of the laws of nature, charac- 
 terized by that simphcity which is essential to universality 
 of application. 
 
 In former times it was obvious to the whole world that 
 the earth remained unmoved, and that the sun performed 
 a daily revolution around it. It was not to be doubted 
 
20 MAN AND LAND. 
 
 that such was the case, but if any one so far ventured, 
 he was referred to the Scriptures for unquestionable evi- 
 dence of the fact. Careful observers, however, detected 
 numerous other facts whose existence was incompatible 
 with that of the one great and universally admitted fact. 
 Further observation confirmed them in the doubts thus 
 raised, and it was found, at length, that, patch the Ptole- 
 maic theory as its professors might, it could not be made 
 to cover facts whose existence was undeniable. It was 
 too long for some, and too short for others. To disbelieve 
 it, however, was rank heresy, worthy not only of excom- 
 munication, but of punishment by fire. Copernicus never- 
 theless dared to declare his disbelief, and to proclaim to the 
 world that the sun stood still, and that the earth it was 
 that moved. Persecution embittered the remaining years 
 of his life, and his disciple Galileo was compelled, on his 
 knees, to recant his declaration of belief in the monstrous 
 doctrine, yet the whole civilized world now unites with 
 him in the assertion that " still it moves." 
 
 The doctrine of Mr. Ricardo has, in like manner, been 
 found quite too long for some facts, and as much too short 
 for many others, and hence the numerous modifications 
 it has undergone.* Every new teacher tries to stretch it 
 
 * Among the earliest and most distinguished of the advocates of Mr. 
 Ricardo's doctrine was the author of the Templar's Dialogues. In a recent 
 work by the same author we find the following passage : — 
 
 " The tendencies of a natural law like that of rent it is always right to 
 expose, and Ricardo first did expose them. Others had discovered the 
 law ; he first applied his sagacious sense to its consequences upon pro- 
 fits, wages, price ; and through them upon universal economy. That 
 was right; for that we are irredeemably his debtors. But it was not 
 right to keep studiously out of sight that eternal counter-movement which 
 tends, by an equivalent agenc}'-, to redress the disturbed balance. This 
 concealment has had the effect of introducing marvels into a severe sci- 
 ence ; since else, what other than a miracle is it that rent has not long 
 since absorbed the whole landed produce — a result to which it so mani- 
 festly tends. * * * Our own social system seems to harbour within 
 itself the germ of ruin. Either we must destroy rent, i. e. that which causes 
 rent, or rent will destroy us," &c. — -Logic of Political Economy, p. 190. 
 
MAN AND LAND. 21 
 
 in the direction necessary to cover some well-observed 
 fact, the consequence of which is, that others are left un- 
 covered. In the effort to conceal the head and arms, the 
 feet are exposed, and when the cloak is stretched so as 
 to cover the feet and head, the arms present themselves 
 to view. Such precisely was the case with the system 
 of Ptolemy. It was neither broad nor simple. It was 
 based on a few facts, omitting all reference to a thousand 
 others, and hence its downfall, the necessary consequence 
 of its untruth. 
 
 Proposing, as we do, to submit some views in opposi- 
 tion to this doctrine of the cause of rent, we would beg 
 leave respectfully to suggest to the disciples of Mr. Ri- 
 cardo, into whose hands this volume may chance to 
 fall, that their confidence in its truth is not greater than 
 was that of the followers of Ptolemy : that the evidence 
 of the great fact upon which it rests is not as obvious as 
 was that of the revolution of the sun; nor the belief 
 therein quite as universal : that as Ptolemy was ultimate- 
 ly proved to be in error, so may Mr. Ricardo, at some 
 time, be : and that it is, therefore, within the bounds of 
 possibility that it may not be an entire waste of time to 
 read the brief examination of their favourite system that 
 we shall now offer for their consideration. 
 
 That theory, in its simplest form, is contained in the 
 following propositions : — 
 
 First : That in the commencement of cultivation, when 
 population is small and land consequently abundant, 
 
 Mr. Ricardo taught that as population increased, the return to labour 
 diminished, and the power of accumulation became less. Mr. De 
 Quincey would have had him teach that as population increased, the 
 power of accumulation also increased, and that by aid of the capital ac- 
 cumulated, the return to labour increased. Mr. Ricardo did not conceal 
 this. He did not see it. Mr. De Quincey does see it, and a very little 
 reflection will satisfy him that the facts and the theory are totally incon- 
 sistent with each other. 
 
22 MAN AND LAND. 
 
 the best soils : those capable of yielding the largest re- 
 turn, say one hundred quarters, to a given quantity of 
 labour : alone are cultivated. 
 
 Second : That with the progress of population, land be 
 comes less abundant, and there arises a necessity for cul- 
 tivating that yielding a smaller return; and that resort is 
 then had to a second, and afterwards to a third and a 
 fourth class of soils, yielding respectively ninety, eighty 
 and seventy quarters to the same quantity of labour. 
 
 Third : That with the necessity for applying labour 
 less productively, which thus accompanies the growth of 
 population, rent arises : the owner of land No. 1 being 
 enabled to demand and to obtain, in return for its use, ten 
 quarters, when resort is had to that of second quality : 
 twenty when No. 3 is brought into use, and thirty when 
 it becomes necessary to cultivate No. 4. 
 
 Fourth: That the proportion of the landlord tends 
 thus steadily to increase as the productiveness of labour 
 decreases, the division being as follows, to wit : — 
 
 Total. Labour. Rent. 
 
 At the first period, when No. 1 alone is cultivated 100 100 00 
 
 « second period " No. 1 and 2 are cultivated 190 180 10 
 
 « third period « No. 1,2 and 3 « 270 240 30 
 
 « fourth period « No. 1,2, 3 and 4 « 340 280 60 
 
 « fifth period " No. 1,2, 3,4, and 5 « 400 300 100 
 
 « sixth period « No. 1,2, .3, 4, 5 and 6 « 450 300 150 
 
 « seventh period" No. 1,2,3,4, 5, 6 and 7 " 490 280 210 
 
 and that there is thus a tendency to the ultimate absorption 
 of the whole produce by the owner of the land, and to 
 a steadily increasing inequality of condition : the power of 
 the labourer to consume the commodities which he pro- 
 duces steadily diminishing, while that of the landowner 
 to claim them, as rent, is steadily increasing. 
 
 Fifth : That this tendency towards a diminution in the 
 return of labour, and towards an increase of the land- 
 lord's proportion, alw^ays exists where population in- 
 creases: and most exists where population increases most 
 
MA?f AND LAND. 23 
 
 rapidly: but is in a certain degree counteracted by 
 increase of wealth, producing improvement of culti- 
 vation. 
 
 Sixth : That every such improvement tends to retard 
 the growth of rents, while every obstacle to improvement 
 tends to increase that growth : and that, therefore, the 
 interests of the landowner and labourer are always op- 
 posed to each other, rents rising as labour falls, and vice 
 versa. 
 
 We hope that this statement of the theory will be 
 deemed by its advocates unexceptionable. We desire to 
 state it with perfect fairness, but we know of few things 
 more difficult, because of the numerous exceptions and 
 modifications that have been required to make it fit 
 the facts. So difficult, notwithstanding, has the opera- 
 tion of fitting been found, that some of its most distin- 
 guished advocates have seemed much disposed to think 
 the fault is in the facts themselves.* , 
 
 It will be perceived that the whole system is based 
 upon the assertion of the existence of a single fact, viz., 
 that in the commencement of cultivation, when popula- 
 tion is small, and land consequently abundant, the soils 
 capable of yielding the largest return to any given quan- 
 tity of labour alone are cultivated. That fact exists, or 
 it does not. If it has no existence, the system falls 
 to the ground. That it does not exist ; that it never has 
 existed in any country whatsoever ; and that it is con- 
 trary to the nature of things that it should have existed, 
 or can exist, we propose now to show. 
 
 * " The one [the practical man] draws his notion of the universe from 
 the few objects which compose the furniture of his counting-house ; the 
 other [the philosopher] having got demonstration on his side, and forget- 
 ting that it is only a demonstration nisi — a proof at all times liable to be 
 set aside by the addition of a single new fact to the hypothesis — denies 
 instead of examining and sifting the allegations which are opposed to 
 him."— 7. S. Mill 
 
24 MAN AND LAND. 
 
 The picture presented by the theory differs materially 
 from that which we have offered to the consideration of the 
 reader. Mr. Ricardo places his settler on the best lands, 
 and the children of that settler on those which are inferior. 
 He makes man the victim of a sad necessity, increasing 
 with his numbers, whereas, we have shown him exer- 
 cising constantly increasing power, derived from com- 
 bined exertion by those numbers. He had never w^it- 
 nessed, as at this moment we do from the window at 
 which we write, the progress of a nev/ settlement. Had 
 he done so, we doubt not his strong mind would have 
 enabled him to study out the true cause of rent, and the 
 law of its progress and decline. We propose now to 
 show that in every part of the world, and in every age, 
 the order of events has been such as we have stated it 
 to be, and if this can be done to the satisfaction of our 
 readers, it will be obvious that the theory of Mr. Ricar- 
 do has no foundation. It rests on the assumption of a 
 single and simple fact, and if that fact can be shown to 
 have no existence, the system must be abandoned, and 
 we must seek elsewhere for the cause of rent : and it may 
 prove that we shall find the law of its progress to be di- 
 rectly the reverse of what it is, by many, supposed to be. 
 "We shall commence our examination with the United 
 States. Their first settlement is recent, and the work 
 being still in progress, we can readily trace the settler, 
 and mark his course of operation. If we find him inva- 
 riably occupying the high and thin lands requring little 
 clearing and no drainage : those which can yield but a 
 small return to labour : and as invariably travelling down 
 the hills and clearing and draining the lower and richer 
 lands, as population and wealth increase : then will the 
 theory we have offered be confirmed by practice : Ame- 
 rican practice at least. If, how^ever, we can thence fol- 
 low him into Mexico, and through South America ; into 
 
MAN AND LAND. 25 
 
 Britain, and through France, Germany, Italy, Greece 
 and Egypt, into Asia and Australia, and show that such 
 has been his invariable course of action, then may it be 
 believed that when population is small, and land conse- 
 quently abundant, the work of cultivation is, and always 
 must be, commenced upon the poorer soils : that with 
 the growth of population and wealth, other soils, yield- 
 ing a larger return to labour, are always brought into ac- 
 tivity, with a constantly increasing return to the labour 
 expended upon them : and that with this change there 
 is a steady diminution in the proportion of the population 
 required for producing the means of subsistence, and as 
 steady an increase in the proportion that may apply them- 
 selves to producing the other comforts, conveniences 
 and luxuries of life. 
 
 The first settlers of the English race are found esta- 
 blishing themselves on the barren soil of Massachusetts, and 
 founding the colony of Plymouth. The whole continent 
 was before them, but, like all other colonists, they had 
 to take what, with their means, they could obtain. Other 
 settlements are formed at Newport and New Haven, and 
 thence they may be traced, following the courses of the 
 rivers but occupying in all cases the higher lands, leav- 
 ing the clearing of timber and the draining of swamps 
 to their more wealthy successors. Were the reader de- 
 sired to designate the soils of the Union least calculated 
 for the production of food, his choice would, we think, 
 fall upon the rocky lands first occupied by the hardy Pu- 
 ritans, and thus we find that here at least the most fertile 
 lands are not first taken into cultivation. If we look to 
 New York the process is the same. The unproductive 
 soil of the island of New York, and the opposite shore of 
 New Jersey, and the higher lands on Long Island, claimed 
 early attention, while the more productive soils came later 
 into cultivation. Here, f^oram, we find population spread- 
 D ' ^ 3 
 
26 MAN AND LAND. 
 
 ing and following the course of the Hudson towards the 
 Mohawk, but in all cases it will be found keeping 
 the higher and drier lands, away from the river bank. 
 The settlers desire food, and if they undertake to cleai 
 the forests and drain the meadows, they must starve. In 
 New Jersey we find them occupying the higher lands to- 
 wards the heads of the rivers, while neglecting the lower 
 grounds that require drainage.* That state still abounds 
 in fine timber that covers rich lands, which need only to 
 be cleared to yield larger returns to labour than any of 
 those cultivated a hundred years since, when land was far 
 more abundant than now. On the shores of the Dela- 
 ware, we find the Quakers selecting the light lands that 
 produce the pine: and that, even now, with the aid of 
 manure, will scarcely produce wheat : while forests of 
 oak still cover the opposite shore of Pennsylvania. 
 Every settler selects, too, the higher and drier parts 
 of his farm, leaving the meadows, many of which have 
 remained until now in a state of nature, while others 
 have been drained within the last five years. The best 
 portions of every farm are, invariably, those which have 
 been most recently brought into cultivation, w^hile the 
 poorest lands of the various neighbourhoods are always 
 those on which are seen the oldest farm-houses. If we 
 pass further through the sandy lands of New Jersey, we 
 shall find hundreds of little clearings more than half a 
 century old, long since abandoned by their owners, who 
 have left behind their little orchards and other evidences 
 of their existence, to attest the character of the soil that 
 men cultivate when population is small, and fertile land 
 most abundant. Having cleared the lands that produce 
 the oak, or drained those which yield the white-cedar, 
 
 • The reader may see this by reference to the map of East Jersey in 
 1682, recently republished. 
 
MAN AND LAND. B7 
 
 they abandon those which produce the pine of that state, 
 the poorest of ail pines. The Swedes settle Lewistown 
 and Christiana, on the sandy soil of Delaware. Crossing 
 that state towards the head of Chesapeake Ba}^, we find in 
 the little and decaying towns of Elkton and Charlestown, 
 once the centres of a somewhat active population, further 
 evidence of the poverty of the soils first occupied, when fine 
 meadow-land, on which are now the richest farms in that 
 state, was abundant, but held as worthless. Penn follows the 
 Swedes, and profits by their expenditure and experience. 
 He first selects the high lands on the Delaware, about 
 twelve miles north of the site which he afterwards chooses 
 for his city, near the confluence of the Delaware and Schuyl- 
 kill. Starting from this latter point, and tracing the course 
 of settlement, we find it not at first extending downwards 
 towards the rich meadow-lands, but upwards along the 
 ridge between the two rivers, where the village of German- 
 town, which half a century since exceeded three miles in 
 length, and was for a village very closely built, remains to mark 
 the tendencies of early colonists. If, now, we pass, right or 
 lefi:, to the river banks, we shall see, in the character of the 
 buildings, evidences of later occupation and cultivation. 
 If further evidence be desired, and we look to the maps 
 of that early day, w^e find the fertile lands in the vicinity of 
 the Delaware, from New Castle almost to the head of tide- 
 water, a distance of more than sixty miles, marked as held 
 in large tracts, and dotted over with trees, to show that they 
 are still uncleared, while all the upper lands are divided into 
 small farms.* Passing northward and westward, and keep- 
 ing near the Schuylkill, we see the oldest habitations always 
 most distant from the river ; but later times, and increase of 
 population and wealth, have carried cultivation to the water's 
 edge. With every additional mile, we find stronger evi- 
 dence of the recent cultivation of the best soils. The original 
 
 * See Holmes's Map, published in 1681, and recently republished. 
 
28 MAN AND LAND. 
 
 timber still stands on beautiful meadow-land. The trees ana 
 shrubs in and near the fence rows on the lower lands become 
 more abundant. The valleys in the rolls of the hills, a little dis- 
 tant from the river, become studded with trees. The lowest 
 ground in the meadow- field, from time immemorial a ditch 
 in which leaves have rotted, remains in a state of nature, 
 from want of drainage. The banks of the little tributaries 
 of the river become more and more wild. Long strips of 
 meadow land are met waiting for embankment. Cows are 
 seen pasturing in fields the character of whose vegetation 
 shows that the operations of the owner have been limited to 
 clearing and enclosing them, and that a proper system of 
 drainage is, as yet, unthought of. Little islands appear, ca- 
 pable of yielding a large return to labour, but as yet co- 
 vered with weeds and shrubs. Everywhere around we see 
 the higher lands in a high state of cultivation, and affording 
 proof of the length of time that has elapsed since they 
 were cleared. Arriving in the vicinity of Reading, we see 
 in lands abandoned, evidence of the want of fertility in 
 the soils first cultivated, and other evidence of the supe- 
 riority of the new soils now coming into activity, in the 
 fine fields that have been restored by combining the inferior 
 lime with the superior clay. In our further progress up the 
 river we meet, at every step, farms on the hillsides, while 
 the lower lands become more and more wild and rough. 
 Patches of wood standing thereon are now of frequent oc- 
 currence, while the stumps in others attest the recent date of 
 their subjugation to the plough : and finer crops standing 
 among the stumps equally attest the superiority of this soil 
 to that of the long-cleared dry land of the hills, first culti- 
 vated. The rough and undrained land nearest the river 
 will, with increased population and wealth, furnish fine mea- 
 dows, but in its present state is of small value. Further 
 on, cultivation almost leaves the river bank, and if we 
 would seek it we must pass outward, where, at the distance 
 of half a mile or more, we may find farms half a cen- 
 
MAN AND LAND. 29 
 
 tury old. If we travel up the little stream that leads to 
 Orwigsburg, the seat of justice for Schuylkill county, we 
 shall find a beautiful valley with the hill-sides cleared to the 
 top, while below, the rivulet meanders through patches of 
 wood-land, and the flat is interspersed with remnants of 
 the timber that originally covered the whole : the inter- 
 mediate spaces being frequently occupied by fields the 
 date of whose clearing may readily be determined by the 
 greater or less decay of the stumps with which they are 
 in part covered. If now we follow the old road, wind- 
 ing about, apparently in search of hills to cross, and in 
 quire the cause of thus lengthening the distance, we find 
 that it was made to suit the early settlers : but if we fol- 
 low the new roads, we find them keeping near the stream, 
 on the low and rich lands last cultivated. Returning to the 
 river and passing on our course, the trees become more and 
 more numerous, and the meadow-land less and less drained 
 or occupied ; and at length, as we pass up the little branches 
 of the river, cultivation disappears, and the original woods 
 remain untouched, except so far as the wants of the recently 
 established coal trade have tended to their extermination. 
 If we desire to see the land chosen by the early settlers, we 
 have but to ascend the hill-side, and on the flat above will 
 be found houses and farms, some of them half a century old,* 
 many of which are now abandoned. If, passing northward 
 from the river, we trace its little tributary, Mill Creek, to its 
 source, we see miles of fine meadow-land, still covered with 
 the original timber, with but here and there a patch of 
 cleared land : while on the hill-sides may be seen occasional 
 little farms, the houses on which bear every mark of considera- 
 ble age. Arriving at the little town of St. Clair, the site of 
 which three years since was covered with timber growing 
 on land fitted to make the finest meadow^s, but much of it 
 then a mere marsh, we see, far up the hill, the residence of the 
 first owner of this large body of fertile land, and may judge 
 for ourselves the original character of the soil selected fo* 
 
30 MAN AND LAND. 
 
 cultivation from the small pines and hemlocks on that imme- 
 diately adjacent ; and yet the style of the house proves him 
 to have been of the better class of the settlers of half a cen- 
 tury past, when population was thin, and good land abundant, 
 but wealth scarce. Crossing Broad and Locust mountains, 
 we see near their tops the habitations of early settlers, w^ho 
 selected the land of the pine, easily cleared, and whose 
 pine-knots afforded at one time tar, and at another, substi- 
 tutes for candles that they were too poor to buy. Immedi- 
 ately afterwards we find ourselves in the valley of the Sus- 
 quehanna, on meadow-lands whose character is proved by 
 the great size of the timber by which they are covered : but 
 upon which neither the spade nor the plough has yet made 
 its mark. Passing onward, we meet a row of small farms 
 occupying a ridge between the mountains, while below them, 
 distant two or three hundred yards, the little stream runs 
 through fine white-oak timber lands, upon which the axe 
 has scarcely yet been heard. Good land thus abounds, but 
 the settler prefers that which will yield the largest return to 
 labour, which the richer lands would not, as the cost of clear- 
 ing them would be more than they were worth w^hen cleared. 
 Descending the little stream, we reach the Susquehanna, and 
 with every step of our progress, we find cultivation descend- 
 ing the hills. The valleys become more cleared of timber, 
 and meadows and cattle appear, the most certain signs of 
 increasing population and wealth. 
 
 Passing up the west branch of the Susquehanna, the order 
 is again inverted. Population diminishes, and cultivation 
 tends to leave the river bottom, and to ascend the hill-sides. 
 Arriving in the vicinity of Muncy, if, leaving the river and 
 ascending the bank, we pass to the foot of the Muncy hills, 
 our road will cross fine limestone land whose food-produc- 
 ing qualities being less obvious to the early settlers, whole 
 tracts of it, containing hundreds of acres, passed from hand 
 to hand in exchange for a dollar, or even a jug of whiskey. 
 They preferred the oak-producing soils, whose trees they could 
 
MAN AND LAND. 31 
 
 girdle, and afterwards destroy by fire. With increasing po- 
 pulation and wealth, we find them returning to the lands at 
 first despised, combining the inferior and superior soils, and 
 obtaining greatly increased returns to labour. If now we 
 could take a bird's-eye view of the country, we might trace 
 with perfect accuracy the course of every little stream, by 
 the timber still standing on its banks, conspicuous among 
 the higher and* cleared lands of the neighbourhood. Passing 
 again up the river, we find the timber in the low lands increas- 
 ing in quantity, and if we desire to see cultivation we must seek 
 it at the head-waters of the Bald Eagle, in the county of Centre : 
 or we may pass up the Sinnemahoning, amid tens of thou- 
 sands of acres of timber, much of which would yield, as 
 we are assured, a hundred thousand feet of lumber to the 
 acre, which yet have felt no implement but the axe of the 
 lumberman. So nearly valueless are the fertile soils which 
 produce these fine trees, that we have just now heard of the 
 sale of two thousand acres, estimated to average thirty thou- 
 sand feet to the acre : the whole for the sum of $1250 — or 
 £260. Attaining the head of the stream, we find ourselves 
 again in the midst of cultivation, and see that the settlers 
 here, as everywhere else, have selected the high and dry 
 lands upon which they might commence with the plough, in 
 preference to the more fertile soils that required the axe. If, 
 instead of turning southward towards Clearfield, we advance 
 northward to the newly settled counties of Potter, McKean 
 and Tioga, we find the centre of population of each occu- 
 pying the highest lands, near the head of the several little 
 streams w^hich there take their rise. If, passing westward, 
 we cross the ridge of the Alleghany to the head-waters of 
 the Ohio, we find again the order of things inverted. Popu- 
 lation at first is scattered, and occupies the higher lands, and 
 the best timber is still standing : but as we descend the river, 
 population and wealth gradually increase, the lower lands 
 become more and more cleared, and at length we find our- 
 selves at Pittsburgh, in the midst of a dense population, 
 
32 MAN AND LAND. 
 
 actively employed in bringing into connection the several 
 soils containing carbon, lime, and iron, with a view to the 
 preparation of machinery to enable the farmer of the west 
 to sink deeply into the land of which heretofore he has but 
 scratched the superficial soil, and to clear and drain the fer- 
 tile soils of the river bottoms, instead of the higher and 
 drier lands from which he has heretofore derived his sup- 
 plies of food. 
 
 The early settlers of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, uniformly 
 selected the higher grounds, leaving the richer lands for their 
 successors. The immediate valleys of streams, fertile a? 
 were the soils, were and still are avoided on account of dan- 
 ger to be apprehended from the fevers which even now sweep 
 off so many of the emigrants to the new states. The faci- 
 lity of getting some small crop always prompted, as it still 
 prompts, to the selection of the land which was most readily 
 brought into cultivation: and none so well answered the par- 
 pose as that which was slightly clothed with timber, and 
 clear of undergrowth. The constant fall of leaves had by 
 their decay kept the ground covered with a light mould, and 
 prevented the growth of grass : and by deadening the trees 
 to let in the sun, they could obtain a small return to labour. 
 The first great object was to have a dry place for the dwell- 
 ing. Land which is entirely covered with timber has very 
 imperfect drainage, and therefore the settler was found always 
 selecting dry ridges of land on which to begin the work of 
 cultivation ; for the same reason which prevented him from 
 commencing the work of artificial drainage to secure a place 
 for his dwelling equally prevented him from so doing for any 
 other purpose. 
 
 In the prairies, the richest land is found in the centre 
 of the prairie, and there can water be most readily ob- 
 tained ; while on the outer edges, as the surface descends 
 towards the timbered land, it is less healthful, and water 
 is obtained only by boring to a considerable depth, while 
 the soil is far less rich : yet here invariably does the settler 
 
MAN AND LAND. 
 
 commence, as the centre requires drainage, and three or four 
 yoke of oxen to break up the tough sod. With each step in 
 the progress of wealth and population, the new settlers are 
 seen approaching nearer to the centre and obtaining better 
 soils at less cost of labour. While thus passing inward to- 
 wards richer portions of the prairie, others gradually make 
 their way down to the lower lands near the margins of the 
 streams, but for want of drainage these are frequently over- 
 flowed, and then the labour is in a great measure lost. 
 
 Descending the river from Pittsburgh, we reach the con- 
 fluence of the Ohio and Mississippi, where we lose sight of 
 all signs of population, except that of the poor wood-cutter, 
 who risks his health while engaged in providing wood for 
 the numerous steamboats. Here, for hundreds of miles, we 
 pass through the most fertile land, covered with timber of 
 gigantic size. With all its powers of production, it is value- 
 less for all purposes of cultivation. Unembanked, it is lia- 
 ble to occasional overflow from the river, and its neighbour- 
 hood is destructive to life and health : for which reason hun- 
 dreds of thousands of acres that, w^hen population and wealth 
 shall have further increased, will yield the largest return to 
 labour, remain uncleared and undrained : while the hiofher 
 lands, whose "original and indestructible powers" are less, 
 are in a state of cultivation. Descending further, we meet 
 population and wealth in the act of ascending the Missis- 
 sippi, from the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. Embank- 
 ments, or levees, keep out the river, and the finest planta- 
 tions are seen on land corresponding in every respect with 
 the wild and uncultivated region through which we have just 
 passed. If, now, we desire to seek the habitations of the early 
 settlers, we must leave the river bank and ascend the hills, 
 and with every step we shall find new proof that cultivation 
 invariably commences on the poorer soils. If we interrogate 
 the pioneer settlers why they waste their labour on the poor 
 soil of the hill-tops, while fertile soils abound, their answer 
 vdll invariably be found to be, that the one they can cultivate 
 E 
 
34 MAN AND LAND. 
 
 as it stands, while the other they cannot. The pine of the 
 hills is small, and easily cleared. It gives them good fuel, 
 and its knots furnish artificial light. To attempt to clear the 
 land that bears the oakwould ruin them. If, instead of de- 
 scending the Mississippi, we ascend the Missouri, the Ken- 
 tucky, the Tennessee, or the Red River, we find invariably 
 that the more dense the population and the greater the mass 
 of wealth, the more are the good soils cultivated : and that 
 as population diminishes with our approach to their head- 
 waters, and as land becomes more abundant, cultivation re- 
 cedes from the river banks, the timber and the undrained 
 meadow-lands increase in quantity, and the scattered inha- 
 bitants are seen obtaining from the superficial soils a dimi- 
 nishing return to their labour, accompanied with diminish- 
 ing power to command the necessaries, conveniences, and 
 comforts of life. If we cross the Mississippi into Texas, and 
 mark the site of the town of Austin, the centre of the first 
 American settlement, we find it to have been placed high 
 up on the Colorado, while millions of acres of the finest tim- 
 ber and meadow lands in the world, totally unoccupied, 
 were passed over, as incapable of paying the cost of simple 
 appropriation. If we look to the Spanish colony of Bexar, 
 we find further illustration of the same universal fact. The 
 whole tendency of colonization is towards the head-waters of 
 the rivers. 
 
 We know of no exception to ^he rule, and we feel assured 
 that none exists, or can exist. That it should do so, would 
 be contrary to the laws of nature. The same reason that 
 prompts the settler to build himself a log-house, to provide 
 shelter while waiting until he can have one of stone, equally 
 prompts him to begin cultivation where he can use his plough, 
 and not to risk the starvation of his family by endeavouring 
 to do so w^here he cannot: and where fevers, perhaps to be fol- 
 lowed by death, would be the inevitable result of the attempt. 
 In every case on record, in which settlements have been at. 
 tempted on rich lands, they have either failed totally, or 
 
MAN AND LAND. 35 
 
 their progress has been slow, and it has been only after re- 
 peated efforts that they have thriven. The reader who de- 
 sires evidence of this fact, and of the absolute necessity for 
 commencing with the poorer soils, will obtain it if he 
 study the history of the French colonies in Louisiana and 
 Cayenne, and compare their repeated failures with the steady 
 growth of those formed in the region of the St. Lawrence, 
 where numerous and. somewhat prosperous settlements were 
 formed at places where the land is now held to be almost utterly 
 valueless, because better soils can be obtained elsewhere, by 
 sinking deeper into the earth, or removing to a little distance. 
 He may obtain additional evidence, if he will compare the' 
 gentle, but steady, growth of the colonies planted on the 
 sterile soils of New England, with the repeated failures of 
 colonization upon the richer lands of Virginia and Carolina, 
 which latter could not be reduced to cultivation by men 
 working for themselves ; and hence we find the richer colonists 
 purchasing negroes, and compelling them to perform the 
 work, while the free labourer seeks the light sandy lands of 
 North Carolina. Slavery would never have existed there 
 could free labourers have been obtained, but no man, left to 
 himself, will commence the work of cultivation on the rich 
 soils : because it is from those soils that the return is then 
 least, and it is upon them, throughout all the new countries 
 of the world, that the condition of the labourer is the worst, 
 where the work is undertaken in advance of the wealth and 
 combination that come, or ought to come, with time. The 
 settler who sought the high light lands obtained food, although 
 the return to his labour was small. Had he undertaken to 
 drain the rich soils of the Dismal Swamp, he would have 
 starved, as did those who settled the fertile island of Roanoke. 
 If the reader will now cross with us the Rio Grande, into 
 Mexico, he may find further illustration of the universality 
 of this law. At his left, near the mouth of the river, but at 
 some distance from its bank, he will see the city of Mata- 
 moras, of recent date. Starting from that point, he may fol- 
 
36 MAN AND LAND. 
 
 low the river through vast bodies of fine lands in a state of 
 nature, with here and there a scattered settlement occupying 
 the higher ones, to the mouth of the San Juan, follow- 
 ing which to its source, he will find himself in a somewhat 
 populous country, of which Monterey is the centre. If, 
 standing here, he cast his eyes to the north, he sees cultiva- 
 tion advancing among the high lands of Chihuahua, and 
 keeping, invariably, away from the river banks. The city 
 of that name is distant twenty miles even from the little tribu- 
 tary of the great river, and more than a hundred miles from 
 the mouth of that tributary. If he pass west from Monte- 
 rey, through Saltillo and thence south, his road will lie over 
 sandy plains whose existence is evidence of the general cha- 
 racter of the region. Arriving in Potosi, he finds himself in 
 a country without rivers, and almost without the possibility 
 of irrigation, and where any failure of the periodical rains is 
 followed by famine and death, yet if he cast his eyes down- 
 wards towards the coast, he sees a magnificent country, 
 watered by numerous rivers, and in which the cotton and the 
 indigo plant grow spontaneously : a country in which the 
 maize grows with a luxuriance elsewhere unknown : one that 
 might supply the world with sugar, and in which the only 
 danger to be apprehended from the character of the soil is, 
 that the crops might be smothered by reason of the rapid 
 growth of plants that spring up in the rich earth, without 
 aid, or even permission from the man who might undertake 
 to cultivate it : yet there he sees no population. The land 
 is uncleared and undrained, and likely so to remain, because 
 those who should undertake to work, with the present means 
 of the country, would starve, if they did not perish by the 
 fevers that there, as everywhere, prevail among the richest 
 soils until subjected to cultivation: and often long afterwards. 
 Passing on, he sees Zacatecas, high and dry like Potosi, yet 
 cultivated. Keeping the ridge, he sees on his left Tlascala, 
 once the seat of a great and wealthy people, far removed 
 from any stream whatsoever, and occupying the high land 
 
MAN AND LAND. 37 
 
 from which descend little streams seeking the waters of both 
 the Atlantic and the Pacific. On his right he sees the valley 
 of Mexico, a land capable of yielding the largest returns to 
 labour, that by slow degrees, with the growth of population 
 and wealth, was once drained and rendered fit for cultiva- 
 tion. In the time of Cortes, the people were numerous and 
 rich, and the fertile soils they had brought into activity 
 produced food in abundance for forty cities. Population and 
 wealth have declined, and the remaining people have retired 
 to the high lands bordering the valley, to cultivate the poorer 
 soils ; and the single city that still remains draws its supplies 
 of food from a distance of fifty miles, in a country where 
 foads scarcely exist, the consequence of which is that corn 
 is higher in price than in London or Paris while wages are 
 very low. Fertile land is here superabundant, over w^hich 
 roam half-starved cattle, seeking to obtain from the top soil : 
 the only one used in this second childhood of agriculture : 
 that nourishment which would be afforded in endless abund- 
 ance, did the people possess the means and the indus- 
 try to penetrate to those lower soils which were cultivated 
 when population abounded. Not an acre in the hundred is 
 cultivated at all, yet even with their imperfect machinery 
 each one would yield tw^enty bushels. The people fly from it, 
 whereas, according to Mr. Ricardo, it is that which would 
 be first appropriated. 
 
 Passing southward, we see Tabasco almost unoccupied, 
 yet possessing highly fertile lands. Next we reach Yuca- 
 tan, a land in which water is a luxury: yet here we meet 
 a large and prosperous population, near neighbours to the 
 better soils of Honduras that are covered with trees of the 
 most enormous size, and that, when population and wealth 
 shall have sufficiently increased, will yield returns to la- 
 bour as large, if not larger, than any hitherto known : yet 
 now they are a wilderness, aflfording subsistence but to a 
 few miserable logwood and mahogany cutters. 
 
 If, now, the reader look northward, towards the Carib- 
 
 4 
 
38 MAN AND LAND. 
 
 bean sea, he will see the little dry and rocky islands of 
 Montserrat, Nevis, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and 
 others, cultivated throughout, while at his right stands Tri- 
 nidad, with the richest of soils, remaining almost in a state of 
 nature. If he will cast his eyes on the map and mark 
 the position of Santa Fe de Bogota, and the city of Quito, 
 the centres of population, where men cluster together on 
 the high and drylands while the valley of Oroonoko remains 
 unoccupied, he will see exhibited on a great scale the 
 same fact which, on a small one, we have shown to exist on 
 the banks of the Schuylkill and the Susquehanna. If, next, 
 he will take his station on the peaks of Chimborazo and 
 look around, he will see the same great fact in relation to all 
 southern America. He will see the only civilized people 
 of the days of Pizarro occupying high and dry Peru, drained 
 by little streams whose rapid course forbids the possibility 
 that marshes should be formed in which vegetable matter 
 may decay, to give richness to the soil for the produc- 
 tion of timber before the period of cultivation, or of food 
 afterwards. It was poor and easily cleared. It wanted no 
 artificial drainage. It was therefore occupied. 
 
 If, now, he turn his face to the east, he will see before 
 him the rich valley of the Amazon, affording soils inferior 
 to none on earth, yet to this day a wilderness. Let him 
 next trace the numerous tributaries of that great river to 
 their sources, and he will there meet the various Portuguese 
 towns and cities, occupying the high lands, and waiting the 
 further growth of population and wealth for the clearing and 
 draining of the rich soil lying between them and the ocean : 
 soils whose crops, transported on steamboats, will at some 
 future day yield to the labour employed a return ten times 
 greater than can now be obtained by cultivating the poor 
 ones, and transporting the produce across hills and moun- 
 tains on the backs of mules. The laws of nature require 
 that if man would improve his condition he must work, 
 and he must let others work in peace. He must let wealth 
 
MAN AND LAND. 
 
 and population grow, and if he will not do this : if he will 
 commit w^holesale robbery and murder under the pretence 
 of making wars for «< the public good," or the hollow one 
 of maintaining "the liberties of Europe :" she punishes him 
 by shutting him out from those lands that would yield the 
 largest return to his labour, and compelling him to travel on 
 foot across barren mountains, when he might have a railroad 
 car that would transport him rapidly through fertile valleys, 
 where at every step he would see evidences of prosperity 
 and happiness. 
 
 Let the reader now cast his eyes south, and compare the 
 steep declivity occupied by the people of Chili, advancing 
 rapidly in population and wealth ; with the great valley of 
 the La Plata, and its tribes of barbarians encamped upon 
 lands capable of yielding the largest return to labour: and 
 that will do so w^hen man shall relinquish the trade of w^ar, 
 and permit the earth to enrich himself and his neighbour. 
 Here, as everywhere, he has evidence that cultivation inva- 
 riably commences on the poorer soils. 
 
 Crossing now the ocean, let him next take up a map of 
 Roman Britain, and after a little study determine for himself 
 where agriculture should first take root. Throughout the 
 southern portion of the island, Britannia Prima, he will see the 
 small streams passing almost directly to the ocean, and thus 
 affording evidence of a tolerably rapid fall, and of the ab- 
 sence of marsh and heavily-timbered land: and here, accord- 
 ingly, we find the commencement of cultivation. As he ap- 
 proaches the valley of the Thames, he may see the marks of 
 population on the high lands bordering it, but in the valley 
 itself he sees little except in the existence of a single town. 
 Passing northward, population is everywhere seen on the flanks 
 of the central ridge, occupying the high grounds at the heads of 
 the streams, but we look in vain for signs of life in the lower 
 lands : on the banks of the Humber or its tributaries, or on 
 those of the several streams emptying into the Wash. If, 
 now, he inquire for the seats of early cultivation, he will 
 
40 MAN AND LAND. 
 
 be referred to the sites of the rotten boroughs : to those parts 
 of the kingdom in which men who can neither read nor 
 write, still live in mud-built cottages, and receive nine 
 shillings per week for their labour: and those commons 
 upon which, to so great an extent, cultivation has recom- 
 menced.* If he seek the palace of the Norman Kings, he 
 will find it at Winchester, and not in the valley of the 
 Thames. If he ask for the forests and swamps of the days 
 of Richard and of Ivanhoe, he will everywhere be shown 
 cultivated lands of the highest fertility. If he seek the land 
 whose morasses had nearly swallowed up the army of the 
 conquering Norman, on his return from the devastation of 
 the north : that which daunted the antiquary Camden, even 
 so late as the age of James I. : he will be shown South Lanca- 
 shire, with its rich corn-fields covered with waving grain, 
 and meadows on which pasture the finest cattle. If he ask 
 for the land most recently taken into cultivation — the new- 
 est soils— he will be taken to the fens of Lincoln ; to the late 
 sandy wastes of Norfolk ; where his companion will exhibit 
 to him the marl, yielding the largest and best crops of Eng- 
 land : and then perhaps will accompany him on an excur- 
 sion to Northumberland or Cumberland, counties occupied 
 two centuries since by a population who found plunder 
 more profitable than labour. Southern England possessed 
 the land best fitted for early cultivation and for that reason 
 least fitted for a more advanced state of population and 
 wealth. Peru and Chili stood first on the list, but Brazil will 
 win the race. Cultivation commenced in upper Brazil, but 
 the banks of the Amazon will give food to a population ten 
 times, and perhaps fifty times, greater. Lower Canada took 
 precedence of Louisiana, but the latter has left her competi- 
 tor far behind. New England preceded Pennsylvania, but 
 
 * Such are the lands described by Eden, about fifty years since, as « the sorry 
 pastures of geese, hogs, asses, half-grown horses and half-starved cattle," and 
 existing by thousands of acres, but which wanted only " to be enclosed and 
 taken care of, to be as rich and as valuable as any lands now in tillage." 
 
MAN AND LAND. 41 
 
 the soil of the latter will, at some future time, enable her to 
 produce food for ten times the number of inhabitants per acre 
 that can be supported from that of Massachusetts or Rhode 
 Island. The highest cultivation will ultimately be found 
 where there exists the greatest variety of soils, and w'here 
 man is enabled to pass in succession from the poor to 
 the better, and thence to the best : the last resulting from 
 the compounding of new soils by aid of the machinery 
 which constitutes wealth, and which increases most rapidly 
 where there exists the greatest tendency to an increase of 
 population. The variety of soils in the north of England is far 
 greater than in the south, and hence the superiority of the 
 former over the latter : a superiority that will continue to be 
 maintained. 
 
 If we pass north, into Scotland, and inquire for the an- 
 cient seats of cultivation, and the residences of the great 
 chiefs by whom the peace of the country was so frequently 
 disturbed, we shall find them in the higher regions of the 
 country. If we desire to see what has been styled " the gra- 
 nary of Scotland," w^e shall be referred to the light and 
 easily cleared and cultivated soils of the Moray Frith. If 
 we ask for the newest soils, we shall be taken to the Lothi- 
 ans, or to the banks of the Tweed, inhabited but a short time 
 since by barbarians, whose greatest pleasure was found in 
 expeditions, for the purpose of plunder, into the adjacent Eng- 
 lish counties. If we seek the forests and swamps of the 
 days of Mary and Elizabeth, we shall find the finest farms 
 in Scotland. If we ask for the poorest people, we shall be 
 taken to the isles of the west : Mull or Skye : which were oc- 
 cupied when meadow-lands were undrained : or to the Ork- 
 neys, deemed in former times so valuable as to be received 
 by the King of Norway in pledge for the payment of a sum 
 of money, far greater, we doubt not, than the poor islands 
 would but recently have commanded had the sale included 
 the land itself as well as the right of sovereignty. If we 
 stand on the hills of Sutherland, we see around land that has 
 F 4* 
 
42 MAN AND LAND. 
 
 been, from time immemorial, cultivated by starving High- 
 landers ; but if we cast our eyes on the flats below, we see 
 rich crops of turnips growing on soil that was, but a few 
 years since, a waste. Stand where we may : on Arthur's 
 Seat, or Stirling's towers ; or on the hills which border the 
 great valley of Scotland : our eyes rest on fertile soils, al- 
 most, even when not wholly, undrained and unoccupied, 
 while around may be seen high and dry lands that have been 
 in cultivation for centuries. 
 
 In the days of Caesar, the most powerful nations of Gaul 
 are seen clustering round the Alps, and occupying the 
 lands that now yield the smallest return to labour. If we 
 seek on the map for the cities with whose names we are 
 most familiar, as connected with the history of France 
 in the days of the founder of the Capetian race, of St. 
 Louis, and of Philip Augustus : Chalons, St. Quentin, Sois- 
 sons, Rheims, Troyes, Nancy, Orleans, Bourges, Dijon, Vi- 
 enne, Nismes, Toulouse, or Cahors, once the great centre 
 of the banking operations of France : w^e shall find them 
 far towards the heads of the rivers on which they stand, 
 or occupying the high grounds between the rivers. If we 
 seek the centres of power at a later period, we may find 
 them in wild and savage Brittany, yet inhabited by a peo- 
 ple but little removed from barbarism : at Dijon, at the foot 
 of the Alps : in Auvergne, even yet a " secret and safe asy- 
 lum of crime, amidst inaccessible rocks and wilds, which 
 nature seems to have designed rather for beasts than men :"* 
 in the Limousin, which gave to the church so many popes 
 that the Limousin cardinals at length were almost enabled 
 to dictate the proceedings of the Conclave, yet is now the 
 poorest part of France : or on the side of the Pyrenees, in 
 Gascony, the country of the Armagnacs, and of crimes al- 
 most unparalleled. If we look, at any of these periods, to- 
 wards the lands further down the slope, we find the tend- 
 
 * Flechier. 
 
MAN AND LAND. 43^ 
 
 ency to their occupation very small indeed, in regard to any 
 of those forming a part of the kingdom of France : but greatly 
 increasing as we reach Guienne and Normandy, the two pro- 
 vinces in which population and wealth increased most ra- 
 pidly, by reason of their connection with England, under 
 whose sway their rights were respected to a degree entirely 
 unknown to the other provinces. In these grew up the 
 love of labour and the habit of trade. In the others, the love 
 of plunder and the contempt for all honest industry, common 
 to all men who cultivate the poorest soils. 
 
 If we look to the state of France at present, we shall 
 see that the poor soils alone are almost universally culti- 
 vated. Immense forests : the same in which roamed the hogs 
 raised by the Gauls for the market of Rome : still cover 
 many of the best lands, while from those which are cul- 
 tivated the return is frequently but thrice the seed, be- 
 cause of the extreme imperfection of the machinery used in 
 the work of ploughing and drainage : the poor farmer doing 
 little more than scratch the surface to bring the top-soil 
 into use. France is buying bad land in Algeria, at the 
 cost of hundreds of thousands of lives and hundreds of 
 millions of treasure, which, if applied to bringing into activity 
 the best soils of her old lands, now dormant because of the 
 poverty of the people, would perhaps enable her to main- 
 tain the position in the world she appears to be so ra- 
 pidly losing. In that country population increases very 
 slowly, and wealth but little faster, as must be the case al- 
 ways with those who cannot clear and drain the better soils, in- 
 variably last in being cultivated. The mountains and moors 
 of Limburg and Luxemburg were occupied far in advance 
 of the rich meadows of Holland, and while the fertile soils 
 of Flanders and of Zealand presented to view only salt 
 marshes and sandy wastes. , 
 
 In the early history of Holland, we see a miserable peo- 
 ple, surrounded by forests and marshes covering the most 
 fertile lands, but living on islands of sand, and forced to con- 
 
44 MAN AND LAND. 
 
 tent themselves with eggs, fish, and very small supplie.*;' of 
 vegetable food of any kind. Their extreme poverty ex- 
 empted them from the grinding taxation of Rome, and the 
 unceasing vexations of Roman proconsuls, and by slow de- 
 grees they grew in numbers and wealth. Unable by means 
 of agriculture to obtain food, they sought it from commerce. 
 With further growth, we see them then extending themselves 
 over the land that could be cultivated, and gradually clear- 
 ing the woods and draining the marshes, until at length 
 we find a nation the wealthiest in Europe. In this case po- 
 pulation and wealth appear to have spread rather upw^ards 
 than downwards, because they had their origin in commerce 
 and not in agriculture. Here, however, we have farther 
 illustration of the fact that men always commence with the 
 poorest soils. Commerce sought a shelter from Roman 
 tyranny in the marshes of Holland, as we find it after- 
 wards to have done among the lagiines of Venice, and be- 
 hind the rocks of Amalfi, and the mountains of Liguria. 
 These were the worst commercial soils, but they were those 
 that could alone be cultivated, for they were those in which 
 alone could security of person and property, so necessary 
 to success in commerce, be obtained. 
 
 In Germany, we see the mass of the early population on 
 the higher part of the eastern slope of the Alps, and as we 
 pass towards the mouths of the rivers it becomes less and 
 less dense, and the low lands are seen to exist more and 
 more in a state of nature. 
 
 Passing into Italy, we see a numerous population in the 
 high lands of Cisalpine Gaul, at a period when the rich 
 soils of Venetia were unoccupied. As we advance south- 
 wards, along the flanks of the Apennines, we find a gra- 
 dually increasing population, wdth an increasing tendency to 
 the cultivation of the better soils, and towns whose age 
 may almost be inferred from their situation. Thus Veii and 
 Alba were built when the banks of the Tiber were unoc- 
 cupied, and Aquileia filled a place in Roman history 
 
MAN AND LAND. 45 
 
 which was denied to the little place that then occupied the 
 site of modern Pisa. 
 
 In Greece, we mark the same great and universal fact. 
 The meagre soil of Attica, every foot of which drains itself, 
 was among the earliest fitted for cultivation, and there popu- 
 lation and wealth grew rapidly ; while the fat Boeotia, re- 
 quiring to be cleared and drained, followed slowly in the rear. 
 Passing south, along the Isthmus, we have full in view on 
 the left the short and steep eastern slope of Argolis, long 
 since abandoned as incapable of yielding a return to labour ; 
 yet there stand the ruins of Mycenae, of Tirynth and Troe- 
 zene, witnesses to the fact that the least fertile soils of Pe- 
 loponnesus : those which were too dry to require drainage, 
 and too poor to require to be cleared : were first selected for 
 cultivation. On the opposite side of the ridge, the slope 
 is much longer, and the movement of the waters more slug- 
 gish. Vegetation was far more rapid, and the land would 
 have yielded a larger return to labour had it been acces- 
 sible ; but here we find precisely the same state of things that 
 was observed in South America, where Peru was so early 
 cultivated, while the great valley remains to this day an im- 
 practicable wilderness. On the short, steep, slope of xVchaia 
 we find another witness in the State of Sicyon, whose ter- 
 ritory was cultivated when the richer lands of Arcadia and 
 Elis, watered by the Alpheeus, were still unoccupied. 
 
 If, now, we cross the Mediterranean and ascend the Nile, 
 we find cultivation becoming more and more ancient as we 
 rise, until at length far towards its head we reach Thebes, 
 the first capital of Egypt. With the growth of popula- 
 tion and of wealth, we find the city of Memphis becoming 
 the capital of the kingdom : but still later, the Delta is oc- 
 cupied, and towns and cities rise in places that to the earlier 
 kings were inaccessible, and with every step in this progress, 
 there was increased return to labour. 
 
 Passing by the Red Sea, and entering the Pacific, we may 
 see innumerable rich islands, whose lower lands are un 
 
46 MAN AND LAND. 
 
 occupied, because of their superior richness rendering them 
 dangerous to Hfe, Avhile population clusters round the hills. 
 Farther south, are rich valleys in Australia, uninhabited, or, if 
 inhabited at all, by a people standing lowest in the catalogue 
 of the human race ; while on the little high-pointed islands 
 of the coast, distant but a few miles, are found a superior 
 race, with houses, cultivation, and manufactures. Here we 
 find precisely the facts offered by South America and Argolis. 
 Turning our steps northward, towards India, we meet Cey- 
 lon, in the centre of which are found the dominions of the 
 king of Candy, whose subjects have the same aversion to 
 the low and rich lands, unhealthy in their present state, that 
 is felt by the people of Mexico and of Java. Entering India 
 by Cape Comorin, and following the great range of high lands, 
 the back-bone of the peninsida, we find the cities of Seringa- 
 patam, Poonah, and Ahmednugger, while below, near the 
 coast, are seen the European cities of Madras, Calcutta and 
 Bombay, the creation of a very recent day. Intermediate 
 between the two, are seen numerous cities, whose positions, 
 sometimes far av^'ay from the banks of the rivers, and at 
 other times near their sources, show that the most fertile 
 lands have not been those first cultivated. Standing on 
 the high lands between Calcutta and Bombay, we have on 
 the one hand the delta of the Indus, and on the other that of 
 the Ganges. The former remains yet entirely unoccupied. 
 Through hundreds of miles that river rolls its course, almost 
 wuthout a settlement on its banks, while on the higher coun- 
 try, right and left, exists a numerous population. On the 
 Ganges, the first city that we meet, Patna, is distant from its 
 mouth almost five hundred miles. Then follow Benares, 
 Agra, and, at length, far up towards its head, we meet Delhi, 
 the capital of all India w^hile yet the government remained 
 in the hands of its native sovereigns. Here, as everywhere 
 else, man avoids the low rich soils that need clearing and 
 drainage, and seeks in the high lands that drain themselves 
 the means of employing his labour in the search for food : 
 
MAN AND LAND. 47 
 
 and here, as everywhere else where the top-soil of the 
 dry land alone is cultivated, the return to labour is small ; 
 and hence it is that we find the Hindoo working for a rupee, 
 or perhaps two, per month : sufficient only to give him a hand- 
 ful of rice per day, and to purchase a rag of cotton cloth 
 with which to cover his loins. The most fertile soils exist in 
 unlimited quantity on land that is untouched, and close to that 
 which the labourer scratches with a stick for w^ant of a spade, 
 making his harvest with his hands for want of a reaping 
 hook, and carrying home upon his shoulders the miserable 
 crop, for want of a horse and a cart. We have here pre- 
 cisely the state of things that, were Mr. Ricardo's doctrine 
 true, should give the highest prosperity, yet famine and pes- 
 tilence are frequent, and men rob and murder on the high- 
 way, to an extent and with a coolness unknown in any other 
 country ; because of the impossibility of obtaining subsistence 
 by honest industry where land abounds and man is scarce. 
 Passing northward, by Caubul and Affghanistan, and leav- 
 ing on our left the barren Persia whose weak dry soils have 
 been cultivated through a long series of ages, we attain the 
 Himalaya range, the highest point of the earth's surface. 
 Looking down, we see immediately around the cradle of the 
 human race, where head the streams that empty into the Frozen 
 Ocean and the Bay of Bengal, the Mediterranean and the Pa- 
 cific. It is the land, of all others, suited to the purpose : that 
 which will most readily cfford to the man who works with- 
 out a spade or an axe, a small supply of food. Here we are 
 surrounded by man in a state of barbarism : and standing 
 here, we may trace the course of successive tribes and na- 
 tions passing towards the lower and more productive lands, 
 yet compelled in all cases to seek the route that is least 
 disturbed with water courses, and therefore keeping the 
 ridge that divides the w^aters of the Black Sea and the 
 Mediterranean from those of the Baltic : standing here we 
 may mark them, as they descend the slope, sometimes stop- 
 ping for the purpose of cultivating the poor land that can, 
 
48 MAN AND LAND. 
 
 vvith their indifferent machinery, be made to yield a small 
 supply of food ; and at other times marching on and reaching 
 the neighbourhood of the sea, there to place themselves, not 
 on the rich lands, but on the poor soils of the steep hillside — 
 those on which water cannot stand to give nourishment 
 to trees, or to afford annoyance to settlers whose means are 
 inadequate to the draining of swamps and marshes : or on lit- 
 tle peaked islands, from which the water passes rapidly, as 
 in the case of those of the ^gean, cultivated from so early 
 a period. We mark some of these tribes gradually reach- 
 ing the Mediterranean, where civilization is first found, and 
 soonest lost under the weight of successive waves of emigra- 
 tion, while others are seen passing farther west, and entering 
 Italy, and France, and Spain. Others, more adventurous, 
 reach the British isles. Again, after a rest of a few cen- 
 turies, we see them crossing the broad Atlantic, and com- 
 mencing the ascent of the slope of the Allegheny, prepara- 
 tory to the ascent and passage of the great range that divides 
 the waters of the Pacific from those of the Atlantic ; and in 
 all cases we mark the pioneers gladly seizing on the clear dry 
 land of the hillsides, in preference to the rich and highly 
 wooded land of the river bottoms. Everywhere we see them, 
 as population gradually increases, descending, equally gra- 
 dually, the sides of the hills and mountains towards the rich 
 lands at their feet : and everywhere, with the growth of num- 
 bers, penetrating the earth to reach the lower soils, to ena- 
 ble them to combine the upper clay, or sand, with the lower 
 marl, or lime, and thus compounding for themselves, out of 
 the various materials with which they have been provided by 
 the Deity, a soil capable of yielding a larger return than that 
 upon which they were at first compelled to expend their la- 
 bours. Everywhere, with increased power of union, we see 
 them exercising increased power over land. Everywhere, 
 as the new soils are brought into activity, and as they are 
 enabled to obtain larger returns, we find more rapid increase 
 of population, producing increased tendency to combination 
 
MAN AND LAND. 49 
 
 of exertion, by which the powers of the individual labourer 
 are trebled, quadrupled, and quintupled, and sometimes fifty- 
 fold increased ; enabling him better to provide for his imme- 
 diate wants, while accumulating more rapidly the machinery 
 by means of which he hopes further to increase his power 
 of production, and to bring to light the vast treasures of 
 nature. Everpvhere, we find that with increasing population 
 the supply of food becomes more abundant and regular, 
 and clothing and shelter are obtained with greater ease ; 
 famine and pestilence tend to pass away ; health becomes 
 more universal ; life becomes more and more prolonged, and 
 man becomes more happy and more free. 
 
 In regard to all the wants of man, except the single and 
 important one of food, such is admitted to be the case. It is 
 seen that with the growth of population and of wealth men 
 obtain water, and iron, and coal, and clothing, and the use 
 of houses, and ships, and roads, in return for less labour than 
 was at first required. It is not doubted that the great work 
 produced at a cost of ten millions, by means of which the 
 Croton river is carried through the city of New York, enables 
 men to obtain water at less cost than was required when each 
 man took a bucket and helped himself on the Hudson's bank. 
 It is seen that the shaft which has required years to sink, 
 and to discharge the water from which the most powerful en- 
 gines are required, supplies fuel more cheaply than at first, 
 when the settlers carried home the scraps of half-decom- 
 posed timber for want of an axe wdth which to cut the al- 
 ready fallen log : that the grist-mill converts the grain into 
 flour at less cost of labour than was needed when it was 
 pounded betw^een two stones : and that the gigantic factory 
 supplies cloth more cheaply than the little loom : but it is denied 
 that such is the case with food. In regard to every thing 
 else, man commences with the worst machinery and pro- 
 ceeds upward towards the best : but in regard to food, and that 
 alone, he commences, according to Mr. Ricardo, with the best 
 and proceeds downward towards the worst: and with every 
 
 5 
 
50 MAN AND LAND. 
 
 stage of the progress finds a decreasing return to his labour, 
 threatening starvation and admonishing him against raising 
 children to aid him in his age, lest they should imitate 
 the conduct of the people of India and of the islands of the 
 Pacific, (where land however is abundant and food should be 
 cheap,) and bury him alive, or expose him on the river shore, 
 that they may divide among themselves his modicum of 
 food. 
 
 How far all this is true, we must leave to the reader to 
 judge. All others of the laws of nature are broad and uni- 
 versally true, and we are disposed to hope that he may now 
 agree with us in believing that there is one law, and one alone, 
 for food, light, air, clothing, and fuel : and that man, in 
 all and every case, commences with the worst machinery and 
 proceeds onward to the best ; thus enabled, with the growth 
 of wealth, population, and the habit of union, to obtain with 
 constantly diminishing labour an increased supply of all the 
 necessaries, conveniences, comforts, and luxuries of life. 
 
 The second proposition is, that with the increase of po- 
 pulation it becomes necessary to resort to soils of inferior fer- 
 tility, yielding a smaller return to labour. 
 
 If man begins always with the best soils, then is this pro- 
 position true, and with every step in the progress of popula- 
 tion, he loses more and more the control over his own ac- 
 tions — becoming the victim oian overruling necessity. If, on 
 the contrary, he begins with the poor soils, and passes gra- 
 dually towards the best, every step should be accompanied 
 by increasing ^owjer to select such soils as are best suited to 
 his purpose, taking sometimes the light sand, and at others 
 the heavy marl : at one time the clay, and at another the 
 lime : at one time the iron and at another the coal : the hill- 
 top or the river bottom : the near or the distant : the superfi- 
 cial or the profound : as he deems them best calculated to 
 
MAN AND LAND. 51 
 
 minister to his wants and those of his family, and to enable 
 him to accumulate the machinery required for exercising still 
 greater power over the materials provided by the Creator for 
 his use, and awaiting his draft. If increasing population 
 produce necessity, the standard of man, physical, moral, in- 
 tellectual, and political, must fall. If it give him power, the 
 standard must rise, and he must feed better, clothe himself 
 better, lodge better, act better, think better, and exercise in 
 relation to all the actions of his life a volition increasing with 
 every step in the growth of his power over the material 
 world. Which of those two classes of phenomena it is that 
 has been seen to appear, we propose now to examine. 
 
 In 1760, the population of England and Wales was 
 6,479,000. It is now about 16,000,000. The total quan- 
 tity of grain produced in the former period was estimated at 
 15,349,000 quarters, and the exports exceeded the imports by 
 400,000 quarters. The whole quantity of land is about 
 37,000,000 of acres. Of this, a very large portion was un- 
 enclosed and uncultivated, so recently as the closing years of 
 the last century. Eden, writing in 1797, speaks of Great 
 Britain as a country '' disfigured and burdened everywhere" 
 with "immeasurable wastes, commons, and heaths," and 
 resembling '' one of those huge unwieldy cloaks worn in 
 Italy and Spain, of which a very small part is serviceable to 
 the wearer, while the rest is not only useless, but cumber- 
 some and oppressive." He regarded it as containing, <'in 
 proportion to its size, more acres of waste land than 
 any civilized kingdom in the world, Russia itself not ex- 
 cepted." 
 
 How great must have been the extension of cultivation 
 since the period first named, may be judged from the fact 
 that, independently of all private land that has since been 
 cleared and drained, and manured, and limed, and marled, 
 and thus rendered fit for the production of food, about eight 
 millions of acres of commons and wastes : almost one-fourth 
 of the whole surface : have been enclosed under acts of Parlia- 
 
52 MAN AND LAND. 
 
 ment. We suppose it fair to infer that the quantity now in 
 cultivation is, at the lowest calculation, twice as great as at 
 the accession of George III., in 1760. With this extension 
 over the surface, there has been a corresponding descent into 
 the bowels of the land, and the lower soils have been to a 
 wonderful extent combined with the superficial ones. The 
 underlying marl of Norfolk and Lincoln has been combined 
 with the sand, and throughout the kingdom lime has been, to 
 an extent not to be estimated, combined with the clay, the 
 power to accomplish which has resulted from the cultivation of 
 the iron and coal soils, always among the last to be brought 
 into full activity. The effect of this may be judged from the 
 fact that the same land which in the former period yielded, 
 in addition to the grain, but about forty tons of straw, now 
 yields the same grain and more than five hundred tons of 
 straw, hay, and turnips, as food for the cattle required to meet 
 the demands of the meat markets of the kingdom : demands 
 thrice exceeding those of the former period. The weight 
 of food, per acre, is considerably more than twice as great 
 as was then obtained, and the number of acres being doubled, 
 we have five times the quantity of food to be distributed, 
 while the population has increased but one hundred and 
 fifty per cent. 
 
 To this must, however, be added the vast quantity of ani- 
 mal and vegetable food obtained from Ireland and Scotland, 
 the imports from America and the continent of Europe : the 
 sugar and coffee of the West Indies and Brazil : and the tea 
 from China : the commerce in all of which existed to a very 
 small extent in 1760. The weight of these three articles 
 now consumed exceeds 300,000 tons, or 1,200,000 quarters, 
 being nearly one-twelfth part as much as all the grain pro- 
 duced in 1760, when the export exceeded the import. The 
 amount of food now imported is almost equal to the whole 
 quantity consumed at that period, and this, added to the pro- 
 duct of agriculture at home, would give six times the quan- 
 tity of food, wdth only two and a half times the population 
 
MAN AND LAND. 53 
 
 making- the average about two and a half times as much per 
 head for the Avhole community. 
 
 The number of famiHes in England and Wales, in 
 1831, was 2,900,000, and of these but 835,000 w^ere en- 
 gaged in agriculture. The average size of families is about 
 five persons, and this would give about 4,200,000 as the 
 amount of that class of the people. In 1760, the mass of 
 the population was of that description, and we are disposed 
 to believe that an allowance of one-half is far below the 
 truth. If so, the result would be, that while the number of 
 persons employed in agriculture had increased by only one- 
 third, the product had increased five times, and that the re- 
 turn to the labour employed was, per head, almost four times 
 greater than at that period. Such being the case, the new 
 soils must be far better than the old, and the great increase 
 of population, which, according to Mr. Ricardo's doctrine, 
 should have brought with it increased necessity, has been ac- 
 companied by a steadily increasing pozi^er to consume the pro- 
 duce of rich meadow-lands that now yield fat beef, where, be- 
 fore, forests and sw^amps gave but the meat of the half-starved 
 ox, or half-fed hog, upon which landlords banqueted when 
 land was abundant : and thereto to add the produce of the soils 
 of China and India, Mexico and Brazil, Cuba and Carolina. 
 Wealth has grown faster than population, and the man of 
 England has become lord of all the soils of the world, selecting 
 at his pleasure the commodities that he prefers : whereas, 
 when the poor soils alone were cultivated, he took what he 
 could get, and as necessity had no law, the worst bread w^as 
 then welcome, and a herring at harvest time w^as a luxury. 
 
 Nearly three millions of families are to be fed, where in 
 1760 there were but little over 1,200,000, and wdth the ex- 
 ception of the quantity of food imported, the whole is pro- 
 duced by the labour of a number of persons but little greater 
 than was then employed in agriculture, which could not be 
 the case did not the labour employed on the soils since brought 
 into cultivation yield a greatly increased return. That they 
 
54 MAN AND LAND. 
 
 do yield such increase is evident from the fact that in 1760 
 the great mass of labour of the country was required for the 
 production of vegetable food, whereas much of it is now 
 employed in the cultivation of animals that yield hides that 
 are almost equally with food essential to the comfort of man : 
 much in producing the fuel required to keep him warm and 
 preserve his health : and a vast portion of it in the fabrica- 
 tion of clothing, of which such vast quantities are consumed 
 at home : other portions being exchanged for sugar, tea, 
 coffee, rice, cheese, butter, &c., which millions have learned 
 to regard as absolute necessaries, though but recently luxu- 
 ries unattainable even by some who were ranked among 
 the rich. At every step there is an increased consciousness 
 in man of the existence of power to improve his condition, 
 producing increased desire of improvement. Desire pro- 
 duces determination, and determination creates power. 
 
 At the close of the fourteenth century, the population was 
 probably about two and a half millions. Fertile land abounded, 
 but men cultivated the poor soils, because unable to clear 
 and drain the rich ones. Of this we have evidence in 
 various statements that have come down to. us of the ac- 
 tual contents of farms and messuages, some of which are 
 given by Eden, Six of these, of various dates from 1359 to 
 1400, contained one thousand one hundred and forty-two 
 acres of arable, and but one hundred and fifty-one of mea- 
 dow and pasture land. The return to the husbandman 
 averaged less than a quarter to the acre, and if from this be 
 deducted two bushels for the seed, we have six bushels as 
 the product of labour. The population is now about six and 
 a half times greater, but the number of persons who live by 
 the labours of the field is not three times greater, while the 
 land in cultivation is probably ten times as great ; and the 
 average yield per acre, estimating green crops as beef and 
 mutton, and looking to the vast yield ofpotatoes and various 
 other articles of vegetable food, is at least six times as great: 
 probably even far more. If this be so, the return to labour 
 
MAN AND LAND. 55 
 
 employed on the soils broiig-ht into use since the days of the 
 Edwards, is more than twenty times as great as when good 
 land abounded, and when, according to Mr. Ricardo, none 
 were required for cultivation but those w^hich would yield the 
 largest return. Hence it is that so large a population can 
 be fed, while applying themselves to the production of fuel, 
 clothing, and machinery of every description fitted to pro- 
 mote the comfort and happiness of man. 
 
 In '< the good old times" of Ivanhoe and Richard, when 
 fertile land was abundant and people rare, the Saxon hogs 
 roamed the woods, living upon acorns produced from oaks 
 that Cedric lacked the means to fell. Later, half-starved 
 sheep fed upon lands incapable of yielding grain, but cows 
 and oxen were few, because the fine rich meadow was co- 
 vered with wood and so saturated with moisture as to be 
 inaccessible. Maids of honour then luxuriated on bacon, and 
 labourers banqueted upon "the strength of water-gruel," as 
 did sixty years since many of the people of those northern 
 counties,* which now present to view the finest farms in Eng- 
 land, the rich soils composing which were then awaiting the 
 growth of population and of wealth. A piece of fat pork 
 was, in those days, an article of luxury rarely to be ob- 
 tained by the labourer. Even within a century, the bread 
 consumed by a large portion of the people was made of bar- 
 ley, rye, and oats, the consumption of wheat being limited 
 to the rich ; the quantity produced being small. It is now in 
 universal use, although so recently as 1727 an eight acre 
 field of it, near Edinburgh, w^as deemed a curiosity. As 
 late as 1763, there was no such person as a public butcher 
 known in Glasgow. It was the custom of families to buy a 
 half- fed ox in the autumn and salt down the meat as the year's 
 supply of animal food. The state of things there is an in- 
 dex to that which existed in the Lothians, and in Northum- 
 berland and other counties of the north of England, where 
 
 * Eden. 
 
56 MAN AND LAND. 
 
 may now be seen the most prosperous agriculture of Britain. 
 At that time men cultivated, not the best soils, but those 
 which they could cultivate, leaving the rich ones for their 
 successors : and in this they did what is done now every day 
 by the settlers of Illinois and Wisconsin. 
 
 While w^heaten bread has thus succeeded the compound of 
 barley, rye, and acorns, once denominated bread, and which 
 was supposed to afford more nourishment, because it re- 
 mained longer in the stomach, and was less easily digested : an 
 idea repeated in the present day by the poor Irish peasant, who 
 prefers the miserable potato called the lumper, because it has, 
 as he says, a bone in it: fat mutton and beef have succeeded the 
 salt herring on the table of the artisan and labourer, and the 
 mast-fed bacon on that of the landlord. Within a century 
 the average weight of cattle has risen from three hundred 
 and seventy to eight hundred pounds, and that of sheep from 
 twenty-eight to eighty pounds, and the number consumed has 
 increased more rapidly than the weight. The quantity of 
 wool, of hides, and of other materials for manufactures of 
 various kinds, is immense, and yet the agricultural popula- 
 tion is certainly not three times as great as in the days of 
 the Black Prince. The return to labour has therefore largely 
 increased as, with increased numbers, man has acquired 
 power over the various soils, then too deep or distant to be 
 cultivated with the means at his command, but now required 
 for the supply of the greatly increased and thriving population. 
 
 Mr. Ricardo's proposition is diametrically opposed to all 
 the facts presented by the history of the United States : of 
 England : and of the World : whereas the following is in strict 
 accordance therewith : 
 
 With the increase of population there arises a habit of 
 union, tending to promote the growth of wealth and to facilitate 
 the acquisition of machinery to be used in aid of labour ; 
 and with each step in this progress, man acquires increased 
 power over the materials of which the earth is composed, and 
 increased power to determine for himself which to select 
 
MAN AND LAND. 57 
 
 for cultivation, as being most likely to promote the object 
 of maintaining and improving his condition ; and with every 
 increase of this power he is enabled to obtain a larger return 
 to his labour, and to consume more, while accumulating 
 with still increased rapidity the machinery required for fur- 
 ther improvement. 
 
 The third proposition is, that with the necessity for applying 
 labour less productively which thus accompanies the growth 
 of population, rent arises : the owner of land No. 1, yielding 
 one hundred quarters, being enabled to demand and to ob- 
 tain in return for its use, ten quarters when resort is had to 
 those of second quality, yielding ninety quarters : and twenty 
 when No. 3 is brought into use, yielding only eighty quarters. 
 
 Were all land of precisely equal productive power, this 
 necessity could not be supposed to arise ; yet compensation 
 would still be paid for the use of a farm provided w^ith build- 
 ings and enclosures, that would be denied to the owner of one 
 which remained in a state of nature. That compensation is 
 regarded by Mr. Ricardo as being only interest upon capital, 
 and to be distinguished from what is paid for the use of the 
 powers of the soil. When lands of different capabilities are 
 in use, and all equally provided with fences, houses, barns, 
 &c., he supposes the owner of No. 1 to receive the interest 
 upon his capital, plus the difference between the one hundred 
 quarters that it is capable of yielding, and the ninety, eighty, 
 or seventy quarters that may be yielded by the soil of lowest 
 power that the necessities of man have compelled him to 
 cultivate. This difference he holds to be the true rent. 
 
 If, however, cultivation always commence on the poorer 
 soils, and proceed from them to the better ones, the reverse 
 course should be pursued ; and the owner of the land first 
 cultivated should receive interest, minus the difference be- 
 tween its powers and those of other lands that may, with the 
 increase of population and wealth, be brought into activity 
 
58 MAN AND LAND. 
 
 with the same quantity of labour that had been expended 
 upon it. The first Uttle clearing on the hill side, with its 
 miserable cabin, has cost a thousand days of labour, whereas 
 a meadow of greater extent may now be cleared, and a good 
 log-house erected, with half that quantity. If the first settler 
 desire to let his land to his new neighbour, the latter will 
 give him — not profits plus difference, but — profits minus dif- 
 ference. Daily observation shows that such is the course of 
 proceeding, and that land obeys the same law^s as all other 
 commodities and things. The old ship cost a vast amount 
 of labour, but she can carry only five thousand barrels ; 
 whereas a new ship, capable of carrying ten thousand barrels, 
 can be built with half the labour. The owner of the first 
 receives, as freight, profits minus the difference. The old 
 house cost the labour of ten thousand days, but it wdll accom- 
 modate only ten persons. A new one, capable of affording 
 better accommodation to twenty, can be produced with five 
 thousand days of labour. The owner of the first w^ill receive, 
 as rent, profits minus the difference. And so is it with early 
 steam-engines, railroads, mills, and all other machines. 
 
 The price of land is more or less in proportion to the rent 
 that is paid. If the doctrine of Mr. Ricardo is true, the sell- 
 ing price should be the capital invested, plus the value of the 
 true rent. If, on the contrar}^, man always commences with 
 the poor soils, and proceeds onward towards the better ones, 
 the price should be the capital, minus the difference between 
 its power of paying rent and that of other land which could 
 be brought into cultivation by aid of the same capital. If his 
 doctrine is true, the powder of the land and its representative 
 over man, increases as population and the necessities of man 
 increase : but if it is not true : if man commences always 
 with the poor soils, and proceeds onw^ards to the richer ones : 
 then must the power of man over land and its representative 
 always increase ; and then must he be enabled to obtain, at 
 every step, land of equal powers w^ith diminished labour ; and 
 then must those heretofore cultivated tend steadily towards 
 
MAN AND LAND. 59 
 
 diminution in their labour value. That such is the fact, we 
 propose now to show. The whole land rental of England 
 and Wales is about thirty millions, which, at twenty-five 
 years' purchase, represents a capital of seven hundred and 
 fifty millions. The wages of labourers and mechanics average 
 about £bO per annum. The landed property of England and 
 Wales thus represents the labour of fifteen millions of men 
 for one year, or that of half a million of men for thirty years. 
 Let us now suppose the island reduced to the state in which 
 it was found by Caesar ; covered with impenetrable woods, (the 
 timber of which is of no value because of its superabundance,) 
 abounding in marshes and swamps, and heaths and sandy 
 wastes; and then estimate the quantity of labour that would 
 be required to place it in its present position, with its lands 
 cleared, levelled, enclosed, and drained ; with its turnpikes 
 and railroads, its churches, school-houses, colleges, court- 
 houses, and market-houses ; its furnaces, forges, coal, iron, 
 and copper mines ; and the thousands and tens of thousands 
 of other improvements required to bring into activity those 
 powers for the use of which rent is paid, and it will be found 
 that it would require the labour of treble the number of men 
 for centuries, even although provided with all the machi- 
 nery of modern times — the best axe and the best plough, 
 the steam-engine, and the railroad car.* 
 
 The same thing may now be exhibited on a smaller scale. A 
 part of South Lancashire, the forest and chase of Rossendale, 
 embracing an area of twenty-four square miles, contained 
 eighty souls at the beginning of the sixteenth century; and 
 the rental, in the time of James L, little more than two cen- 
 
 * " Those who reflect for a moment on the many hundreds, or rather thou 
 sands of millions, that have been expended in fencing, draining, manuring, 
 and otherwise improving, the land of Great Britain, and in the erection of 
 farm buildings, must be satisfied that the return for this capital, though 
 miserably inadequate, very greatly exceeds the other portion of the gross rental 
 of the kingdom." — McCuUoch. Such being the case, it might have been ob- 
 vious that all rent was paid for the use of these improvements, and that there 
 really was no other portion to be accounted for. 
 
60 MAN AND LAND. 
 
 turies since, amounted to ^£122 13 8. It has now a popula- 
 tion of eighty-one thousand ; and the annual rental is .£50,000, 
 equivalent, at twenty- five years' purchase, to £1,250,000. 
 We have never seen this land, but we have no hesitation in 
 saying that if it were now given to Baron Rothschild, in the 
 state in which it existed in the days of James, with a bounty 
 equal to its value ; on condition of doing with the timber 
 the same that has been done with that which then stood there, 
 he binding himself to give to the property the same advan- 
 tages as those for which rent is now paid, his private fortune 
 would be expended in addition to the bounty long before 
 the work was completed. The amount received as rent 
 is profit upon capital, and is interest upon the amount ex- 
 pended, minus the difference between the power of Rossen- 
 dale to yield a return to labour, and that of the newer soils 
 that can now be brought into activity by the application of 
 the same labour that has been there employed. Such, like- 
 wise, is the case with the rents of London and Paris, New 
 York and New Orleans. With all their advantages of situa- 
 tion, their selling prices represent but a small portion of 
 what it would cost to reproduce them, w^ere their sites again 
 reduced to a state of nature. The power of man over mere 
 brute wealth thus grows with every increase in the ratio of 
 wealth to population. 
 
 There is not, throughout the United States, a county, town- 
 ship, town, or city, that would sell for cost ; or one whose rents 
 are equal to the interest upon the labour and capital ex- 
 pended. 
 
 Every one is familiar with the fact that farms sell for little 
 more than the value of the improvements. When we come 
 to inquire what " improvements" are included in this esti- 
 mate, we find that the heaviest are omitted ; that nothing is 
 put down for clearing and draining the land, for the roads 
 that have been made, the court-house and the prison that 
 have been built, with the taxes that have been annually paid ; 
 for the church and the school-house that have been built 
 
MAN AND LAND. 61 
 
 by subscription ; for the canal that passes through a piece 
 of fine meadow-land, the contribution of the owner to the 
 great work; or for a thousand other conveniences and advan- 
 tages that give value to the property, and induce men to feel 
 willing to pay rent for its use. Were all these things esti- 
 mated, it would be found that the price is — cost, minus a 
 large difference. 
 
 The great landholder of the world is the People of the 
 United States, as represented by their Government. He ob- 
 tains his land at a price that is apparently very low, yet he 
 would be ruined were it not for his exemption from contri- 
 butions. Population gradually approaches his limits. Canals 
 and roads are made to or through them. By degrees a por- 
 tion acquires the small value of $1'25, the minimum price, 
 per acre. Settlers make new roads, and build churches and 
 school-houses. He pays no taxes, but they do. Another 
 section reaches the minimum price, and he sells it. Popu- 
 lation increases more rapidly, and more roads are made, 
 more churches and school-houses are built, but still he pays 
 no taxes for these purposes. At length the whole is sold ; 
 and when he comes to foot up the account, he finds that by 
 omitting many of the heaviest items of cost — those attendant 
 upon affording protection to the settlers until they were able 
 to protect themselves — a small profit is made to appear. 
 
 The price that is paid for land represents a portion, and 
 often a very small portion, of its cost. Labour is frequently 
 thrown away upon it, because it does not consist of the 
 peculiar kind of soil that is needed at the moment. The 
 settler that begins with clearing swamps, throws away his 
 labour and dies of fever, unless he prevent that occurrence 
 by running away. The land is rich, but its time is not come. 
 The man who sinks into granite, searching for coal, throws 
 away his labour. The land will be valuable when granite 
 quarries come to be wanted, but its time is not come. The 
 man who attempts to raise marl while surrounded by rich 
 meadow land yet uncleared, throws away his time. The 
 
 6 
 
62 MAN AND LAND. 
 
 land is rich, but its time is not come. All soils have quali- 
 ties tending to render them useful to man, and all are destined 
 to come into activity ; but it is the decree of nature that the 
 best soils — those most fitted to yield a large return to labour — ■ 
 shall be obtained for his use only at the price of labour ; 
 and their attainment is the reward held out to him as the 
 inducement to steady exertion, prudence, economy, and a 
 constant observance of the great law of Christianity, which 
 requires that every man shall respect in others those rights of 
 person and property that he desires others to respect in him- 
 self. Where these exist, he is seen passing steadily and 
 regularly from poor soils to those which are more productive ; 
 and with every step there is an increase of population, wealth, 
 prosperity, arid happiness. The last historian of the world, 
 prior to its dissolution, will have, we doubt not, to say of the 
 soils, as Byron said of the skies of Italy : 
 
 " Parting day 
 Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues 
 With a new colour as it gasps away, 
 The lust still loveliest, till — 'tis gone — and all is gray." 
 
 Rent is paid for the use of the improvements which labour 
 has accomplished for, or on, land, and which constitute items 
 of w^ealth. Wealth tends to augment with population, and 
 the power of accumulating further wealth increases with con- 
 stantly accelerating pace as new soils are brought into cul- 
 tivation, each yielding in succession a larger return to labour. 
 Rent tends, therefore, to increase in amount with the growth 
 of wealth and population. It is greatest in England, the 
 wealthiest country of Europe. It diminishes as we pass 
 thence to the poorer countries of France, Germany, Italy, and 
 Spain, and at length disappears totally among the Rocky 
 Mountains and the Islands of the Pacific. 
 
 The fourth proposition is, that as with the increase of popu- 
 lation recourse is necessarily had to poorer soils, yielding a 
 
MAN AND LAND, 63 
 
 less return to labour, the proportion of the land-owner tends 
 to increase. 
 
 If cultivation begins with the rich soils and proceeds to the 
 poor ones, the power of the man who represents land, 
 over its products, must always increase, and he must take a 
 larger proportion, attended with increasing inequality of con- 
 dition ; but if, on the contrary, it always begins with the 
 poor soils and proceeds to the rich ones, then must the power 
 of man over land and its representative always increase, 
 he being enabled to demand a constantly increasing propor- 
 tion, leaving to the representative of land a constantly dimin- 
 ishing one ; and thus with each step in the progress of cul- 
 tivation there must be an increasing tendency to equality of 
 condition. 
 
 It was observed, half a century since, that the proportion 
 of the landlord was decreasing. Mr. Malthus admitted the 
 fact, and regarded it as a proof that there was increased 
 difficulty in obtaining food. The common impression, how^- 
 ever, was, that men lived better than in olden times ; that 
 now they had meat and wheaten bread, and sugar, and tea 
 and coffee ; whereas, in times long past, they were obHged 
 to be contented with barley, rye, and acorn bread. To prove 
 that this was not the fact, Mr. Malthus asserted that whereas 
 in the latter half of the fifteenth century the labourer could 
 have one hundred and ninety-tv/o pints of wheat as w^ages 
 for a week, he then [1810] could have but eighty pints. 
 Since then another writer has gone still further, and has 
 asserted that in 1495 he could have one hundred and ninety- 
 nine pints, or more than three bushels, for that amount of 
 labour. 
 
 What were the precise annual wages of a labourer at that 
 moment we have no means of ascertaining ; but the change 
 from century to century was very slow, and we shall not err 
 very greatly in taking those of the last years of the previous 
 one. In 1389, a plough driver had 7^., and a carter 105. 
 per annuTUj without clothing, or any other perquisite ; and it 
 
64 MAN AND LAND. 
 
 is esteemed doubtful if, in addition to this, he had his own 
 wretched food. On an average of years these wages would 
 command not more than a quarter of wheat, or eight bushels, 
 and yet are we told that a labourer could earn three bushels 
 per week ! In the same year, four hundred and fifty days' 
 labour were required for the harvesting of the produce of two 
 hundred acres of land ; and the average net yield was about 
 six bushels per acre : in the whole, twelve hundred bushels, 
 or two and two-third bushels harvested for each day's work. 
 The week's return, at same rate, would be sixteen bushels, 
 of which almost exactly one-fifth is allowed as the wages of 
 every week in the year. Of the people who worked nearly 
 all were employed in agriculture, and very few in manufac- 
 tures or trade. Had all been so employed, with precisely 
 similar returns and similar wages, it would follow that five 
 weeks' wages would be equal to the whole annual crop ; and 
 such statements are put forth gravely by writers who know 
 that at that very period the land and its representative took 
 two-thirds, leaving but one-third for the labourer. The har- 
 vest labourer of the present day receives probably one-fortieth 
 of the quantity harvested. He has work all the year, and 
 harvest wages do not differ very greatly from those of other 
 days ; but in the fifteenth century employment during the 
 year was rare, and those wages constituted an important 
 portion of the year's revenue ; as we see to be even now^ the 
 case wnth the labourers of Ireland. Increased wealth facili- 
 tates the distribution of employment throughout all seasons 
 of the year, and thus increases greatly the productiveness of 
 labour. 
 
 The proportion of the landlord w^as supposed by Mr. Mal- 
 thus, at the time he wrote, to be about one-fourth of the 
 whole product. Recently Mr. McCulloch has reduced it to 
 one-fifth ; although, during the period that has elapsed, the 
 quantity of labour and capital applied to the cultivation of 
 new soils has been prodigiously great, and the proportion 
 
MAN AND LAND. 65 
 
 should have increased, there being more capital to draw inte- 
 rest, plus a greater dilTerence. 
 
 If cultivation does always commence with the best soils, 
 and man is compelled, as population increases, to descend to 
 those yielding a less and less return to labour, the proportion 
 of the landlord must increase. He must take profits, plus a 
 constantly increasing difference ; and he must ultimately ab- 
 sorb the whole product, except so far as he may find it to his 
 interest to give something to his slave to keep him alive. If, 
 however, cultivation always commences on the poor soils, and 
 man proceeds, as population and wealth increase, always to 
 the better soils, then the reverse must happen, and the landlord 
 must have profits minus the difference, giving him a con- 
 stantly decreasing proportion, and leaving to the labourer a 
 constantly increasing one. In the one case the power of the 
 land and its representative over the product must increase, 
 and that of the labourer must diminish. In the other, the 
 power of the labourer must rise, and that of the land must 
 fall. That the latter does fall, is proved by the history of 
 every nation of the world. The English landlord's propor- 
 tion, formerly two-thirds, or more, was, in the days of Mr. 
 Malthus, one-fourth ; in those of Mr. McCulloch, one-fifth ; 
 and if population and wealth be permitted to increase, the 
 day is not far distant when it will be one-tenth, or less, while 
 the amount will be greater than now. If we look to other 
 parts of the world, we shall see abundant evidence of this. 
 In Prussia, forty years since, it was assumed that the pea- 
 sant who retained one-third of the product had a decent sub- 
 sistence. In France, where population and wealth grow 
 very slowly, the proportion of the landlord is much greater 
 than in England, and probably greater than in Prussia. In 
 Spain and Sicily it is greater than in France. In Mexico it 
 is greater than it is in Sicily. In India, greater than in 
 Mexico. In all these countries the most fertile soils 
 abound, uncultivated ; and men scratch the surface, obtain- 
 ing from the superior soil the most sorry return to their labour. 
 
 6* 
 
/ 
 
 66 MAN AND LAND. 
 
 Whenever the time shall come when the rulers of their desti- 
 nies shall permit population and wealth to increase — and 
 they cannot be separated — the more fertile soils Avill be cul- 
 tivated, the return to labour and the amount of rent will 
 both be increased, and the landlord's proportion will be 
 diminished. 
 
 In the time of the Plantagenets, the owner of land took the 
 whole product, and gave what he pleased to his serf. From 
 that day to the present, as population and wealth have in- 
 creased, the labourer has obtained a constantly increasing 
 control over the application of his labour, and over the dis- 
 tribution of the commodities that he produces ; the result of 
 which is that the labourer of England, w^here the various 
 soils, superior and inferior, are cultivated to an extent else- 
 where unknown, receives for his own use a larger proportion, 
 and thus exercises more power over the product of his labour, 
 than the labourer of any other portion of Europe. At no 
 period has his proportion increased so rapidly as within the 
 present century, when population has increased at a rate 
 before unexampled ; and in no part of England is his propor- 
 tion so great as in that in which population has most rapidly 
 increased; yet it is precisely there that the lower soils 
 have been to the greatest extent brought into cultivation. 
 How these facts are to be reconciled to the fashionable doc- 
 trine of rent, it is difficult to conceive. Seeing them, it is not 
 extraordinary that one of the earliest and most enthusiastic 
 admirers of Mr. Ricardo should have found occasion recently 
 to reproach him with having furnished no explanation of 
 these " miracles." The real " miracle," however, appears 
 to us to be the fact that such a doctrine should have obtained 
 so extensively, and should have so long continued to obtain. 
 
 Wealth tends to grow more rapidly than population, be- 
 cause better soils are brought into cultivation ; and it does 
 grow more rapidly, whenever people abandon swords and 
 muskets and take to spades and ploughs. Every increase 
 in the ratio of wealth to population is attended with an in- 
 
MAN AND LAND. 67 
 
 crease in the power of the labourer as compared with that 
 of landed or other capital. We all see that when ships are 
 more abundant than passengers, the price of passage is 
 low — and vice versa. When ploughs and horses are more 
 plenty than ploughmen, the latter fix the wages, but when 
 ploughmen are more abundant than ploughs, the owners of 
 the latter determine the distribution of the product of labour. 
 When wealth increases rapidly, new soils are brought into 
 cultivation, and more ploughmen are wanted. The demand 
 for ploughs produces a demand for more men to mine coal and 
 smelt iron ore, and the iron-master becomes a competitor for 
 the employment of the labourer, who obtains a larger propor- 
 tion of the constantly increasing return to labour. He w^ants 
 clothes in greater abundance, and the manufacturer becomes 
 a competitor with the iron-master and the farmer for his ser- 
 vices. His proportion is again increased, and he wants 
 sugar, and tea, and coffee, and now the ship-master competes 
 with the manufacturer, the iron-master and the farmer : and 
 thus with the growth of population and w^ealth there is pro- 
 duced a constantly increasing demand for labour ; and its in- 
 creased productiveness, and the consequently increased faci- 
 lity of accumulating w^ealth are followed necessarily and 
 certainly by an increase of the labourer's proportion. His 
 wages rise, and the proportion of the capitalist falls, yet now 
 the latter accumulates fortune more rapidly than ever, and 
 thus his interest and that of the labourer are in perfect har- 
 mony with each other. If we desire evidence -of this, it is 
 shown in the constantly increasing amount of the rental of 
 England, derived from the appropriation of a constantly de- 
 creasing proportion of the product of the land : and in the 
 enormous amount of railroad tolls compared with those of the 
 turnpike : yet the railroad transports the farmer's wheat to 
 market, and brings back sugar and coffee, taking not one- 
 fourth as large a proportion for doing the business as was 
 claimed by the owner of the w^agon and horses, and him of 
 the turnpike. The labourer's product is increased, and the 
 
68 MAN AND LAND. 
 
 proportion that goes to the capitalist is decreased. The 
 power of the first over the product of his labour has grown, 
 while that of the latter has diminished. 
 
 Nothing is more frequent than references to those " good 
 old times," when the labourer obtained food more readily than 
 at present, but no idea can be more erroneous. The whole 
 quantity of food at this time consumed in England is at the 
 lowest estimate sixty times as great as in the days of Ed- 
 ward III., while the population is but little more than six 
 times greater. Divided among the whole people, the ave- 
 rage per head would be ten times as great, in quantity, with- 
 out taking into account the difference of quality. In those 
 days of barbarous wassail, the waste among the nobles and 
 their followers was prodigiously great. In our day economy 
 prevails everywhere, and it prevails necessarily, for as the 
 standard of living rises with the increase of production, the 
 proportio7i that falls to the land, or to capital in any other 
 form, tends to decrease. Increase of wealth tends therefore 
 to beget economy, and economy begets wealth ; and the more 
 fertile the soil cultivated the greater will be the power of the 
 labourer, and the greater the necessity for economy on the 
 part of those who represent landed or other capital, and who 
 do not themselves work. The proportion now consumed by 
 the wealthy and their attendants — by those who consume 
 and do not produce — is very small compared with what it 
 was in those " good old times," and therefore the proportion 
 going to the labourer is very large, while the quantity to be 
 divided is so greatly increased. The great mass of the pre- 
 sent large product goes directly to the tables of those who 
 work, while a very small proportion of it is prepared for 
 the tables of those who do not work, and even of that a large 
 portion is eaten at last by people whose position in society 
 renders employment desirable. The Queen eats less in 
 weight than the man who mines the coal that is used in her 
 palace. Lord John Russell consumes less than any London 
 
MAN AND LAND. 69 
 
 porter, and Sir Robert Peel is, we doubt not, outdone by 
 most of his servants. 
 
 Of the mass of food provided for the people of Eng- 
 land, nine-tenths are eaten by the labouring class. If any 
 be disposed to deny that this view is correct, let them 
 endeavour to satisfy themselves what else becomes of it. 
 That the whole is eaten is certain. That the class who do 
 not labour is small, and that they cannot consume much 
 more, per head, than others, are equally certain ; and if so, 
 it must be obvious that the proportion which their consumption 
 bears to the quantity consumed must be very small indeed ; 
 and equally so that what they do not eat must be eaten by 
 the great class who do labour. 
 
 Such is likewise the case with clothing. The quantity 
 consumed is thousands of times greater than it was at the 
 period to which we have referred, and it is chiefly consumed 
 by the class who work. Ladies and gentlemen buy more 
 than colliers and farm-labourers, but they do not wear out as 
 much. They change frequently, but their cast-off clothes 
 pass from hand to hand and are worn out by those who 
 work. In no part of Europe is the mass of rent, or of pro- 
 fits of capital employed otherwise than on land, so great as 
 there : yet in none do the people who pay that rent, or those 
 profits — those who work — enjoy so large an amount of the 
 conveniences, comforts, and enjoyments of life. In none is 
 there so great a tendency to an increase of the labourer's 
 proportion, — of his power over the product of his labour, — 
 while in none is the quantity to be divided so great. In 
 none, therefore, is there so great a tendency to elevation and 
 equality of physical, moral, intellectual and political condi- 
 tion, because in none do wealth and population grow so ra- 
 pidly, facilitating the cultivation of the lower and more produc- 
 tive soils. In no time past has there been so rapid an in- 
 crease as now. Never has the tendency to cultivate those 
 soils been so great, and yet never has the product of labour 
 increased in so great a ratio : and never has the proportion 
 
70 MAN AND LAND. 
 
 of the landlord so rapidly diminished. Were the doctrine 
 of Mr. Ricardo true, such " miracles" could not happen. 
 The following table of the results of the two systems may be 
 compared by the reader with what is now passing before his 
 eyes, and he may then determine for himself which is most 
 in accordance with the facts. 
 
 
 
 EICABDO'S 
 
 DOCTRINE.* 
 
 
 OBSERVATIOir. 
 
 
 
 
 Power of 
 
 Power of 
 
 
 Power of 
 
 Power of 
 
 
 
 
 Land. 
 
 Labour. 
 
 
 Land. 
 
 Labour. 
 
 First period 
 
 100 
 
 
 
 100 
 
 30 
 
 20 
 
 10 
 
 Second 
 
 
 190 
 
 10 
 
 180 
 
 70 
 
 42 
 
 28 
 
 Third 
 
 
 270 
 
 30 
 
 240 
 
 120 
 
 60 
 
 60 
 
 Fourth 
 
 
 340 
 
 60 
 
 280 
 
 180 
 
 80 
 
 100 
 
 Fifth 
 
 
 400 
 
 100 
 
 300 
 
 250 
 
 100 
 
 150 
 
 Sixth 
 
 
 450 
 
 150 
 
 300 
 
 330 
 
 120 
 
 210 
 
 Seventh 
 
 
 490 
 
 210 
 
 280 
 
 420 
 
 140 
 
 280 
 
 Eighth 
 
 
 520 
 
 280 
 
 240 
 
 510 
 
 155 
 
 355 
 
 Ninth 
 
 
 540 
 
 360 
 
 180 
 
 620 
 
 170 
 
 450 
 
 Tenth 
 
 
 550 
 
 450 
 
 100 
 
 740 
 
 180 
 
 560 
 
 Eleventh 
 
 
 550 
 
 550 
 
 00 
 
 870 
 
 190 
 
 680 
 
 The fifth proposition is, that wealth tends to counteract 
 these laws, and to prevent the necessity for resorting to less 
 productive soils, by producing improvements in cultivation. 
 This proposition was interpolated by Mr. Eicardo into his 
 system, because of the absolute necessity for leaving a place 
 of escape for some of the thousand exceptions to his laws that 
 presented themselves to his consideration, and its presence 
 there is a direct admission of the unsoundness of his whole 
 doctrine. 
 
 Wealth should grow, according to Mr. Ricardo, most rapidly 
 when and where land is most abundant, and when and 
 where the best soils only are cultivated. That his followers 
 think so, is obvious from the fact that they, one and all, attri- 
 bute the rapid growth of wealth in the United States to the 
 abundance of land. Improvements of cultivation should, 
 then, be most rapid where land is most abundant, but such 
 
 * See page 22. 
 
MAN AND LAND. 71 
 
 has not been the case in England, nor is it now in any coun- 
 try of Europe. On the contrary, wealth grows more rapidly 
 at this moment, when resort is daily had to the lower and 
 more distant soils, than it has done in any time past, and the 
 only manner in which it promotes improvements in cultiva- 
 tion is in facilitating the resort to those soils. The plough 
 enables the farmer to go deep into the lower soil. The 
 spade enables him to reach the marl. The wagon enables 
 him to transport it. The railroad enables him to bring the 
 coal to the lime, and thus facilitates the compounding of a 
 new soil: and with each new one thus brought into activity 
 the produce of labour and the growth of wealth should dimi- 
 nish, and therewith we ought to see a diminished power of 
 effecting such improvements ; yet with every extension of 
 cultivation the power of man over the various soils is seen to 
 increase. The new soils are better than the old ones, or 
 they are worse. If the first, Mr. Ricardo's theory is false. 
 If the second, then with every soil that is cultivated, the power 
 of accumulation must diminish, and as population still goes 
 on to increase, the necessity for applying labour with dimi- 
 nished return must go on, let man do what he may to pre- 
 vent it. The law of nature in regard to the production of 
 food can no more be arrested than that in relation to the 
 gravitation of matter. All her laws are simple and univer- 
 sally true. That of Mr. Ricardo is complex and universally 
 false. Had it been otherwise, he would have experienced no 
 necessity for providing escape-valves for troublesome facts. 
 
 The sixth and last proposition is, that every such improve- 
 ment tends to retard the increase of rent, while every obsta- 
 cle to improvement tends to accelerate that increase ; and 
 that, therefore, the interests of the landlord and the labourer 
 are always in opposition to each other. 
 
 If men commence with the cultivation of the most fertile 
 
72 MAN AND LAND. 
 
 soils, and if with the progress of population there does arise a 
 necessity for resorting to those of less fertility, yielding a con- 
 stantly decreasing return to labour, such must be the case. 
 The slower the increase in the supply of food, the more 
 rapid will be the increase in the power of the owner of land 
 in cultivation, and the greater will be the tendency to starva- 
 tion and disease among those who work.* The landlord wdll 
 take a constantly increasing proportion, and the labourer must 
 eventually become his slave, thankful to be allowed to live 
 and work, even although compelled to live on acorn-bread. 
 Mr. Ricardo has, here, carried out his doctrine to its legiti- 
 mate results, and those results must be reached at some fu- 
 ture day, if his theory is correct. It signifies nothing to say 
 that the downward progress may be arrested. Man must be 
 always tending in that direction, and there must he arrive at 
 last : even if it be a thousand years hence. f The experience 
 of England and of Europe for thousands of years past, and 
 that of America for the last three centuries, would lead us to 
 opposite conclusions, but Mr. Ricardo says that such is the 
 law. If so, when is it to begin to become operative ? We 
 know of no other of the natural laws thus hung up in ter- 
 rorem over man : none, the action of which is thus sus- 
 pended, in order that it may at some future time fall with 
 a force increased immeasurably during the period of suspen- 
 sion. Population is growing daily, and with great rapidity, 
 and the necessity for resorting to less productive soils must 
 be increasing with every hour ; yet man is permitted to go on 
 to increase his species, in blind and blissful ignorance of the 
 fact that his children, grandchildren, or great grandchildren 
 
 * " How slow soever the increase of population, provided that of capital 
 be still slower, [believed by Mr. Mill to be the case,] wages will be reduced so 
 low that a portion of the population will regularly die from the consequences 
 of want."— ilfiZZ. 
 
 •{- " From the operation of fixed and permanent causes, the increasing steri- 
 lity of the soil is sure, in the long run, to overmatch the improvements that 
 occur in machinery and agriculture, prices experiencing a corresponding rise, 
 and profits a corresponding fall." — McCulloch. 
 
MAN AND LAND. 73 
 
 must inevitably see themselves deprived of the means of sub- 
 sistence, while owners of land are to revel in abundance 
 greater than ever before : the one class becoming masters and 
 the other slaves. 
 
 If, on the contrary, cultivation commences invariably on the 
 poorer soils and proceeds to the better, the reverse must be 
 the case, and every improvement must tend to accelerate the 
 growth of rent ; and every obstacle to improvement, be it 
 what it may, must tend to arrest that growth ; and therefore 
 must the interests of the landlord and those of the labourer 
 be in perfect harmony with each other. Improvement of 
 cultivation results from the increase of wealth. The more 
 spades and ploughs, and the better their quality, the larger 
 is the return to labour, and the greater is the rent. The 
 more horses and cattle, the larger is the return to labour, and 
 the greater is the rent. The more steam-engines, the easier is 
 the work of drainage, the larger is the return to labour, and the 
 greater is the rent. The more mills, the easier is the conver- 
 sion of the grain into flour, the larger is the return to labour, 
 and the greater is the rent. The more factories, the less is the 
 labour required to procure a supply of clothing, the greater 
 is the quantity that may be given to improving the land by 
 making drains, roads, bridges and school-houses, the larger 
 is the return to labour, and the greater is the rent. The in- 
 terests of the landlord would seem therefore to be directly 
 promoted by every measure that tends to augment the wealth 
 of the nation and to aid in the improvement of cultivation. 
 
 How stands it with the labourer ? He sees that with every 
 increase in the number and quality of spades and ploughs : 
 of engines and roads : of mills and factories : his labour be- 
 comes more productive. Again, he sees that with every in- 
 crease in the ratio which spades and ploughs, engines and 
 mills, bear to the men by whom they are to be employed, he 
 takes a larger proportion ; and that whereas, when the land 
 in cultivation yielded a net product of six bushels to the 
 acre, the owner took half, or more, leaving him three, or less ; 
 
74 MAN AND LAND. 
 
 now when it yields forty bushels, he takes but one-fifth, leav- 
 ing him thirty-two. Hejeels, therefore, at every instant of 
 his progress, that his interests are, like those of the landlord, 
 directly advanced by every measure tending to the augmen- 
 tation of wealth, and to the promotion of improvements in 
 cultivation. 
 
 Here w^e have perfect harmony of interests, and it is only 
 necessary that the two parties should fully understand that 
 it exists, to have all unite in the removal of restrictions that 
 tend to expel capital by rendering it unproductive ; and to 
 expel labour, to be employed elsewhere less productively 
 than it might be employed at home, if aided by that capital. 
 This understood, kindness and good feeling would take the 
 place of jealousy and discord. The few would no longer be- 
 lieve that their interests were to be promoted by the waste of 
 wealth on large fleets and armies ; and the many would cease 
 to feel that they were borne down by taxes. Wealth would 
 increase more rapidly, as would the power of production and 
 consumption. Neighbouring nations would be unwilling to 
 lose rich customers, and equally unwilling to be deprived of 
 their accustomed supplies of commodities needed for the 
 gratification of their wants, and would carefully avoid all 
 cause of hostility. The harmony of classes would thus be- 
 get the harmony of nations. The love of peace would dif- 
 fuse itself throughout the earth. All would become satisfied 
 that in the laws which govern the relations of man with his 
 fellow man, there reigns the same beautiful simplicity and 
 harmony everywhere else so abundantly evident : all by de- 
 grees would learn that their own interests would be best pro- 
 moted by respecting in others those rights of person and pro- 
 perty that they desired to have respected in themselves : and 
 all become, at length, satisfied that the whole of the so- 
 called Science of Political Economy is embraced in the 
 brief words of the great founder of Christianity, ««Do unto 
 others as ye would that others should do unto you." 
 
 Mr. Ricardo's system is one of discords. Its parts do not 
 
MAN AND LAND. 75 
 
 agree with each other, and its whole tends to the production 
 of hostility among classes and nations. He professes free 
 trade, while teaching that the monopoly of land is in ac- 
 cordance with the laws of nature. He professes a love for 
 freedom of action, while teaching that if men and women 
 will unite themselves together in marriage, thus doing that 
 which tends most to stimulate them to exertion for the im- 
 provement of their condition, physical, moral, intellectual, 
 and political, the consequence must be an increasing tendency 
 to starvation : and thus he affords countenance to the thousand 
 restrictions by which marriage is prevented and profligacy 
 promoted. He is for free trade in corn, but he teaches the 
 landlord that his interests will be injured by it. He is for 
 promoting the growth of wealth, but he informs the landlord 
 that all wealth appropriated to the improvement of culti- 
 vation must diminish the progress of rent. He would 
 have the rights of property respected, while teaching the 
 labourer that the interests of the land-owner are to be 
 promoted by every measure tending to produce starvation 
 and misery ; and that rent is paid because of an exercise of 
 power on the part of the few, who have appropriated to them- 
 selves that which a beneficent Deity intended for the com- 
 mon good of all. His book is the true manual of the dema- 
 gogue, who seeks power by means of agrarianism, war, and 
 plunder. The lessons which it teaches are inconsistent with 
 those afforded by the study of all well observed facts, and 
 inconsistent even with themselves; and the sooner they shall 
 come to be discarded the better will it be for the interests of 
 landlord and tenant, manufacturer and mechanic, and man- 
 kind at large. 
 
 The PAST says to the landlord of the present : << Study 
 economy, private and public. Give your mind to the ma- 
 nagement of the treasure of materials placed in your hands. 
 Permit wealth to grow, and your rents will rise, while you 
 will be surrounded by happy and prosperous people. You 
 will lose in power, but you will gain in happiness." 
 
76 MAN AND LAND. 
 
 To the labourer it says: *< Economize your time, your la- 
 bour, and their proceeds. Improve your mind. Study to 
 promote the growth of wealth, and your labour will become 
 more productive, while your power over its product will 
 increase, and you wall experience a steady improvement in 
 your physical, moral, intellectual, and political condition." 
 
 To all it says : <« Respect the rights of your neighbour, as 
 )^ou would desire that he should respect your own." To all 
 it says: ^« I have sinned. I have failed to respect the rights 
 of others, and I have suffered heavily in consequence. Take 
 warning by my example." 
 
MAN AND FOOD. 77 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 MAN AND FOOD. 
 
 Man commences by cultivating the poor soils. He works 
 alone, and his labour is unproductive. As his numbers 
 increase he is enabled to combine his exertions with those 
 of his fellow-men, and to subdue to cultivation the better 
 soils, obtaining a constantly increasing return to his labour; 
 enabling him, while consuming more and better food, to 
 accumulate more rapidly the machinery required to facilitate 
 his farther progress. 
 
 The prevailing doctrine of the time is that of Mr. Malthus, 
 who teaches — 
 
 I. That population tends to increase with great rapidity. 
 
 II. That the tendency to increase in the supply of food is 
 less than in the numbers of mankind. 
 
 III. That with every step in the progress of population 
 there is a tendency to starvation. 
 
 IV. That improvements in cultivation may increase pro- 
 duction, but that they are invariably followed by a still more 
 rapid increase of population, neutralizing their effect by com- 
 pelling a resort to less productive soils. 
 
 V. That the remedies provided by nature for preventing 
 this excess of population over food, are war, pestilence, fa- 
 mine, vice, and misery, to be avoided only by the exercise 
 of that moral restraint which shall tend to diminish the 
 growth of the numbers of mankind. 
 
 The time may arrive when the world will be so fully occu- 
 pied that there will not be even standing room, but we may 
 safely leave that distant future to the benevolent care of the 
 Deity. We know well that there is now, and always has 
 been, an abundance of unoccupied land; and the question to 
 
 7- 
 
78 MAN AND FOOD. 
 
 be settled is : What are the phenomena which in time past 
 have attended the increase of mankind up to the present point : 
 with a view to determine what are those which may be ex- 
 pected to mark the farther progress of our race towards the oc- 
 cupation of that almost infinite extent of soil capable of yielding 
 food, which in both old and new countries yet remains un- 
 occupied and unproductive. Mr. Malthus thought he saw 
 that they were such as indicated " a constant effort in the 
 population to increase beyond the means of subsistence," as 
 constantly tending <'to subject the lower classes of society 
 to distress, and to prevent any great permanent melioration 
 of their condition;" and this effort appeared to him quite 
 as obviously to exist in countries in which the population 
 was but one to the square mile, as in those in which it 
 amounted to a hundred. Of course his theory refers, not to 
 the state of things which may be supposed to arise when the 
 whole earth shall come to be occupied, but to that which now 
 exists and has existed for centuries past. In support of 
 these views his book furnishes an infinite number of small 
 facts, while the great and really important ones are totally 
 overlooked. His work throughout wants breadth. His 
 theory is, nevertheless, perfectly sound, if men commence 
 the work of cultivation with the rich soils, and proceed down- 
 wards to the poor ones. If, however, they always com- 
 mence with the thin, dry soils, and always proceed onward 
 to the rich ones, then the reverse thereof must be true, and 
 food must tend to increase faster than population, permitting 
 wealth to increase, and combination of action to arise as men 
 are enabled to live in closer connection with each other. 
 
 The first cultivator can neither roll nor raise a log, with 
 which to build himself a house. He makes himself a hole 
 in the ground, which serves in lieu of one. He cultivates 
 the poor soil of the hills to obtain a little corn, with which 
 to eke out the supply of food derived from snaring the game 
 in his neighbourhood. His winter's supply is deposited in 
 another hole, liable to injury from the water which filters 
 
MAN AND FOOD. 79 
 
 through the light soil into which alone he can penetrate.* 
 He is in hourly danger of starvation. At length, however, 
 his sons grow up. They combine their exertions with his, 
 and now obtain something like an axe and a spade. They 
 can sink deeper into the soil; and can cut logs, and build 
 something like a house. They obtain more corn and more 
 game, and they can preserve it better. The danger of 
 starvation is diminished. Being no longer forced to depend 
 for fuel upon the decayed wood which alone their father 
 could use, they are in less danger of perishing from cold in 
 the elevated ground which, from necessity, they occupy. 
 "With the growth of the family new soils are cultivated, each 
 in succession yielding a larger return to labour, and they 
 obtain a constantly increasing supply of the necessaries of 
 life from a surface diminishing in its ratio to the number to 
 be fed; and thus with every increase in the return to their 
 labour the power of combining their exertions is increased. 
 
 If we look now to the solitary settler of the west, even 
 where provided with both axe and spade, w^e shall see him 
 obtaining, with extreme difficulty, the commonest log hut. 
 A neighbour arrives, and their combined efforts produce a 
 new house with less than half the labour required for the 
 first. That neighbour brings a horse, and he makes some- 
 thing like a cart. The product of their labour is now ten 
 times greater than was that of the first man working by 
 himself. More neighbours come, and new houses are wanted. 
 A " bee" is made, and by the combined effort of the neigh- 
 bourhood the third house is completed in a day; whereas the 
 first cost months, and the second weeks, of far more severe 
 exertion. These new neighbours have brought ploughs and 
 horses, and now better soils are cultivated, and the product 
 of labour is again increased, as is the power to preserve the 
 surplus for winter's use. The path becomes a road. Ex- 
 
 * The caches of the savages of the Rocky Mountains, and the silos of the 
 people of Castile, are instances of this course of proceeding. 
 
80 MAN AND FOOD. 
 
 changes begin. The store makes its appearance. Labour 
 is rewarded by larger returns, because aided by better ma- 
 chinery applied to better soils. The town grows up. Each 
 successive addition to the population brings a consumer and 
 a producer. The shoemaker wants leather and corn in ex- 
 change for his shoes. The blacksmith requires fuel and food, 
 and the farmer w^ants shoes for his horses ; and with the 
 increasing facility of exchange more labour is applied to 
 production, and the reward of labour rises, producing new 
 wants, and requiring more and larger exchanges. The road 
 becomes a turnpike, and the wagon and horses are seen 
 upon it. The town becomes a city, and better soils are cul- 
 tivated for the supply of its markets, while the railroad facili- 
 tates exchanges with towns and cities more distant. The 
 tendency to union and to combination of exertion thus grows 
 with the growth of w^ealth. In a state of extreme poverty it 
 cannot be developed. The insignificant tribe of savages that 
 starves on the product of the upper soil of hundreds of thou- 
 sands of acres of land, looks w^ith jealous eyes on every 
 intruder, knowing that each new mouth requiring to be fed 
 tends to increase the difficulty of obtaining subsistence ; 
 whereas the farmer rejoices in the arrival of the blacksmith 
 and the shoemaker, because they come to eat on the spot the 
 corn which heretofore he has carried ten, twenty, or thirty 
 miles to market, to exchange for shoes for himself and his 
 horses. With each new consumer of his products that arrives 
 he is enabled more and more to concentrate his action and 
 his thoughts upon his home, while each new arrival tends to 
 increase his power of consuming commodities brought from 
 a distance, because it tends to diminish his necessity for seek- 
 ing at a distance a market for the produce of his farm. Give 
 to the poor tribe spades, and the knowledge how to use them, 
 and the power of association will begin. The supply of 
 food becoming more abundant, they hail the arrival of the 
 stranger who brings them knives and clothing to be ex- 
 
MAN AND FOOD. 81 
 
 changed for skins and corn ; wealth grows, and the habit of 
 association — the first step towards civilization — arises. 
 
 The little tribe is, however, compelled to occupy the high- 
 land. The lowlands are occupied by dense forests and 
 dreary swamps, while at the foot of the hill runs a river, ford- 
 able but for a certain period of the year. On the hill side, 
 distant a few miles, is another tribe; but communication be- 
 tween them is difficult, because, the river bottom being yet 
 uncleared, roads cannot be made, and bridges are as yet 
 unthought of. Population and wealth, however, continue to 
 increase, and the lowlands come gradually into cultivation, 
 yielding a larger return to labour, and enabling the tribe to 
 obtain larger supplies of food with less exertion, and to spare 
 labour to be employed for other purposes. Roads are made 
 in the direction of the river bank. Population increases 
 more rapidly because of the increased supplies of food and 
 the increased power of preserving it, and wealth grows still 
 more rapidly. The river bank at length is reached, and 
 some of the best lands are now cleared. Population grows 
 again, and a new element of wealth is seen in the form of a 
 bridge, and now the two little communities are enabled to 
 communicate more freely with each other. One rejoices in 
 the possession of a wheelwright, while the other has a wind- 
 mill. One wants carts, and the other has corn to grind. One 
 has hides to spare, while the other has more shoes than are 
 required for their use. Exchanges increase, and the litde 
 towns grow because of the increased amount of trade. Wealth 
 grows still more rapidly, because of new" modes of combining 
 labour, by which that of all is rendered more productive. 
 Roads are now made in the direction of other communi- 
 ties; and the work is performed more rapidly, because the 
 exertions of the two are now combined, and because the 
 machinery used is more efficient. One after another disap- 
 pear forests and swamps that have occupied the fertile 
 lands, separating ten, twenty, fifty, or five hundred commu- 
 nities, which now are brought into connection with each 
 
82 MAN ANC FOOD. 
 
 other; and with each step labour becomes more and more 
 productive, and is rewarded with better food, clothing, and 
 shelter. Famine and disease disappear ; life is prolonged ; 
 population is increased, and therewith the tendency to that 
 combination of exertion among the individuals composing 
 these communities, which is the distinguishing characteristic 
 of civilization in all periods of the world, and in all nations. 
 With further increase of population and wealth, the desires of 
 man, and his ability to gratify them, both increase. The 
 nation, thus formed, has more corn than it wants ; but it has 
 no cotton, and its supply of wool is insufficient. The neigh- 
 bouring nation has cotton and wool, and wants corn. They 
 are still divided, however, by broad forests, deep swamps, 
 and rapid rivers. Population increases, and the great forests 
 and swamps disappear, giving place to rich farms, through 
 which broad roads are made, with immense bridges, which 
 enable the merchant to transport his w^ool and his cotton to 
 exchange with his now rich neighbours for their surplus 
 corn or clothing. Nations now combine their exertions, and 
 wealth grows with still increased rapidity, facilitating the 
 drainage of marshes and thus bringing into activity the richest 
 soils; while coal mines cheaply furnish the fuel for converting 
 limestone into lime, and iron ore into axes and spades, and 
 into rails for the new roads that are needed to transport to 
 market the vast products of the fertile soils now in use, and 
 to bring back the large supplies of clothing, sugar, tea, coffee, 
 and the thousand other products of distant lands with which 
 intercourse now exists. At each step population and wealth, 
 and happiness and prosperity, take a new bound; and men 
 realize with difficulty the fact that the country which now 
 affords to tens of millions all the necessaries, comforts, con- 
 veniences, and luxuries of life, is the same that, when the 
 superabundant land was occupied by tens of thousands only, 
 gave to that limited number scanty supplies of the worst food : 
 so scanty that famines were frequent and sometimes so se- 
 vere that starvation was followed in its wake by pestilence, 
 
MAN AND FOOD. 83 
 
 which, at brief intervals, swept from the earth the population 
 of the little and scattered settlements, among which the 
 people were forced to divide themselves when they cultivated 
 only the poor soils of the hills. 
 
 Such is the course of events, when man is allowed to fol- 
 low the bent of his inclinations, which, however, he rarely is. 
 When men are poor, they are compelled to select such soils 
 as they can cultivate, not such as they would. Although 
 gathered around the sides of the same mountain range, they 
 are far distant from each other. They have no roads, and 
 they are unable to associate for self-defence. The thin soils 
 yield small returns, and the little tribe embraces some who 
 would prefer to live by the labour of others rather than 
 by their own. The scattered people may be plundered 
 with ease, and half a dozen men, combined for the pur- 
 pose, may rob in succession all the members of the little 
 community. The opportunity makes the robber. The bold- 
 est and most determined becomes the leader of the gang. 
 One by one, the people who use spades are plundered by 
 those who carry swords, and who pass their leisure in dissi- 
 pation. The leader divides the spoil, taking the largest 
 share himself, with which, as the community increases, he 
 hires more followers. He levies black mail on those who 
 work, taking such portion as suits his good pleasure. With 
 the gradual increase of the little community, he commutes 
 with them for a certain share of their produce, which he calls 
 rent, or tax, or taille. Population and wealth grow very 
 slowly, because of the large proportion which the non-la- 
 bourers bear to the labourers. The good soils are very 
 slowly improved, because the people are unable to obtain 
 axes or spades with which to w^ork, or to make roads into 
 the dense forests. Few want leather, and there is no tanner 
 on the spot to use their hides. Few can afford shoes, and 
 there is no shoemaker to eat their corn while making the few 
 that can be bought. Few have horses, and there is no black- 
 smith. Combination of effort has scarcely an existence. By 
 
84 MAN AND FOOD. 
 
 very slow degrees, however, they are enabled to reduce to 
 cultivation better lands, and to lessen the distance between 
 themselves and the neighbouring settlement, where rules an- 
 other little sovereign. Each chief, however, now covets the 
 power of taxing, or collecting rents from the subjects of his 
 neighbour. War ensues. Each seeks plunder, and calls 
 it "glory." Each invades the domain of the other, and 
 each endeavours to weaken his opponent by murdering his 
 rent-payers, burning their houses, and wasting their little 
 farms, while manifesting the utmost courtesy to the chief 
 himself. The tenants fly to the hills for safety, being there 
 more distant from the invaders. Rank weeds grow up in the 
 rich lands thus abandoned, and the drains fill up. At the 
 end of a year or two, peace is made, and the work of clear- 
 ing is again to be commenced. Population and wealth have, 
 however, diminished, and the means of recommencing the 
 work have again to be created. Meanwhile the best lands 
 are covered with shrubs, and the best meadows are under 
 water. With continued peace, the work, however, advances, 
 and after a few years, population and wealth, and cultiva- 
 tion, attain the same height as before. New wars ensue, for 
 the determination of the question which of the two chiefs 
 shall collect all the — so-called — rent. After great waste of 
 life and property, one of them is killed, and the other falls 
 his heir, having thus acquired both glory and plunder. He 
 now wants a title, by which to be distinguished from those 
 by whom he is surrounded. He is a little king. Similar 
 operations are performed elsewhere, and kings become nu- 
 merous. By degrees, population extends itself, and each lit- 
 tle king covets the dominions of his neighbours. Wars ensue 
 on a somewhat larger scale, and always with the same re- 
 sults. The people invariably fly to the hills for safety. As 
 invariably, the best lands are abandoned. Food becomes 
 scarce, and famine and pestilence sweep ofi" those whose 
 flight had saved them from the swords of the invader. Small 
 kings become greater ones, surrounded by lesser chiefs 
 
MAN AND FOOD. 85 
 
 who glorify themselves in the number of their murders, and 
 in the amount of plunder they have acquired. Counts, vis- 
 counts, earls, marquises, and dukes, now make their appear- 
 ance on the stage, heirs of the power and of the rights of 
 the robber chiefs of early days. Population and wealth go 
 backward, and the love of title grows with the growth of bar- 
 barism.* Wars are now made on a larger scale, and greater 
 " glory" is acquired. In the midst of distant and highly fer- 
 tile lands occupied by a numerous population, are rich cities 
 and towns offering a copious harvest of plunder. The citizens, 
 unused to arms, may be robbed with impunity, always an 
 important consideration to those with whom the pursuit of 
 "glory" is a trade. Provinces are laid waste, and the 
 population is exterminated, or if a few escape, they fly to 
 the hills and mountains, there to perish of famine. Peace 
 follows, after years of destruction, but the rich lands are 
 overgrown : the spades and axes, the cattle and the sheep 
 are gone : the houses are destroyed : their owners have 
 ceased to exist : and a long period of abstinence from the 
 work of desolation is required to regain the point from which 
 cultivation had been driven by men intent upon the gratifi- 
 cation of their own selfish desires, at the cost of the welfare 
 and happiness of the people over whose destinies they have 
 unhappily ruled. Population grows slowly, and wealth but 
 little more rapidly, for almost ceaseless wars have impaired the 
 disposition and the respect for honest labour, while the neces- 
 
 * It is amusing to trace with each step in the progress of the decay of the 
 Roman Empire, the gradual increase in the magnificence of titles : and so again 
 with the decline of modern Italy. In France, titles became almost universal as 
 the wars of religion harbarized the people. The high-sounding titles of the East 
 are in keeping with the weakness of those by whom they are assumed, as are 
 the endless names of the Spanish grandee with the poverty of the soil culti- 
 vated by his dependents. The time is fast approaching when men of real dig- 
 nity will reject the whole system as an absurdity, and when small men alone 
 will think themselves elevated by the title of Esquire, Honourable, Baron, 
 Marquis, or Duke. Extremes always meet. The son of the duke rejoices in 
 the possession of half a dozen Christian names, and the little retailer of tea 
 and sugar calls his daughter Amanda Malvina Fitzallan — Smith, or Pratt : 
 while the gentleman calls his son Robert, or John. 
 
 8 
 
86 MAN AND FOOD. 
 
 sity for beginning once more the work of cultivation on the 
 poor soils, adds to the distaste for work, while it limits the 
 power of employing labourers. Swords or muskets are held 
 to be more honourable implements than spades and pickaxes. 
 The habit of union for any honest purpose is almost ex- 
 tinct, while thousands are ready, at any moment, to join in 
 expeditions in search of plunder. War thus feeds itself by 
 producing poverty, depopulation, and the abandonment of 
 the most fertile soils ; while peace also feeds itself, by increas- 
 ing the number of men and the habit of union, because of 
 the constantly increasing power to draw supplies of food 
 from the surface already occupied, as the almost boundless 
 powers of the earth are developed in the progress of popula- 
 tion and wealth. 
 
 These views are not in accordance with the doctrine of 
 Mr. Malthus, yet look where we may, we shall find confir- 
 mation of their truth. If to India, we may see the rich soil 
 relapsing into jungle, while its late occupant starves among 
 the forts of the hills. If to other parts of Asia, we may see 
 abandoned the rich countries on the banks of the Tigris, and 
 of the Euphrates, while poor and barren Persia is still cul- 
 tivated. If to Egypt, we may trace with its advance the 
 gradual descent of population towards the Nile, bringing into 
 activity the rich lands of the Delta: and with its decline, the 
 abandonment of those lands, the filling up of the canals, and 
 the concentration of the population on the higher and less 
 productive lands. If to Italy, we see a growing people 
 subduing to cultivation the rich lands of the Campagna 
 and of Latium, to be again gradually abandoned, and now 
 affording miserable subsistence to men, many of whom 
 gO'Clothed in skins of beasts, and whose number scarcely 
 exceeds that of the cities that once there flourished. If we 
 pass farther north, we may see the rich lands of the Sien-^ 
 nese republic in cultivation until the sixteenth century, 
 when the ferocious Marignan drove to the hills the small rem- 
 nant of the population that escaped the sword, and gave to 
 
MAN AND FOOD. 8^ 
 
 the world a pestilential desert, in lieu of the highly culti- 
 vated farms which before abounded. Still further north, 
 may be seen the destruction of the canals of Pisa and the 
 abandonment of its fertile soils, while its late inhabitants 
 perish by pestilence within the city walls, or transfer them- 
 selves to the head of the Arno, to seek there the subsist- 
 ence no longer afforded by the richer lands near its mouth. 
 In France, we may see the perpetual ravage of the rich 
 lands of the south by the ferocious tribes of the north, from 
 the days of Clovis down to the period of the revocation of 
 the Edict of Nantes, and at every fresh invasion, the people 
 are seen flying to the hills and mountains for safety. In 
 the days of the English wars, we may see the lower and 
 richer countries ravaged by bands of fierce mountaineers : the 
 wild Breton, the ferocious Gascon, and the mercenary Swiss : 
 united for the plunder of the men who cultivated the more 
 fertile soils, and driving them to seek refuge in the wild and 
 savage Brittany itself. We may see the lands of the richer 
 soils rendered utterly desolate : la Beauce, one of the most 
 fertile parts of the kingdom, become again a forest : while 
 from Picardy to the Rhine not a house, unprotected by city 
 walls, is left standing, nor a farm that is not stripped. In 
 later times we see Lorraine reduced to a desert : and fine 
 forests but recently stood, if even now they have ceased to 
 stand, where formerly the rich soil yielded liberal returns to 
 labour. Throughout France are seen the effects of per- 
 petual war, in the concentration of the whole agricultural 
 population in filthy villages, at a distance from the lands they 
 cultivate : there inhaling a foul atmosphere, and losing half 
 their time in transferring themselves, their rough implements, 
 and their products, to and from their little properties, where- 
 as, the same labour bestowed upon the land itself would give 
 to cultivation the richer soils. 
 
 If we trace the external history of that country, we see 
 hosts of gentlemen followed by bands of savage Bretons, 
 Gxscons, and Swiss: all, noble and gentle, equally greedy 
 
88 ' MAN AND FOOD. 
 
 and rapacious : engaged for successive centuries in the work 
 of plundering and exterminating their neighbours, whose 
 wealth enabled them to cultivate the fertile soils : the people 
 of the Netherlands and Germany : of Italy and of Catalonia : 
 and compelling them to abandon their rich fields and to seek 
 refuge within the walls of cities, there to die of famine and 
 pestilence. War is thus, everywhere, the trade of the bar- 
 barian who cultivates the poor soils and looks with greedy 
 eyes upon the wealth of other men, whose honest industry 
 and exertion have enabled them to bring into cultivation the 
 better soils, with a constantly increasing return to labour. 
 
 If next, we desire to see the countries in which men cul- 
 tivate the poorest soils, we must turn to those in which con- 
 stant wars and oppression have most prevented the growth 
 of wealth and population : to India and Sicily : and there we 
 shall find the habit of combined exertion least existing. If 
 we cross the Atlantic, and look to Mexico, we may see the 
 fertile valley that surrounds the city, and that once afforded 
 food for a vast population, now in a state of desolation : 
 its canals choked up, and its cultivation abandoned ; while 
 from the poorer lands that border the valley, strings of mules 
 bring from a distance of fifty miles loads of provisions to 
 supply the wants of the city. For a specimen of the next 
 class, we must turn to France, whose population requires 
 for its duplication above a century ; and whose labourer 
 uses poor machinery that enables him to penetrate but little 
 into the upper soil, leaving the more fertile soils beneath and 
 around him for some future race that shall have learned 
 that real glory and grandeur are not to be attained by end- 
 less wars.* If now we seek the countries in which the re- 
 ward of the labourer most rapidly advances, we must turn 
 first to Prussia, that has, since 1763, with the exception 
 of the few years that followed the battle of Jena, enjoyed 
 the blessings of peace : and there we shall find population 
 
 * « La Gloire est le Dieu de la France," — M. de Beaumont. 
 
MAN AND FOOD. 89 
 
 and the habit of union advancing with a rapidity unknown 
 to the rest of continental Europe. Next, we must look to Eng- 
 land, where we shall find vast wealth, the growth of internal 
 peace, and a population increasing in numbers with a force 
 constantly accelerated as the accumulation of that wealth 
 has enabled them to bring into activity the better soils. In 
 the days of the Edwards, it numbered two millions and a 
 half. In 1700, it but little exceeded five millions. The in- 
 crease was small, and the improvement of the condition of 
 the people w^as slow. In the first seventy years of the past 
 century, the increase was forty per cent. In the follow- 
 ing thirty years, it exceeded twenty-five per cent. Popu- 
 lation increased rapidly, and with it grew wealth and the 
 power and habit of union, and cultivation was extended, 
 with a rapid increase in the return to labour. It is now 
 doubling itself in forty-six years, thus proceeding with acce- 
 lerated force, and with its increase we see more fertile soils 
 coming into cultivation, and affording larger returns : giving 
 increased wages to the labourer and larger reward to the ca- 
 pitalist than is obtained in any other part of Europe. With 
 every step in this progress, we see an increase in the habit 
 of combined exertion : and an increased tendency towards 
 union, personal, political, and economical : perpetually re- 
 pressed, however, by the waste consequent upon frequent wars 
 produced by an anxiety for " ships, commerce and colonies." 
 The jealousy of the Scot and the Saxon has passed away. 
 The Welshman and the Englishman, the Highlander and the 
 man of the lowlands, have long since ceased to view each 
 other with dislike : and the Cornishman and the Yorkshire- 
 man have learned at length to speak the same language. 
 Lastly, we turn to the United States, which, during more than 
 two centuries from the first landing of the Pilgrims, never 
 were engaged in war but when forced thereto in self-de- 
 fence, and whose history presents a course of peaceful ac- 
 tion unparalleled in the world. From a few poor and scat- 
 tered settlers, occupying the poor lands along the Atlan- 
 
 8- 
 
90 MAN AND FOOD. 
 
 tic coast, between whom communication was almost im- 
 possible, even if desired : and scarcely desired because 
 of differences in their origin, and in their ideas of reli- 
 gious and political government : they have grown to a na- 
 tion of more than twenty millions, in whom the habit of 
 union exists to an extent elsewhere deemed inexplicable :* a 
 consequence of the rapid growth of wealth, the fruit of peace 
 and honest industry. Beginning necessarily with the poor- 
 est soils, they were widely separated from each other. Had 
 they, like their neighbours of Canada, been perpetually en- 
 gaged in war, they would have remained poor and scattered ; 
 but they worked while the others sought alliances with the 
 Indians, and prosecuted the work of conquest. Few in num- 
 ber, and poor, they still cultivated poor soils, when Eng- 
 land was already the wealthiest nation of the world, and had 
 the power to bring into activity the best soils,if she would : but 
 England preferred a war of twenty years attended with in- 
 calculable waste of life and treasure, the result of which is 
 that she stands now but second in point of wealth. 
 
 Look where we may, we shall find similar results. If we 
 desire to see men in a state of high prosperity, we must turn 
 to those countries and to those periods in which their num- 
 bers grow. In Italy we shall find it in the days of Ser- 
 vius, before Rome undertook the mission of plundering the 
 world and exterminating the free population, to be replaced 
 by slaves. In Tuscany we shall meet it in the fourteenth 
 century, before French princes and nobles had learned to 
 interfere in their affairs, expelling the most usefid of her 
 citizens, and introducing a habit of war : to result in building 
 up the colossal fortune of Cosmo de' Medici, derived chiefly 
 from the profit of loans to the state for purposes of war, at 
 enormous interest paid out of the proceeds of taxes on 
 provisions, and collected at the gates of the city by his own 
 
 * " That tenacious spirit of unity which has hitherto so singularly character- 
 ized them." — Edinburv^h Eevieii>. 
 
MAN AND FOOD. 91 
 
 clerks. In Athens it will be found in the days of Solon and 
 the Pisistratidse, before the depopulation and poverty pro- 
 duced by Persian armies gave power to men like Cimon 
 and Pericles : men who saw in the expenditure of enormous 
 taxes for the support of ruinous w^ars, the means of acquiring 
 that distinction which otherwise they could never have ob- 
 tained. In Egypt, in the days of the Ptolemies, before pro- 
 consuls drew from the impoverished inhabitants the means of 
 maintaining their canals, to be appHed to the support of the 
 profligate and worthless people of Rome. In Spain, on the 
 banks of the Guadalquiver, before the fortune of war had given 
 power to Isabella and her successors to plunder and extermi- 
 nate the industrious and prosperous Moors. In all these cases, 
 increasing w^ealth gave man the power to cultivate the better 
 soils. If, now", we desire to see man in poverty and distress, 
 a prey to famine and pestilence, we must turn to those pe- 
 riods in which population decreases ; and be they where they 
 may, we shall be sure to find the object of our search. War 
 diminishes population, but it destroys wealth. The farmer 
 may live to return to his fields; but his house is burned, his 
 crops are carried off, his cattle have been killed and eaten, 
 and his plough and his harrow broken up; and he returns to 
 the city a beggar, to die of famine : for his neighbours are 
 like himself. Their property is gone, and they have no 
 means of employing him, even as a labourer. Everywhere 
 poverty goes in advance of depopulation, w^hile everywhere 
 increasing wealth goes far in advance of increasing numbers. 
 Such being the case, we may well doubt if war, which 
 forces man to abandon the best soils and seek the poorer 
 ones, be really the panacea furnished by the Deity for re- 
 straining population within the limits of food . It would rather 
 seem to be one of the weak *« inventions" of man, for coun- 
 teracting the great law of nature which prescribes that if men 
 will live well they must labour, and thus provide themselves 
 with the machinery necessary for the development of the pro- 
 ductive powers of the earth : powers so wonderfully great 
 
92 MAN AND FOOD. 
 
 that it would be absurd, with our present limited knowledge, 
 to attempt a definition of their extent. The use of those 
 powers, w^ith increased return to labour, is the reward offered to 
 man for good conduct — for the full observance of the great law 
 of Christ : and in every country he profits by their use in 
 the precise ratio of his obedience. 
 
 Mr. Malthus recommends " moral restraint." Where shall 
 it be found ? Certainly not among the Esquimaux, where every 
 woman is ready to prostitute herself for a nail, or a bead, — nor 
 among the savages of the Rocky Mountains, or those of the 
 islands of the Pacific, — nor any where, where population does 
 not grow. It prevails to a certain extent in France, in whose 
 great city, according to M. Dupin, it is only every third child 
 that is a bastard ; but it prevails more in Prussia, where la- 
 bour is better rewarded, and men marry more freely ; still 
 more in England, where matrimony is still more common ; 
 and most in America, where everybody marries. In all 
 countries population increases nearly in the ratio of mo- 
 rality ; but where marriage is deemed a luxury,* bastards 
 will abound, and foundling hospitals will be needed. f The 
 remedy of Mr. Malthus would thus appear to produce the dis- 
 ease for the cure of which it was intended, and to stimulate, 
 instead of repressing, population. 
 
 Population asks only to be let alone, and it will take car 
 of itself. Without its growth the power of union cannot 
 arise, nor the love of harmony and of peace, essential to the 
 
 * '' The temptation is great to show that the poor have no more right than 
 the rich to indulge in luxuries which they cannot afford, and that it is decidedly 
 immoral to bring children into the world to starve." — Thornton on Over- 
 Population. 
 
 ■\ In 1809, the number of foundlings in France was 69,000. Since the 
 measure of 1811, (ordering a foundling hospital to be established in each arron- 
 dissement,) it has advanced to 84,500, in 1815; to 102,100, in 1820; to 
 119,900, in 1825; to 125,000, in 1830; and since then it has advanced with 
 a still more remarkable acceleration. (In 1833, it had risen to 129,629.) 
 At Paris, the proportion of foundlings to births was as one to ten ; it is now 
 little less than one to four. * * * The expense has advanced in a pa- 
 rallel proportion to the numbers. It amounts to 1 1,500,000 francs per annum; 
 the Paris institution alone costing, some years since, 1,731,239 francs. 
 
MAN AND FOOD. 93 
 
 promotion of the growth of wealth and to the cultivation of 
 the best soils, without which the return to labour cannot be 
 large. With its growth production increases, and the la- 
 bourer is enabled to take as his reward a larger proportion, 
 thus producing a tendency to equality of condition. The 
 people have everywhere loved peace, for such were its fruits. 
 Their masters have everywhere loved war, because it tended 
 to the maintenance of inequality ; yet if they had been go- 
 verned by the sense of an enlightened self-interest, they 
 would have seen that the injury to themselves was as great 
 as was that experienced by the labourers and mechanics by 
 whom they were surrounded. 
 
 The PAST says to the sovereigns of the present: "Avoid 
 war! It diminishes population and wealth, and union, and 
 it tends to reduce nations into tribes. Its apparent grandeur 
 is real littleness. It destroys the power of self-protection, in 
 which consists real greatness." 
 
 To the representatives of land it says : " Avoid war ! 
 It destroys population and wealth, and the value of land is 
 dependent upon the growth of both." 
 
 To the labourer it says: "Avoid w^ar ! It destroys wealth 
 more rapidly than population. It diminishes your power 
 over the product of your labour, and it tends to increase the 
 existing inequality of condition." 
 
94 WEALTH. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 WEALTH. 
 
 The first cultivator commences his operations on the hill- 
 side. Below him are lands upon which have been carried, 
 by force of water, the richer portions of those above, as 
 well as the leaves of trees, and the fallen trees themselves ; 
 all of which have there, from time immemorial, rotted and 
 become incorporated with the earth, and thus have been pro- 
 duced soils fitted to yield the largest returns to labour : yet 
 for this reason are they inaccessible. Their character ex- 
 hibits itself in the enormous trees with which they are covered, 
 and in their power of retaining the water necessary to aid 
 the process of decomposition ; but the poor settler wants the 
 power either to clear them of their timber, or to drain them 
 of the superfluous moisture. He begins on the hill-side, 
 but at the next step we find him descending the hill, and 
 obtaining larger returns to labour. He has more food for 
 himself, and he has now the means of feeding a horse or an 
 ox. Aided by the manure that is thus yielded to him^ by 
 the better lands, we see him next retracing his steps, improv- 
 ing the hill-side, and compelling it to yield a return double 
 that which he at first obtained. With each step down the 
 hill, he obtains still larger reward for his labour, and at each 
 he returns, with increased power, to the cultivation of the 
 original poor soil. He has now horses and oxen, and while, 
 by their aid, he extracts from the new soils the manure that 
 had accumulated for ages, he has also carts and wagons to 
 carry it up the hill : and at each step his reward is increased, 
 while his labours are lessened. He goes back to the sand 
 
WEALTH. 95 
 
 and raises the marl, with which he covers the surface ; 
 or he returns to the clay and sinks into the limestone, by 
 aid of which he doubles its product. He is all the time 
 making a machine which feeds him w^hile he makes it, and 
 which increases in its powers the more he takes from it. At 
 first it was worthless. It has fed and clothed him for years, 
 and now it has a large value, and those who might desire to 
 use it would pay him a large rent. 
 
 The earth is a great machine, given to man to be fashion- 
 ed to his purpose. The more he fashions it, the better it 
 feeds him, because each step is but preparatory to a new 
 one more productive than the last; requiring less labour 
 and yielding larger return. The labour of clearing is great, 
 yet the return is small. The earth is covered with stumps, 
 and filled with roots. With each year the roots decay, and 
 the ground becomes enriched, while the labour of ploughing 
 is diminished. At length, the stumps disappear, and the 
 return is doubled, while the labour is less by one-half than 
 at first. To forward this process the owner has done nothing 
 but crop the ground : nature having done the rest. The aid he 
 thus obtains from her yields him as much food as in the out- 
 set was obtained by the labour of felling and destroying the 
 trees. This, however, is not all. The surplus thus yielded 
 has given him means for improving the poorer lands, by 
 furnishing manure with which to enrich them ; and thus he 
 has trebled his original return without further labour : for 
 that which he saves in working the new soils suffices to carry 
 the manure to the old ones. He is obtaining a daily in- 
 creased power over the various treasures of the earth. 
 
 With every operation connected with the fashioning of the 
 earth, the result is the same. The first step is, invariably, 
 the most costly one, and the least productive. The first 
 drain commences near the stream, where the labour is hea- 
 viest. It frees from water but a few acres. A little higher, the 
 same quantity of labour, profiting by what has been already 
 done, frees twice the number. Again the number is doubled, 
 
96 WEALTH. 
 
 and now the most perfect system of thorough drainage may 
 be estabhshed with less labour than was at first required for 
 one of the most imperfect kind. To bring the lime into con- 
 nection with the clay, upon fifty acres, is lighter labour than 
 was the clearing of a single one, yet the process doubles 
 the return for each acre of the fifty. The man who wants a 
 little fuel for his own use, expends much labour in opening 
 the neighbouring vein of coal. To enlarge this, so as to 
 double the product, is a work of comparatively small la- 
 bour ; as is the next enlargement, by which he is enabled 
 to use a drift-wagon, giving him a return fifty times greater 
 than was obtained when he used only his arms, or a wheel- 
 barrow. To sink a shaft to the first vein below the surface, 
 and erect a steam-engine, are expensive operations; but 
 these once accomplished, every future step becomes more 
 productive, while less costly. To sink to the next vein 
 below, and to tunnel to another, are trifles in comparison 
 with the first, yet each furnishes a return equally large. 
 The first hne of railroad runs by houses and towns occupied 
 by fifty or a hundred thousand persons. Half a dozen little 
 branches, costing together far less labour than the first, 
 bring into connection with it three hundred thousand, or 
 perhaps half a miUion. The trade increases, and a second 
 track, a third, or a fourth, may be required. The original 
 one facilitates the passage of the materials and the removal 
 of obstructions, and three new ones may now be made with 
 less labour than was required for the first. 
 
 All labour thus expended in fashioning the great machine 
 is but the prelude to the apphcation of further labour, with 
 still increased returns. With each such apphcation, wages 
 rise, and hence it is that portions of the machine, as it exists, 
 invariably exchange, when brought to market, for far less 
 labour than they have cost. The man who cultivated the 
 thin soils was happy to obtain a hundred bushels for his 
 year's work. With the progress of himself and his neigh- 
 bour down the hill into the more fertile soils, wages have 
 
WEALTH. 97 
 
 risen, and two hundred bushels are now required. His farm 
 will yield a thousand bushels ; but it requires the labour 
 of four men, who must have two hundred bushels each, and 
 the surplus is but two hundred bushels. At twenty years 
 purchase this gives a capital of four thousand bushels, or the 
 equivalent of twenty years' wages ; whereas it has cost, in 
 the labour of himself, his sons, and his assistants, the equiva- 
 lent of a hundred years of labour, or perhaps far more. 
 During all this time, however, it has fed and clothed them 
 all, and the farm has been produced by the insensible contri- 
 butions made from year to year, unthought of and unfelt.* 
 
 It is now worth twenty years' wages, because its owner 
 has for years taken from it a thousand bushels annually ; 
 but when it had lain for centuries accumulating wealth, it 
 was worth nothing. Such is the case with the earth every- 
 where. The more that is taken from it the more there is 
 left. When the coal mines of England were untouched, 
 they were valueless. Now their value is almost countless ; 
 yet the land contains abundant supplies for thousands of 
 years. Iron ore, a century since, was a drug, and leases 
 
 * It will be observed that we consider the owner and farmer always as one 
 and the same person, and it is when they are so that this operation is the 
 most complete, and yet the most insensible. Such it is in the United States. 
 All who write of land, in England, talk of the expenditure of capital on land. 
 Land asks no such expenditure. It gives capital, when properly treated. In 
 that country, the tenant starves it that he may gather up the rent, and if the 
 landlord permits a small portion of its gifts to go back to the great producer, he 
 considers himself as having given it something, for which it is his debtor. Had 
 the tenant been the owner of the ill-treated machine, he would have given it 
 twice as much, making no charge ; but, on the contrary, crediting it with 
 the portion that he retained for his own consumption. When English land- 
 lords talk of spending five and ten pounds per acre, it sounds very grand ; but 
 as in all other cases, the real grandeur is in the inverse ratio of that which is 
 apparent. The man who cultivates his own land, puts on twice as much ; 
 but, he does it from year to year, insensibly, and the land is rendered twice as 
 productive by the one operation as by the other. Nature performs all her 
 operations slowly and gently, but steadily, and the nearer that man approaches 
 her, the more nearly is he right. The man who improves his own land 
 works with a long lever, and little power is required ; whereas, the landlord 
 works with a short lever, and greater power is needed to produce smaller 
 effect. 
 
 9 
 
98 WEALTH. 
 
 were granted at almost nominal rents. Now, such leases 
 are deemed equivalent to the possession of large fortunes, not- 
 withstanding the great quantities that have been removed, 
 although the amount of ore now known to exist is probably 
 fifty times greater than it was then. 
 
 The earth is the sole producer. Man fashions and ex- 
 changes. A part of his labour is applied to the fashioning 
 of the great machine, and this produces changes that are 
 permanent. The drain, once cut, remains a drain ; and the 
 limestone, once reduced to lime, never again becomes lime- 
 stone. It passes into the food of man and animals, and 
 ever after takes its part in the same round with the clay with 
 which it has been incorporated. The iron rusts, and gradu- 
 ally passes into soil, to take its part with the clay and the 
 lime. That portion of his labour gives him wages while pre- 
 paring the machine for greater future production. That other 
 portion which he expends on fashioning and exchanging the 
 products of the machine, produces temporary results, and 
 gives him wages alone. Whatever tends, therefore, to dimin- 
 ish the quantity of labour necessary for the fashioning and 
 exchanging of the products, tends to increase the quantity 
 that may be given to increasing the amount of products, and 
 to preparing the great machine ; and thus, while increasing 
 the present return to labour, preparing for a future further 
 increase. 
 
 The first poor cultivator obtains a hundred bushels for 
 his year's wages. To pound this between two stones requires 
 twenty days of labour, and the work is not half done. Had 
 he a mill in the neighbourhood he would have better flour, 
 and he would have almost his whole twenty days to bestow 
 upon his land. He pulls up his grain. Had he a scythe, he 
 would have more time for the preparation of the machine 
 of production. He loses his axe, and it requires days of 
 himself and his horse on the road, to obtain another. His 
 machine loses the time and the manure, both of which would 
 
 ave been saved had the axe-maker been at hand. The real 
 
 m 
 
WEALTH. 99 
 
 advantage derived from the mill and the scj^the, and from the 
 proximity of the axe-maker, consists simply in the power 
 which they afford him to devote his labour more and more 
 to the preparation of the great machine of production, and 
 such is the case with all the machinery of preparation and 
 exchange. The plough enables him to do as much in one- 
 day as with a spade he could do in five. He saves four days 
 for drainage. The steam-engine drains as much as without 
 it could be drained by thousands of days of labour. He 
 has more leisure to marl and lime his land. The more he 
 can extract from his machine the greater is its value, because 
 every thing he takes is, by the very act of taking it, 
 fashioned to aid further production. The machine, there- 
 fore, improves by use ; whereas spades, and ploughs, and 
 steam-engines, and all other of the machines used by man, 
 are but the various forms into which he fashions parts of the 
 great original machine, to disappear in the act of being 
 used ; as much so as food, though not so rapidly. The 
 earth is the great labour savings' bank ; and the value to man 
 of all other machines is in the direct ratio of their tendency 
 to aid him in increasing his deposits in the only bank whose 
 dividends are perpetually increasing, while its capital is per- 
 petually doubling. That it may continue for ever so to do, 
 all that it asks is that it shall receive back the refuse of its 
 produce : the manure : and that it may do so, the consumer 
 and the producer must take their places by each other. That 
 done, every change that is effected becomes permanent, and 
 tends to facilitate other and greater changes. The whole 
 business of the farmer consists in making and improving soils, 
 and the earth rewards him for his kindness by giving him 
 more and more food the more attention he bestows upon her. 
 The solitary settler has to occupy the spots that, with his 
 rude machinery, he can cultivate. Having neither horse nor 
 cart, he carries home his crop upon his shoulders, as is now 
 done in many parts of India. He carries a hide to the place of 
 exchange, distant, perhaps, fifty miles, to obtain for it leather, 
 
100 WEALTH. 
 
 or shoes. Population increases, and roads are made. More 
 fertile soils are cultivated. The store and the mill come 
 nearer to him, and he obtains shoes and flour with the use 
 of less machinery of exchange. He has more leisure for 
 the preparation of his great machine, and the returns to la- 
 bour increase. More people now obtain food from the same 
 surface, and new places of exchange appear. The wool is, 
 on the spot, converted into cloth, and he exchanges directly 
 with the clothier. The saw-mill is at hand, and he exchanges 
 with the sawyer. The tanner gives him leather for his hides, 
 and the paper-maker gives him paper for his rags. With 
 each of these changes he has more and more of both time 
 and manure to devote to the preparation of the great food- 
 making machine, and with each year the returns are larger. 
 His power to command the use of the machinery of exchange 
 increases, but his necessity therefor diminishes ; for with each 
 year there is an increasing tendency towards having the con- 
 sumer placed side by side with the producer; and with each 
 he can devote more and more of his time and mind to the 
 business of fashioning the great instrument ; and thus the 
 increase of consuming population is essential to the progress 
 of production. 
 
 The loss from the use of machinery of exchange is in the 
 ratio of the bulk of the article to be exchanged. Food stands 
 first; fuel, next; stone for building, third; iron, fourth; 
 cotton, fifth ; and so on ; diminishing until we come to laces 
 and nutmegs. The raw material is that in the production ot 
 which the earth has most co-operated, and by the production 
 of which the land is most improved; and the nearer the place 
 of exchange or conversion can be brought to the place ot 
 production, the less is the loss in the process, and the greater 
 the power of accumulating wealth for the production of further 
 wealth. 
 
 The man who raises food on his own land is building up 
 the machine for doing so to more advantage in the following 
 year. His neighbour, to whom it is given, on condition of 
 
WEALTH. 101 
 
 sitting still, loses a year's work on his machine, and ail he 
 has gained is the pleasure of doing nothing. If he has em- 
 ployed himself and his horses and wagon in bringing it 
 home, the same number of days that would have been required 
 for raising it, he has misemployed his time, for his farm is 
 unimproved. He has wasted labour and manure. As no- 
 body, however, gives, it is obvious that the man who has a 
 farm and obtains his food elsewhere, must pay for raising it, 
 and pay also for transporting it; and that although he may 
 have obtained as good wages in some other pursuit, his farm, 
 instead of having been improved by a year's cultivation, is 
 worse by a year's neglect ; and that he is a poorer man than 
 he would have been had he raised his own food. 
 
 The article of next greatest bulk is fuel. While warming 
 his house, he is clearing his land. He would lose by sitting 
 idle, if his neighbour brought his fuel to him, and still more 
 if he had to spend the same time in hauling it, because he 
 would be wearing out his wagon and losing the manure. 
 Were he to hire himself and his wagon to another for the 
 same quantity of fuel he could have cut on his own property, 
 he would be a loser, for his farm would be uncleared. 
 
 If he take the stone from his own fields to build his house, 
 he gains doubly. His house is built, and his land is cleared. 
 If he sit still, and let his neighbour bring him stone, he loses, 
 for his fields remain unfit for cultivation. If he work equally 
 hard for a neighbour, and receive the same apparent w^ages, 
 he is a loser by the fact that he has yet to remove the stones, 
 and until they shall be removed he cannot cultivate his 
 land. 
 
 W^ith every improvement in the machinery of exchange, 
 there is a diminution in the proportion which that machinery 
 bears to the mass of production, because of the extraordinary 
 increase of product consequent upon the increased powder of 
 applying labour to building up the great machine. It is a 
 matter of daily observation that the demand for horses and men 
 increases as railroads drive them from the turnpikes, and the 
 
102 WEALTH. 
 
 reason is, that the farmer's means of improving his land in- 
 crease more rapidly than men and horses for his work. The 
 man who has, thus far, sent to market his half-fed cattle, 
 accompanied by horses and men to drive them, and wagons 
 and horses loaded with hay or turnips with which to feed them 
 on the road, and to fatten them when at market ; now fattens 
 them on the ground, and sends them by railroad ready for 
 the slaughter-house. His use of the machinery of exchange 
 is diminished nine-tenths. He keeps his men, his horses, and 
 his wagons, and the refuse of his hay or turnips, at home. 
 The former are employed in ditching and draining, while 
 the latter fertilizes the soil heretofore cultivated. His pro- 
 duction doubles, and he accumulates rapidly, while the people 
 around him have more to eat, more to spend in clothing, and 
 accumulate more themselves. He wants labourers in the 
 field, and they want clothes and houses. The shoemaker 
 and the carpenter, finding that there exists a demand for 
 their labour, now join the community, eating the food on the 
 ground on which it is produced ; and thus the machinery of 
 exchange is improved, while the quantity required is dimi- 
 nished. The quantity of flour consumed on the spot induces 
 the miller to come and eat his share, while preparing that of 
 others. The labour of exchanging is diminished, and more 
 is given to the land, and the lime is now turned up. Tons 
 of turnips are obtained from the same surface that before gave 
 bushels of rye. The quantity to be consumed increases faster 
 than the population, and more mouths are needed on the spot, 
 and next the woollen-mill comes. The wool no longer requires 
 wagons and horses which now are turned to transporting coal, 
 to enable the farmer to dispense with his woods, and to re- 
 duce to cultivation the fine soil that has, for centuries, pro- 
 duced nothing but timber. Production again increases, and 
 the new wealth now takes the form of the cotton-mill; and, 
 with every step in the progress, the farmer finds new demands 
 on the great machine he has constructed, accompanied with 
 increased power on his part to build it up higher and stronger, 
 
WEALTH. 103 
 
 and to sink its foundations deeper. He now supplies beef and 
 mutton, wheat, butter, eggs, poultry, cheese, and every other 
 of the comforts and luxuries of life, for which the climate is 
 suited ; and from the same land which afforded, when his 
 father or grandfather first commenced cultivation on the light 
 soil of the hills, scarcely sufficient rye or barley to support hfe. 
 
 In the natural course of things, there is a strong tendency 
 towards placing the consumer by the side of the producer, 
 and thus diminishing the quantity required of the machi- 
 nery of exchange ; and wherever that tendency does not 
 grow in the ratio of the growth of population, it is a con- 
 sequence of some of those weak "inventions" by which 
 man so often disturbs the harmony of nature. Wherever 
 her laws have most prevailed, such has been the tendency, 
 and there have wealth and the power of man over the great 
 machine, most rapidly increased. Rent is the price paid 
 for the use of that power, and it increases with every dimi- 
 nution in the quantity required of the machinery of exchange. 
 
 In Attica, in the days of Solon and the Pisistratidse, wealth 
 and population grew rapidly. Cultivation passed from the 
 poor to the fertile soils, and the manufacturer of Athens con- 
 sumed what was produced by the farmer of Attica. Led, 
 unhappily, to meddle in the affairs of Persia, and thus to 
 employ a portion of their labour upon the more distant soil of 
 Asia, they soon found themselves driven from the better ones 
 of Attica to those within the walls of Athens, there to perish of 
 starvation. Population and wealth diminished, and thence- 
 forward we find them cultivating the lands of distant and 
 subject cities, through the medium of their citizens : substi- 
 tuting weapons of offence for machinery of production : 
 and becoming poor and dissolute. Poverty begets tyranny 
 and rapacity, and both beget a love of war. That of the 
 Peloponnesus follows. Attica is ruined, and Athens passes 
 gradually from poverty to starvation, and at last to ruin. 
 
 Sparta begins with the poor soils. She refuses to permit 
 the growth of population or of wealth. She assassinates her 
 
104 WEALTH. 
 
 slaves, while employing their masters on the distant lands of 
 Attica, or of Asia ; w^orking the apparently rich, but speedily 
 exhausted, soil of plunder, and neglecting the rich soils at 
 home. Poor and rapacious, perfidious and tyrannical, she 
 continues ever weak and contemptible, and passes out of ex- 
 istence, leaving as her sole bequest to posterity, the record 
 of her avarice and her crimes. 
 
 Rome, in the days of Servius, cultivated the fertile soils, 
 and population and wealth grew rapidly, with a diminishing 
 necessity for the machinery of exchange, as towns and cities 
 grew in extent, filled with men engaged in fashioning the pro- 
 ducts of the earth, in exchange for the portion of those products 
 required for the satisfaction of their wants. His successor 
 preferred the distant soils, and employed his subjects in carry- 
 ing arms and plundering their neighbours ; and in building 
 up great works that were to immortalize him with posterity, 
 but which developed none of the powers of the great food-pro- 
 ducing machine. The product of labour diminished, and the 
 proportion of the few increased, while that of the many dimi- 
 nished. Inequality of wealth begot inequality of power, and 
 that, in turn, begot a love of the more distant soils, which 
 were to be cultivated by force of arms. Passing through Italy 
 and Sicily, we find her citizens in Greece ; in Africa, Asia, 
 Spain, Gaul and Britain ; thus going from the rich soils to the 
 poorer ones, and increasing at every step the necessity for the 
 machinery of exchange ; and with each step we find the many 
 becoming poorer and more debased, and the few becoming 
 greater and more depraved ; until at length, decayed at the 
 heart, the empire passes away : having existed for almost a 
 thousand years, a model of rapacity, dishonesty, and fraud, 
 and having in the whole period produced scarcely a single 
 man w^hose name has come down to posterity with an untar- 
 nished fame. 
 
 The people of Florence commenced their cultivation on 
 the light soils at the head of the Arno. With increasing 
 wealth, the products of the land increased : and as food be- 
 
WEALTH. 105 
 
 came abundant, the fashioner came. Wealth and population 
 again increased, and the town became a city : and both again 
 grew. Led to involve herself in the wars of the Church, she 
 is found cultivating the distant soils of Bologna, Milan, and 
 the ghibelline Pisa, and with each remove from home, wealth 
 and population diminish, until at length, impoverished and 
 depopulated, the better soils pass out of cultivation, and the 
 once free and happy people become the slaves of the Medici. 
 She increased her machinery of exchange and diminished its 
 power. Bows, and swords, and muskets became more nu- 
 merous as spades and pickaxes disappeared, and the product 
 of the former proved to be far less than had been that of the 
 latter. 
 
 Spain expelled that portion of her people which used little 
 machinery of exchange, and which therefore had a larger 
 proportion of their time to devote to cultivating the powers 
 of the great machine. Another portion, with arms in their 
 hands, cultivated Sicily, Naples, Tuscany and the Milanese : 
 a third, the distant soil of the Netherlands : and a fourth 
 those of Peru and Mexico : and thus she increased her 
 machinery of exchange while diminishing the product to 
 be exchanged. With each step in the process she became 
 poorer, and men now may starve in Andalusia while the silos 
 of Castile are filled with grain, the mere cost of transportation 
 on the backs of mules placing it beyond the reach of the poor 
 Andalusian's purse. Her people are still in a state of bar- 
 barism, from having been forced to abandon the rich soils, 
 and take to the poor ones, having used too much bad machi- 
 nery of exchange. 
 
 For more than a thousand years, the sovereigns, nobles, 
 and gentlemen of France, have been engaged in the cul- 
 tivation of the soils of the Netherlands and Germany, Ca- 
 talonia and Piedmont, the Milanese and Naples : and more 
 recently they have extended their operations as far as Rus- 
 sia ; while Canada and Cayenne, India and Egypt have at 
 various Hmes claimed their attention. The study of that 
 
106 WEALTH. 
 
 nation has been to increase the machinery of exchange, and 
 diminish that of production. Swords have abounded while 
 spades were rare. Cannon were numerous, wMe roadsj 
 scarcely existed. Forts and castles were built by men to 
 w^hom grist-mills were machines unknown. Ships of war 
 were numerous, but merchant ships were scarce. Camps 
 grew and cities decayed. Gentlemen became more nume- 
 rous as ploughmen disappeared. The soil they cultivated, 
 however, bore 
 
 " Dead Sea fruits that tempt the eye, 
 But turn to ashes on the lips."* 
 
 France is poor. She cultivates the poor soils, for want 
 
 * "From 1803 to 1815, twelve campaigns cost us nearly a million of men, 
 who died in the field of battle, or in the prisons, or on the roads, or in the hospitals, 
 and six thousand millions of francs. * * * 
 
 " Two invasions destroyed or coyisumed, on the soil of old France, fifteen hun- 
 dred millions of raiv products, or of manufactures, of houses, of workshops, of 
 machines, and of animals, indispensable to agriculture, to manufactures, or to 
 commerce. As the price of peace, in the name of the alliance, our country has 
 seen herself compelled to pay fifteen hundred additional millions, that she 
 might not too soon regain her well being, her splendour, and her power. Be- 
 hold, in ta-elve years, nine thousand millions of francs,'" (seventeen hundred 
 millions of dollars,) "■taken fi-om the productive industi-y of France and lost for 
 ever. We found ourselves thus dispossessed of all our conquests, and with 
 two hundred thousand strangers encamped on our territory, where they lived, 
 at the expense of our glory and of our fortune, until the end of the year 
 1818.''— Bupin. 
 
 The results of this course of operation are found in the following statement 
 by an eminent French engineer : — " I have frequently traversed in different de- 
 partments, twenty square leagues, without meeting with a canal, a road, a facto- 
 ry, or even an inhabited estate. The country seemed a place of exile abandoned 
 to the miserable, whose interests and whose wants are equally misunderstood, 
 and whose distress is constantly increasing, because of the low prices of their 
 products, and the cost of transportation." — ilf. Cordier. 
 
 " The conditions of the poorer farmers, daily labourers, and beggars, are so 
 near akin, that the passage from one state to another is very frequent. Men- 
 dicity is not deemed disgraceful in Brittany. Farmers allow their children to 
 beg along the roads. On saints' days, especially the festivals of celebrated 
 saints, the aged, infirm, and children of poor farmers, and labourers, turn out. 
 Some small hamlets are even totally abandoned by their inhabitants for two 
 or three days. All attend the festival to beg. * * The principal cause of 
 misery is inebriety ; its frequency among the lower orders keeps them in po- 
 verty. The cabaret, (wine and brandy shop,) absorbs a greater part of their 
 earnings." — Report to the Commissioners on the Poor Laws. 
 
WEALTH. 107 
 
 of machinery to enable her to reach the better. For a po- 
 pulation of thirty-five millions, she raises five hundred and 
 twenty millions of bushels of wheat, rye, barley, oats, Indian 
 corn and buckwheat, and about half that quantity of pota- 
 toes. Her wheat lands vary from five to twenty bushels per 
 acre, the average being about ten. Her cattle are few and 
 poor : as are her sheep. Her manure diminishes, and her 
 seed increases. Her horses, her food and her fuel, to a vast 
 extent, she imports : and pays for them in the produce of 
 looms that yield but little, because of the universal poverty 
 that forbids improvement of machinery, or combination of ac- 
 tion. Her production of solid food, divided among the whole 
 people, gives the equivalent of three hundred and forty-three 
 pounds of bread, and thirty pounds of meat, per annum, to 
 each individual ; while of wine, beer, cider, perry and bran- 
 dy, the amount is one hundred and sixty pounds per annum, 
 or nearly half as much. The labour that water-drinkers 
 would employ in producing corn, is in France given to pro- 
 ducing wine and other liquors ; of which the consumption 
 averages twenty gallons per annum, for every man, woman, 
 and child in the kingdom. Of what is the actual distribution 
 of food an idea may be formed from the fact that the ave- 
 rage income of more than two-thirds of the population is 
 but six cents per day, yielding twenty-four cents for the 
 support of a man, his wife and two children : and that 
 in a country in which the average price of w^heat, from 
 1816 to 1835, was about $1.20 per bushel, and where the 
 profits of the retailer, and the cost of transportation are large ; 
 so that ten pounds of wheat may be taken as the value of the 
 earnings of the whole family. Under such circumstances it 
 is not matter of surprise that ignorance of true economy 
 should so far exist as to render it exceedingly difficult to in- 
 troduce improvements in the machinery of exchange at 
 home, as has been shown in the case of the ingenious Jac- 
 quard, w^hose life was unsafe because he invented a ma- 
 
1 08 WEALTH. 
 
 chine of greater power than those already in use. The tur- 
 bulence of French workmen is in the direct ratio of their po- 
 verty, and that is exceeding great. France now proposes to 
 transport a portion of her people to Algeria, that they may 
 there raise food to be paid for in the products of the ever- 
 wretched artisans of Lyons and Sedan, who are surrounded 
 by fertile soils that would yield largely, and require no troops 
 to protect their labourers. The effort of that country, from 
 the days of Clovis to the present time, has been to increase 
 the quantity of her machinery of exchange, and to prevent 
 any improvement in its quality : thereby precluding any in- 
 crease in the quantity of labour that might be applied to the 
 development of the powers of the great food-producing ma- 
 chine. Population doubles in about a hundred and twenty 
 years, and wealth scarcely more rapidly. Those who labour 
 are but little removed from starvation, and those who do not, 
 divide among themselves the great mass of the products. 
 The government takes thirty per cent, of the product of land 
 for taxes on the land itself, and on the registration of deeds, 
 mortgages, &c. Interest on the innumerable mortgages with 
 which the country is almost literally covered, absorbs nearly 
 forty per cent., leaving thirty per cent, to be divided between 
 the producer and the lawyers, who now, as in all past times, 
 are numerous beyond imagination, and live on the endless 
 litigation to which poverty gives rise. Vast machinery and 
 small production is everywhere the characteristic of France, 
 and has been so from the days of Charlemagne. Under 
 such circumstances, the exceeding poverty of the people is 
 not matter of surprise ; nor is it extraordinary that wealth and 
 population cannot, and do not, increase. At all periods of 
 her history, her ^people have shown themselves well disposed 
 to honest industry, and Jacques Bonhomme has, at times, 
 manifested the possession of all the qualities required in a 
 good citizen : but labour, or the care of labourers, was not 
 the business of gentlemen, i. e. of people who carried arms, 
 
WEALTH. 109 
 
 and who generally owed their place in the world to the fact 
 that their fathers, or grandfathers, had profited largely by the 
 cultivation of the rich soils afforded by the plunder of the 
 cities of Italy or the Netherlands : or who like La Hire, Sain- 
 trailles, Dammartin, and Dunois, << the young and brave," had 
 distinguished themselves as ecorcheurs, i. e. flayers, of the un- 
 happy class at home engaged in preparing the great machine 
 required for the production of food. It was their especial 
 privilege to seek plunder and glory, and to collect taxes for the 
 payment of their assistants in the work : and the payment of 
 those taxes exhausted, as it now still exhausts, the power of 
 the country ; and meadows are abandoned, while men culti- 
 vate thin soils which yield five bushels to the acre, or about 
 three times the seed. 
 
 The insular position of England gave her security from in- 
 vasion. Security tended largely to promote the growth of 
 wealth and freedom, and comparative freedom tended to fa- 
 cilitate the further growth of wealth. That wealth, however, 
 was not permitted to be applied to the improvement of the 
 great food-producing machine. The Church had an interest, 
 amounting to one-tenth, in all its products, increase as they 
 might ; and the owner of the land was unwilling to invest 
 his means in improving property liable to such a tax, while 
 the labourer felt little disposed to exert himself when so large 
 a portion of his products was not to be subject to his own 
 disposition. The owner of the remaining nine-tenths was 
 rarely a free agent. In some cases, his property was en- 
 tailed, and if he began to cut the timber, his son regarded 
 the act as waste, and an injunction followed. If his lands 
 required drainage, he could not pledge the income beyond his 
 life, and it remained undrained. When not entailed, it was 
 burthened with endless settlements, dowers, remainders, life- 
 interests, &c., while lawyers surrounded it with forms so end- 
 less that a conveyance was one of the most serious affairs 
 of life. The law of succession gave the whole to the eldest 
 
 10 
 
110 WEALTH. 
 
 son, who was thus made sufficiently rich to desire to do no- 
 thing, while his brothers and sisters were rendered too poor 
 to be able to do any thing for themselves, and were gene- 
 rally thrown on the bounty of the state. Wealth grew ra- 
 pidly, for internal peace prevailed, but it could not go on the 
 land, and it had to seek an outlet. It sought manufactures 
 and commerce, there to obtain, by aid of expensive machi- 
 nery, temporary in its duration, a less reward than could 
 have been obtained at home while making the great ma- 
 chine. The consequence was that capital, and ships, and 
 manufactures, and gentlemen, and labourers, were all super- 
 abundant, and food alone was scarce. To find a market for 
 manufactures, employment for ships, and poor gentlemen, 
 and labourers, colonies were needed : and then, in order that 
 they might use as much as possible of the machinery of ex- 
 change, it became necessary to compel them to send their 
 raw materials to England ; and they were prohibited from 
 making even hob-nails, or from effecting exchanges among 
 themselves, except through the medium of English ports and 
 English merchants. Other powers were equally desirous to 
 preserve the power of taxing their colonies, but England 
 deemed it right to resist in others what she practised herself, 
 and her colonists were encouraged to engage in the trade of 
 smuggling the products of the machinery which England was 
 thus determined to use. Smuggling led to wars, and wars 
 gave occasion to freebooters like Drake and Hawkins, to im- 
 mortalize themselves by plundering and burning towns and 
 murdering their inhabitants. Wars were expensive, and in- 
 volved a necessity for heavy taxes, but colonies were to be 
 maintained in order that employment might be had for the 
 looms and ships of England ; and taxes gave support to the sons 
 of gentlemen who would not permit their shares of the great 
 machine to be improved. Navigation laws drove the ships 
 of other nations from the ocean, while " Rules of '56," and 
 other rules, and later, " Orders in Council " drove them from 
 
WEALTH. Ill 
 
 the sea in time of war. "Ships, colonies, and commerce" 
 were the great wants of England. For these, she has involved 
 herself in endless wars. For these, she has committed enor- 
 mous crimes : and all because she has pertinaciously insisted 
 upon using the inferior in preference to the superior machi- 
 nery of production. For these, she has sent embassies at enor- 
 mous cost to distant nations, and has maintained the most 
 expensive fleets and armies : her sole object being the sale of 
 cloth, and knives, and china ware.* England was to be made 
 the workshop of the world at any cost. France marched with 
 the sword alone. England with the sword in one hand and 
 a piece of cloth in the other. Manufactures were too cheap 
 at home, and food too dear. Manufacturers wanted cheap 
 food, and the landlord gave them corn laws to enable him to 
 waste his capital and still get rents : but he gave them also 
 ships and men to enable them to prevent the world abroad 
 from placing the consumer by the producer, and to compel 
 them to do that which he himself would not do, i. e. in- 
 crease the supply of the raw produce of the earth : to be 
 transported in British ships, wrought in British looms, and 
 re-transported in British ships to the place of consumption. 
 
 The necessary consequence of such a course of action has 
 been an unceasing disturbance of the movements of all other 
 countries. Labour was not permitted, in England, to seek 
 employment on the great machine of production, and it was 
 superabundant and cheap. Capital, in like manner, was 
 denied employment, and it too was cheap. Both these were 
 then placed under the control of ship-owners and manufac- 
 turers, to enable them to force upon other nations cloths pro- 
 duced by women and children who had little food, and very 
 
 * " The history of the colonies for many years is that of a series of loss, 
 and of the destruction of capital ; and if to the many millions of private ca- 
 pital which have been thus wasted, were added some hundred millions that 
 have been raised by British taxes, and spent on account of the colonies, the 
 total loss to the British public of wealth which the colonies have occasioned, 
 would appear to be quite enormous." — Parnell. 
 
112 WEALTH. 
 
 little to spare for clothing ;* many of whom went in rags, 
 and some absolutely naked,f that other nations might have 
 clothing cheap. 
 
 In the natural course of things, the fashioner, whether of 
 wood or of wool, takes his place by the side of the producer 
 of the food he is to consume, because the transportation of 
 food requires the use of a quantity of the machinery of ex- 
 change so far exceeding that required for the transportation 
 of all other commodities required by the labourer. The 
 policy of England was opposed to this course of action. She 
 had forced herself into the position of being the great fash- 
 ioner of the world, and there she was disposed to remain. 
 It was, however, an artificial state of things, and, as is always 
 the case where capital and labour are denied permission to 
 take their natural course, it was liable to perpetual change. 
 The thirst for colonies produced wars, and then her armies 
 consumed foreign food, paid for with manufactures. Peace 
 came, and she wanted no food. The other parties then could 
 take no cloths or knives, and her artisans perished by thou- 
 sands. Sometimes cloths and knives were dear, because she 
 had found employment for her people and her wealth in war, 
 or perhaps in founding new colonies. Other nations then 
 attempted to place the consumer by the producer. Peace 
 made capital and labour, cloths and knives, cheap, and 
 manufacturers elsewhere were ruined. Prices rose again. 
 Another effort was made. Prices fell, and again were they 
 ruined. 
 
 * By reference to the report of the Assistant Commissioner charged with 
 the inquiry into the condition of women and children employed in agricul- 
 ture, it will be seen that a change of clothes seems to be out of the question. 
 The upper parts of the under-clothes of women at work, even their stays, 
 quickly become wet with perspiration, while the lower parts cannot escape 
 getting equally wet in nearly every kind of work in which they are employed, 
 except in the driest weather. It not unfrequently happens that a woman, on 
 returning from work, is obliged to go to bed for an hour or two to allow her 
 clothes to be dried. It is also by no means uncommon for her, if she does 
 not do this, to put them on again the next morning nearly as wet as when 
 she took them off. 
 
 ■{■ See Parliamentary Report on the Coal Mines of Great Britain. 
 
WEALTH. 113 
 
 In India, she killed the cotton manufacturer. The Hindoo 
 then exported cotton. In America, she drove the people to 
 the west to raise food, when they would have preferred to 
 remain at home and consume food, while making cloth. 
 Food was rendered so cheap that the planter abandoned 
 food and went to cotton. Cotton was rendered so cheap that 
 the Hindoo w^as ruined. The Hindoo, deprived of his two 
 great trades, turned his attention to opium. The Chinese 
 government did not like the trade, and tried to put it down. 
 England made war, destroyed a few^ thousand lives, and 
 many, very many, millions of property, and thus established 
 the right of her subjects to furnish to the Chinese the means 
 of intoxication. The planters of the south, driven from food 
 to cotton, first ruined the Hindoo, and then were nearly 
 ruined themselves. They now raise food, and make ploughs 
 and other machines required in agriculture, and some of them 
 convert their own cotton into cloth. They are placing the 
 consumer by the producer, and the consequence is, that they 
 are better paid for the cotton they have to sell, having 
 greatly diminished their machinery of exchange, while 
 rendering it more efficient. England now threatens them 
 with the Hindoo as a rival producer of their great staple. 
 Such is the character of the whole system. It is one of 
 endless interference, and it has tended to produce elsew^here 
 other interferences with trade, having for their great object 
 security against its effects. Tariffs of protection are uni- 
 versal ; and with every new one has arisen in that country 
 a desire for new colonies, to be governed by laws made at 
 home, by virtue of which she may compel her subjects to 
 use the machinery of exchange she thus insists upon pro- 
 viding for the use of the world. She employs her people in 
 cultivating poor soils in Canada, South Africa, Austraha and 
 New Zealand, while the richest soils of Britain are yet un- 
 drained : and thus obtains, by aid of the most expensive ma- 
 chinery of exchange, commodities that could be produced 
 at home with half the labour. 
 
114 WEALTH. 
 
 The eyes of England have always been turned froiii 
 home. She must and would have ships, colonies, and com- 
 merce. To that desire is due the waste of thousands of 
 millions : of more than would have sufficed to cover the 
 island with railroads ; to render every field a garden ; to 
 provide food in abundance for a population five times greater 
 than now finds subsistence on her soil, and composed of a 
 healthy, hardy race, capable of guarding their own rights, 
 and regulating for themselves the hours of labour, the drain- 
 age of houses, the mode and expense of interments, and a 
 thousand other things, in reference to w^hich they are now 
 compelled to claim parliamentary interference: by which is 
 indicated an extreme inability to protect themselves. 
 
 The state of things that has existed during the last thirty 
 years is the strongest commentary on the system. It is im- 
 possible to look at any work on British agriculture without 
 being struck with its backward state in most parts of the 
 kingdom, when compared with what might naturally have 
 been looked for in a country so abounding in wealth and 
 population. The cry is everywhere that the people are 
 too numerous ; yet the best lands in many of the counties 
 are badly cultivated, although wealth so much abounds that 
 it has been made a matter of question whether it might not 
 be too abundant for the prosperity of a nation !* So abound- 
 ing, it has, however, been almost as often the question 
 where to get it, as how to be rid of it. For the first few 
 years that followed the Congress of Vienna, it was lent to all 
 the arbitrary sovereigns of Europe. In 1825, it was sent 
 throughout Spanish America. In 1835, it was sent to all 
 North America. Between each of these, however, was a 
 period of extreme distress to manufacturers and ship-owners ; 
 of starvation to operatives, and of ruin to tenants ; and such 
 would continue to be the case were the system to be con- 
 tinued. None was ever devised so well calculated to retard, 
 
 * Wakefield's Notes to Smith's Wealth of Nations. 
 
WEALTH. 115 
 
 without the aid of war, the progress of a nation. It has suc- 
 ceeded in rendering men and wealth superabundant in a na- 
 tion that imports food, which yet can, even now, produce it 
 at less cost of labour than any other of the world, America not 
 excepted; and it has also succeeded in causing the waste of 
 hundreds of millions in loans, mines, colonies, &c., of which 
 but a small part will ever return. 
 
 A change has come over the system, and England is now 
 making a market at home for labour and capital. She is 
 at present fairly engaged in building up the great food-pro- 
 ducing machine, and preparing to bring the supply of the 
 necessaries of life up to a level with the demands for con- 
 sumption. She is substituting the permanent for the tempo- 
 rary; and, with each step of her progress in this direction, 
 capital and labour are becoming more valuable. A century 
 since consols were at 107. They are now at 80, after having 
 been, quite recently, by one of the disturbances to which we 
 have referred, forced up to par. England is the richest na- 
 tion of Europe ; and she owes that distinction to the fact that 
 she has enjoyed peace at home, although she has grievously 
 disturbed the peace of others abroad. She has, on many 
 occasions, failed, totally, to respect in others the rights she de- 
 sired others to respect in herself. To these failures is due the 
 anomalous position in which she stands. With fertile lands 
 and immense wealth, her soil is covered with alms-houses. 
 A continuance of the system which is now in course of being 
 pursued, will lead, if even the experience of the last few 
 years has not already led, to the conclusion, that the judicious 
 employment of labour and capital begets a market for both. 
 The railroads that have been made have caused the absorp- 
 tion of a vast amount of both in agricultural improvement, 
 which, in its turn, produces a demand for new roads, and 
 they produce a demand for labour. Wages rise, and houses 
 are wanted, and coal, and lime, and marl, and clothing ; and 
 the demand for labour and capital again increases ; and thus 
 on and on, each producing, and produced by, the oth?r, 
 
116 WEALTH. 
 
 with a constantly augmenting wealth, and constant improve- 
 ment of condition.* 
 
 For more than two hundred years from the landing of the 
 Pilgrims, the people of the United States never struck a 
 blow, except in defence of their rights. f Their movement 
 westward was of the most gradual kind ; and although occa- 
 sional difficulties have arisen with the aborigines, the change 
 of occupants has, uniformly, been effected with less trouble, 
 and less effusion of blood, than has been witnessed in any 
 other portion of the world except, perhaps, Australia, where 
 the wretched inhabitants were too miserable to think of re- 
 sistance. During the whole period, we may trace the natu- 
 ral effort to place the consumer by the side of the producer, 
 and thus to diminish the loss resulting from the use of costly 
 machinery of exchange ; and during the whole we see the 
 effort counteracted by the false direction given to the capital 
 and labour of England. Laws were passed prohibiting va- 
 rious species of manufactures in the colonies, while others 
 forbade their trading with each other, and thus North Caro- 
 lina and Massachusetts were forced to exchange their pro- 
 ducts through the medium of the ports of England. Twenty- 
 two years of European war produced a great demand foi 
 food, and tended to the dispersion of the people for raising it 
 to supply the wants of people who thus preferred the use of 
 swords to that of ploughs. Years of disturbed relations with 
 England tended to produce concentration, and labour and 
 capital were applied to fashioning the produce which other- 
 wise might have been exported in its rude state. Robbery 
 and oppression on the high seas forced them to this effort to 
 place the consumer by the side of the producer. Peace 
 came, and the whole wealth of England was turned to manu- 
 factures, while armies ceased to waste food. The farmers 
 
 * Such would be the effect of this operation, gently and quietly pursued; bul 
 whit are to be the momentary effects of a railroad mania, producing eiforts to 
 do in three years what should be done in ten, remains yet to be seen. 
 
 + We should be glad if we could say the same of the past two years. 
 
WEALTH. 117 
 
 and manufacturers of the United States were both ruined, 
 and hence arose the first demand for protection by means of 
 a tariff. A few years passed by, and then the years of <' pros- 
 perity," so loudly vaunted by the Premier as permanent, were 
 followed by the universal ruin of 1826, in which were swept 
 away a new set of manufacturers engaged in finding a market 
 at home for the supplies of food no longer needed abroad. 
 The consequence was the tariff of 1828, which was followed 
 by the act known by the name of the Compromise (1832); 
 and it would be difficult to find in history an instance of more 
 equitable and quiet adjustment of a difficult question. From 
 the time of its passage until the year 1836, however, capital 
 was steadily accumulating in England, and seeking a vent 
 abroad, as railroads then were scarcely permitted at home. 
 Much of it came to the United States, in the form of iron and 
 cloth, to be applied to the making of roads, or of clothing for 
 the people employed in making them. The roads half-made, 
 the collapse came, and all again was ruin. The Compromise 
 was killed, and the tariff of 1842 took its place. That of 
 1846 has succeeded it ; and now we have another collapse. 
 English factories are closed, and artisans are discharged, 
 and thousands of houses are vacated because of the impos- 
 sibility of paying rent. Railroads still go on, and furnaces 
 are still employed, but panic is the order of the day, and all 
 may stop : and then the iron-makers of America will be ruined. 
 It is scarcely possible to study this brief history without 
 seeing that the interferences which have existed have been the 
 result of a natural effort at self-preservation. In the regular 
 course of human affairs, the man who makes the shoes eats 
 the food produced by the man who desires to wear them ; and 
 he does so because it is easier for him to bring the awl and 
 the lapstone, by aid of which he may make ten thousand 
 pairs of shoes, than it is for the farmer to carry to him the 
 food necessary for his support while doing it. This ten- 
 dency struggles incessantly to develope itself, and is seen 
 on every occasion making its appearance, but it has almost 
 
118 WEALTH. 
 
 invariably been crushed ; the effect of which has been that 
 the people of the United States are now far more widely 
 scattered, and far less wealthy, than they would otherwise 
 have been. They have been compelled to use a vast 
 quantity of inferior machinery of exchange, in the form of 
 roads and wagons, in place of the superior machinery of 
 steam-engines and mills : and they have been driven to 
 begin on poor soils in the West, yielding ten bushels of wheat 
 to the acre, when otherwise they might have worked their 
 way down into the rich soils of the river bottoms farther 
 east ; portions of which may at all times be bought for far 
 less than the cost of production. Pennsylvania abounds in 
 bottom-land that will be cultivated when the farmer can find 
 a market at his door for milk and cream, and butter ; but in 
 the mean time her citizens go west to seek other lands that 
 may produce something that will bear carriage to the distant 
 markets of the world. It is now obvious what has been the 
 cause of this, the single case in which the policy of the 
 Union has appeared to depart from the direction of perfect 
 freedom of trade. We have always deemed such interfer- 
 ences erroneous, but are now well satisfied that the error 
 has been with us. 
 
 Man must everywhere commence with the poor soils, and 
 the richer ones cannot be cultivated until the consumer and 
 the producer are brought together. Whatever foreign inter- 
 ference tends to prevent this union, tends to compel men to 
 scatter themselves over poor soils, to prevent increase in the 
 reward to labour, and to prevent advance in civilization : 
 and resistance to such interference is a necessary act of 
 self-defence. The article of chief consumption is food, of 
 which rich soils would yield larger quantities in return to 
 half the labour required on the poor ones ; and half the dif- 
 ference would convert into cloth all the cotton and wool pro- 
 duced, and make the iron used, in the Union. Such being the 
 case, the exports required to pay for English labour are so 
 much absolute loss, while the great machine itself suffers in 
 
WEALTH. 119 
 
 the loss of labour that would double it in product and in 
 value. It has been an effort of the people to diminish their 
 necessities, and to increase their power over their own actions. 
 The case is not unlike one that has recently occurred, 
 in which the people of a neighbourhood themselves did 
 what the whole people have partially done in the other. 
 The steamboat fare in a particular case was deemed too 
 high. Opposition boats, at half price, were repeatedly at- 
 tempted, and as repeatedly run off by reducing the fare so 
 low that opposition could not live. Another was attempted, 
 and the price of the old boat was reduced to one-fourth ; 
 but the farmers, wiser grown, taxed themselves the additional 
 quarter and refused to leave the new boat, and after two 
 years of ineffectual contest, the price was fixed permanently 
 at half the original price. The resistance offered by the 
 American tariff* tended greatly to produce, if, indeed, it was 
 not the absolute cause of the abolition of the corn laws ; 
 and that measure was precisely the one needed for giving 
 the right direction to the capital of England. She will now 
 become more extensively agricultural, and the United States 
 may, at some future time, be enabled to concentrate their 
 population upon the rich soils, instead of scattering so widely 
 as they have heretofore done : and as, by degrees, these two 
 effects shall be produced, the necessity for protection will 
 disappear. 
 
 If the view we have thus offered be correct, as we believe 
 it to be, it will be obvious that the people of the United 
 States have done in commerce as they have elsewhere done, 
 and that they have engaged in no war of any description 
 whatsoever, except for self-defence. The consequence of 
 this is, the great fact that the poor and scattered colonists 
 of sixty years since now constitute the wealthiest nation in 
 the world. They have accumulated, within a very brief 
 period, a larger property than is possessed even by the 
 United Kingdom, the wealthiest community of the eastern 
 hemisphere. They make a larger dividend on a larger 
 
1.20 WEALTH. 
 
 capital, and that dividend is made among twenty-one mil- 
 lions ; whereas, that of the other is the portion of twenty- 
 eight millions. The consequence is, that they are better fed, 
 better clothed, better lodged, better warmed, and better 
 taught, than any other community. Such is the result of 
 peace abroad, combined with abstinence from interference at 
 home. That such should be the case, is the great triumph 
 of freedom of trade. They have had no excise officers, or 
 tax gatherers, to interfere with the exchanges of property 
 within, while the interferences with exchanges abroad ap- 
 pear to have been even less than were absolutely necessary 
 for self-protection. Indeed, so strong is the tendency to ab- 
 stinence from interference, that it has always been to us a 
 matter of surprise that there should ever have been found 
 a majority of the people to sanction any ; yet it now appears 
 that it was the result of an instinctive consciousness of what 
 was indispensable for the improvement of their condition : 
 and that that instinct was a safer guide than the theories of 
 those would have directed them. 
 
 To many, the correctness of this assertion of the superior 
 wealth of the Union may appear doubtful, but a little exami- 
 nation will satisfy them of its truth. That of Great Britain 
 appears greater, because more centralized. The government 
 can borrow money more readily ; but that it can do so is only 
 evidence that capital is not invested as fast as it is produced : 
 that it stagnates : which it never does except where there is 
 some error in the system. At no period during the last sixty 
 years was she so poor as in 1813 ; yet at none did the 
 government make larger loans, or more readily. In the his- 
 tory of France, we are constantly struck with the facility of 
 obtaining loans, while the country appears to be in a state 
 of universal misery and wretchedness. That misery was the 
 result of enormous taxation, by which the few were enriched, 
 and they were always ready to lend to the party by whose aid 
 tlieir taxes were collected. The people were too poor and 
 miserable, and property was too insecure, to permit the exist- 
 
WEALTH. 121 
 
 ence of a demand for capital ; and therefore it was that the 
 government could borrow at five per cent, at a time when 
 failure in the payment of interest was a matter of frequent 
 occurrence. Such, likewise, was the case in Florence, in 
 time of distress. The government could always borrow, and 
 most readily when wars had rendered property so insecure 
 that trade was almost at an end. The little states of Ger- 
 many now borrow at four and a half per cent, from bankers 
 and others who are enriched at the expense of the labourer 
 and taxpayer; but this is an evidence of poverty, and not of 
 wealth. Of a thousand, or ten thousand men: or even hun- 
 dreds of thousands: each occupying a farm of fifty acres, 
 scarcely one will have, at any time, a thousand dollars to 
 lend, because each appropriates his profits as fast as earned 
 to the improvement of his farm : to bringing the better soils 
 into operation. Had they a landlord, they would be steadily 
 engaged in laying up that which they would otherwise thus 
 promptly have invested, and on rent-day the proprietor might 
 have $20,000 or $50,000 to lend to government : but the fer- 
 tile soils would remain inactive unless he chose to make them 
 active, and he might not choose it. Had they a debt of hun- 
 dreds of millions, quarter-day would see accumulated the large 
 sums required for the dividends, and it would then rest with 
 the public creditors to determine upon the mode of investment, 
 and governments would borrow without diflSculty; whereas, 
 had no such debt existed, each workman, each labourer, each 
 farmer, and each manufacturer, would have invested for 
 his own advantage, as fast as it was made, the amount 
 that otherwise he would have contributed to this fund. In 
 Great Britain both these causes of disturbance may be found, 
 and hence she appears richer thanshe is; while in the United 
 States neither exists, and hence they are richer than they 
 appear; and the rapidity of increase where every man invests 
 on the instant, and on his own property, his otherwise spare 
 labour, or surplus proceeds of labour, is so prodigious as to 
 defy calculation. They are now the wealthiest nation in the 
 
 11 
 
122 WEALTH. 
 
 world : and their annual accumulations are at least double 
 those of Great Britain and Ireland, although their average 
 expenditure is greater. They spend more, and yet econo- 
 mize a greater 'proportion of their earnings than any people 
 in the world. 
 
 The man who employs his children in robbing his neigh- 
 bours' barns and hen-roosts, and lets his farm remain un- 
 tilled : will continue poor. The soil he cultivates is appa- 
 rently rich, but really barren. Such has been the course of 
 France. The man who builds a mill in which to grind his 
 neighbours' grain, and sends a portion of his children to 
 cultivate distant lands, while employing others of them in 
 building wagons and in hauling home their grain, wMe his own 
 farm remains untilled, will continue poor. He loses labour 
 and manure. The man who does these things, and half-cul- 
 tivates a large farm, the profits of which make some amends 
 for losses elsewhere, may grow rich slowly. He loses much 
 labour and manure. Such has been the course of England. 
 
 The farmer who minds his own business, and thus attracts 
 around him the miller, the tanner, the shoemaker, the black- 
 smith, the carpenter, the wheelwright, the hatter, the spin- 
 ner, the weaver, and the paper-maker, performs all his ex- 
 changes w4th the most perfect and the least costly machinery 
 of exchange ; and has almost all his labour and manure to 
 put upon his farm, which yields him daily increased returns 
 to that labour, and increases daily in value. He becomes 
 rich. Such has been, so far as it was possible, the course of 
 the United States ; and hence their greater wealth. 
 
 Such being the case, it may be asked how it happens that 
 several of the States of the Union have been involved in so 
 much difficulty in regard to the payment of interest on the mo- 
 ney borrowed for the construction of roads and canals ? The 
 cause is, we think, easily explained. The tendency of the 
 English system has been that of forcing manufactures and 
 
WEALTH. 123 
 
 trade, the consequence of which has been that all other na- 
 tions have experienced a difficulty in concentrating their 
 population sufficiently to enable them to cultivate the rich 
 soils ; and this in the precise ratio of their intercourse with 
 her. The people of the United States have felt this in the 
 highest degree. They have been forced to scatter themselves 
 over the west, that they might raise food to send abroad to 
 pay for clothing ; and what they needed was machinery of 
 exchange in the form of roads. Those who did thus scatter 
 were poor, for they cultivated soils that yielded small returns; 
 although surrounded by fertile soils covered with timber that 
 they could not yet remove, or by swamps that they were un- 
 able yet to drain. 
 
 Pennsylvania still to a vast extent cultivated poor soils, 
 while timber abounded in her river-bottoms : and she still was 
 obliged to depend upon her woods for fuel and fencing, 
 while her lands abounded in iron and coal. She had tried 
 to convert her ore into iron, but had suffered heavily by un- 
 ceasing fluctuations resulting from the unnatural state of 
 things in England. She had tried manufactures : every 
 thing, in short, tending to bring the fashioner to the side 
 of the producer, and thus diminish the cost of the ma- 
 chinery of exchange. Her people were leaving the coal 
 and the ore, to travel west in quest of other lands on which 
 to raise more of the already superabundant food. To get 
 this food to market, or to render the vast deposits of coal and 
 ore productive, roads and canals were needed : and this was 
 the great want of the whole country from the Hudson to the 
 Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi, because the policy of 
 England limited them to these as their only machinery of 
 exchange. In this state of things, commenced in that coun- 
 try one of her periodical overflows of capital. It had been 
 most abundant in 1825, and all the world had been ruined 
 in 1826 by the excessive scarcity consequent upon its waste 
 in the mines of Mexico and elsew^here. It overflowed again 
 in 1831, and the change of that year ruined many, and 
 
124 WEALTH. 
 
 rendered very many others indisposed to encounter the risks 
 of trade. In 1833, it commenced again to overflow, the 
 reason for which was to be found in the fact that the Legisla- 
 ture pertinaciously refused to permit its investment at home. 
 The Liverpool and Manchester Railroad had succeeded, and 
 there was a strong disposition to make other roads; but 
 peers did not approve of locomotives running near their 
 mansions, and charters could not be obtained. Various appli- 
 cations, therefore, were rejected, after great expenditure by 
 the applicants. One of these that we now recollect, the 
 Rugby, spent <£160,000, or $800,000, in the mere effort to 
 obtain an act of incorporation, and failed. As it could 
 not be permitted to remain at home, capital sought a market 
 abroad, among the people of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Indi- 
 ana, and other States south and west, who desired to obtain 
 for themselves better machinery of exchange in the form of 
 roads, railroads, and canals. They had the food, and it 
 could be eaten on the ground ; and England was ready to 
 supply the iron for the roads, and the clothing for those who 
 were to be employed in making them. To work they all 
 went ; but before the roads or canals were so far completed 
 as to be productive, the usual crash came. Capital became 
 so scarce in England that the Bank was on the eve of stop- 
 page ; and traders and manufacturers were ruined by thou- 
 sands. She now wanted to be paid ; but trade was ruined. 
 The downfall there had filled the markets of the world with 
 cloths and iron, and the manufacturers and iron-masters of 
 the Union were ruined by events over which they had no 
 control, and against which they could not have guarded. 
 Mechanics and workmen of all descriptions were discharged, 
 and thousands were compelled to seek employment in agri- 
 culture : and this at the moment when the market for agri- 
 cultural products was so over-stocked that wheat scarcely 
 paid the freight to the Atlantic cities, and corn w^as almost 
 valueless. The half-made roads and canals produced nothing, 
 and the farmers of the States by which they were made, 
 
WEALTH. 125 
 
 could command no money with which to pay taxes by aid 
 of which to meet the interest. Coal ceased to be mined, 
 and th^e canals upon which it had been carried ceased to re- 
 ceive tolls ; while those who had invested their fortunes in 
 opening mines were ruined. England had destroyed the 
 market for corn at home, and she would receive none : not even 
 to feed her starving workmen. The interest ceased to be 
 paid, and then arose one universal yell throughout all Eng- 
 land at the dishonesty of America : of that America whom 
 she had temporarily ruined. Time, however, rolled around, 
 and when corn could again be sold, all gladly co-operated in 
 the effort to place the several States in a position to perform 
 their contracts. At the first moment when such a thing was 
 possible, Pennsylvania, by a unanimous vote of legislators 
 elected hy the votes of every man in the State, determined 
 that payment should be resumed, and it was done : and now 
 she is reducing the principal of the debt. Maryland has fol- 
 lowed : and Illinois and Indiana, both of which were occupied 
 at the time by a very scattered population, are now preparing 
 to follow in her footsteps. A little while hence, and all will 
 have done so, and none will feel so much satisfaction as 
 those who pay the taxes. 
 
 Many who have united in the abuse of Pennsylvania and 
 of other States, and of Americans generally, were, doubtless, 
 ignorant of the cause of difficulty ; and unaware that it was to 
 the perpetual error of English policy, and the perpetual dis- 
 turbance of which it was the cause, that the defalcation on 
 that occasion was due : as well as the losses that on other 
 occasions had fallen on their countrymen. It may safely be 
 asserted that five-sixths of all the failures of the Union in the 
 last half century may be traced to these causes. In that period 
 we have seen the revulsions of 1815, 1819, 1825, 1831, 1836, 
 1839, and 1847, and against such changes no one could 
 guard. Merchants and manufacturers found the markets 
 filled with commodities from abroad, by which their business 
 was destroyed : farmers and miners found their customers 
 
 11* 
 
126 WEALTH. 
 
 ruined : and perpetual failure was the result. In all countries 
 in which peace has prevailed, wealth has grown ; and where 
 such has been the case, the people have always been honest : 
 and to this America is no exception. On the contrary, we 
 think it safe to say that it is the only country in the world in 
 which the w^hole body of the people, from the highest to the 
 lowest: all tax payers : could have been found uniting in a de- 
 termination that the debts of the State should be paid. Were 
 such a question submitted to the whole people of England or 
 of France, the one might do the same, though w^e doubt it : 
 but the other assuredly would not. The security for the 
 debt of Pennsylvania is among the best in the world ; for 
 those who are to pay it have resolved unanimously that it 
 shall be paid. 
 
 The gradual diminution of the consciousness of right, 
 or power, on the part of those who administer the govern- 
 ment towards the people, and the increase in the sense 
 of duty towards them,that accompanies the growth of popu- 
 lation and the cultivation of the better soils, may be traced 
 in England upwards from the closing of the Exchequer 
 by Charles II. to the latter years of the last century, when an 
 exhausting war was diminishing the growth of both wealth 
 and population. From that period, during twenty years, 
 the government paid its debts in paper, sometimes worth 
 but three-fourths of what the creditor had a right to claim. 
 With peace came wealth, and an accelerated growth of popu- 
 lation consequent upon the power of obtaining food in greater 
 abundance ; and with peace returned the feeling of obliga- 
 tion to comply with contracts : and, since 1819, the public 
 creditor has received his interest in full, as he must continue 
 to do, so long as wealth and population shall increase ; 
 and his security will increase with every application of 
 labour to the development of the vast resources contained in 
 the bowels of the earth beneath him ; for with every such 
 application the return to labour will increase, and the neces- 
 sity for armies, fleets, and taxes, will decrease. 
 
WEALTH. - 127 
 
 In France, perpetually engaged in war and in cultivating 
 the poorer soils, there has been little sense of duty, and great 
 consciousness of power on the part of the government ; and 
 hence her history is one of unceasing failure in her duties to 
 the public creditor : first in the refusal to pay interest, and 
 next in the reduction or repudiation of the debt. The most 
 striking case, and only so because the largest in amount, 
 was that of the regent Duke of Orleans. A long period of 
 comparative peace was accompanied by some increase of 
 wealth and population ; and the growing sense of duty was 
 exhibited in the proceedings of Necker and Turgot ; but the 
 consciousness of power prevailed, and they were dismissed. 
 The Revolution followed, with vast waste of treasure and of 
 life. The strong men perished in the field, and the old, the 
 young, and the feeble, combining their exertions w^ith those 
 of the weaker sex, obtained a miserable subsistence from the 
 poorer soils. The public creditor disappeared. His rights 
 were obliterated, and thus power prevailed over duty. Since 
 that period, his rights have been more or less respected ; 
 but the continuance of that respect is dependent upon the 
 growth of population and of wealth. Some are now converting 
 meadows into corn lands, while others are paying the govern- 
 ment for the privilege of abandoning altogether their little 
 inheritances. Whole departments are unable to produce a 
 single horse for sale. Cattle and sheep are becoming poorer. 
 Should this process long continue, the sense of power may 
 prevail over that of duty, and the public creditor may again 
 cease to exist. 
 
 If the reader will now study the history of the public debt of 
 Spain, and mark the total failure of the government in the pay- 
 ment of interest, at those periods when her people were largely 
 engaged in the cultivation of the distant soils of Mexico and 
 Peru, Italy and the Netherlands, and neglecting the richer soils 
 at their feet : of Austria, for a long series of years : of Denmark 
 and of Holland : and, indeed, of every country of the world: 
 he will find that public faith has grown with the cultivation of 
 
128 WEALTH. 
 
 the rich solis, and failure has followed their abandonment: 
 and thus may he acquire a standard absolutely infallible for 
 testing the value of every pubHc stock. So tested, the stocks 
 of the American States present the best security in the world, 
 and their values vary among themselves precisely in the 
 ratio of the difference between the soils they cultivate. Mas- 
 sachusetts goes deepest into her hard soil, while Florida still 
 cultivates the light soils, though abounding in river-bottoms 
 and swamps that wdll at some future period afford great re- 
 turns to labour. New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Mary- 
 land, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Mississippi, now occupy 
 various places in the scale ; but all are growing in wealth and 
 numbers, and all are gradually cultivating better soils, and 
 all will soon place themselves side by side with the great 
 State, the leader in ximerican civilization.* 
 
 The view which we have thus offered of the superiority of 
 the result derived from labour employed in constructing the 
 machine for producing food, to that derived from using other 
 machines of constantly diminishing power, differs greatly 
 from that of the advocates of Mr. Ricardo's system. Thus, 
 Mr. McCulloch says: " There are no limits to the bounty of 
 nature in manufactures ; but there are limits, and those not 
 very remote, to her bounty in agriculture. The greatest 
 possible amount of capital might be expended in the con- 
 struction of steam-engines, or of any other sort of machinery; 
 and after they had been multiplied indefinitely, the last would 
 be as powerful and efficient in producing commodities and 
 saving labour as the first. Such, however, is not the case 
 wiih. the soil. Lands of the first quality are speedily ex- 
 hausted ; and it is impossible to apply capital indefinitely 
 even to the best soils, without obtaining from it a constantly 
 diminishing rate of profit." All this might be true if man did 
 
 * " The civilization of New England has been like a beacon lit upon a hill 
 which, after it has diffused its warmth around, tinges the distant horizon with 
 its glow." — De TorqneviUc. 
 
WEALTH. 129 
 
 speedily exhaust the best soils ; but, as he is always going from 
 a poor soil to a better, aud then returning on his footsteps to the 
 original poor one, and turning up the marl or the lime ; and so 
 on, in continued succession : and as he has done so in every na- 
 tion of the world where population and wealth have been per- 
 mitted to increase : and as, at each step in this course, he is 
 makino; a better machine : the converse of Mr. McCulloch's 
 proposition may prove to be true. It is held that there are no 
 limits to the capital that may be profitably expended in en- 
 gines, because all are equal to the first ; but that there are limits 
 to that which may be employed in agriculture, because, the 
 last is necessarily inferior to the first. If, however, the last 
 agricultural machine be always, as it always is, superior to 
 the previous ones : then capital may be invested in agricul- 
 ture with more advantage than in engines, because the last 
 are only of equal, whereas the other is of superior, power. 
 
 A steam-engine j9roc?Mce5 nothing. It diminishes the labour 
 required for converting wool into cloth, or grain into flour : for 
 freeing mines from water : or for transporting wool, or grain, 
 or coal. The gain from its use is the wages of that labour, 
 minus the loss by deterioration of the machine. Labour ap- 
 plied to fashioning the earth produces wages, plus the gain 
 by improvement of the machine. The more an engine can 
 be made to yield the worse it will become. The more the 
 earth can be made to yield the better will it become. The 
 man who neglects his farm to employ himself and his engine 
 in the work of fashioning or exchanging the products of other 
 farms, obtains wages, minus loss of capital. He who em- 
 ploys himself on his own farm obtains wages, plus profits re- 
 sulting from the improvement of the farm, to the extent that 
 that improvement exceeds the loss from the deterioration of 
 the spades, ploughs, engines, or other machinery that is used 
 
 To test the correctness of this view, we submit tw^o cases to 
 the consideration of the reader. A. and B. have each a horse 
 and cart, and a farm from which they can have three hun- 
 dred bushels of wheat : or its equivalent. An offer is made 
 to give them each that quantity, but the distance is so 
 
130 ^fH^fjm WEALTH. 
 
 great that the hauling will occupy precisely the same time 
 as the raising would do. A. accepts, and B. does not. A. 
 spends his time, and that of his horse and cart, on the road. 
 B. stays at home. When it rains, A. stops in the road-side 
 tavern. B. spends the same day at home, repairing his house. 
 When A.'s horse feeds and rests, his master has nothing to 
 do. B. grubs up an old root, or repairs a fence. A.'s horse 
 deposits his manure in the road. That of B. goes on his 
 farm. A.'s horse hauls every day, and the service performed, 
 nothing remains. B. opens a marl pit, and puts on his land 
 manure for two or three years. At the end of the year A.'s 
 horse and cart are worn out, while B.'s are almost as good 
 as new. The farm of A. has deteriorated, while that of B. 
 is greatly improved. Both have done the same number of 
 days' work, and both have received the same compensation, 
 yet A. is poorer and B. richer than at first. Every diminu- 
 tion in the quantity required of the machinery of exchange 
 tends to increase the quantity of labour, both of body and 
 mind, that may be applied directly to production: and such 
 labour is rewarded with an increased return, and an increase 
 in the powers of the machine itself. Such has been the case 
 in all time past, and such will it ever continue to be. 
 
 It is by this almost insensible contribution of labour that 
 land acquires value. The first object of the poor cultivator 
 of the thin soils is to obtain food and clothing for himself 
 and his family. His leisure is given to the work of improve- 
 ment. At one place he cuts a little drain, and at another 
 he roots out a stump. At one moment he cuts fuel for his 
 family, and thus clears his land ; and at another digs a well 
 to facilitate the watering of his cattle, and thus keep his 
 manure in the stable yard. He knows that the machine will 
 feed him better the more perfectly he fashions it, and that 
 there is always place for his time and his labour to be ex- 
 pended with advantage to himself. 
 
 A piece of land that yields .£100 per annum will sell for 
 jBSOOO. a steam engine that will produce the same, will 
 scarcely command jBIOOO. Why should this difference 
 
WEALTH. • 131 
 
 exist ? It is because the buyer of the first knows that it 
 will pay him wages and interest, plus the increase of its 
 value by use. The buyer of the other knows that it will give 
 him wages and interest, minus the diminution in its value by 
 use. The one takes three and a third per cent.,^/i^5 the differ- 
 ence : the other ten, minus the difference. The one buys a 
 machine that improves by use. The other, one that deterio- 
 rates with use. The one is buying a machine produced by 
 the labour of past times, and to the creation of which has 
 been applied all the spare time of a series of generations : 
 and he gives for it one-third or one-half of the labour that 
 would be now required to produce it in its present state, were 
 it reduced to its original one. That of the other is bought 
 at the actual price of the labour that it has cost. The one 
 is a machine upon which new capital and labour may be 
 expended with constantly increasing return ; while upon the 
 other no such expenditure can be made. We have now 
 before us an account of the operations at Knowsley, where 
 an expenditure of <£7, IQs. per acre for draining has been 
 rewarded by an increase of 205. in rent, or more than 
 thirteen per cent. In another case, where land had been 
 abandoned as totally worthless, labour to the amount of 405. 
 per acre has been attended with a gain of IO5. per acre 
 to the owner, and IO5. to the tenant, making fifty per cent, 
 per annum : without taking into consideration the gain to the 
 labourer in the increased facility of procuring the necessa- 
 ries of life. Lord Stanley, who furnishes this statement, 
 says, and we are sure most truly, that although he and his 
 father have for several years laid a million of tiles per 
 annum, they feel that they had only made a beginning.* We 
 believe that they have, even yet, scarcely begun to think upon 
 the subject. They are only beginning to waken up. We 
 have also before us an account of a field so completely worn 
 
 * Thirty years since, all the tiles laid in the United Kingdom amounted to 
 but seventy-one millions per annum. 
 
132 WEALTH. 
 
 out that it produced, with manure, but five hundred weight 
 of turnips, but which, by being treated with sulphuric acid 
 and bones, was made to yield two hundred and eighty-five 
 hundred weight ; and another, which gave to coal ashes arid 
 coal dust but eighty-eight hundred weight, gave to the acid 
 and bones, two hundred and fifty-one hundred weight. Such 
 profits are not to be found in any other pursuit: and yet 
 England has been wasting her energies on ships, colonies, 
 and commerce, having at her feet an inexhaustible magazine 
 asking only to be worked. 
 
 The improvement above described is remarkable, only be- 
 cause concentrated within a short space of time. Had the 
 land described by Lord Stanley been cultivated by the owner, 
 and had he felt that agriculture was a science worthy of his 
 attention ; the drainage would have taken place gradually, 
 and the improvement would have been marked by a gradual 
 growth in the power to pay better wages and more rent. We 
 have before us a notice of land rented for nine hundred 
 pounds, at the close of a long lease at one hundred and thirty 
 pounds. During all this time, its owner has had interest on 
 his capital, and at the close of the lease, his capital has in- 
 creased seven times. His investment was better than it 
 would have been in steam-engines at ten per cent., because 
 his engineer paid him for the privilege of building up his ma- 
 chine : whereas, the steam-engineer would have required to 
 be paid while wearing the machine out. Everybody is con- 
 tent with small interest, and sometimes with no interest, 
 from land, where population and wealth are rapidly growing, 
 because there capital is steadily augmenting without efibrt. 
 The house in which we write has greatly augmented 
 in value, while we have had interest in the use of it. In- 
 stead of six per cent., we have twenty per cent., and this is 
 the experience of all men who own landed property where 
 population and wealth are permitted to increase : for they will 
 always increase if not prevented by interferences hke those 
 which have existed in England, and to a still greater ex- 
 
WEALTH. 133 
 
 tent in France. The great pursuit of man is agriculture. 
 There is none "in which so many of the laws of nature must 
 be consulted and understood as in the cultivation of the earth. 
 Every change of the season, every change even of the winds, 
 every fall of rain, must affect some of the manifold opera- 
 tions of the farmer. In the improvement of our various do- 
 mestic animals, some of the most abstruse principles of phy- 
 siology must be consulted. Is it to be supposed that men 
 thus called upon to study, or to observe the laws of nature, 
 and labour in conjunction with its powers, require less of the 
 light of the highest science than the merchant or the manu- 
 facturer ?"* It is not. It is the science that requires the 
 greatest knowledge, and the one that pays best for it: and yet 
 England has driven man, and wealth, and mind, into the less 
 profitable pursuits of fashioning and exchanging the products 
 of other lands ; and has expended thousands of millions on 
 fleets and armies to enable her to drive with foreign nations 
 the poor trade : when her own soil offered her the richer one 
 that tends to produce that increase of wealth and concentration 
 of population which have in all times and in all ages given 
 the self-protective power that requires neither fleets, nor 
 armies, nor tax-gatherers. In her efforts to force this trade, 
 she has driven the people of the United States to extend 
 themselves over vast tracts of inferior land when they might 
 'more advantageously have concentrated themselves on rich 
 ones : and she has thus delayed the progress of civilization 
 abroad and at home. She has made it necessary for the 
 people of grain-growing countries to rejoice in the deficien- 
 cies of her harvests, as affording them the outlet for surplus 
 food that they could not consume, and that was sometimes 
 abandoned on the field, as not worth the cost of harvesting; 
 instead of being enabled to rejoice in the knowledge that 
 others were likely to be fed as abundantly as themselves. Her 
 internal system was unsound, and her wealth gave her power 
 
 * Wadsworth's address to the New York Agricultural Society. 
 
 12 
 
134 
 
 WEALTH. 
 
 to make that unsoundness a cause of disturbance to the 
 world : and hence she has appeared to be everywhere re- 
 garded as a sort of common enemy. The tendency of her 
 navigation laws was greatly to increase the quantity required 
 of the machinery of exchange : and the resistance thereto 
 was an instinctive effort at self-protection. That resistance 
 was led by the United States. American ships were not 
 permitted to do what English ships might, and they therefore 
 rendered it impossible for English ships to do certain things 
 that American ships might do. For a brief time English 
 ships came in ballast and went home loaded, and American 
 ships went to England in ballast and brought home cargoes : 
 and thus two ships were doing the work of one. The result 
 was, that all were put upon a footing, and the quantity required 
 of the machinery of exchange was so far diminished that 
 exchanges were performed with far less labour than before ; 
 the consequence of which has been that exchanges have in- 
 creased greatly in number, while the loss by friction: or the 
 cost of exchanging : has fallen, and the work is better done.* 
 It would seem as if the general resistance to English ship- 
 ping and manufactures had been the necessary effort for the 
 establishment of perfect freedom of trade, and for securing 
 to the world at large, eventually, the most perfect efficiency 
 of exchange: while reducing the quantity of machinery re- 
 quired for the purpose.- England could produce food and 
 machinery at less cost of labour than any other country of 
 the world, and every step in that direction would have tended 
 to render production more and more easy. Other countries 
 wanted machinery to enable them to concentrate their popu- 
 lation and to consume their food at home. She refused ma- 
 
 * " Various devices were fallen upon to counteract the navigation system 
 of the Americans, without in any degree relaxing our own : but they all failed 
 of their object ; and at length it became obvious to every one that we had en- 
 gaged in an unequal struggle, and that the real effect of our policy ivas to give 
 a bounty oti the importation of the manufactured goods of other countries into 
 the United States, and thus gradually to exclude our manufactures and our 
 shipping from the ports of the republic."— i)fcC?</Zoc/i. 
 
WEALTH. 135 
 
 chinery, and sent cotton and woollen goods which they would 
 have preferred to make ; and she fixed her prices high or 
 low, as suited her own convenience : the result of which was, 
 that with each successive effort they were ruined. So with 
 ships. Sometimes she would furnish them at low prices, and 
 at other times they were high. If she was at peace she had 
 ships to spare. If at war, they were scarce, and freights 
 were high. The whole system of that country, in past times, 
 has been marked by a desire to force her own capital and 
 labour off in a wrong direction: from the profitable to the un- 
 profitable : and every step she is now making exhibits a ten- 
 dency in the right one. Wiser grown, she now looks to 
 home, and is experiencing, at every turn, the wonderful 
 effect of self-cultivation. She is investing vast wealth in 
 railroads, but it grows with the expenditure ; for she is now 
 building up the great machine to produce food and raw ma- 
 terials of every description for which her climate is suited. 
 She is expending, as we believe, an equal amount of labour 
 in draining and clearing lands ; but her wealth grow^with 
 every step in this direction, for the great machine is producing 
 the food and the clothing that are used in building it. While 
 pursuing agriculture with a spirit heretofore unknown, she is 
 furnishing machinery to almost all Europe : a consequence of 
 all of which is that her exports of cotton goods are no longer 
 what they were. Every steam-engine she sends to the con- 
 tinent tends to produce a demand for railroad iron ; and 
 every railroad makes demands for engines, and for finer com- 
 modities in lieu of the coarser ones she was before accus- 
 tomed to export. Every new soil that is improved at home 
 tends to produce a demand for engines, and every engine 
 tends to increase the power of producing new and better soils. 
 The interests of all are ultimately to be promoted by perfect 
 freedom of trade, and such has always been the case : but 
 the persistence by a nation so wealthy as England in a course 
 so adverse to the growth of civilization at home and abroad, 
 tended to produce discords calculated to render its establish- 
 
136 WEALTH. 
 
 ment absolutely impossible, and a long time may yet be re- 
 quired for its accomplishment. 
 
 The PAST says to the landlord of the preseJjt : "I have 
 erred. I have driven labour and capital from the soil, to be 
 wasted on armies, and fleets, and colonies. Your lands are 
 far less valuable than they might have been made, and 
 your children are forced to seek employment abroad, when 
 they might be more prosperous and happy at home. Take 
 warning by my example. Avoid war, and preparations for 
 war, and your wealth will rapidly increase." 
 
 To the labourer it says: <'I have erred, and you have 
 suffered. Food has been high, and wages low. Labour to 
 prevent war, and preparations for war. Your wages will 
 then increase, and you will acquire power over your own ac- 
 tions, and may stay at home." 
 
 To the manufacturer it says: '^I have forced labour and 
 capital into trade and manufactures, and the result has been 
 universal unsteadiness. Study to promote economy and the 
 growth of a home market, which will be more steady and more 
 profitable than any foreign ones. The people abroad who eat 
 their own food and make their own coarse clothing, will be 
 better customers than they are now ; for when you shall have 
 ceased to disturb the world, you will see perfect freedom and 
 perfect steadiness of trade." 
 
 To all it says: <« Labour to acquire power over the land 
 that has been given to you, and with each step the feeling 
 of necessity will diminish ; while with each the conscious- 
 ness of power over yourselves, your feelings, thoughts, and 
 actions, will increase." 
 
WEALTH AND LAND. 137 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 WEALTH AND LAND. 
 
 The first cultivator occupies such spots as his small means 
 will permit him to use. He has yet acquired no power to 
 compel the land to yield him what is needed for his comfort- 
 able subsistence. With the acquisition of the spade he turns 
 under, and thus expels, the wild grass : substituting for it 
 the oats, or the barley, or the rye, as he deems one or the 
 other best fitted for his purpose. In the outset he requires 
 much land, because but small portions can be made to yield 
 to his demands any return whatsoever. With the growth of 
 his wealth : with the acquisition of axes and ploughs : other 
 portions, however, become productive ; and, by degrees, he 
 finds, on a few acres, more continuous employment for his 
 time than, in the outset, was found upon a thousand. His 
 family, too, has grown. If all continue to cultivate the 
 whole quantity, there will be great waste of labour. The 
 territory he has occupied covers several square miles; and 
 the time required to walk to and from their work will be so 
 much deduction from that which should be given to the cul- 
 tivation of the soil, or of their own physical and mental powers. 
 Each takes his share, and each builds himself a house. Each 
 cultivates his own land ; and each calls upon his brothers 
 for aid in harvest: or in building a barn: or rolling logs: or 
 quarrying stone. All are separate, but all are therefore inte- 
 rested in making roads by which all may be enabled to 
 unite. While all lived in the same house, their labours were 
 w^asted in bringing home the fruits of the field, and they had 
 no leisure for making roads. Now that all work separately; 
 that each man eats on his own land the rye or the oats needed 
 
 12* 
 
138 WEALTH AND LAND. 
 
 for his support ; each feels more and more the advantage to 
 be derived from increasing the facility of obtaining the aid 
 that may be required : and thus the division of* land conse- 
 quent upon the increase of wealth in the form of spades and 
 axes, tends to produce increase of wealth in the form of roads : 
 thus increasing the power of union, while diminishing the 
 necessity therefor. Each labours on his own land, and each 
 labours faithfully, because labouring for himself. Each makes, 
 or procures from elsewhere, some machine calculated to in- 
 crease the powers of himself and his neighbour ; and all com- 
 bine, at times, to procure those things which, important to 
 all, are beyond the means of any. 
 
 If we look to Attica in the days of her prosperity, we see 
 a tendency to the division of land, and the union of men. 
 If we look to her in the days of her lowest poverty, we see 
 Herodes Atticus universal proprietor, and universal builder, 
 while union among men has ceased to exist. If we look to 
 Rome in the days of Servius, we see a vast body of small 
 proprietors enriching themselves by the cultivation of their 
 own land. If we look again, we see universal poverty : the 
 numerous little and prosperous proprietors being replaced by 
 Scipios and Pompeys, owning vast tracts and overwhelmed 
 by debts, while disunited men have become slaves. So, 
 again, if w^e look to Gaul, or Africa. Everywhere throughout 
 the world, the tendency to division of land and combination 
 of action among men has grown with the growth of wealth : 
 while poverty has produced its concentration in the hands of 
 a few proprietors, and disunion among its occupants. We see 
 this now exhibited on a large scale in the south of Spain, where 
 a few grandees have replaced the honest, industrious, and en- 
 lightened Moors, who combined their exertions for bringing 
 into activity the best soils of their own land, and for fashioning 
 their products: thereby enriching their country and themselves. 
 
 The great business of mankind is the production of food, 
 and the raw materials of commodities and things necessary 
 to nable man to enjoy the conveniences, comforts, or lux- 
 
WEALTH AND LAND. 139 
 
 uries of life. That he may do this, the Deity has given him 
 the command of a great laboratory, in which exist all the 
 elements of production, waiting only the application of the 
 physical and mental powers with which he has been en- 
 dowed, to render them available for his purpose. The gift 
 was accompanied with the command to labour, that he 
 might have food for himself and his children : to labour, 
 that he might have clothing and shelter : to labour, that he 
 might acquire knowledge : to labour, that he might enjoy 
 leisure and repose. It is a great workshop, in which com- 
 bination of effort yields largely, but can scarcely have ex- 
 istence when men cultivate the poor soils. To combination 
 division is essential, and where that does not exist, the pro- 
 gress of cultivation is always slow. Hence the wretched con- 
 dition of all commons, and of all lands upon which exists the 
 partial right of common, as on most of those of France, under 
 the system of vaine pature. Starting from the point of abso- 
 lute barbarism, when all land is held in common, it will be 
 found that the cultivation improves with every approach to- 
 wards absolute ownership. Thus, it is better now in every 
 part of England than in any part in the days when men 
 were serfs, and had in land no property whatsoever. It is 
 better where short leases exist than where all are tenants 
 at will. It is better where long leases exist than where they 
 are short, and the highest cultivation is invariably found 
 where the owner and occupant are one and the same, and 
 where there exists every inducement to the most perfect 
 economy of time and labour. Thus it is better in Cumber- 
 land, where heads of families are generally proprietors of a 
 few acres, than in Wilts or Dorset, where it is held in large 
 masses, and cultivated by hired labourers. This may again 
 be seen in the high cultivation of the peasant proprietors of 
 the valley of the Arno ; in the rich fields and the neat and 
 comfortable houses of the small landholders of Belgium ; 
 and in the high prosperity of the same class in Norway. 
 The division of land, and its cultivation by the owner for his 
 
140 WEALTH AND LAND. 
 
 own profit, are the necessary consequences of the growth of 
 wealth; and with each step in this direction agriculture 
 becomes more and more a science, furnishing employment 
 for minds of the highest order, and yielding the largest re- 
 turns to their exertions. It ceases to be the labour of the 
 slave, and becomes the refined and elegant occupation of 
 the gentleman, who gives to the direction of a small estate 
 all his faculties, and obtains a liberal reward for permitting a 
 portion of its proceeds to be applied to its improvement; 
 while to those who execute with their hands what he plans 
 with his head, large wages are afforded : and he finds in 
 this employment greater happiness than was enjoyed by 
 those of his predecessors whose thousands of acres were 
 scratched by serfs to enable them to pay the ransom to his 
 captor on the field of battle. 
 
 Such is the tendency of things when wealth and popula- 
 tion grow. War and waste produce a reverse effect, and 
 land concentrates itself in fewer hands. Hence it is that the 
 age of barbarism, dignified with the title of that of the Feudal 
 System, has been seen to inflict upon the world the right of 
 primogeniture, another of the weak inventions by which man 
 endeavours to set aside the great laws of nature : but over 
 which she invariably triumphs when men remain at peace. 
 The views of M. de Tocqueville in this respect are widely 
 different. He says : 
 
 " When the legislator has once regulated the law of in- 
 heritance, he may rest from his labour. The machine once 
 put in motion will go on for ages, and advance, as if self- 
 guided, to a certain point. When framed in a particular 
 manner, this law unites, draws together, and vests property 
 in a few hands — its tendency is clearly aristocratic. On 
 opposite principles its action is still more rapid : it divides, 
 distributes, and disperses both property and power. Alarmed 
 by the rapidity of its progress, those who despair of arresting 
 its motion, endeavour to obstruct it by difficulties and impe- 
 diments : they vainly seek to counteract its effect by con- 
 
WEALTH AND LAND. 141 
 
 trary efforts : but it gradually reduces or destroys every ob- 
 stacle, until by its unceasing activity, the bulwarks of the 
 influence of wealth are ground down to the fine and shifting 
 sand which is the basis of democracy." 
 
 In no part of Europe has the law of primogeniture been 
 more firmly established than in England ; yet in none in 
 which it has existed has there been seen a stronger tendency 
 to the division of land, as has been shown by the nume- 
 rous shifts and contrivances invented to bar entails, and to 
 remove other obstacles to the division and sale of landed 
 property : the result of which is seen in the fact that she 
 possesses now more than 200,000 proprietors. Down to the 
 commencement of the recent great war, such was the inva- 
 riable tendency ; but during the period of its continuance 
 the poverty of the people and consolidation of land returned 
 together. The few became greater, and the many smaller ; 
 and had the war been continued on the same scale for 
 another period of twenty years, that country might have ex- 
 hibited to the world princes like those of Esterhazy, wearing 
 coats covered with diamonds and surrounded by serfs in rags. 
 With the long- continued peace, a different state of things is 
 gradually arising. Mechanics are purchasing freeholds, and 
 landlords are forming cottage allotments ; a small beginning, 
 it is true, but one that shows the tendency of the time. 
 Tenants are claiming longer leases, and landlords are begin- 
 ning to perceive that short leases and large rents cannot 
 exist together. They themselves have already taken a per- 
 petual lease, at a fixed rent, from the Church. Tenants are 
 now claiming of them the right to be paid for their improve- 
 ments, perhaps the first step tow^ards perpetual leases, and 
 eventual proprietorship. Each step in this diiection is but 
 the preparation for a new one. Railroads raise w^ages. 
 Drainage raises wages for labourer and tenant, and both 
 acquire the desire to cultivate their own land for their own 
 profit. With each such step the proportion of the owner 
 decreases, although his quantity of rent increases : and with 
 
142 WEALTH AND LAND. 
 
 each there is a tendency to a rise in the standard of living, 
 and to equality of condition. The ability of the non-labourer to 
 hold large tracts of land becomes less when compared with 
 the ability of the labourer to buy it : while the inducement 
 to the latter to obtain a piece of land that he can cultivate 
 after his own fashion, tends daily to increase. The wages of 
 skill and knowledge have risen : and the reward of mere wealth 
 has failed, and must necessarily fail, to keep pace therewith. 
 The great proprietor must work. He now does work, and he 
 finds in the enjoyment of occasional leisure that happiness 
 which a life of idleness and ennui had failed to afford. It is, we 
 think, impossible to look to any part of England without see- 
 ing this operation either commenced, or about to commence. 
 In some portions of it, every acre of land has been sold 
 within the memory of persons now living. In the north, 
 where wealth grows rapidly, and the best soils are cultivated, 
 the tendency to division is greater than in the south : and it 
 is far greater in the neighbourhoods of rapidly-advancing 
 Liverpool and Manchester, than in those of declining Win- 
 chester and Bristol. In the one direction we see a daily 
 increasing tendency towards harmony and union between 
 the owner of the land and the man who cultivates it : while 
 in the other we see universal discord and disunion, marked by 
 perpetual barn-burnings, poaching, Rebecca-riots, and trials 
 for arson and for violations of the game laws : all tending to 
 show a very demoralized condition of society. When wealth 
 grows, men unite, morally and physically : and the more they 
 tend to unite, the faster it grows, and the greater is the ten- 
 dency towards division of land. When wealth diminishes 
 and population declines, it invariably concentrates itself in 
 fewer hands. 
 
 In France, always at war, wealth could not grow. Men 
 cultivated the poor soils, with the worst instruments. Pro- 
 perty concentrated itself in the hands of the church and the 
 great nobles. The Revolution came, and it annihilated both. 
 To prevent the future concentration of land, it was enacted 
 
WEALTH AND LAND. 143 
 
 that at the death of the owner it should be divided among his 
 children, excepting, however, a very small share that he 
 might, if he thought proper, bequeath heyond the limits of 
 Ids family. The confiscation was bad. It was a violation 
 of the rights of property, and such measures are always 
 bad : always impolitic : because nature remedies all griev- 
 ances, when permitted to act. It was, however, done, and 
 nothing now was needed but to permit labour to be applied 
 to compelling the land to yield up its rich treasures, and thus 
 to cause wealth to grow : and' that wealth would have been ap- 
 plied to the further improvement of the land, increasing the 
 product and enablinga constantly increasing population to ob- 
 tain larger supplies of food in return to the labour employed in 
 producing, and in fashioning^ on the ground and in direct 
 contact with the producer, the various products of the soil. 
 
 Such, how^ever, w^as not the policy of the rulers, or of the 
 gentlemen, of France. They preferred Italy, Germany, 
 Spain, and even Russia, to their own soil, and they exhausted 
 the population and the wealth of the Empire, in vain endea- 
 vours to obtain from abroad what at home nature courted 
 them to accept. With the battle of Waterloo closed a 
 period of exhaustion ; but, since that time, repeated revolu- 
 tions and attempts thereat have prevented the growth of any 
 feeling of security, while the maintenance of immense armies 
 and fleets : expensive palaces : and kings and princes : and a 
 body of officials, w^hose name is legion : have prevented and 
 still prevent the growth of wealth and population, without 
 which the better soils cannot be cultivated. The consequence 
 is, that there is no demand for labour, and the process of 
 division goes on. More than two and a half millions of pro- 
 prietors have incomes of $10 or less. Almost a million have 
 between $10 and $20, and seven hundred and thirty-seven 
 thousand have between $20 and $40. Between $40 and $100, 
 there are seven hundred thousand : while the whole number of 
 families whose revenue exceeds $2000 is under seven thousand. 
 
 Properties are in many cases, so subdivided that men are 
 
144 WEALTH AND LAND. 
 
 willing to abandon them to the government, but even this 
 they cannot do, except on payment of a tax of about forty 
 cents, and until that shall be paid they mus! remain re- 
 sponsible for the taxes on the land, averaging twenty cents 
 per acre. If they attempt to sell them, the tax is equivalent 
 to two years' rent. Under such circumstances, it is not extra- 
 ordinary that the land should be almost literally shingled 
 over with mortgages, notwithstanding the enormous charges 
 for fees of registration, &c., by which the interest is not un- 
 frequently doubled, and sometimes raised even to a higher 
 point. Interest and taxes swallow up, as we have already 
 said, seventy per cent, of the rent, and the balance is squab- 
 bled for between the poor proprietor and the neighbouring 
 lawyer. A century since, the families that lived by the law 
 were thirty thousand in number, and the business was im- 
 mensely lucrative. Since then the number has, we believe, 
 greatly increased, and we can hardly doubt that the amount 
 divided among them has also increased. The whole system 
 of France tends to remove property out of the control of those 
 who have laboured for its production, and to give it to those 
 who have not laboured : and tending thereby to produce that 
 grinding down " into the fine and shifting sand which is the 
 basis of" — not democracy but — turbulence, anarchy and 
 slavery. Throughout her whole history it has been seen 
 forcing men to live in villages while cultivating land at a 
 distance, thus diminishing greatly the productiveness of 
 labour : and now, we see there two millions of poor proprie- 
 tors, with their little bits of garden, pasture, and arable land, 
 and vineyards, scarcely ever lying together ; but here a little 
 and there a little, some in the valley and some on the hill, 
 by which any improvement is rendered impossible. The 
 foreclosure of mortgages, therefore, comes, and the real 
 owners — the mortgagees — take possession. How far such 
 is the tendency may be seen from the fact that in the ten 
 years from 1826 to 1835, thirty per cent, of the whole 
 territorial property changed hands by sale, exchange, and 
 
WEALTH AND LAND. 145 
 
 forfeiture, being about as much as changed by means of 
 inheritance and gift. Such is the necessary consequence of 
 the present state of things. 
 
 In the Netherlands, the power of division exists in its full 
 extent, yet there the son does not claim his part merely be- 
 cause entitled to it. Wealth increases because men cultivate 
 fertile soils, and a demand for labour consequently exists in 
 other employments. The consumer and producer are near 
 neighbours to each other. If the piece which the son may claim 
 be not sufficient to afford him support, he lets or sells it to 
 his brother : and thus the tendency to division is counteracted 
 by the power of the owner to judge for himself as to the most 
 advantageous mode of disposing of his time. So in Norway, 
 distinguished for the industry and economy of its people, 
 both wealth and population grow, and the tendency towards 
 grinding down the land has no existence. Properties there 
 remain undiminished for centuries. 
 
 In the United States, the right of primogeniture existed. 
 It disappeared as wealth and population grew. In no part 
 of the world does the democratic tendency exist so much as 
 in Massachusetts and generally in New England, and in 
 none are the forms used in the conveyance of land so sim- 
 ple, yet there the tendency to minute subdivision has no ex- 
 istence. M. de Tocqueville himself informs us that the ^' laws 
 of the United States are extremely favourable to a division 
 of landed property : but that a cause which is more power- 
 ful than the laws prevents property from being divided to 
 excess." He adds, that "the law has abolished the right of 
 primogeniture, but that circumstances have concurred to re- 
 establish it under a form of which none can complain, and 
 by which no just rights are impaired." The reason for this 
 is, simply, that wealth and the demand for labour and skill 
 grow more rapidly than population. No one will cultivate 
 a piece of land that will not afford him full wages, and 
 hence we find, invariably, that when too small for advan- 
 tageous division, one son takes the property, paying to the 
 
 13 
 
146 WEALTH AND LAND. 
 
 others their share, to enable them to apply, with advantage 
 to themselves, their labour, or their skill, in Lowell, or in 
 Providence. In no country is the tendency to perfect indi- 
 viduality and freedom of action so great ; in none is the ten- 
 dency to union so universal : and in none is the power of 
 man over land so complete. 
 
 Perfect individuality, and the tendency to union, keep 
 pace, invariably, with the growth of weahh and the division 
 of land. The land of the great noble of the middle ages 
 was bound to give him a certain amount of rent, and for this 
 his serfs were jointly bound. Unhmited liability — solidarite — 
 was the universal rule. If one failed, to work or pay, others 
 must make up the deficiency. The serf was nameless. He 
 was merely a serf: one of those who were to do the work. 
 So we find it, even now, in India, where villages are assessed 
 en masse; and when some of the unfortunate ryots abandon 
 their little properties in despair at their utter inability to com- 
 ply with the unceasing demands for rent claimed by the 
 Company's government, the rest are held liable for the defi- 
 ciency. So again, in France, where the people of provinces, 
 and towns, and villages, were all held Hable for the taxes ; and 
 when the dragons of Louvois had expelled the laborious 
 and economical Huguenots, the CathoKcs who remained 
 were held bound to make up the full amount. 
 
 With the growth of population and of wealth, land becomes 
 divided, and individuals make contracts to pay fixed rents ; 
 and thus every man acquires power to determine for himself 
 what shall be the extent of his liability : and this tendency is 
 always greatest where men cultivate the richest soils, as may 
 be seen in England. The tenant in Dorset or Hampshire 
 has no rights. His landlord's game consumes his crop, yet 
 must he pay the full rent ; whereas in Lancashire or Lincoln, 
 the rights of all are strictly defined. In the one, poor men, 
 who live in mud hovels, still cultivate the poor lands first oc- 
 cupied. In the other, they live in houses, and cultivate the 
 rich soils that two centuries since were swamps and forests. 
 
WEALTH AND LAND. 147 
 
 This tendency to freedom of individual action in the mak- 
 ing of contracts for other purposes keeps pace with that in 
 relation to land. Throughout Europe, the right of men to 
 associate has been at all times limited, through a jeal- 
 ousy of every thing like tendency to union among the peo- 
 ple, which induced sovereigns and those by whom they 
 were surrounded, to insist upon continuing in relation to 
 them the principle of unlimited liability. Exemptions from 
 it have always been obtained as matters of favour : by aid of 
 royal charters. These exemptions are more or less numerous 
 as population and wealth increase rapidly or slowly, and as 
 the better or poorer soils are cultivated. In France, they 
 are granted invariably as favours, and applications therefor, 
 unsupported by powerful interest, are useless.* In England, 
 they were granted only to a few powerful companies, to enable 
 them to monopolize certain branches of trade : and even so 
 recently as the latter part of the last century, the formation 
 of joint-stock associations with transferable stock, for any 
 purpose, was absolutely prohibited. With the gradual in- 
 crease of wealth and population, and with the cultivation of 
 the better soils, we see a gradual relaxation of the system 
 of solidarite, and charters are now granted to railroad com- 
 panies, because without them roads could not be made. 
 They are, however, still refused to associations for most other 
 purposes. 
 
 In the United States, we can see this tendency to perfect 
 freedom in the making of contracts, whether for the 
 rent of land or for other purposes, steadily increasing 
 as we pass from those States in which they cultivate the 
 poor lands to those in which they cultivate the rich soils of 
 the river bottoms. In the south, men work in gangs, and 
 each man is individually liable for the performance of the 
 
 * The reader who desires to understand the restrictions on Commercial 
 Association in France, will find them fully explained in the Revue des deux 
 Mondes, for Silly, 1845, in an article by ilf. Coquelin, translated and republished 
 in the Merchant's Magazine for May and June, 1845. 
 
148 WEALTH AND LAND. 
 
 whole work. No contract for rent is here made, and here it 
 is that we find the greatest hostility to exemption from the 
 same principle in regard to all other of the pursuits of life. 
 In the new States of the west, where population is small and 
 scattered, and the rich soils are untouched, the same state 
 of things is found. Union among themselves is difficult, 
 and jealousy of unions exists. In Pennsylvania, much of 
 whose richest lands is yet uncleared, the same jealousy has 
 always existed ; but as the various soils : the lime, the coal, 
 and the iron-bearing soils : are coming into activity, it tends 
 gradually to pass away. In no part of the Union has there 
 existed the same tendency to the concentration of land in 
 the hands of a few persons, nor has there been elsewhere 
 exhibited so forcibly its effect in preventing the union 
 of man. The first has been always, to a great extent, held 
 in masses, and corporations have been formed for the pur- 
 pose of so continuing to hold it. This latter state of things 
 is found chiefly in the coal region of the Lehigh river, which 
 while possessed of every advantage for a great trade, has ever 
 been unable to contend, because of the monopoly of land, 
 with the Schuylkill region, in which the lands were divided 
 among numerous owners, and were frequently passing from 
 hand to hand. In the first, the union of man has no exist- 
 ence, and wealth grows slowly. In the second, it is seen 
 everywhere, and wealth and population grow rapidly, pro- 
 ducing a demand for the products of the earth tending to 
 bring the more fertile soils into full activity. 
 
 As we pass north from Pennsylvania, we find land more 
 divided, population more dense, and a greater tendency to 
 perfect individuality, accompanied by an increasing tendency 
 to union, and an increasing power to unite on such terms as 
 may be deemed best for the parties who contract. These 
 things are found to a greater extent in New York than in 
 Pennsylvania : but as we approach Massachusetts and Rhode 
 Island, where men devote themselves most assiduously to 
 bringing into activity all the powers of the earth, we find in- 
 
WEALTH AND LAND. 149 
 
 dividuality, the tendency to union, and the power to unite, in 
 a greater degree than in any other portion of the world. 
 There, all have property. There the rights of person and pro- 
 perty are most strictly defined and best maintained : and there 
 it is that large capitalists and little shopkeepers; large farmers 
 and little labourers; large manufacturers and little spinners and 
 weavers; widows and orphans, clergymen and doctors, editors 
 and authors, and lawyers ; are found uniting for the building 
 of factories, the making of railroads, and every other of the 
 various modes in which wealth can most advantageously beT 
 applied to increase the productiveness of labour. 
 
 If we desire now to find the cause of the rapid advance of 
 the poor and scattered colonists of the United States towards 
 wealth and power, we must seek it in the division of the 
 land. Every man lives, or, if he will, may live, in his own 
 house and lot, or on his own farm. He works, or, if he 
 will, he may, in his own shop. He drives his own wagon, 
 and commands the ship, of which he is owner in whole or 
 in part. The ship carpenter builds the ship of which he is 
 to be part owner, and the iron founder makes engines for the 
 factory in whose stock he has purchased shares. The 
 female operative works in the mill of which she is part 
 owner, that she may gather means to furnish the house 
 of which she is to be sole mistress : and the coal miner 
 looks forward to the time when he can work his own vein 
 of coal, and pay wages to men that are following in his 
 footsteps. All these phenomena, although some of them 
 are apparently unconnected with land, are the natural results 
 of its division. The landlord who collects large rents 
 patronises his own farmer, his own agent, his own shop- 
 keeper, his own lawyer, his own doctor, and his own 
 carpenter, and these men have all what is termed a 
 valuable <' connection." All this is fully exhibited in the 
 Lehigh coal region of Pennsylvania. Great companies 
 prefer great tenants, and little men cannot rent mines. 
 Great tenants keep great shops, at which the little mec 
 
 13* 
 
150 WEALTH AND LAND. 
 
 must make their exchanges, for competition is rendered 
 impossible. Great companies and tenants patronize their 
 own lawyers, and doctors, and carpenters, and bridge-build- 
 ers, and road-makers ; the consequence of which is an uni- 
 versal dulness and stagnation. The miner lives in the com- 
 pany's house, and works company land ; and his daughter is 
 idle, for there is no demand for labour. With wealth un- 
 limited beneath the surface, the houses upon it wear all the 
 marks of poverty ; the quantity of lime needed to improve 
 even the exterior appearance of their houses being deemed a 
 luxury too great to be afforded to their occupants. 
 
 If, now, we pass westward, a few miles, to the Schuylkill 
 region, where land is divided, and where each man looks after 
 his own property, we see a totally different state of affairs. 
 There patronage cannot exist. Every working miner seeks to 
 have his own house and lot, and each looks to the time when 
 he may work for himself, either as tenant or owner. Every 
 man selects his own shop with which to trade ; his own lawyer 
 with whom to consult ; his own doctor ; and his own carpen- 
 ter, when he would build. The consequence is universal 
 activity and energy, and universal demand for labour. The 
 daughter finds a demand for her services in making dresses 
 for her thriving neighbours ; and she can marry, because she 
 can aid in furnishing the house ; while her husband, the jour- 
 neyman carpenter, or iron-founder, becomes himself a master, 
 having his own shop, and living in hi&own house, occupied by 
 his own wife and children ; and that house is built on his own 
 lot, within which he cultivates his own garden in his hours 
 of leisure. 
 
 If, now, we substitute England and America for the Lehigh 
 and Schuylkill coal regions, the same picture will answer. 
 The first is filled with great land-owners, great farmers, great 
 merchants, great bankers, great lawyers, great architects, 
 great manufacturers, great ship-owners, and great corpora- 
 tions, all living in palaces ; while the people cultivate the 
 lands of others: live in the houses of others; work in the 
 
WEALTH AND LAND. 151 
 
 factories or the mines of others ; tend the shops of others ; 
 command the ships of others; and, as a necessary conse- 
 quence, a vast portion are obliged to eat the food of others. 
 Patronage is universal. The great do not need to work, and 
 the small work without spirit. The first are idle, for want of 
 disposition to work ; and the second are often so, for want of 
 work to do. The first waste, because they may. The second 
 do not economize, because they w^ant confidence in the future. 
 
 In America, from north to south, we find the state of 
 things that has been described as existing in the Schuylkill 
 valley : greatest in the north, and gradually diminishing as 
 we pass south and west. Every man is working for himself, 
 and anxious to have his own house and lot : or farm: or shop. 
 Those who have houses and lots, and farms and shops, have 
 in them their own little savings' banks, in which they deposit 
 all their sparehoursand half hours: their spare dollars and half 
 dollars : and thus there is made, almost insensibly, an addi- 
 tion to the wealth of the community, the amount of which, 
 could it be ascertained, would be deemed incredible. Those 
 who have not yet houses and lots, or farms, or shops, 
 have at hand the little factory, or the little bank, owned in 
 shares : the savings' bank of the neighbourhood : in which 
 they make their deposits, there to remain until they shall 
 have enough to buy the house or the farm, or to set up the 
 shop. Wealth thus accumulates rapidly, and produces a 
 constant demand for labour. Every one feels that he can 
 "go ahead" if he will, and everybody, therefore, does; 
 the necessary consequence of which is, that those who are 
 '« ahead" must work to keep so. If they pause but for a 
 moment they are left behind; and this is equally true, intel- 
 lectually and physically. Every man will educate his children, 
 and ivill have his own newspaper, and will have portraits, 
 whether in oil or daguerreotype, of his family ; and will in- 
 vent his own machine ; and the rich must study books, and 
 newspapers, and pictures, and machinery, if they would 
 maintain their position in the world. 
 
 To this state of things is due the vast productive power of 
 
152 WEALTH AND LAND. 
 
 the Union, far exceeding that of the twenty-eight millions 
 composing the population of Great Britain and Ireland: and 
 not to the abundance of land, upon the poor soils of which 
 they have been forced to scatter themselves ; expending upon 
 them, and upon distant roads and canals, labour that Avoald 
 have been thrice more productive if employed upon the river 
 bottoms of the older States: upon the marl and the limestone, 
 the coal and the iron: all of which w^ould long since have 
 been done, could they have concentrated themselves as they 
 would naturally have desired to do. 
 
 To this it is due, that while they are the greatest producers 
 and the greatest consumers, they are the greatest accumulators 
 of the world. Every man has, in his own home, his own 
 saving fund : in his own farm, or house, or shop: and each is 
 desirous of making his deposits as large as possible. There- 
 fore, each dislikes taxes. Taxes come wuth wars. There- 
 fore, each dislikes wars. The question of peace or war rests 
 always with himself, and others like himself, who cultivate 
 their own land and pay their ow^n taxes ; and who, having 
 their own houses, and lots, and shops, and mills, and facto- 
 ries, to look after, have no need to seek employment in the 
 work of robbing and plundering their neighbours. There- 
 fore, he and they prefer peace. With peace grow wealth, and 
 strength, and the power of self-protection, whether by means 
 of armies and fleets : if needed: or by means of law^s for re- 
 straining their neighbours who desire to compel them to use 
 their ships, or to wear their cloths. They are too rich to quar- 
 rel with ; and therefore it is that causes of quarrel, whether 
 in regard to boundary lines ; or indemnity for spoliations on 
 the ocean ; or restrictions on their commerce ; or interference 
 with the personal rights of their citizens ; disappear. They 
 prefer peace, and therefore it is that they have it. They 
 need, therefore, neither fleets nor armies.* 
 
 * War with Mexico could never have arisen had it been left to the people to 
 declare it. Mexico commenced it, and battle and victory were the result. Their 
 representatives accepted the defiance; but had it been left to the people to de- 
 cide the question, the decision, even then, would have been for peace. 
 
WEALTH ANI> LAND. 153 
 
 If, now, to the great accumulations resulting from the ex- 
 istence of these millions of savings' banks, small and great, 
 we add those resulting from the absence of taxes for the sup- 
 port of ruinous wars : and for preparations for war in time of 
 peace: which latter, on the scale of those of England, would 
 consume a hundred millions a year: we may readily account 
 for at least five hundred millions now annually invested, 
 in addition to what would be invested were land held by 
 great landholders : by men who sought in the maintenance 
 of colonies, requiring fleets and armies, the means of pro- 
 viding for themselves and their dependents. These five 
 hundred millions add annually to the productive power at 
 least one hundred millions. If the reader will calculate 
 the result of such an investment, and such a return, he will 
 be enabled to account for the fact that the United States are 
 now the wealthiest country of the world ; and the result at 
 which he will arrive will be that it is due to the division, and 
 not to the quantity, of land. 
 
 This estimate of the excess of the power of accumulation 
 is equal to twenty-four dollars, or five pounds sterling, per 
 head. A very large portion of this sum may be accounted 
 for by the greater diligence of men who apply their labour on 
 their own property ; but much is the result of other causes. 
 England persists in relying upon the poor soils of Poland, 
 Canada, and other parts of the world, for a portion of her sup- 
 ply of food, which she might obtain from her ov/n rich ones ; 
 and that is now obtained by the aid of the most cumbrous 
 machinery. It is a rule in mechanics, that the more directly 
 power is applied, the less is the friction and the greater is the 
 effect : and that with every increase in the quantity of ma- 
 chinery, friction increases and power diminishes. So is it 
 here. The friction is great, and hence it is that food is high, 
 and that wages are low. In many parts of England, the agri- 
 cultural labourer has but nine shillings per week, while the 
 ordinary price of wheat is not less than fifty shillmgs per 
 quarter, and it is fi^equently more. The labourer has for his 
 
154 WEALTH AND LAND. 
 
 week's work, therefore, but about a bushel and a quarter, or 
 a bushel and a third per week, for all purposes, and he 
 can accumulate nothing. Throughout the United States, 
 the labourer has about seventy-five cents per day, which 
 will not vary materially from the average price of a bushel 
 of wheat : which would give six bushels as the price of a 
 week's work. He can, therefore, consume more than the 
 English labourer receives, and still lay up more than 
 half his wages. That he does this is every day seen. 
 In tens of thousands of cases, the unmarried labourer 
 has from a hundred to a hundred and twenty dollars per 
 annum, and his board. His clothing costs him little, and 
 nearly the whole amount of his wages remains in the 
 hands of his employer, or is temporarily invested : after- 
 wards to be employed in the purchase of a little farm. The 
 large capitalist profits in a similar manner from the cheap- 
 ness of food, and the result of such accumulation by the two 
 classes is prodigious. Again, no capital need remain idle, 
 or even but partially productive, where the habit of combined 
 exertion exists in so great a degree as in the United States, 
 and where capital is active, labour is rendered productive. 
 In England, on the contrary, the former often stagnates, and 
 the latter is often unproductive. 
 
 The waste in that country is almost incredible. The city 
 of London,* has vast estates, chiefly Irish confiscations, that 
 
 * The income of this corporation is as follows : 
 
 Trust estates - ■ . . £360,000 
 
 Local rates - - - 230,000 
 
 Coal duties and street and market tolls 200,000 
 
 Freedom and livery fines - - 50,000 
 
 Port of London - - - 60,000 
 
 £900,000, or $4,320,000. 
 
 And this with a population of 129,000. The number of officers is two 
 hundred and sixty-three, with salaries varying from £100 to £8000 per annum, 
 and these offices are filled invariably by friends and relations of aldermen and 
 common council men. The private extortion of the body, individually and 
 collectively, adds greatly to the above amount. The consequence of all this is, 
 that " the prudent fly to escape extortion, but the pauper remains'' — and the poor 
 
WEALTH AND LAND. 155 
 
 yield above <£300,000 per annum, most of which is squan- 
 dered ; while poor taxes are heavy, and the provision for 
 education is very bad. A single entertainment has cost 
 $120,000, and a single officer receives nearly $40,000 per 
 annum. The salaries of the legal staff amount to nearly 
 $200,000, and the whole amount of salaries exceeds half a 
 million of dollars. Large estates, here as elsewhere, beget 
 habits of great expenditure and great waste, and thus the 
 leaks are almost incredibly great. Massachusetts, with a 
 population of 800,000, expends about $2,000,000, or less 
 than half of what is expended by the city of London : yet, 
 out of this sum, she appropriates $300,000 to the support 
 of infirm and aged poor, and about seven hundred thousand 
 dollars for the maintenance of public schools. There men 
 manage their own affairs : because land is divided, and 
 man united. 
 
 The admirable effect of the division of land, consequent 
 upon the growth of population and wealth, is fully shown in 
 Prussia, by the result of the abolition of leases in perpetuity, 
 and their conversion into freeholds, with compensation to the 
 owner of the land, at the rate of twenty-five years' purchase 
 of his interest. The great landholders were encumbered 
 with debts, and their estates were loaded with mortgages 
 which prevented improvement. In Pomerania alone, the 
 encumbrances amounted to $24,000,000. The peasant 
 holdings were freed at once, on payment of the stipulated 
 sum ; and the small landholders enjoyed a credit that to the 
 great ones had been denied. All other impediments to the 
 free disposal of land by sale, gift, or will, were also abolish- 
 ed ; and the result is seen in the fact that wealth and popu- 
 lation are now advancing in Prussia at a rate unknown to 
 the rest of continental Europe : and that she is now at the 
 
 rates amount to j£90,000. Here we have, in miniature, a perfect representa- 
 tion of the whole system of England. The reader who desires to understand 
 both, will obtain the knowledge he seeks by reference to the Westminster Re- 
 view, vol. 45, p. 193. 
 
156 WEALTH AND LAND. 
 
 head of the great commercial union of northern Germany, 
 throughout the whole extent of which exists perfect freedom 
 of internal trade. Here, as elsewhere, the division of land 
 has been attended with the union of man, and the extension 
 of cultivation over the fertile soils. 
 
 The PAST says to the landlord of the present : '^ If you 
 desire that your lands become valuable : yielding large rents : 
 labour to promote the maintenance of peace." 
 
 To the tenant it says : "If you desire to become the 
 owner of the land you cultivate : labour to promote the main- 
 tenance of peace, and to prevent the waste of wealth on 
 fleets and armies." 
 
 To the labourer it says: "If you desire to own your 
 house, and lot, and garden, your own shop, or your own 
 farm : to have your own wife and children : to read your 
 own books and newspapers : to go to your own church : to 
 send your children to your own school : and to see them 
 prosper in an active world, where rapidly increasing wealth 
 gives increased wages to a rapidly increasing population : 
 labour to promote the maintenance of peace and economy." 
 
 To the nation : " If you desire to acquire, individually and 
 collectively, the powder of perfect self-protection : avoid war 
 and preparation for war." 
 
MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 157 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 
 
 The man who cultivates the poor soils, barters the com- 
 modity he produces for the one he wants. His production 
 is small, and consists chiefly of food, most of which is 
 needed for himself and his family. His exchanges are few 
 and small. As population and w^ealth increase, and as the 
 more fertile soils are brought into cultivation, food becomes 
 more abundant, and he has more to spare to be exchanged 
 for such other commodities as he is now enabled to con- 
 sume, and we find him gradually adopting a standard of 
 value to be used in his exchanges. In some places cowrie 
 shells pass as money. In others prices are measured by 
 tobacco, the legislator being paid for his services by the 
 delivery of a certain number of pounds : while other quan- 
 tities are fixed as the price of other services, and of the 
 commodities most commonly in use. Tobacco is, however, 
 bulky and liable to injury by time, and forms a standard of 
 a very inconvenient kind. Wealth and population still fur- 
 ther increase, and men are found adopting as standards 
 for the measurement of values, silver and gold : both con- 
 stantly in demand for various purposes in the arts ; both 
 representing in a very small compass a large amount of 
 labour ; both free from all danger of injury from rust ; 
 and therefore termed the precious metals. Those who de- 
 sire to part with other commodities now sell them for money, 
 and those who purchase, deliver, or contract to deliver, 
 money, which becomes the universal currency, and the habit 
 of bartering commodities passes gradually out of use. 
 
 14 
 
158 MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 
 
 He now cultivates other and better soils, and as the pro- 
 ductiveness of labour grows, exchanges grow in number 
 and amount : and more and more of the precious metals, 
 termed money, are required for the purpose of effecting those 
 exchanges. Representing so large an amount of value, and 
 being themselves of so little bulk, they are, more than others, 
 liable to be lost or stolen ; and their possessors : those who 
 hold portions of their capital uninvested, and waiting for the 
 opportunity of re-investment : desire to place them in secu- 
 rity. At first, we find them placed with traders called gold- 
 smiths, and afterwards with bankers: or in banks. In some 
 places, banks merely hold them for the owners, to be return- 
 ed, or to be transferred on books kept for that purpose ; but 
 as exchanges become more numerous, checks or drafts are 
 devised, by means of which the property therein is trans- 
 ferred without the trouble of visiting the bank. With another 
 step, we find the machinery of exchange still further im- 
 proved. Banks now furnish certificates for given sums, large 
 and small, by aid of which transfers are made with a facility 
 before unknown; and thus the machinery for the exchange of 
 property from hand to hand is perfected. 
 
 As the better soils come further into action, and labour 
 becomes more and more productive, the fashioner and the 
 producer come more and more together. Communities 
 now arise, in each of which are to be performed numerous 
 exchanges, and in each are men whose capital is at one mo- 
 ment invested in merchandise, and at another uninvested : 
 taking the form of money, and while remaining in that form 
 yielding no return. In each of these communities, a shop 
 is needed for facilitating transactions in the commodity 
 now used as currency. One man desires to lodge his little 
 stock for safe keeping. Another, to obtain an order for mo- 
 ney to be paid at another place : and a third, to have bank 
 notes that he can use in the performance of his exchanges, 
 and thus be relieved of the necessity for carrying silver or 
 
MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 159 
 
 gold, which although far less bulky than tobacco, are far 
 more bulky than the note. 
 
 With each step in this course, we find a great saving of 
 labour, and an increase in the quantity that may be applied 
 to the work of production. The man who has a thousand 
 dollars, or pounds, places it in the bank, and the bank pays 
 it out in ten, twenty, or fifty small sums, of the precise 
 amount desired : and thus the owner is saved the time of 
 counting his money and of carrying it about with him, as 
 well as the risk of loss. In the outset we find bankers 
 charging a commission for the facility thus aflforded, but by 
 degrees, they are seen performing these important services, 
 and aflfording the still greater facility of bank notes, free of 
 all expense to those who use them. The machinery of ex- 
 change becomes therefore less costly as it becomes more per- 
 fect : and wealth accumulates with increased rapidity. 
 
 In the various smaller communities now growing up, are 
 numerous little capitalists preparing for the purchase of 
 houses and lots, or little farms, or for the opening of shops : 
 while among them are some larger ones, that occasionally 
 have their means disengaged. To all of them, interest is 
 desirable, while it is in the highest degree advantageous to 
 the community that the accumulations of the tailor and car- 
 penter ; the little fortune of the widow or the orphan : and 
 the savings of the doctor or the clergyman : should be kept in 
 active operation, facilitating the application of labour to pro- 
 duction. By the combined effort of these little capitalists, a 
 shop is opened for the purpose of lending out their money, and 
 that of affording to the people of the neighbourhood a secure 
 place of deposit for such portions of their respective capi- 
 tals as may from time to time become disengaged. The 
 stock therein is held in shares, transferable with little trouble : 
 and thus the shoemaker, when ready to buy his house, sells 
 out to the tailor ; and the clerk, when ready to open a shop, 
 parts with his interest to the clergyman. The joint capital 
 is security to those who trade with it for the safe re- 
 
160 MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 
 
 turn of their money, and now each man having a place of 
 safe deposit, he no longer finds it necessary to hide or 
 bury his little stock : nor even his larger amounts of dis- 
 engaged capital. The little bank, thus organized, aids the 
 farmer in his purchases of manure ; the shopkeeper in ob- 
 taining a larger supply of goods ; and the builder in obtain- 
 ing bricks and timber; and thus the little savings of the neigh- 
 bourhood are always actively employed on the spot on which 
 they have been made. The management of the little ma* 
 chine, though inexpensive, constitutes a deduction from the 
 interest received : and to pay these expenses, the bankers 
 must either make a charge for the accommodation they afford 
 in receiving, guarding, and paying out again at the pleasure 
 and in the sums that suit the convenience of their owners, 
 the small amounts that they are accustomed to keep for 
 their daily business ; or the larger ones that pass among 
 them as one or another buys or sells a house, or a piece 
 of land : or they must pay themselves with the interest 
 derived from lending out the moneys thus placed with them 
 for security. The facility of investment is perfect. Land in 
 large and small lots; and houses, and stocks in little institu- 
 tions for insurance, or manufactures ; or shares in ships and 
 railroads, and turnpikes ; may always be bought : and there- 
 fore but little capital accumulates in banks, to be used for 
 their own benefit ; and their profits therefore just suffice to pay 
 their expenses, and to enable their ow^ners to receive the 
 same rate of interest that they would have if their money 
 were lent on mortgage. The advantage derived by them 
 from the existence of the bank, is the facility with which 
 small sums may be temporarily invested, and recalled : while 
 the community profits by the fact that all wealth is actively 
 employed. If the labourer did not lend his fellow labourer 
 his horse, he could not borrow his cart, and then two horses 
 and carts would be needed where the work was perhaps in- 
 sufficient for even one : and if the owners of little sums of 
 money kept them in old stockings, they might themselves find 
 
-MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 161 
 
 it difficult to borrow when occasion required it. The money- 
 shop now constitutes a little savings' bank for disengaged ca- 
 pital : as lands, lots, and houses constitute little savings' banks 
 for the otherwise spare labour of their owners. As the fer- 
 tile soils come more and more into cultivation, and as with the 
 growth of population and wealth the fashioner takes more 
 and more his place by the side of the producer ; the tendency 
 to concentration increases, and is accompanied with a con- 
 stant diminution in the quantity required of the machinery of 
 exchange used in passing commodities from hand to hand ; 
 because the farmer exchanges directly with the tanner and 
 the shoemaker, and the hatter with the dealer in sugar and 
 coffee, the balances alone being paid in money : and is also 
 accompanied with a constantly increasing facility of in- 
 vestment, tending to diminish the quantity of money idle in 
 the hands of its owner, and seeking employment. The dimi- 
 nution in the amount of capital invested in the machinery 
 of exchange from hand to hand, equally with the diminution 
 in that required for its transfer from place to place : the one 
 called money and the other wagons : tends to enable men to 
 apply more labour to production, and thus to bring into ac- 
 tivity the more fertile soils, with increased return to both la- 
 bour and capital : and towards the production of this result 
 the establishment of the little money-shop greatly contri- 
 butes. 
 
 The owner of uninvested capital : money, or currency : 
 keeps some of it in his pocket-book, and some of it in the 
 bank. The former is called circulation, and the latter is 
 known as deposits. The proportion which the former bears 
 to the latter, depends upon the proximity or remoteness of 
 the money-shop, or bank. If it be near, he will keep very 
 few notes on hand, because he can have more at any mo- 
 ment, and his check will always answer in their stead ; but if 
 it be at a distance of several miles, he must always have with 
 him as many notes as will answer his purpose for a week, 
 at least. Every increase in the facility of obtaining the de- 
 
 14* 
 
162 MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 
 
 scription of currency that is needed, tends therefore to dimi- 
 nish the quantity kept on hand, while it tends to facilitate ex- 
 changes and promote the growth of wealth. With the 
 growth of wealth and population, there is a tendency to in- 
 crease in the number of shops trading in money, or banks ; 
 to increase in the facility of obtaining the machinery of ex- 
 change, called money ; and to diminution in the proportion 
 which money, whether gold, silver, or bank notes, or in any 
 form other than that of credits, transferable by checks or 
 drafts, bears to the operation of trade. The proportion which 
 the coin, or the bank notes, used in London or New York, 
 bears to the trade of those cities, is vastly smaller than that 
 of Paris or St. Petersburgh, and less in all than in Mexico 
 or Lima. The circulation of London is not probably greater 
 than that of communities whose trade is not one-hundredth 
 part as great ; nor does that of New York exceed in amount 
 what is required by counties of fifty thousand inhabitants. 
 The more perfectly the number of banks is in accordance 
 with the amount of business to be done, the less is the quan- 
 tity of circulation that can be maintained ; and thus the power 
 of banks to profit by aid of that circulation tends to diminish, 
 as with the division of land and growth of trade the facility of 
 investing capital is increased : and they are thus forced more 
 and more to look to their own capital for the profits of busi- 
 ness. With each such step, their action becomes more 
 uniform and steady, and they themselves become more 
 safe. Their insecurity results always from unsteadiness. 
 Unsteadiness results always from over-trading. Over-trad- 
 ing can take place only by aid of deposits or circulation. 
 Freedom of action tends to limit both, and by so doing to 
 prevent over-trading, and thus to produce steadiness in their 
 action and in the value of money. 
 
 All this is perfectly exemplified in the freeest system that 
 exists. Rhode Island, with a population of about 100,000, 
 has sixty-five banks, with capitals varying from $20,000 to 
 $500,000: and the combined capital is above $10,000,000. 
 
MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 163 
 
 Every village has its shoe-shop, its smith-shop, and its mo- 
 ney-shop. Every man has at hand a little saving fund, or 
 bank, owned generally by people like himself: men who 
 work : and in this bank he deposits his little savings, buy- 
 ing first one share, and then another, until at length he is 
 enabled to buy a little farm, or open a shop : or commence 
 manufacturing on his own account : when he sells out to 
 some one of his neighbours who is following in the same 
 course.* The bank derives, from the use of its deposits and 
 from its circulation, sufficient profit to pay its expenses, and 
 no more; because when the trade in money is free, the quan- 
 tity of idle capital remaining in the form of money, whether 
 real or imaginary, will always be small ; as will be the quan- 
 tity of circulation required. In no part of the world is the 
 proportion which coin and notes bear to the amount of trade 
 so small as there, and in the other States of New England : 
 yet in none do there exist such perfect facilities for furnishing 
 circulation. In no part does the individual banker so little 
 appear. In none does the bank trade so much upon capital, 
 
 * The following statement of one of their banks shows the mann> in 
 which the small institutions of New England are owned : — 
 
 Females, -------- 2,438 shares. 
 
 Mechanics, - 673 « 
 
 Farmers and labourers, ----- 1,245 « 
 
 Savings' banks, - - - - - - 1,013 « 
 
 Guardians, ------- 630 " 
 
 Estates, - 307 « 
 
 Charitable institutions, ----- 548 " 
 
 Corporations and State, - - - - - 157 " 
 
 Government officers, ------ 438 " 
 
 Mariners, - - 434 « 
 
 Merchants, 2,038 « 
 
 Traders, 191 « 
 
 Lawyers, -------- 377 « 
 
 Physicians, ------- 336 « 
 
 Clergymen, 220 « 
 
 Total, - - - 11,045 shares 
 
 It would be difficult to imagine any thing more democratic. 
 
164 MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 
 
 and so little on credit. In none, consequently, are banks 
 so sieady and so safe. 
 
 Perfect freedom in the employment of capital : the only 
 true regulator : never has existed anywhere, to its full extent, 
 except in the beautiful system under which that State has 
 flourished, and has been enabled to maintain a currency less 
 subject to fluctuations than any other that the w^orld has yet 
 seen. Of all the communities of the world, it is the one that 
 can boast of the greatest number of banks, and greatest 
 amount of capital therein invested, in proportion to its popu- 
 lation ; and it can show that its banks, because of the perfect 
 freedom there enjoyed, and because of the free exercise of the 
 right of association for banking and other purposes, w^ere 
 enabled to pass through the calamitous period from 1835 to 
 1842, with no alteration in their loans, to the extent of even 
 three per cent, oi \h.eu ?LTiio\mi. They cannot expand im- 
 properly, because the power of competition is complete, and 
 rival institutions would follow such expansion : and they are 
 thus shown to be governed by the same law w^hich forbids the 
 shoemaker and the tailor, by charging exorbitant prices, to 
 afford inducements to other tailors and shoemakers to come 
 and '^push them from their stools." Not having the power 
 of undue expansion, they cannot be compelled to contract, 
 and thus both they and those w^ho trade with them exer- 
 cise in full perfection the power of self-government. Con- 
 tractions not being required, their customers do not fail, nor 
 do they fail themselves : as is shown by the fact that in the 
 last thirty-eight years of war and commercial convulsions, 
 the failures have been but two in number, and their joint 
 capitals were less than $50,000. There, the machinery of 
 exchange from hand to hand is more perfect, and less costly 
 than elsewhere in the world : and simply because, there, man 
 and land, and wealth, are least fettered by regulation. 
 
 The system of Massachusetts stands next in the order of 
 freedom and security. It is less free, because banking capi- 
 
MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 165 
 
 tal is subject to a tax of one per cent., which limits coiu .pe- 
 tition to that point at which banks can make out of their 
 circulation and deposits two and a half per cent, in addition 
 to the six per cent, earned by their capital ; whereas, in Rhode 
 Island, the average excess of loans over capital is but little 
 over twenty-five per cent., yielding seven and a half per cent, 
 of gross profit, one and a half per cent, of which goes to the 
 payment of losses and expenses, and to the gradual accumula- 
 tion of surplus funds. Competition produces great economy, 
 and the losses would be very small, had the other states, its 
 neighbours, the same free system. The fluctuations of New 
 York and Pennsylvania often ruin the traders of Rhode 
 Island, whose banks have to bear losses of which they are 
 not the cause, but they nevertheless divide six per cent, from 
 a business exceeding their capitals less than thirty per cent. 
 The banker receives the same rate of interest that the trader 
 pays : neither more nor less. There is little friction to be 
 paid for. The machine moves with a steadiness and regu- 
 larity unknown in the world : yet every other state and king- 
 dom might have one equally perfect, were they to adopt the 
 same means for obtaining it. 
 
 As we pass south and west from New England, we find 
 the population becoming more and more scattered, and more 
 and more employed in cultivating thin soils, while sur- 
 rounded by forests and swamps covering rich soils : and 
 "svith each step in our progress we find the trade in money 
 becoming less and less free, the quantity of the machinery 
 of exchange increasing, and its quality becoming depre- 
 ciated. 
 
 New York has had a variety of systems, all involving care 
 and supervision on the part of those charged with the busi- 
 ness of government, the natural consequence of which is, 
 that her system is less advantageous to the community than 
 those of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, where the people 
 protect themselves. Under her present system, banks are 
 made by individuals, and the saving fund character, by 
 
166 MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 
 
 which they are distinguished in New England, has disap- 
 peared, and the local investment of capital is thus prevented. 
 
 Pennsylvarlia is the favoured land of banking and landed 
 monopolies. Large banks are permitted to exist while 
 small communities throughout the state are denied the privi- 
 lege of opening money shops for themselves. Capital is 
 forced from the country to the city, where it accumulates, 
 somewhat as it does in England, and flows off to the south 
 and west, there to be dissipated in wasteful enterprises : 
 while the little farmer and trader of the interior are unable to 
 obtain the temporary loans necessary to enable the one to pur- 
 chase manure, and the other to increase his stock of axes 
 and spades, shoes and coats. Her policy is suicidal. She 
 abounds in the raw material of wealth, and she expels 
 the wealth and the labour required to bring it into activity. 
 
 Passing further south, as men become more scattered, and 
 cultivate poorer soils, land is less divided, and the facility 
 of investment is diminished: and therewith we find freedom 
 of trade gradually decreasing, and States becoming bankers, 
 with the usual results of great instability, enormous loss to the 
 owner of the bank, and ruin to those who trade with it. Pass- 
 ing west, we find on the outer edge of civilization the least 
 freedom and the w^orst machinery of exchange. The State of 
 Missouri can have but one bank, and that bank will not fur- 
 nish more than a given quantity of circulation, be the increase 
 of population and trade what it may. It would have been 
 quite as judicious in the framers of the constitution had they 
 determined that but one railroad should ever exist in the 
 state, and that that road should never have more than a cer- 
 tain number of engines and cars. The bank note facilitates 
 the transfer of property from hand to hand, and the railroad 
 car its transfer from place to place. The one is as useful 
 as the other, and quite as harmless : as much so as the shoe- 
 shop. 
 
MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 167 
 
 In England, the investment of capital has been at all times 
 impeded by land. In many cases, nine-tenths of the latter 
 have been owned by persons having but a life-interest there- 
 in, and liable to be impeded in their actions or contract, by 
 remainder-men. In many others, mortgagees and other 
 parties have had interests at variance with those of the 
 nominal owner. In most others, the owner of the remain- 
 ing tenth would not permit a drain to be dug, or a tile to be 
 laid, unless he were permitted to take a tenth of the whole 
 product of labour and capital ; while paying no wages to the 
 man employed in the work of improvement or cultivation. 
 In some, great landlords owning turnpikes wanted large 
 tolls; while in others steam-engines were held to be nui- 
 sances ; and railroad makers were regarded as enemies, 
 to be kept at a distance unless they would consent to pay 
 largely for the privilege of doubling the value of the land 
 through which their roads were to be made to run. 
 
 The necessary consequence of this has been, that the ma- 
 chinery of exchange has been very abundant, and of very 
 inferior quality. All facility for local investment has been 
 denied, and capital has been forced from the land into 
 great towns and cities filled with starving operatives living 
 in filthy cellars, whose labour was to be employed in con- 
 verting cotton produced in India or America, into cloth to be 
 sent to America or Australia ; to be there exchanged for corn 
 or wool, that could have been produced at half the cost at 
 home : while their employment therein would have tended to- 
 wards perfecting the great machine given by the Creator for 
 the production of food and wool. To ensure the continuance 
 of the power thus to waste labour and capital, colonies have 
 been founded and maintained ; and the flag of England has 
 been enabled to disport itself over barren rocks in the Medi- 
 terranean, wild lands in Canada, and wilder lands occupied 
 by wretched tribes in Australia and New Zealand, South- 
 ern Africa and Honduras : at the cost of thousands of millions 
 that would have made of the United Kingdom a garden, 
 
168 MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 
 
 occupied by a hundred millions of the best fed, best clothed, 
 and best educated people in the world.* 
 
 The machinery of exchange used for the accomplishment 
 of these objects has been as costly as it has been bad, and it 
 has absorbed eight hundred millions of the savings of the peo- 
 ple, in addition to the thousands of millions raised by taxes. 
 The owners of those eight hundred millions require divi- 
 dends ; and the fleets and armies, which constitute a part of 
 this vast system of bad machinery, require pay : and to 
 provide for all these charges, fifty millions a year are re- 
 quired. The collection of the taxes required for these pur- 
 poses produces a demand for a vast quantity of inferior ma- 
 chinery, intermediate between the producer and consumer, 
 in the form of tax-gatherers : and the payment of these con- 
 tributions tends to render necessary another large quantity of 
 machinery, in the form of managers of almshouses, poor law 
 commissioners, &c., who take the produce and divide it among 
 those who desire to consume, but cannot find employment : 
 and they cannot do so because the spades and picks that should 
 be employed in making roads and trenches at home, have been 
 sent to Canada, the Cape of Good Hope, or Australia, to be 
 there employed in the cultivation of the thin soils of the hills, 
 while rich soils at home remain unimproved and valueless. 
 
 The necessary consequence of all this is a tendency to 
 cause the centralization of wealth in places in which it is not 
 produced : and in the hands of those who have not laboured 
 for its production : and thus to cause waste. Added to this is 
 the fact that the mass of the people do not own the land they 
 cultivate. Capital accumulates in their hands from the 
 commencement to the close of the year, to be distributed 
 by the landlord, who gives back to the soil a small 
 portion of its product, or not, at his pleasure ; and when he 
 
 * The colonies of England are forty-four in number, and their annual cost, 
 exclusive of fleets and armies kept on foot for their protection, exceeds three 
 millions, while the whole exports to them are only ten millions. From this 
 statement of costs and trade, India is excluded. 
 
MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 169 
 
 chances so to do, he calls it an investment of capital on land ; 
 thus charging all and crediting nothing to the great machine. 
 A further consequence of all this is, that the quantity of the 
 machinery of exchange required, in the form of money, is 
 large : being considerably more than double the amount, 
 per head, that is required in New England, although under 
 other circumstances it would be less. 
 
 To add to the stagnation and centralization thus produced, 
 the habit of local union among the little communities through- 
 out the kingdom is, as far as possible, restrained by law, for 
 the benefit of the larger unions in the metropolis ; and for that 
 of the larger capitalists, bankers, manufacturers, and traders 
 there and in the principal towns. Centralization is the rule. 
 The law fixes the manner in which men may be permitted 
 to unite for the purposes of trade, and what shaf^be the re- 
 lation of the partners towards each other, and towards the 
 world : and no effort at self-government can enable the par- 
 ties to avoid that law. But recently, the formation of joint- 
 stock associations, with transferable shares, was prohibited 
 on any terms. Twenty years since, not more than six per- 
 sons could associate for opening a place for dealing in 
 money, even if all were liable for the debts of the concern : 
 and all this was for the benefit of a large association to which 
 had been granted exemption from the restrictions imposed by 
 previous laws. About that time, however, men were per- 
 mitted to associate in larger numbers for the formation of 
 banks, but on the sole condition that each associate should 
 be liable for all the debts of the concern : thus maintaining 
 in full force the barbarous system of unlimited liability : soli- 
 darite : that had descended from olden time. The mainte- 
 nance of this involved a thousand other regulations, and hence 
 arose a necessity for various new laws to determine the re- 
 lation of the parties to each other : yet they remain to this day 
 in a condition so little satisfactory, that parties who desire to 
 associate are forced to resort to various contrivances with a 
 view to procure some approach to safety. The necessary 
 
 15 
 
170 MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 
 
 consequence of all this is, that prudent men take no part in 
 such institutions. They deposit their money for safe keep- 
 ing, receiving no interest, while the bankers lend out both it 
 and their own very Httle capital, and thus are enabled to 
 divide double interest. 
 
 The result of all this may be seen by the following 
 comparison of the system of Rhode Island, and that of the 
 joint-stock banks of London, the great centre of the trade 
 of the world. 
 The sixty-five banks of Rhode Island have a 
 
 capital of about -------- $10,300,000 
 
 The amount of their investments is usually about 13,000,000 
 Their dividends are about six per cent., affording the same 
 rate of interest as could be obtained from loans on mortgage 
 security, as there is no liability to be paid for. 
 The five joint-stock banks of London have a nominal capi- 
 tal of - . . . 55,000,000 
 
 Of which there is paid up 11,700,000 
 
 Each shareholder being individually liable for all the 
 debts, it is attempted to free him from the responsibility by 
 making him and his brother shareholders subscribe for XlOO, 
 of which but about .£20 is called in : and thus, instead of 
 a capital of a million, we find one amounting to JG200,000, 
 while the remaining £800,000 consists of promises to pay ; 
 but these promises involve liabilities, for which the givers 
 expect to be paid. They, therefore, trade to as great an 
 extent as if they had the whole miUion. Their deposits 
 amount to about £10,000,000, nearly the whole of which 
 vast sum is lent out, liable to be reclaimed whenever any 
 change takes place in the state of affairs; and thus while 
 the actual capital of the five great banks is little more than 
 is found engaged in the money trade of the little State in 
 which banking is most free, the amount of their loans 
 is four times as great, being probably £11,000,000, — ■ 
 $53,000,000. Their dividends are from six to eight per cent., 
 in addition to the sums that are appropriated to the increase 
 
MAN ANL- HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 171 
 
 of their capital : whereas mortgage loans yield but four per' 
 cent. Of the depositors, some receive a small interest, and 
 some have none, they having thus to contribute towards the 
 dividends of the men who take large risks in hopes of re- 
 ceiving large profits : of those who prefer the uncertain pro- 
 fits of the gaming-table to the certain ones of regular em- 
 ployment. Were those banks freed from barbarous liabilities, 
 the whole amount of their capitals would be at once paid up, 
 as depositors would gladly convert their almost unpro- 
 ductive capital into bank shares paying four per cent. To 
 yield such dividend would require a business not exceed- 
 ing their own means by more than thirty per cent. : and 
 their shares would then, because of the perfect safety of the 
 institutions and perfect certainty of dividend, constitute a se- 
 curity of the highest, order. Were chartered banks once to be 
 formed under a general law, it would soon be seen that in- 
 stitutions with large capitals and small liabilities were safer 
 for their owners, because steadier in their action : and safer 
 for those who trade with them : than such institutions as 
 those which now exist, and which resemble an inverted 
 pyramid, all top and no bottom ; and the latter would soon 
 pass out of existence, for no one w^ould trust them.* 
 
 Under such a system, joint-stock banks are held in little 
 favour, and private banks abound ; and here we see in full 
 force the effect of regulation. We have shown that in 
 Rhode Island, out of sixty-five banks, but two failed in 
 thirty-eight years, including the periods of war and of the 
 great revulsions of 1815, 1825, 1836, and 1839: whereas, in 
 England, from 1839 to 1843, both inclusive, a time of pro- 
 
 ■ " ' ^ 
 
 * " The year 1836 marked the widest spread and extremity of the 
 [joint-stock bank] system, and nothing has since been able to revive it, 
 so as to make it a favourite object of public patronage, although, as we 
 believe, joint-stock banks were, on the whole, never in so sound and satis- 
 factory a condition as they are at this instant of time. This want of 
 power to compete for public favour with the other new thing, the railway 
 system, is no doubt owing to the unlimited liability of shareholders, in banks, 
 and the absence of that obnoxious principle in railways." — Bankers' Circu- 
 lar, January 8, 1847. 
 
172 MAN AND ins STANDARD OF VALUE. 
 
 found peace, eighty-two private bankers became bankrupt ; 
 of whom forty-six paid no dividends, twelve paid under 
 twenty-five per cent., twelve under fifty per cent., three under 
 seventy-five per cent., and two under one hundred per cent. : 
 leaving seven yet unascertained. 
 
 Under the one system capital is promptly invested where 
 it is accumulated. It falls gently as the dew, and it dif- 
 fuses life and animation everywhere around. Every village 
 having its money-shop, owned in the neighbourhood, the 
 little capitalist is not compelled to send his money to Bos- 
 ton, or New York, for investment. The consequence is, 
 that every farmer and mechanic who wishes the aid of a 
 little capital can have it, provided his character entitles him 
 to claim it.* In England, on the contrary, there is a constant 
 tendency to the centralization of capital in London, because 
 of the diflSculty attendant upon investing it at home. Of the 
 3,013 shareholders in the five joint-stock banks of that city, 
 1,106 reside at more than fifteen miles from it. The natural 
 tendency of capital is to accumulate in towns, and to be 
 from thence distributed over the country, equalizing the rate 
 of interest to all portions of the nation ; and such would be 
 the case in England, were banking free : but the tendency of 
 the present system is to force capital from the country to the 
 city, and to increase the inequality that w^ould naturally exist. 
 It is offered in London at one and a half to two per cent., 
 when in parts of the country it is almost unattainable at 
 any price. The same state of things exists in many parts 
 of the United States. In Pennsylvania, because of the re- 
 fusal to permit the establishment of local banks, large sums 
 
 *The little bank of the little town in which we write, with its capital of $50,000, 
 has about a hundred and fifty stockholders, embracing all the little capitalists, 
 farmers, and lawyers, and widows, and orphans, and tailors, and shoemakers, 
 of the neighbourhood. It divides six per cent. — precisely what the borrowers 
 pay — 'and its stock is at par. Each owner profits by the local application of 
 his capicai, in the increased demand for labour and merchandise that is thereby 
 produced: and each participates, through directors with whose characters he 
 is acquainted, in the management of his capital. Such institutions produce 
 unmixed good : and such would be the character of all were banking once 
 set free from the control of politicians. 
 
MAN AND HIS STANDARD O? VALUE. 173 
 
 are remitted to Philadelphia, to be employed in building up 
 great banks : while farmers, and mechanics, and traders, can 
 scarcely borrow at any price, because they have no money- 
 shop within fifty miles of them. The capitalist receives less 
 than he would otherwise do, and his property improves 
 slowly, because his neighbours cannot obtain the means to 
 improve their own little farms ; to increase their machinery ; 
 or to augment their stores of goods. Capital accumulates in 
 the city, and the rate of interest falls. Large investments 
 are then made in distant banks or railroads, and after a little 
 time he finds that his means are gone : that the great banks 
 and himself are ruined together. Such is precisely the case 
 in England. Capital is forced, by means of regulation, into 
 the city, there to be managed by the great bank, and to be 
 by it expelled thence to Spain, Mexico, Peru, Chili, In- 
 diana, and Illinois ; whereas, had the currency been left to 
 take care of itself, and had land and trade been relieved 
 from restriction, employment for it would have been found 
 at home. There would then never have arisen the necessity for 
 threats of interference on the part of the ever-belligerent 
 Secretary for Foreign Affairs, to compel the re-payment of 
 money which would not have been lent but for the med- 
 dling of legislators and politicians w'ith the aflfairs of indi- 
 viduals. 
 
 Under such a system, steadiness in the value of the com- 
 modity used as the. standard for the measurement of the 
 values of commodities, was impossible ; but instead of per- 
 ceiving that unsteadiness w^as produced by restriction and 
 regulation, it was erroneously attributed to the excess of 
 freedom, and a new system w^as established by the celebrated 
 Bank Restriction A.ct of 1844. To the movements of the 
 one great bank have mainly been due all the violent revul- 
 sions in trade throughout the world, whose effects upon the 
 United States we have already described. What have been 
 the causes of the extraordinary changes that produced 
 those revulsions we propose now to show : as well as to in- 
 
 15* 
 
174 MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 
 
 quire how far the new system tends to prevent their further 
 recurrence. 
 
 Under the old charter of the Bank, great inconvenience and 
 loss were experienced by the mercantile world from the ex- 
 traordinary fluctuations in the supply and value of money. 
 At one moment it appeared to be so abundant as to be almost 
 valueless. Vast sums remained in bank at the credit of in- 
 dividuals, yielding them no return ; and the bank itself was 
 soliciting applications for loans, at low rates of interest. It 
 was then forced out in loans to all the poor sovereigns of 
 Europe. A few months passed by, and the bank was charging 
 almost double the usual interest on the best paper, and forcing 
 out the securities which it had laboured to monopolize. By 
 those who had securities of the first order, money was to be 
 obtained with exceeding difficulty; while, by those who held 
 such as were of the second order, it was unattainable at any 
 price. A little time elapsed, and trade was paralyzed. Mo- 
 ney was then again cheap, and it was sent to the mines of 
 Mexico ; and then again a little time, and it was dear. Again 
 cheap, it was sent to make roads and canals in Illinois, and 
 banks in Mississippi and Alabama. Again dear, the bank was 
 seen labouring to save itself from ruin, and sauve qui peut 
 was the order of the day. 
 
 On the verge of suspension, in 1836, and escaping only by 
 ihe adoption of measures that involved in ruin a large por- 
 tion of the trading world at home ; it was seen, as early as 
 1839, enlarging its loans in the face of a steady drain of bul- 
 lion, indicating an already existing excess in the currency, 
 and thus involving itself in difficulty so serious as to compel 
 resort to measures of severity far exceeding those of the for- 
 mer period . Hosts of shopkeepers and mechanics, merchants 
 and manufacturers, were ruined; operatives, in countless 
 thousands, were deprived of employment and reduced to 
 starvation; and the best of the foreign customers of England 
 so seriously injured, that for a time trade seemed almost at an 
 end. Severe as were these measures, the desired effect was 
 
MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 175 
 
 not immediately produced; and the great bank, the regulator 
 of the monetary concerns of the greatest mercantile commu- 
 nity of the world, was seen to be forced, on bended knees, 
 to solicit the aid of its great neighbour and rival, the Bank 
 of France, to save it from absolute bankruptcy. 
 
 The frequency and extraordinary extent of these changes, 
 induced a proper feeling of doubt as to the capacity of those 
 to whom had been intrusted the management of the currency ; 
 and a strong disposition was felt to ascertain by what laws, 
 if any there were, the institution was governed. A Parliamen- 
 tary committee was appointed, and numerous sittings were 
 held. Witnesses were examined, for and against the bank; 
 and a huge volume of evidence was printed, much of which 
 was strange enough certainly, as coming from men who 
 might have been supposed to know some little of the laws of 
 trade. With all the evidence, the committee failed to dis- 
 cover the law that was desired. The only conclusion at 
 which it was possible for it to arrive was, that the institu- 
 tion was administered without reference to any principle 
 whatsoever : that its movements were invariably those of mo- 
 mentary expediency: and that the dangers and difficulties 
 which had occurred were likely to be repeated at the first fa- 
 vourable moment. Such having been clearly shown to be 
 the case, even by the evidence of the governor of the bank 
 himself, it was deemed necessary, on the renewal of the 
 charter, to endeavour to subject its action to some certain 
 law : thus fitting it to become the regulator of the action 
 of others : and hence the Bank Restriction Acts. Those acts 
 are not yet three years old, and the same scene is renewed. 
 A period of frightful speculation is followed by universal 
 panic. Consols, but recently at par, are now at 80. The 
 government is forced to pay five per cent, for money. Rail- 
 road stock has fallen, in many cases, twenty to thirty per 
 cent. The best paper cannot be negotiated at less than ten 
 to fifteen per cent, per annum. Bank notes cannot be ob- 
 tained even for silver bullion. Dealers in corn, and cotton, 
 
176 MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 
 
 and bullion, are again proscribed. Deputations from Liver- 
 pool and Manchester claim of the minister a suspension of 
 the law, and he is assured that large orders remain unexe- 
 cuted, because of the impossibility of obtaining the means 
 necessary for their execution, while operatives are starving 
 for want of employment. The bank itself, with bankruptcy 
 staring it in the face, is compelled to enlarge its loans when 
 it would contract them ; and thus is exhibited, for the third 
 time within little more than ten years, the spectacle of a great 
 regulator utterly unable to control its own movements. It 
 has hopes, however, in aid from the Russian autocrat. He 
 has already saved the regulator of France, and he promises 
 to do as much for that of England. The great community 
 of Britain see, in the promised aid of two millions, a prospect 
 of relief! The bank becomes "more liberal in its dis- 
 counts." "The screw" is not so tight. They think they 
 see that the regulator may save itself without utterly destroy- 
 ing them ; and bright hope gladdens the face of thousands, 
 in reflecting upon the idea that the Czar is enabled, by means 
 of the issue of bank notes, adapted for the purposes of small 
 traders as well as large ones, to dispense with the use of gold 
 to such an extent as to enable him to become a creditor of 
 their own government ; and to entitle himself to an annual 
 remittance of .£60,000, in payment of interest on the pro- 
 mised loan : whereas similar action on their own part would 
 render available a much larger amount of their own capital, 
 free of all demand for interest, thus lessening the cost of the 
 machinery of exchange, and increasing the power of pro- 
 duction. 
 
 A brief interval of expansion is followed by another con- 
 traction. At one moment, interest is reduced to five per cent., 
 and at the next it is raised to nine. At one, exchequer bills 
 are in favour. At the next, they are proscribed. From hour 
 to hour the system changes, and universal ruin is the result. 
 
 Such is the condition of the people of England under the 
 control of its great bank. They are dependent upon the 
 chance measures of a body of gentlemen, no one of whom 
 
MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 177 
 
 has ever yet, so far as we have seen, been able to explain the 
 principles by which they are governed in the administration 
 of the vast machine subjected to their control. 
 
 The Bank Restriction Act has failed to produce the effect 
 desired. It has given no steadiness to the value of money. 
 By one party, the fault is attributed to the law itself; w^hile 
 by another, it is asserted, that if the bank had acted <' in 
 the spirit of the law of 1844," the difficuUy would not 
 have occurred. Such are the w^ords of the author of the 
 law, who attributes the pressure to the extraordinary spirit 
 of speculation that has recently existed; to the scarcity of 
 corn ; and to other causes : and who, as might have been ex- 
 pected, is willing to see it in any cause but the real one, 
 which is to be found in the radical defect of his own mea- 
 sure. It professed to regulate the action of the bank; and, 
 had it done so, the directors would have found themselves 
 compelled to act in accordance with its letter and its spirit : and 
 then there could have been no such speculation as that we have 
 recently witnessed. Had it done so, the difficulties naturally 
 attendant upion short crops would not have been aggravated, 
 as they now are, by the total prostration of trade, the discharge 
 of workmen, and the impossibility of obtaining wages to be 
 used in the purchase, at any price, of the necessaries of life. 
 
 The trade in money requires no more law than that in 
 shoes. It requires, on the contrary, perfect freedom, be- 
 cause it is so vastly greater in amount* that interference to 
 the extent of one-half of one per cent, is there more felt than 
 in the other would be one amounting to a hundred per cent. 
 The tendency of gold and silver to steadiness in value is the 
 great recommendation which they possess, entitling them 
 to claim to be used for measuring the value of all other 
 commodities ; and were the trade in money perfectly free, 
 
 * Every contract for the purchase or sale of any commodity, or property^ 
 involves a contract for the delivery of a quantity of money equivalent to the 
 price. The trade in money is therefore equal in amount to the sum of the 
 prices of all commodities, and properties, and labor, sold. 
 
178 MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 
 
 they would constitute standards almost as perfect as does the 
 yard-stick as a measure of length, or the bushel as a measure 
 of capacity. On an average, the whole quantity of corn, and 
 cotton, and sugar, in market, in any year, is consumed in the 
 year, and a failure of crop may make a change of fifty, 
 or even of a hundred, per cent, in the price ; whereas, the 
 quantity of gold and silver always in market — and which can 
 be kept there because they are not subject to rust, or decay — 
 is more than a hundred times the quantity required for a 
 year's consumption : and a total failure of the year's crop 
 should not affect it to the extent of even one per cent. 
 Nevertheless, such are the penalties, prohibitions, liabihties, 
 and other restrictions, to which traders in money are sub- 
 jected : so numerous and powerful are the monopolies esta- 
 blished for their regulation : that of all trades that in money is 
 the least steady : and of all commodities, money is the most 
 subject to sudden alteration in supply, and consequently in 
 value, as compared with other commodities. It is a yard- 
 stick, of perpetually changing length : a gallon measure, 
 that contains sometimes three quarts, and at other times six, 
 or even twelve. The regulation of the currency is held to 
 be one of the functions of government, because, in past 
 times, all sovereigns have found it to be a convenient mode of 
 taxation. Philip the Fair changed the coinage thirteen times 
 in a single year, and more than a hundred times during his 
 reign. Louis X., Charles IV., Philip V. and VI., John, and 
 their successors, almost to the Revolution, followed the illus- 
 trious example. In England, similar changes have been 
 made, but to a much smaller extent, France having been, at 
 all times, distinguished among the countries of Europe for 
 frauds of that and other kinds. All the governments of Eu- 
 rope, great and small, have, at various times, done the same 
 thing ; and hence their claim, still maintained, to execute, 
 either by themselves or their deputies, the same profitable 
 office. That of England transfers the duty to the bank, 
 which institution performs it in such a manner that at one 
 
MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 179 
 
 time money is cheap, and the State is enabled to compel the 
 owners of three and a half per cents, to receive three per 
 cents, in exchange, and thus to effect a large saving of inte- 
 rest : while at another time money is dear, and the owners 
 of the new stock find they have been juggled out of their 
 property. We do not desire to say that such is the object 
 sought in the production of these extraordinary changes, 
 but such is certainly their effect: and good reasons can 
 always be given for them. At one time, it is the enormous 
 import of stocks from the continent ; at another, the influx 
 of South American shares and stocks ; at a third, the vast 
 loans to the United States ; and at a fourth, the deficiency 
 of the crops ; but stocks would not come if money were not 
 made too cheap, and corn might be deficient without pro- 
 ducing any material change in the value of money, except 
 as regarded corn itself. If the supply of sugar were small, 
 the price of sugar itself would rise, and there would be 
 somewhat less money to be exchanged against cloth, the 
 price of which would slightly fall ; and so, if the supply of 
 grain were short, there would be less money to be exchanged 
 against sugar ; but in no case would a deficiency in one 
 commodity materially affect the prices of other commodities, 
 were the currency let alone. The true reason is, that the 
 task of regulation is committed to one great institution, 
 w^hose movements are totally unregulated. It monopolizes 
 securities at one time, and produces an apparent excess, and 
 consequent cheapness, of money. It forces them back upon 
 the market, when much of this apparent excess has found 
 employment in new enterprises, to which resort would not 
 otherwise have been had, and now the scarcity is equal to 
 the previous abundance. It is a great fly-wheel in the midst 
 of an infinite number of little wheels, all of which are com- 
 pelled to go fast or slow as the master- wheel may direct. If 
 its own movement could be rendered uniform, all would work 
 harmoniously ; but if it must continue to be, as it has here- 
 tofore been, subjected to perpetual jerks, and to changes from 
 
180 MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 
 
 backward to forward motion, and vice versa, from forward to 
 backward, the inevitable consequence must also continue to be 
 the destruction of many of the little ones : and eventually, per- 
 haps, it may be that of the great one. These little wheels are 
 the bankers, and merchants, and manufacturers of England : 
 of the United States: and of the world: who have been for a 
 long time engaged in studying the law which governs the 
 motion of the great fiy-w^heel, but with so little success, as 
 yet, that we hazard little in asserting that there is no man in 
 England, in or out of the bank, that would commit that law 
 to writing, and stake his fortune on proving that it had been 
 operative during any one period of twelve months in the last 
 twenty years. In despair of arriving at any comprehension 
 of the laws of its action, all resign themselves blindly to its 
 influence, and the error of the great regulator is propagated 
 throughout the w^hole system. Joint stock and private banks 
 expand when it expands, and contract as it contracts ; and an 
 error of a single million in Threadneedle-street thus pro- 
 duces error to the extent of tens of millions in the money 
 transactions of the kingdom. Hence the necessity for sub- 
 jecting it to fixed and positive rules. The currency needs 
 no such regulator, but if such an one must continue to exist, 
 its action should be rendered perfectly automatic : leaving it 
 then to the proprietors of the little wheels to use such gear- 
 ing as w^ould enable them to attain as much or as little speed 
 as they might respectively require. It should be acted upon 
 by the community, instead of acting itself upon them, and 
 then it might be consulted wdth the same confidence as the 
 thermometer. The law that should produce this effect, 
 would not be that of 1844, which, with all its machinery of 
 banking department, and department of issue, has totally 
 failed to answer the end proposed. It has failed, because it 
 was framed with a view to changes in the amount of currency 
 in use, which are ever slow^, and small in amount: while it 
 contained no reference to changes in the currency seeking 
 employment, which have always been rapid, and great in 
 
MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 181 
 
 amount.* It made the bullion of the bank dependent upon 
 the circulation which is in constant use among the great body 
 of the people, and cannot be materiall}' increased or de- 
 creased, without a great change in the state of trade, or in 
 
 * It is curious to see in the evidence of eminent bankers the reasons ad- 
 duced for thinking that deposits — convertible on the instant into notes or 
 gold — are not as much currency as notes or gold themselves. One among 
 the most learned of the bank directors, thought that they could not be so 
 considered, for the owner " could not pay his laborers with them," nor could 
 he do with them '" whatever he could do with sovereigns and shillings." He 
 thought, however, that they possessed " the essential qualities of money in a 
 very low degree." The " essential quality of money" is that of facilitating 
 the transfer of property, and that quality is possessed in a higher degree by 
 the bank note than by gold and silver; and in a still higher degree by the 
 check than by the note : for the owner of money on deposit draws for the 
 precise number of pounds, shillings, and pence required, and transfers them, 
 without the trouble of handling or counting even a single penny. It is 
 curious, too, to remark the strong tendency existing in the minds of many of 
 the witnesses, distinguished in the monetary circles of London, to confound 
 notes of hand, and bills, with currency. A note is a contract for the delivery, 
 at some future day, of a given quantity of money, or currency. Its value, in 
 money, depends on the proportion between the money and bills -in market, 
 and is just as much liable to variation as that of sugar or coffee. If money 
 be plenty, and bills, or coffee, or sugar scarce, the price of the article in which 
 the deficiency of supply exists, will be high ; but if sugar, or coffee, or bills, be 
 abundant, and money be scarce, the price of the superabundant commodity 
 will be low. Notes may be barlered for merchandise, as is done in England 
 to a great extent; but an increase in the supply of notes in the market, 
 although it may materially affect the credit price of commodities : or the price 
 in barter for promises to deliver money at some future day : will make no 
 change in their money prices, unless there exist a facility for converting the 
 notes into money. In time of severe pressure, there is great facility in bar- 
 tering merchandise for notes; but want of confidence induces the holders to 
 fix the prices very high, with a view to cover the cost and risk attendant upon 
 the conversion of notes into the commodity that is needed, which is money, 
 or currency : the thing with which they must redeem their own obligations. 
 The term currency means money on the spot, and in England, with the excep- 
 tion of the silver coinage for small payments, nothing is recognised as money 
 but gold, which passes from hand to hand, either by actual delivery of the 
 coin, or by the transfer of the property in a certain portion of that which 
 exists in the vaults of banks and bankers: by means of private drafts, or checks, 
 or by that of obligations of the bank itself, called bank notes. A contract for 
 the delivery of flour at a future day might, with the same propriety, be called 
 flour, as a contract for the delivery, at a future day, of a certain quantity of 
 the commodity which is current for the payment of debts, and which we call 
 money, can be called money, or currency, itself. 
 
 The difficulties of the bank result from the fact that, whenever speculation 
 
 16 
 
182 MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 
 
 the feelings of the people ; instiead of making it dependent 
 upon the deposits of unemployed capital, the property of the 
 few, which are liable to increase or decrease by every change 
 of weather, and by every speck that appears in the political 
 or commercial horizon. 
 
 By the new charter, the quantity of bullion to be held is 
 made dependent entirely on the state of the circulation ; a 
 sovereign, or, to a certain extent, its equivalent in silver, 
 being required to lie in the vaults of the bank for every 
 pound of its notes that is in the hands of the public beyond 
 the sum of ^£14,000,000. An examination of the operations of 
 the bank, shows the circulation an almost constant quantity, 
 amounting, since the date of that charter, to ^£20,000,000 ; 
 and so long as the public shall insist upon keeping it at 
 that point, <£6,000,000 of bulHon must remain in the bank, 
 not to be used under any circumstances whatsoever : and 
 of little more value to the community, while they so remain, 
 than would be an equal weight of pebble stones. How far 
 the circulation can claim to be treated as a constant quan- 
 tity, we propose now to inquire. In doing so, it is neces- 
 sary to bear in mind that trade is more active at certain 
 seasons of the year than at others; and that, as more ex- 
 changes are to be performed, more notes, or machinery of 
 exchange, are required in the active than in the dull sea- 
 son ; and that, therefore, if we would compare one year with 
 another, we should take, in all cases, the same months of the 
 
 is rife, and men are anxious to make contracts for the future delivery of money, 
 she facilitates their operations by taking their notes freely, and becoming re- 
 sponsible for the delivery of the money on demand: by which means her debts, 
 called deposits, are largely increased. If she has the money, all is well ; but 
 if she has not, she thus swells the imaginary amount of the currency, and 
 prices rise. When the time arrives for payment, it commonly proves that 
 both parties have been trading on their credit. The bank must be paid, or 
 she cannot pay, and must become bankrupt. She seduced the poor debtor to 
 over-trade, by assuming to do that which she could not have done if called 
 upon . and she now ruins him for having yielded to her solicitations. She 
 escapes by lucky accident, and speedily re-exhibits what is called "an in- 
 creased liberality" in her accommodations; i. c, she again runs largely in 
 debt for the purchase of securities. 
 
MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 183 
 
 year. Following this rule, we now give the circulation of 
 April and October, for the years from 1832 to 1840 : — 
 
 April. October. 
 
 1833 - - - £18,449,000 - - £18,200,000 
 
 1833 - - - 17,912,000 - - - 19,823,000 
 
 1834 - - - 19,097,000 - - 19,107,000 
 
 1835 - - - 18,507,000 - - - 18,216,000 
 
 1836 - - - 17,985,000 - - 18,136,000 
 
 1837 - - - 18,365,000 - - - 18,876,000 
 
 1838 - - - 18,872,000 - - 19,636,000 
 
 1839 - - - 18,326,000 - - - 17,906,000 
 
 1840 - - - 16,818,000 - - 17,221,000 
 
 The year 1840 was a year of utter prostration. In that 
 and the following year, trade was at an end, so far as the 
 ruin of the customers of England: and particularly the peo- 
 ple of the United States: by the extraordinary movements 
 of the bank could accomplish that object. Nevertheless, 
 under these untoward circumstances, the circulation re- 
 mained above ^616, 000,000 ; and we shall now find it gra- 
 dually attaining a point higher than it had been at for 
 many years : — 
 
 April. October. 
 
 1841 - - - £16,533,700 - - £17,592,000 
 
 1842 - - - 16,952,000 - - - 20,004,000 
 
 1843 - - - 20,239,000 - - 19,561,000 
 
 1844 - - - 21,246,000 - 
 
 NEW LAW. 
 
 April. October. 
 
 1844 £21,152,000 
 
 1845 - - £20,099,000 - - - 21,260,000 
 
 1846 - - - 19,86.5,000 - - 21,550,000 
 
 1847 - - - 19,854,000 - - - 
 
 From this we see that in the first period embracing the 
 nine years from 1832 to 1840, both inclusive: and including 
 the crisis of 1836-7 : the variation in the month of April, above 
 and below the medium point of .£18,500,000, is under three 
 per cent.; while that of October, above and below the point 
 of ^18,900,000, is but little over four per cent, until we 
 reach the close of 1839, and commencement of 1840; when 
 the bank had been compelled to trample in the dust all 
 
184 MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 
 
 that were in any way dependent upon it, thereby almost an- 
 nihilating the trade of the country, and that of all countries 
 intimately connected with it. 
 
 In the second period, it attains a higher point than in the 
 first. Private and joint-stock banks have been ruined by 
 the extraordinary revulsion of 1839, and confidence in their 
 notes has been impaired: and the bank now profits by the 
 ruin which it has caused. 
 
 From 1844 to the present time, the variations are under 
 two per cent. There is, however, a material difference be- 
 tween the average amount of the first and third periods, and 
 a permanent increase appears to have taken place. In the 
 time that has elapsed, there has been a great increase of 
 population, wealth, and trade, and an increase of the ma- 
 chinery of trade might have been calculated upon ; yet no 
 real increase in the circulation has taken place, and the 
 change that is above shown is only apparent, and offers a 
 new proof of the tendency to constancy: despite all legisla- 
 tive interferences : to which we desire to call the attention 
 of our readers. Previously to 1844, there were no limits to 
 the circulation of the private, joint stock, Irish and Scotch 
 banks, which averaged, between 1833 and 1839, about 
 c£20,000,000. By the new law, they were limited to about 
 jEl 7,800,000, which is almost the precise amount at the 
 date of the latest returns. The vacuum thus made had to 
 be filled by notes of the Bank of England, which have, 
 therefore, risen from ^£18,000,000 to ^620,000,000. The 
 average of the total circulation from 1833 to 1839 was 
 ^£37,838,000; in January last, it had reached j£39,400,000 ; 
 in April, it was .£37,819,000. 
 
 Small even as are these variations, they are still to a con- 
 siderable extent only apparent. It is well known that when 
 money is very plenty and cheap, bankers and banks retain 
 on hand a larger amount of each others' notes than when it 
 is scarce and high ; and a note in their vaults is just as 
 much out of circulation as if it remained in those of the issu- 
 
MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 185 
 
 ing bank itself. In the above table it is shown that the 
 highest April was that of 1835, when the bullion in the bank 
 was .£10,673,000, the securities -below £26,000,000, and 
 the market value of money but three per cent. The highest 
 October was that of 1833, when the bullion was nearly 
 £11,000,000, the securities £24,000,000, and the rate of 
 interest also but three per cent. It was a period of reco- 
 very from recent excitement that had been followed by de- 
 pression and loss. The next highest October was that of 
 1838, when trade was paralyzed: unemployed capital abun- 
 dant: the stock of bullion near £10,000,000 : and the rate of 
 interest three per cent. In 1842-3-4, the apparent circula- 
 tion was greater than in any of the years of the first period, 
 yet the bank was unable to extend its business, which was 
 scarcely equal to the amount of its circulation and surplus. 
 In all these cases we find precisely the circumstances calcu- 
 lated to produce an accumulation of Bank of England notes 
 in the vaults and chests of private and joint-stock bankers : 
 while the lowest April and October, until w^e reach the total 
 prostration of 1839-40, were those of 1836, when the loans 
 of the bank had reached the highest point, and when, ac- 
 cording to the theory of the bank restriction act, the circula- 
 tion should have been highest. 
 
 Under the new law, the highest April was that of 1845, 
 when the bullion had reached the enormous sum of 
 £;i6,000,000 ; and the highest October, that of 1846, w^hen 
 it had just re-attained that amount. In view of these facts, 
 we doubt if the variation above or below the medium point, 
 in the real circulation, from 1833 to 1839, ever equalled 
 one and a half per cent. ; a proportion so small, that for 
 almost all purposes it may be regarded as being a constant 
 quantity.* 
 
 * " We have shown, by unanswerable arguments, that under no circum- 
 stances will more circulation be retained in the hands of the public than is 
 just sufficient to perform the functions of a medium of exchange for the inter- 
 nal transactions of the country. No man retains more money in his possession 
 
 16* 
 
186 MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 
 
 That such has been the case, has not been due to any 
 efforts of the bank for that purpose. On the contrary, none 
 have been spared that could have tended to increase and 
 decrease the amount. Between 1833 and 1839, it increased 
 its securities from .£22,000,000 to .£31,000,000, and thus 
 forced up the amount of unemployed capital at the credit 
 of its customers, from £8,000,000 to £18,000,000, for all 
 of which they were entitled to demand notes ^ if they would ; 
 and it had diminished its investments from <£3 1,000,000 to 
 £21,000,000, thereby enabling the owners of unemployed 
 capital to invest at low prices, the effect of which was shown 
 in the reduction of deposits from £18,000,000 to £7,000,000 ; 
 yet the circulation neither increased nor decreased materially. 
 Under the new law, we find it purchasing securities and 
 contracting debts, until the former rise from £22,000,000 to 
 £^36,000,000, and the latter from £12,000,000 attain to 
 ^24,000,000 : and again diminishing, the first to £25,000,000, 
 and the second to £16,000,000 : and all this with no change 
 worth notice in the circulation. The transactions of the 
 whole period have shown that scarcely any power can be 
 exercised over it, for its increase or decrease ; and yet this 
 almost invariable quantity is made the measure of the bullion 
 to be retained in the vaults of the bank : the result of all which 
 is, that it has a circulation of ^£20,000,000 that it cannot 
 compel the people to return upon it for redemption, and that 
 it is, nevertheless, obliged to keep £6,000,000 out of these 
 £20,000,000, in bullion ; while the whole commercial com- 
 munity is thrown into an agony of despair by the total 
 refusal of accommodation, because the amount of bullion 
 is reduced to £9,000,000. Had the law provided that 
 £3,000,000 should be packed up and stowed away, never 
 
 than he requires for immediate use, but either places it in a banlc, or employs 
 it in the purchase of commodities on which he expects to obtain a profit, or 
 securities which will yield an interest. As a rule, therefore, the circulation is 
 at all times confined to the lowest sum which is sufficient to conduct the trans- 
 actions of the country." — Economist. 
 
MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 187 
 
 again to be opened or removed for any purpose whatsoever, 
 it would have been quite as useful for the maintenance of 
 any thing like equality in the value of money ; and far more 
 useful in that it would not have lulled the people into a be- 
 lief that safeguards had been provided, when safety there 
 could be none. It may be said, however, that panics might 
 arise when people would bring the notes for redemption. 
 Panics follow violent changes of action, like those of 1825, 
 1836, and 1839, by which great losses are produced, threat- 
 ening the existence of the bank ; and nothing could be bet- 
 ter calculated to produce them than the institution of a sys- 
 tem that professed to afford security when it gave none. 
 The directors thought they were safe if they obeyed the 
 law, and the people relied on the law for security. It has 
 been obeyed : yet security to bank or individuals has not 
 been attained, nor can it ever be by aid of that law. 
 
 The power and the discretion of the people : their capa- 
 city for self-government : in regard to the regulation of the 
 circulation, have been fully manifested. They want no aid 
 from the law, which is just as useful as if its object had been 
 to fix the number of shoes, hats, or coats, that should be kept 
 by the manufacturers of those commodities ; with a view to 
 provide against any man claiming to purchase a hat, and 
 not being able to find one. Should such an one ever be 
 passed, many men will be found going without hats, shoes, or 
 coats ; for the supply of those articles, whenever it shall 
 come to be regulated, will be as unsteady, and their prices 
 will become as variable, as we now see to be the case with 
 money. The people do require, however, protection against 
 the exercise, by the bank, of the vast power confided to it, 
 by means of which it is enabled to purchase securities, pass- 
 ing the amount to the credit of their owners, and calling 
 them <« deposits:" by which operation prices are forced up, 
 the rate of interest is diminished, capital is made to appear 
 superabundant, and a speculative disposition is produced. 
 That institution has a monopoly of the power of trading as 
 
188 MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 
 
 a banking corporation. Had it not, the persons, whose capi- 
 tal is there locked up, unproductive to themselves, while the 
 bank is increasing the amount of its securities with a view 
 to the making of large dividends ; might demand bullion for 
 their deposits, and open banks themselves, lending out their 
 own money for their own profit, and thus curbing the bank : 
 but this they could not do, prior to 1844, because every as- 
 sociation for banking purposes was subjected to heavy penal- 
 ties, in the form of liabilities, which forbade that any pru- 
 dent man should take part in their formation ; and since the 
 new law, the formation of them, even coupled with the prin- 
 ciple of unlimited liability, requires permission from the go- 
 vernment : and as if utterly to prevent people of small means 
 from taking part in them, the price of a share is fixed at a hun- 
 dred pounds, of which one-half must be paid in. Thus is re- 
 striction loaded on restriction, to produce steadiness ! The 
 effect is similar to that which would be obtained by adding a 
 ton of iron to the top hamper of an already overloaded coach. 
 For the benefit of those who have not traced the operation 
 of an expansion, we propose to show the manner in which 
 it acts. Let us suppose, first, a state of affairs, in which 
 every thing is at par. Money is easily obtained for good 
 notes, at a fair rate of discount, and for mortgages, at the 
 usual rate of interest ; while all those who have disposable 
 capital, can readily obtain good securities that will yield them 
 the common rate of profit ; the daily supply of money and 
 securities being about equal the one to the other. In this 
 happy state of affairs, the directors of the bank, feeling 
 themselves very easy, fancy that it would be profitable to 
 take another million, and forthwith their broker is desired to 
 purchase that amount of exchequer bills, or other securities. 
 At once the equilibrium is disturbed. A demand for securi- 
 ties exists, exceeding the ordinary amount of supply. Prices 
 rise, and some unhappy holder is tempted to sell, in the hope 
 that there will be less demand to-morrow, and that then prices 
 will fall, and he may buy in again with a fair profit. At 
 
MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 189 
 
 the close of the day, his bills have become the property of 
 the bank, and he : or all those who have united to furnish the 
 the desired million : is creditor to the bank, either directly 
 or through his banker, for the whole amount. His capital is 
 now uninvested, and he appears in the market on the next day 
 as a purchaser. Unfortunately for him, however, the bank, 
 too, makes its appearance, for the second time, in the same 
 capacity. The first experiment has been attended with vastly 
 fortunate results. Its " deposits" have grown with the in- 
 crease of its investments. Such success emboldens it to re- 
 peat the operation, and another million is purchased, with 
 similar results. It obtains the bills, and the owners obtain 
 credits on the books of the bank, which thus runs in debt, and 
 the more debt it contracts, the more means it appears to sup- 
 pose itself to have at command. With the second million, 
 prices have risen ; and with the third, they rise still higher ; 
 and so on wdth each successive million. Capital appears 
 superabundant, because the former owner of these mil- 
 lions of securities is seeking for profitable investments ; 
 when the real superabundance consists only in debts which 
 the bank has incurred. Prices advance from day to day, 
 and a speculative disposition is engendered by the growth of 
 fortune among the holders of stocks, and next it becomes 
 necessary to manufacture new stocks for the purpose of em- 
 ploying this vast surplus capital. New railroads are there- 
 fore projected and subscribed for : vast contracts are made : 
 boundless prosperity is in view. Men who should be raising 
 corn, are breaking up the old roads to replace them with 
 new, or building palaces for the lucky speculators. Im- 
 mense orders for iron, and bricks, and timber, are given. 
 Prices advance. England becomes a good place to sell in, 
 and a bad one to buy in. Imports increase, and exports de- 
 crease. Bullion goes abroad. The bank has to sell securi- 
 ties. Prices fall. Business is paralyzed. The roads are half 
 made, and cannot be completed. The people are ruined, 
 and the bank escapes with difficulty from the ruin she 
 
190 MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 
 
 herself has made, congratulates herself on the dexterity she 
 has shown, and prepares to repeat the operation at the first 
 opportunity. Such is the history of 1825, 1836, and 1839, 
 at all of which periods, the bank manufactured " deposits" 
 by monopolizing securities, and was then itself misled into 
 the belief that the increase of its own debts indicated an 
 actual surplus of capital. Whenever that institution pur- 
 chases a security : which is always the representative of some 
 already existing investment : the person from whom it is pur- 
 chased will unquestionably use the means that are placed at 
 his command for the creation of some new species of in- 
 vestment, as no man willingly permits his capital to lie 
 idle. If it make this purchase with the money of others, 
 the inevitable effect must be to raise prices, and stimulate 
 the late owner to increased activity to provide the new in- 
 vestment ; and whenever it shall be provided, he will, either 
 directly or indirectly, demand payment in gold, and then the 
 security must be parted with to provide means for the pay- 
 ment ; at which time prices will as inevitably fall, because 
 the creditor of the bank has been labouring to invest capital 
 which had no real existence in any other form than that of a 
 railroad, or canal, or some other public work, or debt, al- 
 ready created, and which could not be used for the forma- 
 tion of other roads or canals : — and thus, while the one 
 party has been trying to invest his funds, the other has been 
 holding the evidence of their being already invested, and 
 drawing interest for their use. A double action has thus 
 been produced, causing inflation and speculation to be fol- 
 lowed by panic and ruin. 
 
 The course of the bank, in the late railroad speculation, 
 appears to have been precisely the same as was, in the 
 great land speculation of 1836, that of the banks of the west, 
 established among a scattered people who still cultivated poor 
 lands : and who borrowed money to make the banks. A 
 man purchased a section of land, and paid the amount to 
 the treasurer. The treasurer deposited the money in the 
 
MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 191 
 
 bank. The bank lent the man his money, on his note. He 
 paid it again to the treasurer, who again deposited it in the 
 bank, which again lent it to the original owner, who again 
 bought land, and again paid the treasurer, repeating the 
 operation until, with a single thousand dollars, he became 
 the owner of tens of thousands of acres. At the end of the 
 operation, the government had parted with vast bodies of 
 land, and had, in exchange, a vast amount of bank credits : 
 and the bank held the notes of the speculator. 
 
 For a series of years, every species of difficulty had been 
 thrown in the way of those who desired to make roads, the 
 effect of which had been to cause an unnatural accumulation 
 of uninvested capital : to lower the price of money : and to 
 produce enormous speculation in railroads to he made. All 
 England was engaged in it, from the highest peer to the 
 smallest shopkeeper ; for the desire of gain by speculation is 
 always in the direct ratio of the difficulty of obtaining a liv- 
 ing by honest industry. It is universal in France : and far 
 greater and more universal in England than in the United 
 States.* The consequence was, that early in the last year a 
 large amount of money was required to be paid for deposits 
 on account of roads for which charters were to be obtained. 
 The difficulty was supposed to consist not in the matter of 
 capital, but in the manner of payment. All the bullion in 
 the bank would not accomplish it. The very fact of the 
 vast sum required in that early stage of the business should 
 have been sufficient to induce great doubt of the propriety 
 of the operation, and had the bank not interfered, very many 
 doubtful speculations would have fallen to the ground. 
 Ever ready, however, to foster a speculative tendency, she 
 
 * In France, speculation in stocks by women in high life is a matter of 
 daily occurrence. In England, it is less frequent, but it does occur : as the 
 papers of the clay furnish ample evidence. In both countries, ladies make 
 bets on the results of horse-races : small ones, it is true, but small as they 
 are, they are evidence of the speculative tendency. In the United States, 
 such thia2;s ar.^, unknown. 
 
192 MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 
 
 was not found wanting on this occasion. She took the 
 money, and lent it out as fast as paid in ; and thus enabled 
 the same thousand pounds to pay the deposits on thousands 
 of shares, precisely as did the western banks with the funds 
 of the land speculator. In the latter case, there was one 
 advantage, which the railroad speculation did not possess. 
 No further payments were there to be required ; whereas, 
 here, the loan was only to facilitate the first payment, which 
 was to be followed by an almost endless series of instalments. 
 In February, 1846, the bank had become debtor to its depo- 
 sitors — the principal of whom was the accountant w^ho re- 
 ceived those deposits, or, in other words, a state treasurer 
 —.£18,000,000, and it held ^636,000,000 of securities, 
 ^£23,000,000 of which were private ; and thus it had afforded 
 to the railroad speculators of England precisely the same faci- 
 lity that the western banks granted to the land speculators of 
 their respective vicinities. Had no such interference taken 
 place, and had subscribers to roads been compelled, as they 
 should have been, to find money instead of giving notes ; 
 thus affording evidence of the existence of the capital re- 
 quired ; many ruinous schemes would have been crushed in 
 the outset : fewer persons would have been employed in 
 building roads, and more would have been engaged in culti- 
 vation : prices would not have been so high : more manu- 
 factures would have been exported : and the corn required 
 to make amends for deficient crops would have been less in 
 quantity, and paid for with manufactures, or with bullion, 
 that might have been spared without causing the sHghtesI 
 disturbance in the monetary world of Britain : but the pro 
 prietors of the bank would have received no bonus, in addi 
 tion to their usual half-yearly dividend, the object sought for 
 in fostering speculation.* 
 
 * So long as the bank lent out the means which properly belonged to it, 
 as was the case throughout a large portion of 1845, manufactures were ex- 
 ported with profit ; and they continued to be so until the expansion had fii 
 
MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 193 
 
 Among the assets of the bank are three quantities that may 
 be regarded as constants. These are — 
 
 1. The rest, or surplus capital - - - - £4,000,000 
 
 3. The circulation ----- 20,000,000 
 
 3. The pubhc deposits, to the extent of - - - 2,500,000 
 
 Total ------ £26,500,000 
 
 With all the excitement of the last two years, the ave- 
 rage amount of securities held by the bank, is but about 
 .£30,000,000. That excitement has been produced by using 
 the capital of others, placed in her hands, while those others 
 were trying to use it themselves. Had the law limited her 
 to the use of the above items, which may be regarded as 
 almost the same as her own capital, and by the use of which 
 she interferes with nobody: and had the amount of her 
 securities never exceeded the sum of those quantities : no 
 excitement could ever have been produced ; no panic could 
 ever have followed ; vast losses would have been avoided ; 
 bank stock would not have fallen, in two months, from 205 
 to 189 ; and England would now be in the enjoyment of high 
 prosperity, notwithstanding the failure of her crops. 
 
 During the period from 1832 to 1839, the amount of those 
 items varied but little from £23,000,000. We will now 
 show the state of the securities of the bank, taking that sum 
 as a par, and marking as plus +, or minus — , the varia- 
 tions that occurred, with their effects. In November, 1831, 
 securities had been greatly in excess, and there was consider- 
 able speculation. In January, the bank was reducing her 
 
 time to produce the effect of making England a good place to sell in, and a 
 bad one to buy in. We take the following from the Bankers' Circular of 
 March 19, before the crisis had arrived. After stating that, for about two 
 years after the passage of the Charter Act, manufacturers had been able to 
 sell to advantage, while the prices of imports were not remunerative, the 
 writer goes on to say, that " no manufactures exported, and none sold at home, 
 have left a fair profit to the manufacturer since July last; on the other hand, 
 almost all the imported commodities, above enumerated, (cotton, silk, hemp, 
 tobacco and indigo, coffee and sugar,) except silk, have risen in value, and 
 yielded a fair profit to the importer." 
 
 2B 17 
 
194 
 
 MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 
 
 scarce, and worth on first-rate bills 
 
 Bullion going abroad. Excitement diminish- 
 ing. Interest 3;^ per cent.j- 
 
 Red action. Great losses in trade. Little 
 demand for money. Interest 3 per cent. 
 
 Trade paralyzed. No demand for money. 
 Interest 2| per cent. Bank again ex- 
 tending itself, and forcing up the amount 
 of unemployed capital left with it on de- 
 posit. 
 
 No demand for money. Bullion and de- 
 posits increasing. Continued paralysis. 
 Interest 2f per cent. 
 
 Bank monopolizing securities, and thus in- 
 creasing the deposits. No demand for 
 money. Interest 25- per cent. 
 
 Deposits fall with the diminution of securities 
 held by the bank, and capitalists now ob- 
 tain 2| per cent. 
 
 Business reviving. Increased demand for 
 money. Rate 3 per cent. Bank has 
 bought £1,200,000 of additional securities, 
 and the unemployed capital has conse- 
 quently advanced £1,000,000. 
 
 Bank has diminished securities, and deposits 
 have fallen therewith. Interest is now 
 3^ per cent. ; showing an increased demand 
 for money, and increased facility for invest- 
 ment, with the diminution of bank securi- 
 ties. 
 
 Great expansion, producing increase of de- 
 posits. Interest has consequently fallen to 
 3 per cent. Tendency to purchase foreign 
 securities, as those of England are being 
 monopolized by the bank. 
 
 Further expansion. Increase of deposits. 
 Foreign stocks remitted to England for 
 the absorption of the large apparent sur- 
 plus capital. Bullion going abroad. In- 
 terest 3^ per cent. 
 
 * The perpetual jerks to which this great concern has always been liable, 
 are well shown in the few months prior to April, 1832 — In August, 1831, the 
 securities were £25,900,000 ; in October they had fallen to £20,750,000 ; in 
 November they had risen to £24,450,000. In February, 1832, they were 
 £25,550,000 ; in April £21,900,000. With such a fly-wheel, the only won- 
 der is that any of the little wheels escape destruction. 
 
 + The rates of interest here given, have reference to first class paper in 
 London. 
 
 loans, and money was 
 
 4 per cent.* 
 
 1832— April + £1,300,000. 
 
 July -}- 600,000. 
 
 Oct. + 1,000,000. 
 
 1833— Jan. -f 200,000. 
 
 April 4- 1,300,000. 
 
 July Par. 
 
 Oct. + 1,200,000. 
 
 1833— Dec. -f 500,000. 
 
 1834— April -f 2,600,000. 
 
 July 4- 4,600,000. 
 
MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 195 
 
 1834 — Oct. + £5,600,000. Further expansion. Prices rise. More 
 
 stocks imported,* and more bullion going 
 abroad. High profits of speculators have 
 raised the rate of interest to 3f per cent. 
 
 Dec. -j- 3,200,000. Reduction. Deposits diminishing, and price 
 
 of money maintained. Bullion going 
 abroad. 
 1S35 — April-}- 3,500,000. Increase. Deposits rising, and bullion still 
 
 in demand. Interest still 3 J per cent. 
 
 July _|_ 2,700,000. Reduction. Deposits falling therewith. Bul- 
 lion still in demand. Money less abund- 
 ant for speculation, and interest 4 per 
 cent. 
 
 Oct. -}- 5,000,000. Great increase of securities and of deposits. 
 
 American stocks coming to absorb the 
 great surplus capital. Great speculation. 
 Interest 3| per cent. 
 
 Dec. -j- 8,700,000. Great increase of deposits, and heavy import 
 
 of stocks. Large contracts for present and 
 future payments thereon. Great specula- 
 tion, and interest 3^ per cent. 
 1836 — April -j- 5,400,000. Reduction of securities and of deposits. In- 
 terest still 3| per cent. 
 
 July -|- 4,150,000. Reduction of securities and of deposits. 
 
 Money much wanted for payments on 
 contracts for stocks, and interest rises to 
 4 per cent. 
 
 Oct. -f- 6,300,000. Increased securities. Large payments for 
 
 foreign stocks.j- Export of bullion. Great 
 distress. Interest 5 per cent. Crushing of 
 American merchants. 
 
 Dec. -\- 6,600,000. Distress greatly aggravated. Bank forced to 
 
 expand in the face of diminishing bullion. 
 Interest 5^ per cent. 
 1837 — April -|- 6,300,000. Bank, having lost all command of its own ac- 
 tions, is still obliged to keep itself expanded. 
 Continued export of bullion. Distress 
 continues. Interest 5| per cent. 
 
 July- -j- 4,000,000. Bank enabled at length to contract its busi- 
 ness. Small return of bullion. Distress 
 somewhat diminished. Interest 4J per 
 cent. No confidence. 
 
 * "From November, 1834, to March, 1835, there was an enormous specu- 
 lation in the prices of South American stocks, which caused an advance to a 
 great extent, and brought a large import of foreign stock from all parts of the 
 continent." — Blr. J. H. Palmer, Beport on Banks of Issue, p. 106. 
 
 ■{- « The loss of bullion by the bank, between 1st of April and 1st of Septem- 
 ber, 1836, I believe to have been occasioned by the excess in the American 
 securities." — Ibid. p. 115. 
 
196 
 
 MAN AND Ills STANDARD OF VALUE. 
 
 1837— Oct. -f £3,500,000. 
 
 Dec. -f 600,000. 
 
 1838— April — 200,000. 
 
 July — 650,000. 
 
 Oct. — 200,000. 
 
 1838— Dec. — 2,000,000. 
 
 1839— April 
 
 Par. 
 
 July 4- 900,000. 
 
 Oct. + 2,860,000. 
 
 Dec. — 500,000. 
 
 1840— April -f 100,000. 
 
 July — 600,000. 
 
 Oct. — 200,000. 
 
 Dec. — 600,000. 
 
 (continued contraction. Trade very dull. 
 Deposits and bullion increasing. No con- 
 fidence. Interest 3-^ per cent. 
 
 Great reduction. Trade very dull. Large im- 
 ports of bullion. Interest still 3 J per cent., 
 notwithstanding the heavy amount of depo- 
 sits, because of continued want of confidence. 
 
 Decrease of securities, with constant increase 
 of unemployed capital, and of deposits of bul- 
 lion. Trade paralyzed. Interest 2^ per cent. 
 
 Diminution of securities. Bank exports bul- 
 lion, having no demand for money at home. 
 Trade very dull. Interest 3 per cent. 
 
 Small increase of securities. Trade slowly 
 reviving. Import of bullion at an end. 
 Interest 3 per cent. 
 
 Great diminution of securities and of deposits. 
 Amount of unemployed capital still large, 
 and American stocks coming for sale. In- 
 terest, however, rises to 3^ per cent. 
 
 Increase of securities, paid for with bullion, 
 which falls to £7,000,000. Import of Ameri- 
 can stocks, and interest rises to 3| per cent. 
 
 Increase of securities. Heavy payments for 
 foreign stocks. Great diminution of de- 
 posits. Heavy drain of bullion. Severe 
 distress. Interest 5^ per cent. 
 
 Large increase of securities in the face of 
 heavy drains of bullion. Bank unmanage- 
 able. On the verge of ruin. Interest 6^ 
 per cent. Soon after, forced to apply to 
 the bank of France for aid. 
 
 Bank escapes bankruptcy. People ruined. 
 Business at an end. Extreme distress. 
 Interest 6^ per cent. 
 
 During the whole of this year, trade continues 
 prostrate. Money is scarce and high, in- 
 terest being about 5 per cent, on the best 
 paper, while on second rate, it can scarcely 
 be obtained at any price : yet the bank is 
 totally unable to aiford relief. The ruin 
 of trade has diminished her circulation and 
 that of all other banks. Deposits are 
 smaller, and the bullion tends rather to 
 diminish than to increase, because she has 
 ruined the people of the United States, 
 Canada, India, and others of the best cus- 
 tomers of England, who are no longer able 
 to be purchasers of manufactured goods. 
 Distress is universal abroad, and poverty 
 and starvation equally so at home. 
 
MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 197 
 
 1841 — •April — £700,000. Presents precisely the same features as 1840. 
 
 July — 700,000. The bank, always able to promote specu- 
 
 Oct. -\- 400,000. lation and to produce ruin, is now, as 
 
 Dec. ■ — 200,000. always before, utterly unable to afford aid. 
 
 There is no confidence. Interest is about 
 5 per cent, for the best paper, and enor- 
 mously high for any but the best. The 
 few grow rich upon large interest, and the 
 many are ruined. 
 
 With 1842, the circulation of the bank rises to 
 .£19,500,000, which, added to "the rest," and ^£2,500,000 
 of public deposits, would give a trading capital of nearly 
 ^£25,000,000, which may be taken as the par, but there is 
 no demand for money. The nation is paralyzed, because 
 its customers have been ruined. 
 
 1842— Oct. — £2,500,000. During this period, the bullion grows from 
 
 £9,000,000 to £16,000,000, and interest 
 falls from 3 to If per cent. The bank is 
 unable to use its own means, even at the 
 lowest rate of interest ; and she now loses 
 all that she had gained by over-trading and 
 high interest, in the previous years, and 
 more. Had her loans remained steadily at 
 par, she would have exhibited a larger 
 amount of " rest," than she was able to do 
 after all her exertions; while the nation 
 would have saved the vast sum that was 
 forced abroad and lost. 
 
 Throughout the whole of this calamitous period, no diffi- 
 culty existed but that which the bank itself had made. It 
 forced capital to seek investment abroad, by monopolizing 
 securities at home ; whereas, had it confined its investments 
 to the amount of its permanent means, retaining, in the form 
 of bullion, the capital of others intrusted to its care, increas- 
 ing or decreasing in amount, as its customers thought fit to 
 deposit or to recall it ; the lohole business of the institution 
 would have been regulated by the community, it being itself 
 a perfectly automatic machine. While the amount of its se- 
 curities was determined by the quantity of circulation in use, 
 the amount of its bullion would have been determined by the 
 
 17* 
 
 Dec. — 
 
 4,500,000 
 
 1843-'April — 
 
 1,400,000 
 
 July — 
 
 3,500,000 
 
 Oct. — 
 
 2,800,000 
 
 Dec. — 
 
 4,000,000 
 
 1844— April — 
 
 2,800,000 
 
 July — 
 
 2,500,000 
 
 Aug. — 
 
 2,000,000 
 
198 MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 
 
 deposits of capital not in use ; and they, like the circulation, 
 would have been nearly a constant quantity, fluctuating, per- 
 haps, between six and eight millions, instead of rising to 
 eighteen, and falling to six millions.* 
 
 We will now briefly show the working of the proposed 
 system. Let us suppose that, on a given day, the bank has 
 a circulation of .£20,000,000, for which she holds securities : 
 and deposits to the amount of £10,000,000, for which she 
 has bullion : that, in the course of the following week, she 
 has returned to her notes to the amount of £200,000, to be 
 placed to the credit of depositors ; and that, in the next, 
 £200,000 are withdrawn in bullion for exportation. The 
 following is the state of aflfairs, at these several periods, under 
 the existing system : — 
 
 
 Circulation. 
 
 Securities. 
 
 Deposits. 
 
 Bullion. 
 
 1st, - - 
 
 - - £20,000,000 
 
 £20,000,000 
 
 £10,000,000 
 
 £10,000,000 
 
 2d, - - 
 
 - - 19,800,000 
 
 20,000,000 
 
 10,200,000 
 
 10,000,000 
 
 3d, - - 
 
 - - 19,800,000 
 
 20,000,000 
 
 10,000,000 
 
 9,800,000 
 
 * Previously to the passage of the present law, a memorial was presented to 
 Parliament, signed by many of the principal bankers and merchants of Lon- 
 don, remonstrating against the restriction on the bank issues, on the ground 
 that circumstances might arise that would render necessary some extra expan- 
 sion, with a view to the preservation of merchants, bankers, and traders, from 
 ruin ; but the Minister resisted the application. He had seen the directors, in 
 1825, 1836, and 1839, increasing their loans, with ruin staring them in the 
 face ; and he desired to prevent the recurrence of such a state of things, by 
 making it imperative on them to reduce as the bullion passed out of their 
 hands. How little such has been the effect of the law, may be seen from the 
 fact, that, in April last, when the bullion had fallen to £10,000,000, the 
 amount of securities was greater, by £4,000,000, than it had been in Decem- 
 ber, when the bullion was £15,000,000. In all these cases, the bank found 
 itself unable to control its own action. It had set the ball of speculation in 
 motion, and it did not dare to stop it. A review of the proceedings of the 
 institution cannot fail to prove to the satisfaction of every one capable of 
 understanding them, that no case, appearing to require such interference as 
 was desired by the petitioners, has occurred within the last thirty years, except 
 when produced by the over-trading of the bank itself; and that by taking 
 away the power to produce speculation, and thus striking at the root of the 
 evil, would be obviated all necessity for interference with a view to remedy 
 its consequences ; even had experience shown that it was in the power of the 
 bank to afford any remedy, which has not been the case. It has always 
 exhibited herself as powerless to relieve the community from the consequences 
 of disturbance, as it has been powerful for its production. 
 
MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 199 
 
 The fact of the return of any part of the circulation, is 
 evidence of the existence of an excess in that portion of the 
 currency, requiring correction, which correction is now being 
 made by the public. Its conversion subsequently into gold 
 for exportation, is evidence of the existence of an excess in 
 the currency generally. To re-issue the notes thus re- 
 turned, would be to re-produce the excess, and with it a 
 necessity for farther correction. As fast as issued, they 
 would be brought back, and gold would be demanded for 
 them : the public thus enforcing the remedy just as steadily 
 as the bank directors were producing the disease. If the 
 latter persisted for any length of time, they would find them- 
 selves drained of bullion, in consequence of a constant effort 
 to compel the public to keep on hand a larger amount of 
 notes than they wanted ; precisely as they have been on so 
 many recent occasions. 
 
 The remedy for an excess of currency is a reduction of the 
 amount. Had the directors, at the close of the first of the 
 two weeks above given, sold ^£200,000 of their securities, 
 they would have absorbed .£200,000 of the unemployed 
 capital of individuals placed w4th them for safe keeping, 
 and would thereby have re-estabhshed the equilibrium ; thus 
 preventing any necessity for the exportation of capital in 
 quest of employment. If, on the other hand, deposits were 
 converted into circulation, it would be evidence of a slight 
 deficiency of the latter, and the bank might, with advantage 
 to itself and the community, exchange an equal amount of 
 its gold for securities. 
 
 Had such been the system, there would have been no re- 
 vulsions to alarm the prudent and drive them from trade. 
 On the contrary, steady action and profitable business would 
 have tended to increase the number of persons among whom 
 to select its customers ; to increase the permanent value of 
 capital ; and to increase the dividends of the stockholders. 
 While the proprietors of the bank were thus benefited, the 
 people of England would have been enabled to avoid losses, 
 
200 MAN and' HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 
 
 to the extent probably of .£100,000,000, resulting from the 
 violent revulsions in the United States : Canada : South 
 America: India: and in almost every other part of the world : 
 produced by the extraordinary unsteadiness that has been 
 manifested. The directors, on their part, would have avoided 
 the anxiety resulting from the existence of large habilities 
 accompanied by small means, and they would have been 
 spared the humiliation of seeking aid from the continent. 
 All would have been benefited. 
 
 It is usual to attribute the difficulties of the institution to 
 a necessity for importing corn ; but a moment's reflection 
 will satisfy the reader, that if it retained in its possession, in 
 bullion, the whole of the unemployed capital of individuals : 
 with which alone could foreign corn he purchased, except so 
 far as manufactures would be received in payment : it would 
 be entirely unimportant whether the owners thereof withdrew 
 it, or left it in its vaults. If corn were needed, the owners 
 of bullion would exchange their commodity for the one they 
 wanted, and the bank would have no occasion to feel that 
 any such transaction had taken place. It would have the 
 same amount to invest, whether the bullion in its vaults were 
 £1,000,000, or £16,000,000. Corn would rise in price, 
 and sugar would fall : but the rate of interest, or the price 
 of money, would be scarcely at all effected. Not having 
 availed itself of the depositors' capital, to force down the 
 rate of interest, the withdrawal thereof would not compel 
 it to raise that rate. Perfect steadiness in the currency is 
 entirely consistent with variations in the crops. They have 
 no necessary connection with each other. 
 
 It may be asked, why the use of the money of individual 
 depositors should be more calculated to produce unsteadi- 
 ness than that of the £2,500,000 of public deposits above 
 referred to ? The answer is, that to that extent the public 
 appear never to seek to use the funds in the hands of the 
 bank ; whereas, individual depositors never willingly permit 
 their capital to lie unproductive, and are always seeking the 
 
MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 201 
 
 means of investing it. The man who has .£1000 in his 
 desk, and is seeking to employ it, produces a certain effect 
 upon the market ; but if, while thus engaged, he places it 
 for safe keeping with a man who uses it, a double effect is 
 produced. His .£1000 is invested, while he is in the mar- 
 ket seeking for an opportunity to make it yield him interest. 
 Prices rise in consequence of this double action, which does 
 not take place in regard to the small amount of public de- 
 posits to which we have referred. 
 
 In regard to those deposits, we have had abundant evi- 
 dence of the injury that may result from permitting them to 
 be employed to an unlimited extent. The excess of re- 
 ceipts, in 1835 and 1836, was chiefly at New York, and at 
 the land offices of the West. As fast as it was accumulated 
 at the first, it was lent out to the merchants to enable them 
 to extend their importations, and thus increase the surplus 
 revenue. In the West, it was lent to land speculators, who 
 paid it to the government on one day, and on the next bor- 
 rowed it from the bank to buy more land. The government 
 parted with its land, for which it held the engagement of a 
 deposit bank, and the latter held the note of the land-jobber. 
 In the same way, the surplus of the British revenue being 
 lent out to the merchants of Liverpool and London, has a 
 tendency to promote importation and to stimulate impro- 
 perly the increase of the public revenue : and consequently 
 to increase the surplus to be left at the disposal of the bank. 
 
 Much disturbance is now produced by the accumulation 
 of the public moneys during the quarter, to be lent by the 
 bank, and then called in, to be paid out in dividends : the 
 consequence of which is, that money is always higher before, 
 and lower after quarter-day, than the average. Were the 
 bank deprived of the power of lending those moneys, a mode 
 would probably be devised of paying them in advance : and 
 thus a cause of disturbance, now existing, would be re- 
 moved. The mass of the public debt is held by institutions 
 and individuals that intend to keep it, and that desire to re- 
 2C 
 
202 MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 
 
 invest the interest at the most favourable moment. Were 
 the bank to arrange to anticipate the dividends on all stock 
 deposited w^ith them, the owners would soon find that their 
 interests would be promoted by receiving them in anticipa- 
 tion of the general payment, and investing when money was 
 least abundant, rather than by waiting until it was most 
 abundant : and by degrees the business of paying dividends, 
 instead of being crowded into a few days, w^ould be distri- 
 buted throughout the year ; to the benefit of the bank and 
 the receivers of dividends. The one would receive interest 
 for the time anticipated, and the other would invest with 
 more advantage from being able to obtain them at any mo- 
 ment : while the community would gain, because the inter- 
 val between the accumulation and investment of capital 
 would be lessened. 
 
 England is now the great market for the gold and silver 
 of the w^orld, and there is, consequently, towards it a con- 
 stant stream of those commodities. They are arrested 
 on their way from the place of production to that of con- 
 sumption, and pass from hand to hand for a short time ; but 
 their tendency to the crucible of the goldsmith is constant, 
 and their arrival there inevitable. That country has thus 
 far been to the monetary world, what the ocean is to the 
 physical : and the tendency of w^ater to the one is not greater 
 nor more steady than would have been that of bullion to the 
 other, had the level been preserved as steadily. The slight- 
 est increase in the supply of water, in any quarter, is marked 
 by an increase of that tendency ; w^hile w^ith every diminu- 
 tion in the supply its movements become more sluggish. 
 Were the ocean to change its level forty, fifty, or a hun- 
 dred feet at a time, as does the currency of England, not 
 only would the flow be arrested, but we should see established 
 a counter-current, producing ruin in all parts of the earth. 
 Precisely such is the effect produced by England, w^hen she 
 compels the export of bullion to any part of America : a 
 trade as unnatural as would be the export of cotton to India, 
 
MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 203 
 
 or of tea to China. With the United States, the export of 
 the precious metals is a proper branch of trade. They are 
 one of the channels by which the products of Mexico pass to 
 the place of chief consumption, and silver flows from thence 
 as naturally as do cotton and corn. 
 
 It may be said, that even were the bank regular in her 
 operations, she could not control the movements of the other 
 banks. Such is not the case. She has been unable to re- 
 gulate them in time past, because, from her own irregularity 
 of action she has been unable even to control her own move- 
 ments. With perfect steadiness on her part, every change in 
 every part of the kingdom would be as readily observed as 
 are variations in the temperature by the nicest thermometer ; 
 and the check to every attempt at excess would follow in- 
 stantly on its discovery. The people themselves are compe- 
 tent to this, as will be show^n whenever they shall have afforded 
 them the means of discovering the existence of such excess, 
 but that is not afforded by the law of 1844, which makes 
 the blind leaders of the blind. 
 
 We think that a careful examination of the facts we have 
 submitted must tend to satisfy our readers that it is possible 
 to establish a system of such perfectly steady action that the 
 movements of the world may be measured by it. Perfect 
 freedom of action would be far preferable; but as it is highly 
 unlikely that the bank will be, for some years to come, di- 
 vested of the monopolies she enjoys, w^e have desired to show 
 that she might exercise her privileges in a manner that would 
 prevent all further injury : and that she might do this, not 
 only without loss to her stockholders, but wnth positive ad- 
 vantage to them. She has a monopoly of the right of fur- 
 nishing the only species of currency that circulates through- 
 out the kingdom, and she has likewise a monopoly of the 
 public deposits. She should confine herself to the employ- 
 ment of the capital thus placed at her disposal, and not enter 
 into competition with the owners of unemployed capital 
 placed with her for safe keeping ; but leave them to deter- 
 
204 MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 
 
 mine for themselves w^hether they will use it or not, and whe- 
 ther they w^ll themselves superintend its management, or as- 
 sociate with their neighbours to open shops for that purpose. 
 If there be a legitimate demand for money, they have a right 
 to the enjoyment of the interest paid for the use of their own 
 capital. If there be not : and they are quite as competent to 
 judge of this as the bank directors : it is injurious to them to 
 have a competitor in the market, offering to lend their mo- 
 ney, when they themselves cannot find persons willing to em- 
 ploy it : and thus forcing down the rate of interest, and com- 
 pelling them to seek abroad for means of investment. Were 
 she to abstain from such interferences with individual inte- 
 rests, she might reconcile the community to the continuance, 
 for a little further time, of the monopoly she now enjoys, and 
 she would certainly obtain a higher average rate of interest 
 than now : do as large an average amount of business : and 
 make quite as good dividends : particularly if competition 
 should induce a little economy in the management, which 
 now does not exist. What is true of her, is equally true on 
 this side of the Atlantic. Our banks have been led away 
 by the idea of privileges for which they have paid, and 
 which they have desired to use : and the consequence has 
 been that their dividends have been less than they w'ould have 
 been under a system of perfect freedom of competition. All 
 the banks of Pennsylvania divided, for a quarter of a centu- 
 ry, from 1815 to 1840, less than six and a tenth per cent. 
 The average of the dividends of Massachusetts and Rhode 
 Island, W'here freedom has been almost perfect, has been 
 nearer the value of money in those states than it has been in 
 the other. Over-trading produces a necessity for under-trad- 
 ing ; and not only is the excess of gain then lost, but there 
 is accumulated a mass of bad debts, tending for a time to 
 deprive the stockholders of dividends altogether ; as we have 
 so recently seen to be the case. The receiver of eight per 
 cent, in one year has nothing in the next, and is obliged to 
 congratulate himself, if his capital, though unprofitable, prove 
 
MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 205 
 
 yet whole. Throughout the country, it is seen, that the mo- 
 netary systems of the States are steady and profitable to the 
 owners and the community, in direct proportion to the free- 
 dom that is granted. The greatest of all regulators is per- 
 fect liberty of action, securing unlimited competition, whe- 
 ther by individuals or associations : leaving to the latter to ar- 
 range with the public the terms on which they will trade with 
 each other, whether of limited or unlimited liability. 
 
 We have said that banks were as harmless as shoe-shops. 
 Both are subject to precisely the same laws. The one is a 
 place to which shoemakers bring their products, with, a view 
 to enable each person in want of shoes to obtain such as will 
 exactly fit his feet. If no such place of exchange existed, 
 men with large feet w^ould be travelling one street, and en- 
 countering men with only small shoes for sale, while in an- 
 other street, w^ould be found men with large shoes meeting 
 men with small feet: the result of all which w^ould be that 
 many would have corns from wearing shoes that were too large ; 
 while of the rest, the chief part would be suffering with 
 pinched toes, bunions, and other results of shoes that were 
 too small. The quantity of shoes in market would be al- 
 ways greater than w^ould be needed if there existed a place 
 of exchange, and the loss of time by both buyers and sellers 
 would be exceedingly great ; and withal nobody would be 
 fitted, and there would be no steadiness of prices. The 
 shoemaker would be enabled at one moment to insist upon 
 more than he had a right to claim, because possessing the 
 only pair that would suit the man to be fitted ; but at an- 
 other, when half a dozen with the same sized shoes chanced 
 to meet with the single customer, the price would be as much 
 below the mark. Where trade is free, shoe-shops exist in 
 the quantity necessary for the business to be done, and their 
 number tends to increase in a proportion rather below that 
 of the increase of the population and wealth of the commu- 
 nity ; and with every step in this progress, men are enabled 
 more readily to supply themselves with shoes : while the quan- 
 
 18 
 
206 MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 
 
 tity required to be kept on hand by the shoe- dealer, tends 
 steadily to decrease in its proportion to the quantity sold, and 
 the price becomes daily more and more uniform. There is a 
 diminution in the number of shoes idle for want of feet, and 
 of feet idle for want of shoes. 
 
 A bank is a shop belonging to the owners of disengaged 
 capital : money, or currency : who club their means for its 
 formation, and then divide the same into such sums as suit 
 the wants of the various persons who desire to obtain the aid 
 of capital : thus making shoes to fit the feet of their customers. 
 One hundred very small capitalists, thus associated, may, in 
 one place, grant aid to the great manufacturer ; while, in 
 another place, may be seen half a dozen large capitalists, 
 owners of the bank, granting aid to a thousand farmers, me- 
 chanics, small traders, &c.* Where no such shop exists, the 
 farmer may want aid to purchase seed or manure : the me- 
 chanic may suffer for want of a steam-engine : and the manu- 
 facturer for want of ability to keep on hand a sufficient supply 
 of materials: and all may seek for a long time before finding 
 a person that has the precise sum they wdsh to borrow, and is 
 willing to receive the security they have to offer ; while at 
 the same moment, other persons w^ho are able to afford the 
 desired aid, and would be willing to receive the security, are 
 seeking in vain for persons wilhng to employ their capital. 
 The money-shop here performs the same duty as the shoe- 
 shop. It fits the labourer w^ith capital, and the capitalist with 
 labour; and the less interference the more perfect is the fit. 
 Were the trade in money free, the number of money-shops 
 would, like that of the shoe-shops, increase in a ratio some- 
 what less rapid than that of wealth and population ; and with 
 every step in this progress, there would be increased facility 
 
 * Where land is divided, and trade free, large capitalists do not buy bank 
 stock; because their capital, otherwise invested, yields larger returns. No 
 better evidence need be desired of unsoundness in any system, than the fact 
 that such men hold bank stock, to any extent, as a permanent investment. 
 
 anks should, and would, if let alone, be only larger savings' funds. 
 
MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 207 
 
 for promptly investing capital, and increased facility on the 
 part of the labourer in obtaining the aid he desired. The 
 amount of capital unproductive to its owners for want of la- 
 bour, and remaining on deposit to their credit, would dimi- 
 nish; as would the power of banks to trade upon borrowed 
 capital : and thus every increase of freedom would tend to 
 give increased steadiness in their action. 
 
 The banks of Rhode Island, and of New England generally, 
 trade largely on capital, and little on credit, because capital 
 can be invested promptly and freely. In England, it is 
 directly the reverse. Restrictions throw the trade into the 
 hands of the few ; and banks of all kinds, from the great one 
 in Threadneedle street, down to the smallest private banker 
 in the kingdom, trade upon credit rather than upon capital. 
 Joint- stock banks are bolstered up by long lists of what are 
 termed << a wealthy proprietary," who are frequently only 
 great speculators ; for men who are really wealthy will not 
 assume the liabilities to which owners of bank stocks are sub- 
 jected. 
 
 The object sought to be obtained by aid of the several bank 
 restriction acts is directly the reverse of what has been de- 
 scribed as existing in Rhode Island. They prohibit the 
 formation of new associations for the opening of shops at 
 which the owners of disengaged capital can meet the owners 
 of labour that need its aid, while they maintain in full force 
 all the previously existing penalties and liabilities ; and thus 
 tend to increase the quantity of capital idle in the form of 
 deposits : to increase the power of banks to overtrade : and 
 to produce speculation, to result in the destruction of their 
 customers and themselves. 
 
 They tend also to diminish the facility of obtaining circu- 
 lating notes, and thus to increase the quantity kept on hand 
 by individuals: thereby enabling banks to overtrade by means 
 of their circulation, to an extent greater than could exist were 
 they not in force. Every provision of those acts tends to 
 increase the power of the bank to produce disturbance, by 
 
208 MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 
 
 overtrading at one time, followed by imdertrading at the next, 
 Every part of them tends to increase restrictions, and to pro- 
 duce increased unsteadiness in the supply of money, and in- 
 equality in its price. Every part tends to enable the few to 
 enrich themselves at the cost of the many. Every part is in 
 opposition to the spirit of the age. Freedom of trade, whether 
 in money or in cotton, goes hand in hand with civilization. 
 The bank restriction acts are a step, and a serious one, 
 towards barbarism. They are in keeping with the system of 
 tithes, settlements, and entails, by which the improvement of 
 the land is prevented ; and with that which compels men to 
 be still using turnpikes where they might have had railroads: 
 thereby preventing them from combining the lime with the 
 clay, and compelling them to cultivate poor soils for 95. a 
 week, with corn at a high price ; when they might be now 
 cultivating rich soils at 125. a week, and raising food that 
 could be sold cheaply, and yet pay better rents than at pre- 
 sent. They tend to prevent the local application of capital ; 
 and to force it into London, to be driven abroad : when, if 
 used at home, it would yield twice the return. They are not 
 in keeping with the time. 
 
 In regard to money, the policy of France has been the 
 same as in all others of the machinery of exchange, viz. to 
 increase its quantity and deteriorate its quality : and thus to 
 prevent the application of capital or labour to production, and 
 to compel men to continue to cultivate the poor soils. She 
 has silver in abundance ; but she has few spades, ploughs, 
 horses, cattle, or steam-engines. Every thing is forced to 
 centre in Paris ; and the government borrows at four per cent., 
 while the poor cultivator pays in interest, taxes on registra- 
 tion of mortgages, and law expenses, more than half the pro- 
 duct of his little property. The government cultivates Algeria, 
 and he abandons the meadow to seek the hill-side ; or, in 
 
MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 209 
 
 despair, flies from his land and turns soldier : preferring to 
 eat the bread raised hy others, rather than to raise bread for 
 others, while eating himself the miserable compound of chest- 
 nuts, a little flour and water, that falls to his share. In regard 
 to currency, as everywhere, the rule of France is, and has 
 always been : great means for small ends. 
 
 Closely connected in trade with England, the people of 
 the United States have known little of self-government in 
 regard to the machinery of trade known as money. At one 
 moment capital stagnated in London, and States and indi- 
 viduals were solicited to take it at low interest ; and canals, 
 and roads, and factories, and furnaces, were commenced. 
 At the next, capital was dear in London ; and their markets 
 were filled with cloths and iron, to be converted into money, 
 to be transmitted to England ; and then prices fell, and manu- 
 facturers and iron-masters were ruined. The whole system 
 of that country has been, and is, unsound and irregular; be- 
 cause she has surrounded land and capital with restrictions 
 that forbid the existence of regularity. For a series of years 
 she forbade the investment of capital in roads, and forced it 
 out to Illinois and Michigan : and soon all was ruin abroad 
 and at home. Now she is forcing it into roads, and all is 
 ruin at home. Happily for the people of the United States, 
 no loans were made to them, or they too would be ruined ; 
 but how far they will escape remains yet to be seen. She 
 has commenced the habit of looking towards home ; but many 
 years have yet, we fear, to elapse before she will fairly apply 
 her wealth and labour to the production of food ; culti- 
 vating her own rich soils instead of the poor ones of Aus- 
 tralia and Canada: and until she shall do so, her system must 
 continue to be unsound and irregular, unprofitable to herself, 
 and dangerous to those intimately connected with her in 
 2D 18* 
 
210 MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 
 
 trade ; and of this no further evidence need be desired than 
 is furnished by the events of the present year. 
 
 With each step in the passage from the poor to the rich 
 soils, population and wealth tend to increase more rapidly ; 
 and with each step in their progress, there is increased de- 
 mand for both : giving to the labourer an increased propor- 
 tion of a larger product ; and to the owner of capital an in- 
 creased return from a diminished proportion : and affording 
 to all increased power of accumulation. The value of land 
 increases with the development of its powers, and that de- 
 velopment results from the application of labour and capital. 
 Every measure tending to restrict the amount applied, tends 
 to lessen the wages of the labourer, and the profits of the 
 capitalist, both of whom can seek elsewhere the employment 
 denied to them at home : and tends in a still greater degree to 
 affect the interests of the land that cannot fly. The land- 
 owner is therefore, most of all, interested in the abolition of 
 every regulation and restriction that tends to the expulsion 
 of either ; and especially interested in the repeal of every law 
 that tends to prevent local unions for the formation of banks, 
 insurance companies, manufacturing associations, and all 
 other modes of combination tending to enable the fashioner 
 to eat his food on the spot on which it is produced ; and 
 thus to improve the quality and diminish the quantity of 
 the machinery of exchange. With each step in the diminu- 
 tion of the quantity required for use, the quality improves, 
 and fluctuations tend to cease. With each step, banks be- 
 come more useful and more safe ; with each, man acquires 
 increased power to command the aid of wealth ; with each 
 he obtains increased reward to labour ; with each, the pre- 
 cious metals become less necessary as a part of the machinery 
 of exchange ; and with each he acquires increased power to 
 
MAN AND HIS STANDARD OF VALUE. 211 
 
 command the use of them for other purposes tending to im- 
 prpve his taste, and to promote his enjoyment of life. 
 
 The PAST says to the sovereign of the present : '< If you 
 would reign over a numerous, wealthy, and prosperous, peo- 
 ple : diminish the machinery of exchange between the pro- 
 ducer and the consumer, by reducing the demand for money 
 to pay taxes, thus diminishing the necessity for tax-gatherers ; 
 and increasing the number of the producers." 
 
 To the capitalist : " If you wish large returns to your capi- 
 tal : labour for the abolition of laws tending to restrict you 
 in regard to the modes of its employment." 
 
 To the landlord : "If you wish large rents : oppose all 
 measures tending to the export of wealth and population, and 
 labour to remove restrictions on the land." 
 
 To the labourer: "If you wish large wages: seek union 
 with your fellows ; labour and economize ; promote the growth 
 of wealth ; and wealth will give you power." 
 
 To all: << Avoid war and waste !" 
 
212 MAN AND HIS FELLOW MAN. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MAN AND HIS FELLOW MAN. 
 
 The early cultivator has no means of self-defence. He 
 may be enslaved by any one stronger than himself. His 
 neighbour is distant, and they are separated from each 
 other by forests and swamps. The strong man constitutes 
 himself proprietor of their persons and their lands, the pro- 
 ceeds of which he receives, allowing them what he pleases in 
 return. He is the lord, and they are serfs or slaves. They 
 cultivate the poor soils, whose small returns scarcely afford 
 sufficient food for themselves : but of this small quantity the 
 lord takes a large proportion. They raise wheat and hogs, 
 but they eat bread made of oats and acorns. Voluntary 
 union being here impossible among the many, the few have 
 power to compel union ; and men work together in gangs, to 
 build forts or castles for their masters : to murder the subjects 
 of his neighbour lord : or to burn their houses and ravage 
 their little farms. Sometimes, we find them associated to- 
 gether in larger masses for the building of palaces, the erec- 
 tion of pyramids, great cathedrals, and magnificent tombs ; 
 or for the cutting of canals through fertile lands, whose pes- 
 tilential air sweeps them off by hundreds of thousands : and 
 again, similar masses are found plundering rich cities ; ra- 
 vaging kingdoms; fighting battles by sea and land; or building 
 pyramids of human heads : the object of all these operations 
 being to hand down to an admiring world the names of 
 a Tamerlane, Bajazet, Scipio, Frederick, Louis, or Napoleon, 
 who are held to be great, because of the infinite littleness 
 of the people over whose destinies they rule. 
 
 In all cases of involuntary union, the principle of unlimited 
 
MAN AND HIS FELLOW MAN. 213 
 
 liability: solidarite : is seen to exist. The lord wants a 
 certain number of men, and they must come. He loses a 
 portion of his subjects in battle, and he calls on the balance to 
 make up the deficiency. He wants a certain amount of an- 
 nual contribution, and those who can pay must make up for 
 those who cannot. The Hindoo who remains at home pays 
 the taxes of those who fly to seek in plundering others, satis- 
 faction for having themselves been plundered. By the con- 
 scription laws of France, under the Empire, and perhaps even 
 now, the family is bound for the services in the field of its 
 members ; and if the elder son desert, the second is bound 
 to take his place. The nation is held bound to supply the 
 demands of the army, and when the boys of eighteen are ex- 
 hausted, the conscription is anticipated and those of sixteen 
 are taken to fill the ranks. Nero would have the people of 
 Rome with but one head, that he might take it off. Towns 
 and cities are held by conquerors bound for the conduct of 
 all their citizens, and history is filled with cases of their utter 
 destruction, accompanied by the murder of the men, and the 
 violation of women, in satisfaction for the error, or the crimes 
 of individuals. With the growth of population and wealth, the 
 better soils are cultivated, and men are enabled to live closer 
 to each other: and voluntary union tends gradually to super- 
 sede the involuntary. Ceasing to labour in gangs, they cul- 
 tivate pieces of land for which they pay rent : and thus indi- 
 viduality grows with wealth, while union tends to give 
 them a self-defensive power, by aid of which they obtain a 
 gradually increasing proportion of the product of their la- 
 bour. 
 
 The fashioner needs the service of the labourer, and he is 
 willing to protect him in leaving the service of his lord, to 
 come to him in the little town. The lord looks with jealousy 
 upon all voluntary union, as tending to lessen his powers of 
 government : and at first he seizes his slave, carrying him 
 back to the land from which he had escaped. By degrees, 
 however, the town grows and becomes strong to defend it- 
 
214 MAN AND HIS FELLOW MAN. 
 
 self and the runaway serfs who seek refuge within its walls. 
 This state of things having arrived, it becomes necessary for 
 the lord to content himself with a smaller proportion of the 
 proceeds of labour, that he may retain a portion of his serfs. 
 To make amends for this, he must devote more of his in- 
 come to the improvement of his land : that the amount of his 
 rents may grow, even if his proportion diminish. New soils 
 are brought into cultivation, and the returns are larger ; but 
 with each step in this progress, there arises an increased 
 power of consumption on the part of the people, and a more 
 rapid increased demand for labour in the towns : and thus the 
 competition of landlord and manufacturer tends to enable 
 the labourer to have a continually increasing power to deter- 
 mine for himself where he will labour, and what shall be his 
 share of the proceeds. With the increase of his power over 
 the materials of the land, he thus gradually acquires the 
 exercise of the right of self-government. 
 
 His proportion thus increasing with the growth of wealth, 
 he is incited to exertion : and with the increased power of 
 determining for himself the manner in which his labour shall 
 be applied, it becomes daily more productive. His habits 
 are inexpensive, while those of his lord are not. He 
 accumulates, while the other dissipates. He improves his 
 style of living, and the other is compelled to do the same. 
 He can afford it, while the other cannot. He buys land, 
 which the other is forced to sell. He then cultivates his 
 own land and keeps the rent himself, applying it to cul- 
 tivating the better soils. There is thus a constant ten- 
 dency to the division and transfer of land and power, as 
 wealth and population grow: and to the establishment of 
 individuality, and of perfect equality of physical, moral, 
 intellectual, and political condition. 
 
 If we look to England in the days of the Saxons, we see 
 immense bodies of land held by Earl Godwin, and other 
 great lords. In the days of the Conqueror a single indi- 
 vidual held seven hundred manors. Later, the county of 
 
MAN AND HIS FELLOW MAN. 215 
 
 Norfolk numbered but sixty-six proprietors. If we look to 
 Scotland, we find the number of proprietors increase as we 
 come downwards in point of time, in all those counties in 
 which population and wealth grow rapidly, and the better 
 soils are cultivated : while it diminishes as we recede from 
 the rich soil of the Lothians, until we find the whole of the 
 poor county of Sutherland the property of a single indivi- 
 dual, busily engaged in expelling all the small people whose 
 families have for ages exercised rights over land, guarantied 
 originally by word, but unhappily not hy deed. If we look 
 to France, we see vast properties continuing for centuries 
 undivided because of the slow growth of wealth and popu- 
 lation, and so remaining until the general confiscation of the 
 Revolution. Till then, the lord was still lord, and exercised 
 the droit de poursuite against the person of his absconding 
 serf who sought employment in the towns : which were, be- 
 cause of their universal poverty, incapable of affording him 
 protection. In Spain, and Mexico, and Sicily, and India, 
 and Hungary, we see immense bodies of land in the hands 
 of individuals. In all those countries, war has prevented 
 the growth of wealth and population, and the poorer soils 
 are still alone cultivated. The reward to labour is small. 
 The labourer has a small proportion of a small product, and is 
 a slave, or little better : while the land-owner has a large pro- 
 portion, with but little revenue where his possessions are 
 not immense. If thence we pass to the Netherlands, we find 
 the better soils carefully cultivated, the return to labour 
 larger, the condition of the people better, and the power of 
 the lord diminished. There, the tendency to an increase 
 of wealth, population, and freedom, was at one time greater 
 than in any portion of continental Europe : but the oft- 
 repeated invasions of French armies made of that unfortu- 
 nate country a great battle-field, and drove a large portion 
 of the most useful population to seek elsewhere the security 
 denied to them at home. Progress has been, therefore, slow ; 
 but with the continued peace of thirty years, we see gra 
 
216 MAN AND HIS FELLOW MAN. 
 
 dually advancing the power of the labourer over the pro- 
 ducts of his labour, and therewith a steadily increasing ten- 
 dency towards perfect self-government. 
 
 The rent of land in England is estimated at ^630,000,000, 
 and the proportion which it bears to the product is supposed 
 to be one-fifth, which gives .£150,000,000 as the total amount. 
 The number of proprietors is estimated at 200,000, giving 
 £150 as the average rental of each. The total product in the 
 days of the Edwards could scarcely have exceeded one-fiftieth 
 of this amount, or about £3,000,000. Of this, the lord claimed 
 probably two-thirds, or £2,000,000. The number of free- 
 holders recorded in Domesday-Book is twenty-six thousand, 
 but most of these must have been very small, as indivi- 
 duals had whole counties : while the manors held by others 
 varied from two hundred to almost eight hundred. In the ca- 
 lamitous times that followed the Conquest, and particularly 
 during the contest which preceded the accession of thePlan- 
 tagenets, the mass of the small freeholders were swept away, 
 and land concentrated itself in fewer hands; and we think 
 it doubtful if the number at this period, who were really 
 proprietors of freeholds, could have exceeded two thou- 
 sand : with an average income of £1000.* 
 
 The population being about two and a half millions, of 
 whom at least two-thirds could have had little employment 
 but in agriculture, and the remaining million of the product 
 being divided among them we have 125. per head for each 
 member of the family, or 21. Ss. for a man and his wife and 
 two children. That this is not very wide of the mark, is 
 obvious from the fact that the oxherd of this period has but 
 7s. per annum, and the shepherd 10^., in addition, perhaps, 
 to a very small quantity of very bad food, without cloth- 
 ing, or any other perquisite. A quarter of wheat is sometimes 
 
 * In regard to this and other estimates which follow, it will, we presume, 
 be obvious to the reader that strict accuracy is not important, even if it could 
 be obtained. They are given with a view merely to illustrate the prin- 
 ciple. 
 
MAN AND HIS FELLOW MAN. 217 
 
 2s. and sometimes 245., and frequently much more. If, 
 therefore, we estimate the annual wages at one quarter of 
 w^heat, or eight bushels, it is probably above the truth : and 
 this is all that he receives for his owm clothing and for pro- 
 curing a supply of food and clothing for his children ; sup- 
 posing his wife to support herself. 
 
 The product of land at the present time being taken at 
 .£150,000,000, of which one-fifth goes to the landlord, there 
 remain jEI 20,000,000 to be divided; and if the persons de- 
 pendent on agriculture be three times as great as in the for- 
 mer period, this gives £24: per head. There has arisen, 
 however, since then, a large class of persons engaged in 
 various operations connected with agriculture, intermediate 
 between the land-owner and the labourer ; who absorb, per- 
 haps, one-half of this amount, leaving the remaining half to 
 be divided among the labourers : and giving j£12 per head, 
 or <£48 for the support of a family, consisting of a man, his 
 wife, and two children. This amount is perhaps too great. 
 The latest estimate w^e have seen is <£40, and this will not, 
 we think, vary much from the truth. 
 
 The average rent of the landlord at the close of the four- 
 teenth century being taken at .£1000, and the average amount 
 received by the labourer's family at .£2, 8s., it follows that 
 the landlord's income of this period is sufficient to enable 
 him to pay almost four hundred men : while the average of 
 our day being .£150, and the labourer's family requiring £)40, 
 the average power of the representatives of land is not equal 
 to the pay of even four labourers. The ability, in the early 
 period, to pay so many men enables land to command their 
 services for the maintenance of its power, and the lord is, 
 therefore, always surrounded by hosts of men ready to do his 
 bidding: whether for the collection of rents from his own te- 
 nants, or the plunder of those of his neighbour. He is supreme 
 legislator, exercising his powers Dei Gratia: and to question 
 his right is treason against the state, i. e. against himself. 
 2E 19 
 
218 MAN AND HIS FELLOW MAN. 
 
 By degrees, however, wealth and population grow, better 
 soils are cultivated, and forests disappear. Roads are made, 
 and the little territories of the lords being thus brought into 
 communication with each other, towns and cities grow : and 
 the people obtain power to take to themselves a larger pro- 
 portion of the proceeds of their labour: now become doubly 
 productive. Out of the little and scattered territories grows 
 a kingdom : and the towns and cities, and the labourers, feel 
 the benefit of increased wealth and union in the gradual 
 diminution of the thousand oppressions under which they 
 have thus far laboured. The right of the landlord to the 
 enjoyment of the tenant's wife : and his right to pursue his 
 labourer, and inherit his goods : die away. Population, and 
 wealth, and union, increase still further. With each step man 
 rises in the scale until at length he comes to be consulted in 
 regard to affairs of State, and the payment of contributions. 
 The people are becoming strong, because they work and 
 economize. The landlords are becoming weak, because 
 they hunt, and feast, and make war. From that time to the 
 present, such has been the course of affairs. With every 
 step in the growth of wealth and population, we see evi- 
 dence of an increasing tendency to union among the people, 
 because of the constant augmentation of the means of pro- 
 duction, intercourse, and exchange : and freedom follows 
 union. With every such step, the power of the labourer 
 over the product of his labour, whether in the distribution 
 between himself and the land as represented by the lord : or 
 between himself and the government as represented by the 
 lords assembled in Parliament : has increased, while the 
 power of the land and its representatives to control the 
 movement of society, has diminished. With the more equal 
 division of property, the class interested in maintaining the 
 security of person and property has increased in numbers and 
 power : while 4he class possessing power to disturb the pub- 
 lic peace has diminished in relative wealth and strength. 
 Security at home, and comparative peace abroad, tend now 
 
MAN AND Ills FELLOW MAN. 219 
 
 to facilitate the production of wealth, and population tends 
 rapidly to increase as better soils come into cultivation : and 
 with each step we see a diminution in the power of the few 
 to control the action of the many. The right to make laws 
 in virtue of descent from lords of olden time is no longer, 
 in regard to questions of general interest, exercised in oppo- 
 sition to the wishes of those who hold their power from the 
 people. Thirty years since, the House of Commons still, in 
 a great degree, represented land. Even then the poor soils 
 continued to be cultivated. Wealth grew, and better soils 
 were brought into activity : and man and his interests ac- 
 quired power in that house, at the cost of land. Fifteen 
 years have since rolled round, and man has even at this 
 moment acquired a stronger representation than ever before. 
 He has obtained a vast accession to his power over his 
 actions, and all at the cost of land. 
 
 The value of labour and of talent is daily rising. The 
 value of mere brute-wealth, unaided by mind, is daily fall- 
 ing. The time seems to be at hand when every man must 
 work, if he w^ould maintain his position in society. The 
 direction of affairs has fallen somewhat under the control of 
 mind, and has been, to a certain extent, rescued from that 
 of mere matter. That this process is still going on, is every 
 day more obvious. The men of our day are the representa- 
 tives of a considerable portion of the popular mind. The 
 measures of Sir Robert Peel and Lord John Russell differ 
 little, because they are the decrees of a larger portion of the 
 people than has heretofore controlled the management of 
 their own affairs. With another step the whole people will 
 take part therein, and then steadiness of action will begin. 
 These results, too, are the direct consequence of measures 
 to which the representatives of land are, and have been, 
 prompted by a desire for the advancement of their own ma- 
 terial interests. 
 
 In all countries power has gone with the ownership of 
 land, and hence it is that where poor men cultivate poor soils, 
 
220 MAN AND HIS FELLOW MAN. 
 
 the few appear so great. With the growth of wealth and 
 population the land becomes divided, and the many acquire 
 power over themselves and their actions, in accordance 
 with the decree of the great Creator, who made all men 
 equal. 
 
 The progress has been, as yet, comparatively slow, be- 
 cause landlords have been the makers of laws : and larofe 
 armies, and great fleets, and vast church establishments, and 
 numerous colonies, have afforded opportunity to provide for 
 their children out of the public purse. With the increasing 
 desire for peace that in all countries accompanies the growth 
 of wealth and the habit of self-government, these tenden- 
 cies are passing away, and wealth grows more rapidly than 
 ever : enabling the labourer and the mechanic, whether 
 employer or employed, still more rapidly to improve their 
 condition : while the land tends daily more and more to be 
 compelled to provide for the families of its lords, heretofore 
 supported out of taxes on beer, sugar, tea, and coffee. With 
 the arrival of the time when fleets, and -armies, and colonies 
 shall cease to exist, and it seems likely soon to arrive, the 
 division of land will proceed more rapidly than ever before : 
 and the necessity for the exertion of their powers, whether 
 mental or physical, will be more than ever felt by each mem- 
 ber of the community, from the lowest to the highest. 
 
 Until recently, the land, as represented by the landlord 
 and the Church, preyed upon the tenant.^ The latter made 
 - improvements by which he might profit during the lease, as 
 the former certainly did at its close. Recently, the landlord 
 has taken a permanent lease from the Church at a fixed rent. 
 Now, the tenants are demanding long leases, with " tenant 
 right" — or a right to be paid for improvements. From that 
 point to perpetual leases, the distance is not great : for as the 
 power of man over his labour goes up, wealth increases 
 more and more rapidly, and the power of land over man 
 goes down. Every new soil brought into cultivation gives 
 power to the tenant, while diminishing that of his lord. 
 
MAN AND HIS FELLOW MAN. 221 
 
 Every railroad that is made : every engine employed in 
 drainage : every tile kiln that is built : every newspaper that 
 is printed : and every monopoly that is abolished : tends to 
 improvement and equality of condition. They are insepara- 
 ble, and those who would prevent the last, can do so only 
 by retarding the progress of the first. 
 
 Such has been the tendency in every country in which 
 growing weaUh and population have facilitated the culti- 
 vation of the better soils, and have enabled men to live in 
 closer connection with each other ; while the reverse has 
 been the case in every one in which they have declined. 
 They may be seen increasing in the happier days of 
 Rome, when Latium was filled with populous and prosper- 
 ous towns which made treaties of commerce with Carthage : 
 and the tendency to freedom was then great. Wealth dis- 
 appeared as Rome declined towards the barbarism of the 
 days of Scipio, of Marius, and of Octavius. Population 
 diminished, and the best soils went out of cultivation. The 
 free labour of the Roman citizens was replaced by that of 
 slaves, and the pauper population of the city was fed by 
 contributions levied upon Sicily, and Africa, and Egypt. 
 With growing poverty land acquired a daily increasing 
 power, and the habit of self-government disappeared ; the 
 internal history of the State, almost from the days of the 
 elder Brutus, being but a record of contests for power by 
 pai'venus nohles on the one hand, and nobles by descent on 
 the other : and yet the triumph of a plebeian demagogue in 
 securing for himself and his fellows a share in the general 
 plunder of the people of the State, abroad or at home, is 
 marked in the story books which pass for histories even in 
 our days, as a triumph of the people themselves. 
 
 With the diminution of wealth in Gaul, we see arise the 
 great land owner, with square leagues of territory, and sur 
 rounded by hosts of slaves. He is seen, too, in Attica and 
 in Sparta, as Greece declined. 
 
 The prudent and industrious man grows rich and strong. 
 
 19* 
 
222 ' MAN AND HIS FELLOW MAN. 
 
 He can enforce his rights, because he respects those of others. 
 The man who fights and drinks, closes his career in the poor- 
 house, having lost all power of self-government. So is it with 
 nations. In the history of none can w^e find this more tho- 
 roughly illustrated than in that of France, which presents a 
 record of selfishness, rapacity, and weakness, scarcely paral- 
 leled among nations claiming a place among civilized commu- 
 nities. Her kings have plundered princes, and nobles, and 
 people. Her nobles and princes have plundered each other, 
 and have been ever ready to combine with foreign nations 
 against the State. From the days of Charlemagne to the 
 present time, there has been, as formerly in Rome, an un- 
 ceasing contest between the plebeian aristocracy that owed 
 its wealth to the plunder of the last war, civil or foreign : 
 and the more noble aristocracy which derived its title there- 
 to by descent from the heroes of that which next, or next but 
 one, preceded it : and the sole question between ihem has 
 been as to who should now exercise the right of plunder, at 
 home and abroad. The government has been one of wealth 
 derived from the spoils of war ; from taxation, oppressive 
 beyond imagination ; and from the spoliation of men who 
 were sufficiently advanced in civilization to desire to apply 
 their faculties to the purposes of trade, or sufficiently en- 
 lightened to think for themselves in matters of religion. Both 
 factions : the new nobles and the old : have exerted their ener- 
 gies in plundering and murdering the people, and the peo- 
 ple have done the same by them. In her external relations, 
 we find the same universal selfishness and rapacity miscalled 
 "love of glory." The consequence has been universal 
 feebleness. The people have been unable to assert their 
 rights against princes and nobles, while princes and nobles 
 have been equally powerless against kings and ministers : 
 and the whole nation has exhibited at all times, from the 
 days of Rollo to that of Waterloo, an almost total incapa- 
 city for self-defence. French armies have been, time after 
 time, defeated in Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, and 
 
MAN AND HIS FllLLOW MAN. 223 
 
 Italy : while foreign armies have repeatedly, unresisted, tra- 
 versed France for hundreds of miles, and her severest de- 
 feats have been on her own soil. Turbulence and rapacity, 
 vanity and feebleness, are the characteristics which distin- 
 guish her history beyond that of any nation of Europe. 
 Under such circumstances, self-government could have no 
 existence. 
 
 By no people have the rights of others been so much re- 
 spected as by the people of the English colonies of America, 
 now the United States. In their progress west, they have 
 encountered decaying tribes of savages, whose vanity has 
 sometimes produced war. In their progress south-west, 
 they have encountered the half-civilized people of Mexico ; 
 and there, again, the vanity of the barbarian has produced a 
 war that we could wish had been avoided. With these ex- 
 ceptions, they have never fired a musket but in self-defence. 
 Peace has given wealth and strength to the people and to 
 the nation. Every man determines for himself what he will 
 do with his time and his talents ; selling them to the best 
 advantage : and every one participates in determining the 
 amount of contribution that shall be required for the service 
 of the community of which he is a member.* Self-govern- 
 ment exists to a degree never before known ; and increasing 
 wealth and population, the results of peace, give strength to 
 the nation among the community of nations. The largest 
 producers of the world, they are the largest consumers, and 
 their trade is valuable : a fact which is due to the use of spades 
 and ploughs in preference to that of swords and pistols. 
 Without fleets and armies, they exercise a self- defensive 
 power unknown to nations who employ important portions 
 
 * " If he be a subject in all that concerns the mutual relations of citizens, 
 he is free and responsible to God alone for all that concerns himself. Hence 
 arises the maxim that every one is the best and sole judge of his own pri- 
 vate interest, and that society has no right to control a man's actions, unless 
 they are prejudicial to the common weal, or unless the common weal demands 
 his co-operation. This doctrine is universally admitted in the United States." 
 — De TorqueviUc. 
 
2S4 MAN AND HIS FELLOW MAN. 
 
 of their people in carrying muskets and burning powder, and 
 require from other portions heavy contributions for their sup- 
 port w^iile thus employed. France employs thousands of 
 labourers in fortifying Paris, while New York, at one- 
 tenth of the cost, and in little more time, places tw^elve 
 hundred thousand volumes in her district-school libraries. 
 France expends hundreds of millions and wastes a hundred 
 thousand lives, in subjugating Algeria, while the people of 
 the Union, at one-fifth of the cost and without the loss of a 
 life, cover their vast territory with a network of railroads. 
 The one acquires strength that enables her quietly to settle, 
 with honour to herself, every question in which she feels an 
 interest, and to defend every right : while the other tyran- 
 nizes over the weaker powers in her neighbourhood, and is 
 set at defiance by those which are stronger. Restless weak- 
 ness characterizes the one : and quiet strength the other. 
 
 In no portion of the population of the Union are the beau- 
 tiful effects of peace and rapidly augmenting wealth better il- 
 lustrated than in the comparative progress and condition of 
 their negro population and that of the West Indies. Imported 
 into the latter, and there involved in ruinous wars, retarding 
 the growth of wealth : we find that race at the date of eman- 
 cipation, a few years since, numbering fewer souls than had 
 been imported. If we desire to trace the cause of this, we 
 must look to those countries in which population tends down- 
 wards, and there we shall find the labourer badly fed : badly 
 clothed : and over- worked : while his children perish of famine 
 and disease. That such was there the case is obvious from 
 the fact that from the date at which importation ceased, their 
 number steadily declined, and was far less on the day of 
 emancipation than it had been twenty years before. 
 
 In 1817, the slaves of Jamaica numbered 346,000. In 
 1829 they were reduced to 302,000, although the ipanumis- 
 sions had been only 4000. What was the number emanci- 
 pated, we do not know, but it was probably considerably less 
 than in 1829. In the same period of twenty years, in the 
 United States, their number would have increased to about 
 
MAN AND HIS FELLOW MAN. 225 
 
 600,000. In Jamaica, labour was rendered unproductive by- 
 wars, restrictions, heavy taxation, and interferences with the 
 right of property. The value of the labourer was reduced, 
 and his owner had no interest in improving his condition : 
 the consequence of which is seen in the total absence of in- 
 crease of numbers. More slaves were imported into this one 
 island than into the w^hole American Union. The one now 
 presents to the world a very poor population of 300,000 re- 
 cently redeemed from slavery : the other one of more than 
 3,000,000, rapidly redeeming themselves. 
 
 In the United States, on the contrary, wealth has grown 
 rapidly, and the demand for labourers has consequently been 
 great. The return to labour has been large, and the labourer, 
 w^hite or black, has had his share. Well fed, well clothed, 
 and well housed, because valuable to his owmer, the three or 
 four hundred thousand barbarians have grown to millions of 
 comparatively civilized men. Still slaves, and liable to be 
 sold, they are yet exempt from the dangers of conscription, 
 which, to the separation from parents, wdves, or children, 
 might add exposure to the dangers of war : to perish among 
 the snows of Russia, or the sands of Africa ; or to return with 
 the habits of the camp, and unfit to resume the peaceful du- 
 ties of civilized life. Still slaves, they are exempt from the 
 dangers of being impressed and dragged from their families 
 to spend long years upon the ocean, engaged in the work of 
 plunder and of murder, to return perhaps with the loss of a leg 
 or an arm : and to find that their wives have died in the alms- 
 house, and their daughters have been driven to seek by pros- 
 titution the means of a WTetched subsistence. They are still 
 slaves, yet they have before them no dread of invading 
 armies, resembling those which have carried rape, murder, 
 plunder and desolation throughout Spain, Germany, Italy, 
 Holland, the Netherlands and France. They are still slaves, 
 but their labour is valuable because aided by the machinery 
 of rapidly growing wealth : and their masters, unlike those 
 of the unhappy people of Ireland, would feel it a serious 
 2 F 
 
226 MAN AND HIS FELLOW MAN. 
 
 sacrifice were they compelled to ship them off, stowed 
 almost in bulk, on board of ill-found and ill-provisioned 
 barques and brigs ; to have the horrors of the middle passage 
 repeated in these enlightened days. They are still slaves, 
 yet their masters feel that they consult their own interests in 
 feeding, clothing, and lodging them well, because wealth in- 
 creases more rapidly than population, and their labour be- 
 comes daily more valuable. Still slaves, and liable to be 
 sold, they consume a larger proportion of the proceeds of 
 their labour than falls to the lot of half the people of Europe 
 who claim to be considered free ; and they are daily improv- 
 ing in their physical, moral and intellectual condition, pre- 
 paratory to becoming : as they will at no very distant day, 
 and that without violence, free citizens and proprietors of the 
 States they inhabit: the few^ miserable barbarians having 
 become a numerous, happy and civilized people, because of 
 the maintenance of peace and consequent growth of wealth : 
 and ready then to unite with their white fellow- citizens in 
 the great enterprise of carrying civilization into the heart of 
 Africa, and thus perfecting the work already so well begun. 
 In no other country has the race increased its numbers, because 
 in no other have wealth and the demand for labour, and 
 the price of labour, increased so rapidly. In few, if in- 
 deed in any, of the countries of continental Europe, have 
 the mass of the people exercised the rights of self-govern- 
 ment in regard to the apphcation of their time, their labour, 
 and its proceeds, in as great a degree as have the negroes of 
 the southern states : although still slaves, and liable to be 
 sold. Had it been otherwise : had they furnished as many 
 soldiers, and endured as much suffering as the people of 
 France, Italy, Spain and Germany : their numbers would 
 have remained as nearly stationary. Wherever wealth and 
 population have been permitted to increase, freedom has in- 
 variably followed in their train : and evidence that such will 
 be the case may be found in the anxiety of so many of the 
 owners of slaves in relation to every measure, originating even 
 
MAN AND HIS FELLOW MAN. 227 
 
 among themselves, tending in that direction. That slavery 
 yet endures is due to the fact that concentration is diffi- 
 cult, because of the constant error of the English policy, 
 which forces men to scatter themselves over the thin soils 
 of new states, while leaving untouched the rich soils of older 
 ones. With concentration labour will increase in value, and 
 land will become divided, and will be found far more valuable 
 when well cultivated by free blacks, working for themselves 
 and bringing into activity the better soils, than are now the 
 lands and the slaves who scratch the superficial soil, while 
 leaving untouched those more valuable which lie beneath. 
 Slavery is one of man's weak " inventions," and it cannot 
 endure in a country that enjoys the blessings of peace, of 
 light taxation, and general freedom of action. 
 
 M. de Tocqueville saw the tendency to self-government, 
 but he feared it. He did so, because he had not studied the 
 causes of its rise, or the phenomena which mark its exist- 
 ence, and promote its extension. He speaks uniformly of 
 France and the United States as the democratic states. His 
 test of democracy is the division of land, not that of the ex- 
 ercise of the right of self-government. In France, division 
 is compulsory. The people are poor, and the little farm of 
 ten acres which has given a miserable support to one family, 
 is divided into two, three, or five, by the sons : and each mort- 
 gages his share to obtain the assistance required to enable 
 him to support a miserable existence. Land, there, still go- 
 verns the man. In the United States, the system consists in 
 letting every man judge for himself to whom he will leave 
 his property : but if he leave behind him no directions, the 
 law supplies his place, and says that all children have equal 
 rights. In the one case, self-government is complete. In 
 the other, it is nowhere seen. 
 
 The habit of voluntary association is the essential charac- 
 teristic of self-government. Without that, it can have no ex- 
 istence. In the United States, the type of the whole svstem 
 
228 MAN AND HIS FELLOW MAN. 
 
 is found in " the bee :" the union of the okl settlers to put up 
 a log-house for the newly arrived family. Starting from that 
 point, it may be found in every operation of life. The logs 
 are to be rolled : the roof of the barn is to be raised : or the 
 corn is to be husked. Forthwith, all assemble, and the work 
 w^iich to the solitary labourer would have been severe, and 
 often impossible, is made " a frolic" of, and an hour or two 
 of combined exertion accomplishes what otherwise might 
 have required weeks, or months. Does the new settler want 
 a horse, or a plough, or both ? One neighbour lends him the 
 first, and another the last, and he soon obtains a horse and 
 plough for himself: whereas, without such aid he might have 
 toiled in poverty for years. A place of worship is needed, 
 and all, Methodists, Episcopalians, Baptists and Presbyte- 
 rians, unite to build it ; its pulpit to be occupied by the itine- 
 rant preachers of the wilderness. The church brings peo- 
 ple to the neighbourhood, and promotes the habit of asso- 
 ciation, while the lesson taught therein promotes the love of 
 order : and in a little time the settlement is dotted over with 
 meeting-houses, at one of which Baptists, and at another 
 Presbyterians meet each other, to listen to the man w^hom as 
 their teacher they have united to select. Is one of these 
 houses burnt, the congregation find all others of the neigh- 
 bourhood placed at their command until the loss can be re- 
 paired. Next, we find them associating for the making of 
 roads, and holding meetings to determine who shall superin- 
 tend their construction and repair, and who assess the con- 
 tributions required for the purpose. Again, we find them 
 meeting to determine who shall represent them at the meet- 
 ing of the county board, or in the Assembly of the State, or in 
 the Congress of the Union. Again, to settle where the new 
 school-house shall be built : and to determine who shall collect 
 the funds necessary for the purpose, and select the books for 
 the little library that is to enable their children to apply with 
 advantage to themselves the knowledge of letters acquired 
 
MAN AND HIS FELLOW MAN. 229 
 
 from the teacher.* Again, they are seen forming associa- 
 tions for mutual insurance against horse-thieves or fire ; or Httle 
 savings' funds, called banks, at which the man who wishes to 
 buy a horse or a plough can borrow the means necessary for 
 the purpose. Little mills grow up, the property of one or 
 two, and expand into large ones, in which all the little capi- 
 talists of the neighbourhood, shoemakers and sempstresses, 
 farmers and lawyers, widows and orphans, are interested : 
 little towns, in which every resident owns his own house and 
 lot, and is therefore directly interested in their good manage- 
 ment, and in all matters tending to their advancement ; and 
 each feels that the first and greatest of those things is perfect se- 
 curity of person and property. The habit of association is seen 
 exercising the most beneficial influence in every action of 
 life, and it is most seen where population and wealth most 
 abound : in the states of New England. There, we see a 
 network of association so far exceeding what is elsewhere 
 to be seen as to defy comparison. The shipwright, and the 
 merchant, and the more advanced and less active capitalist, 
 unite with the master in the ownership of the vessel : and all 
 unite with the crew in the division of the oil which is the re- 
 sult of the cruise. The great merchant, the little capitalist, 
 
 * " It is not impossible to conceive the surpassing liberty which the Ameri- 
 cans enjoy ; some idea may likewise be formed of the extreme equality that 
 subsists among them ; but the political activity which pervades the United 
 States must be seen in order to be understood. No sooner do you set foot 
 on the American soil, than you are stunned by a kind of tumult; a confused 
 clamour is heard on every side ; and a thousand simultaneous voices demand 
 the immediate satisfaction of their social wants. Every thing is in motion 
 around you ; here, the people of one quarter of a town are met to decide upon 
 the building of a church ; there, the election of a representative is going on ; 
 a little further, the delegates of a district are posting to the town in order to 
 consult upon some local improvements ; or in another place the labourers of 
 a village quit their ploughs to deliberate upon the project of a road or a pub- 
 lic school. Meetings are called for the sole purpose of declaring their disap- 
 probation of the hne of conduct pursued by the government; whilst in other 
 assemblies the citizens salute the authorities of the day as the fathers of their 
 country. Societies are formed which regard drunkenness as the principal 
 cause of the evils under which the state labours, and which solemnly bind 
 themselves to give a constant example of temperance." — Dc Tocquevilk. 
 
 20 
 
230 ' MAN AND HIS FELLOW MAN. 
 
 the skilful manufacturer, the foundry-master, the engineer, 
 the workman, and the girl who tends the loom, unite in the 
 ownership of the immense mill : and millions of yards of 
 cloth are furnished to the world by this combined effort on 
 the part of individuals who, if they worked alone, could not 
 have suppHed thousands. The property-holder of the city, 
 and the little capitalists, are everywhere seen combining their 
 exertions for the construction of roads and the building of 
 steamboats, by the use of which the habit of union is in- 
 creased. In every relation of life, the same tendency to com- 
 bination of action is seen to exist. Everywhere, man is seen 
 helping, and governing himself.* That he may do this effec- 
 tually, wealth is necessary : for men cannot live near each 
 other while forced to cultivate the worst soils. Wealth thus 
 produces union, which is seen most to exist where wealth most 
 exists : more in the^ast than in the west, and more in the north 
 than in the south. Union in turn produces wealth, which 
 grows more rapidly in the north and east than in the west 
 and south : and thus wealth, combined action, and power of 
 self-government, with a constant increase in the respect for 
 laws which they themselves have made: manifested alike by in- 
 dividuals and by States whose population counts by millions if 
 
 * '< The citizen of the United States is taught from his earliest infancy to 
 rely upon his own exertions, in order to resist the evils and the difficulties of 
 life ; he looks upon the social authority with an eye of mistrust and anxiety, 
 and he only claims its assistance when he is quite unable to do without it." — 
 De Tocqueville. 
 
 « The small number of custom-house officers employed in the United States, 
 compared with the extent of the coast, renders smuggling very easy ; notwith- 
 standing it is less practised than elsewhere, because everybody endeavours to 
 repress it. In America, there is no police for the prevention of fires, and such 
 accidents are more numerous than in Europe ; but in general they are more 
 speedily extinguished, becauce the surrounding population is prompt in ren- 
 dering assistance." — Ibid. 
 
 ■j-" When the clerk of the court advances on the steps of the tribunal, and 
 simply says : ' The state of New York versus the state of Ohio,' it is impos- 
 sible not to feel that the court which he addresses is no ordinary body ; and 
 when he recollects that one of these parties represents a million, and the other 
 twomillions of men, one is struck by the responsibility of the seven judges 
 whose decision is about to satisfy or disappoint so large a number of their fel- 
 low citizens." — De Tocqueville. 
 
MAN AND HIS FELLOW MAN. 231 
 
 and corresponding increase in the return to labour, are seen 
 constantly advancing ; each helping and helped by the other. 
 Such is democracy, but of all this what exists in France ? 
 Nothing ! The habit of voluntary association has no exist- 
 ence, except for revolutionary purposes.* No meeting can 
 be held without the sanction of government. No church or 
 school-house can be built without that sanction. The go- 
 vernment pays the clergy and the teachers. It builds the 
 roads and bridges, and it makes libraries: supports theatres: 
 sells tobacco and salt at its own shops: grants or refuses per- 
 mission to the labourer to stay or to quit the Capital: dictates 
 the terms upon which he may offer to sell his labour : regu- 
 lates elections : fixes the amount of contributions to be spent 
 in making wars, in building hospitals for the wounded, or in 
 pensions to men who have produced the necessity for these 
 wars : prohibits all meetings for the discussion of its mea- 
 sures: interdicts such discussions in the newspapers :f opens 
 private letters :| and finally surrounds the capital with cannon 
 sufficient to lay it in ruins, if the people should talk too 
 loudly. The democracy of France and that of her old ally 
 against the Christians of Italy, and Germany, and Spain, are of 
 the same character. Turkey has been ruled by pashas, who, 
 after being allowed to gorge themselves, have been squeezed 
 by the government. France has always been, and is, ruled 
 by farmers-general with various titles : always squeezing 
 the people, and sometimes squeezed. The reader who 
 
 * "In America, public opinion acts by elections and decrees; in France, it 
 proceeds by revolutions." — De Tocquevillc. " In countries where associations 
 are free, secret societies are unknown. In America there are numerous fac- 
 tions, but no conspiracies." — Ibid. 
 
 ■\ Six journals have just been seized for exposing government abuses, viz.: 
 the Democratic Pacifique, the Estafette, the Gazette de France, the Union 
 Monarchique, the Charivari, and the Reforme. 
 
 ^ A secret department exists in the French post-office, in which suspected 
 letters are broken open and read, by order of the government. An employee 
 who officiated in this department before the revolution of 1830 is now [1847] 
 reinstated, at a salary of ten thousand francs per annum. This, it is alleged, 
 afibrds a clue to the extensive robberies of the mail. Charges of corruption 
 are made against thirty or forty officers of government. 
 
232 MAN AND HIS FELLOW MAN. 
 
 would desire to see the type of the administration of France, 
 should study the history of Fouquet. Solidarite : unlimited 
 liability: is there the rule. Exemptions, therefore, by per- 
 sons desiring to exercise the right to associate, are ob- 
 tained with difficulty so great that to do so may be deemed 
 almost impossible; and hence the absence of the habit of 
 association which exists always in the ratio of the growth 
 of wealth and population. Self-government is there un- 
 known.* 
 
 In England the habit of association has always, to a great 
 extent, existed. It may be seen developing itself with every 
 step in the growth of population and w^ealth ; and now with 
 greater rapidity than ever, as witness the union of effort for 
 the construction of her system of railroads. It has been, and 
 is, however, restrained by an infinity of regulations and lia- 
 bilities, relics of a barbarian age, tending to produce mono- 
 poly of power in the hands of individuals : great agriculturists : 
 great bankers : great merchants : great manufacturers : and 
 great politicians : always the cause of great disturbance 
 among the little people by whom they are surrounded. Hence 
 the frequent combinations of workmen, and the ruinous 
 " strikes," by w^hich trade is interrupted for wrecks, and the 
 progress of wealth is impeded. Hence the incendiarism, ma- 
 chine breakings, assassinations, vitriol throwing, and other 
 acts of outrage of so frequent occurrence. f Hence, too, the 
 tremendous contests in past times for seats in parliament : 
 hence the wars, the large armies and jdeets : and hence the 
 
 * " It is evident that a central government acquires immense power when 
 united to administrative centralization. Thus combined, it accustoms men to 
 set their own will habitually and completely aside ; to submit not only for 
 once or upon one point, but in every respect and at all times." — Be TocgueviUe. 
 
 j- " Incendiarism, machine breakings, assassination, vitriol throwing, acts of 
 diabolical outrage, all have been perpetrated for intimidation or revenge." — 
 Gaskill, Artisans and Machinery. 
 
 " An engineer, who has contributed largely to benefit society by his inven- 
 tions, tells the writer of this book that he has completed several machines which 
 he considers of general utiUty, but which he dares not bring forward in the pre- 
 sent state of the popular mind." — Results of Machinery. 
 
MAN AND HIS FELLOW MAN. 233 
 
 necessity for penal colonies, appropriately designated ''hells 
 upon earth!" like Norfolk Island. The tendency to self- 
 government has there existed in a degree unknown to 
 any other part of Europe ; for there wealth and population 
 have grown wdth some rapidity, and there men have been 
 most enabled to associate. It grows now^ more rapidly than 
 ever, because of the great increase in the facility of commu- 
 nication and intercourse : and the result is increased harmony. 
 Men can now differ in opinion without fighting. They begin 
 now to recognise the right of their neighbours to worship God 
 after their own fashion : and to vote for protection, or free 
 trade, as they please, without being mobbed or stoned; as 
 has been shown in the late election : a great triumph of the 
 principle of self-government. The hustings of London and 
 Manchester, and of England generally, have been almost as 
 quiet as the election grounds of the United States have alw^ays 
 been. The voters felt that they had rights to defend, and 
 duties to perform : not masters to serve. In many places 
 they went to the work seriously and gravely, like the Puritans 
 of old ; and such men do not need to fight at elections. The 
 more earnestness, the more quiet, the more union, and the 
 more strength. 
 
 The events of the last thirty years of peace contrast most 
 forcibly with those of the previous twenty years of war, waste, 
 and ruin. During the whole of that period, land was strength- 
 ening itself against man. Properties were enlarged, and pro- 
 perty-owners became too great to look after their own affairs. 
 Little farmers were expelled, to make w^ay for great ones. 
 The little ones w^ent to the poor-house, and the great ones 
 were ruined by making improvements on short leases ; 
 although, during the whole time, land was making laws to 
 limit the supply of food, and keep up rents. The power of 
 the people over their ow^n actions rapidly diminished during 
 the war, and its close found the mass of them reduced to 
 pauperism, and subject to all the insolence of little tyrants 
 directly or indirectly representing the land. Such were the 
 'iG 20* 
 
234 MAN AND HIS FELLOW MAN. 
 
 results of a diminution in the proportion of wealth to popu- 
 lation. The results of an increase in that proportion we are 
 now witnessing. 
 
 The effect of a long period of peace in promoting the 
 growth of wealth and freedom was first exhibited in Prussia, 
 in the removal of all impediments to the free disposal of land 
 by sale, gift, or will. Next, we find the emancipation, with 
 compensation to the lord, of the small free proprietor : the 
 tenant in perpetuity : previously subject to the most barbarous 
 and absurd regulations. Again, we meet with the associations 
 of land-owners, large and small, for the institution of provin- 
 cial mortgage banks, whose operations have since grown to 
 a vast amount, and have increased the power of cultivating 
 the deeper and better soils, which before could not be reached 
 because of the inferiority of the machinery in use. Labour 
 has become more productive, and population and wealth 
 have grown with great rapidity ; and with them, the habit of 
 peace and the tendency to union : and the ability to demand 
 control over the power of taxation, and the administration 
 of the public affairs. Hence the new constitution : an im- 
 portant step towards self-government. 
 
 In her exterior relations Prussia has afforded signal evi- 
 dence of the tendency of growing wealth and population to 
 produce peace, in the establishment of the great Commercial 
 League of Northern Germany. France has always made 
 deserts between her and her neighbours : in the Palatinate : 
 in the Netherlands : in Piedmont and Savoy : and in Cata- 
 lonia. Her policy has been that of glory and isolation : and 
 such is it now. Prussia, on the contrary, labours to convert 
 deserts into farms, intersected by railroads. The one ad- 
 vances rapidly. The other scarcely at all. England is now 
 pursuing, in that respect, the policy of Prussia. Self-govern- 
 ment and the disposition to union with her colonies on terms 
 of equality, and with foreign nations, are growing by degrees ; 
 yet impeded everywhere by monopolies of land and capital, 
 producing unsteadiness, and exercising a strong repulsive 
 
MAN AND HIS FELLOW MAN. 235 
 
 power. She repeals her corn-laws, but other nations cling 
 more closely to their tariffs ; feeling that the union between 
 the producer and consumer at home is more* profitable than 
 imion with nations abroad, and disunion at home. The 
 United States, however, advance most rapidly in wealth and 
 population : and their tendency to union is proportionably 
 great. State after State has been added to the Union, 
 silently : but it was reserved for Texas to prove the extraor- 
 dinary attractive power of superior wealth. That State was 
 settled chiefly by men who had opposed the protective 
 policy ; and among the leaders were found some of those who 
 had most warmly advocated the Nullification Law of 1832. 
 Ten years later, the tariff of 1842, held by them to be equally 
 objectionable, was passed. Texas had then established herself 
 as an independent power, recognised by the principal powers 
 of the earth : yet she gladly sunk that independence, and 
 became a State of the Union, adding another star to its flag. 
 Had war been the policy of the people, they would have re- 
 mained poor ; and Texas would still be a wilderness : or, if a 
 State, she would have remained an independent one. Again, if 
 we desire to see the effect of self-government in producing ha- 
 bits of order and union, we may turn to the settlers of Oregon ; 
 and see them quietly forming a constitution for themselves, 
 1 Electing township and county officers, members of the little 
 legislature, and governor. The whole machinery of govern- 
 ment is there, self-existent. The people knew what they 
 wanted, and they made it. They wanted no essays on go- 
 vernment : no great men to teach them. At home they had 
 practised respect for the rights of others: and when abroad 
 they proved that they had not forgotten the lesson. 
 
 According to several eminent writers, there exist various 
 races of men : and some of the most eminent of the writers 
 of our time have been disposed to attribute to the antipathy 
 of those races many of the phenomena to which we have 
 referred. A more careful study of history might, however, 
 as we think, satisfy them that although men are of various 
 
236 MAN AND HIS FELLOW MAN, 
 
 colours, white, red, brown, and black, there have existed 
 from the creation to the present time but two races, to wit, 
 the great race and the small one : the race of the few and 
 that of the many : the race that lives by the labour of others, 
 and that which lives by their own : the race of the plunderers 
 and that of the plundered.* 
 
 When population is small, and poor men cultivate poor 
 soils, the great race abounds ; but as wealth and population 
 increase, and rich men cultivate rich soils, the great race 
 becomes rare. Parmi les aveugles, les borgnes sont rois : 
 and this is equally true whether we consider man physically, 
 morally, intellectually, or politically. 
 
 Throughout Africa, kings and ministers abound, and kings 
 and ministers moke razzias, carrying off and selling for slaves 
 the inoffensive subjects of their neighbour kings : first perhaps 
 mutilating them that they may better serve the purposes of 
 their masters. Throughout Asia, the great race is numerous. 
 Kings and kings' sons, ministers and their dependents, ze- 
 mindars and other officers, down to the mundils and potails 
 of villages, plunder the poor people by whom they are sur- 
 rounded : each to be plundered in turn by those above. In 
 Mexico, too, the great race is numerous, for there the whole 
 people cultivate the poorest soils. Daily revolutions produce 
 a daily supply of men ready to manage the property of 
 others, and to enrich themselves by the profits of manage- 
 ment. Armies are mainly composed of generals, colonels, 
 and majors, all ready to give orders, but none ready to 
 obey. 
 
 If we follow the history of Athens, we can see a gradual 
 increase in the numbers of the great race, until the whole 
 
 * " The human species, according to the best theory I can form of it, is 
 composed of two distinct races, the men who borrow and the men who lend. 
 The infinite superiority of the former, which I choose to designate as the great 
 race, is discernible in their figure, port, and a certain instinctive sovereignty. 
 The latter are born degraded. < He shall serve his brethren.' There is some- 
 thing in the air of one of this caste, lean and suspicious, contrasting with the 
 open, trusting, generous manners of the other." — Lamb. 
 
MAN AND HIS FELLOW MAN. 237 
 
 people became masters of the lives and fortunes of the in- 
 habitants of a thousand subject cities ; and every man claimed 
 to be fed, and clothed, and amused, out of the products of 
 their labour. Greatest among the great, we find Miltiades 
 and Cimon : Pericles and Alcibiades : followed by troops 
 of members of the military aristocracy, all hungry for their 
 shares of the spoils. Athens then cultivated the poorest 
 soils, and great men were numerous : shining conspicuously 
 among the little men by whom they were surrounded. In 
 Italy, when towns and cities were filled with prosperous in- 
 habitants, and men cultivated the most fertile soils, great 
 men were rare ; but as by degrees those soils were aban- 
 doned and slaves took the place of freemen, the great race 
 became more and more numerous : so numerous at length 
 that it became necessary to diminish their number, and 
 hence the wars and proscriptions of Marius and Sylla : Pom- 
 pey and Csesar : Anthony, Octavius, and Lepidus. With 
 the decline of the empire, we may see the great race steadily 
 increasing, until at length the number of those who lived by 
 the labour of others came to exceed those who lived by their 
 own. With the gradual revival of Italy, we may see in the 
 kingdom of Lombardy a thriving people with few great 
 men : but France came, and desolation marked her footsteps. 
 The fertile soils went out of cultivation, because the little 
 race were employed in building castles for their masters. 
 In Florence, when wealth and population grew and man 
 cultivated the rich soils, great men were rare. Perpetual 
 wars brought poverty and the great race ; until at length 
 those who laboured but little exceeded in number those who 
 did not. In France, the great race have always been 
 numerous. To that country Europe was indebted for the 
 Feudal System : the system of the great race. Every petty 
 leader had his castle, and all were at all times ready to plun- 
 der such of the little race of merchants and travellers as 
 came within their grasp. 
 
 Throughout her history, that race so abounds that it is 
 
238 MAN AND HIS FELLOW MAN. 
 
 with difficulty we can distinguish those who might be enti- 
 tled to claim pre-eminence. Philip the Fair distinguished 
 himself by his robberies under the name of alterations of 
 the coin : but John and various of the names of Charles and 
 Philip almost equalled him. He plundered the Jews and the 
 Italians, on various occasions : but in this he was fully 
 equalled by numerous others. He burned the Templars and 
 confiscated their property: but Louis XIV. did as much by 
 the Huguenots. He squeezed the people : but in this even he 
 was excelled by Anjou, Berri, and Burgundy, who farmed 
 the kingdom during the minority of Charles VI. France 
 has been at all times the land of great men. Princes, 
 dukes, marshals, constables, nobles, and gentlemen finan- 
 ciers, revenue farmers, and tax-gatherers, have always 
 abounded : the consequence of which has been that a very 
 poor people has always cultivated, as they still continue to 
 cultivate, the worst soils of the kingdom. 
 
 England abounded in great men in the days of the Conqueror 
 and his immediate successors, and they were surrounded by 
 little men who cultivated poor soils. With time, great men 
 became more rare, and the little men became greater. The 
 wars of the Roses produced " the Last of the Barons," and 
 many other great men. The number diminished from that 
 period to that of the great rebellion, when the few became 
 greater, and the man}^ less : and so it continued during the 
 rest of that century. From that time the number diminished 
 until near the close of the last century, when commenced 
 again the era of great men followed by troops of officials : 
 civil, military and naval : some employed in impressing 
 seamen, and others in commanding ships and fleets : some 
 engaged in crimping soldiers, and others in leading armies : 
 some in imposing taxes and dividing among themselves a 
 large share of the proceeds, and others in collecting excise 
 duties on salt, beer^ tobacco, and all other of the commodi- 
 ties used by the little men : and lastly, another large body 
 in collecting means to support in poor-houses starving la- 
 
MAN AND HIS FELLOW MAN. 239 
 
 bourers, their wives and mistresses, their children, legitimate 
 and illegitimate. The few became greater and the many 
 less. . For the last thirty years, the great have been becom- 
 ing less numerous, and less great, while the little have been 
 becoming greater ; but England still abounds in great men ; 
 railroad kings, who dictate what roads shall be made, and how 
 they shall be made : bank directors who make money plenty or 
 scarce, at their pleasure : Ministers who grant or withhold 
 millions to starving Irishmen : East India directors who 
 support armies and make dividends out of the proceeds of 
 taxes on salt and other necessaries of life used by the half- 
 starved labourers of India : private bankers who fail and 
 make no dividend : great lawyers, and doctors, and mer- 
 chants, and manufacturers; grooms of the stole, equerries, 
 generals, admirals, colonels, and captains; and county magis- 
 trates intent upon enforcing the game laws : while the little 
 people who labour are forced, not unfrequently, to content 
 themselves with mud hovels and eight shillings a week: filthy 
 cellars in Liverpool and Manchester: or rags and nakedness 
 in coal mines. 
 
 The United States, happily for themselves, have had few 
 great men. The number varies, however, as we pass from 
 old Massachusetts where the powers of the earth are most 
 fully developed, towards Florida and Arkansas, where the 
 richest soils are still covered with forests: or are a mass of 
 swamps. The good ship Mayflower brought with her, hap- 
 pily, no great men, and no little men. All were equal, and 
 all willing so to continue. From that time to the present, 
 that State, and those of New England generally, have had no 
 great men to manage their affairs, the consequence of which 
 is that they require little or no management.* They have 
 had no great bankers, but banking is there more extensive 
 
 * " All the domestic controversies of the Americans at first appear to a 
 stranger to be so incomprehensible and so puerile, that he is at a loss whe- 
 ther to pity a people which takes such arrant trifles in good earnest, or envy 
 thai happiness which enables it to discuss them." — Dc Torquanlle. 
 
240 MAN AND HIS FELLOW MAN. 
 
 and more perfect than elsewhere in the world : no great 
 merchants, but the most perfect merchants in the world : no 
 great ship-owners, but the best ships : no great mechanics, 
 but the most perfect machinery: no great manufacturers, yet 
 they send their products to the British possessions, and pay 
 duty while those of Britain are free : no railroad kings, yet 
 they have made more railroads than any similar number of 
 people in the world : no great schools or teachers, but the 
 best schools and the best educated people in the world :* no 
 army, no navy, no great lawyers or conveyancers, yet in no 
 country is the secure enjoyment of the rights of person and 
 property so complete.! 
 
 As we pass from New England, south and west, popu- 
 lation and wealth diminish, and men cultivate poorer soils : 
 great men increase in number, and the village politician be- 
 comes more distinguished ; while the little become less. Ar- 
 riving in South Carolina, we find a diminishing population 
 cultivating worn-out soils : and there we find greater men 
 than elsewhere in the Union, while the little there become 
 least. 
 
 The wolf is great amid a flock of sheep. The " medi- 
 cine man" is great among the savages of the Rocky Moun 
 tains. The Sultan of Delhi is great among his poor sub- 
 jects. Blackbeard was great among inoffensive and de- 
 fenceless merchantmen. Drake was great among the poor 
 
 * " There is no other region in Anglo-Saxondom, containing 750,000 souls, 
 where national education has been carried so far." — Lyell. " In no subject 
 do the Americans display more earnestness than in their desire to improve 
 their system of education, both elementary and academical." — Ibid. 
 
 -j- " In the United States, the democracy perpetually raises fresh individuals 
 to the conduct of public affairs, and the measures of the administration are, 
 consequently, seldom regulated by the strict rules of consistency or of order. 
 But the general principles of the government are more stable, and the opi- 
 nions most prevalent in society are more durable than in many other coun- 
 tries. When once the Americans have taken up an idea, whether it be well 
 or ill founded, nothing is more difficult than to eradicate it from their minds. 
 The same tenacity of opinion has been observed in England, where, for the 
 last century, greater freedom of conscience and more invincible prejudices 
 liave existed, than in all the other countries of Europe." — De Tocqueville. 
 
MAN AND HIS FELLOW MAN. 241 
 
 people of Carlhagena. Locke and Bacon were greater than 
 is now Herschel, who to all they knew adds vast treasures 
 of knowledge. Saints were numerous when Christianity 
 scarcely had an existence, and when the test of orthodoxy 
 consisted in the belief or denial of the doctrine of the im- 
 maculate conception. Elizabeth, to her parliament and her 
 people, was a greater queen than is now the occupant of the 
 throne ; and the poor Duke of Newcastle was a far greater 
 man than is the existing Chancellor of the Exchequer. Men 
 are thus great, or little, precisely in the ratio of the greatness 
 or littleness of those by whom they are surrounded : and the 
 true test of a nation is to be found not in the size of their 
 great, but in that of their Httle, men. Where all are in- 
 formed, distinction in letters is difficult. Where all are re- 
 ligiously disposed, few can claim canonization. Where all 
 exercise power over themselves, few can interfere with the 
 happiness or property of others. Complaints are made of 
 the decline of science in England, accompanied, perhaps, 
 \\ith reference to the brighter days of Newton, Locke and 
 Bacon : when tens of thousands possess all the knowledge 
 of the three combined, and add thereto an intimate know- 
 ledge of sciences whose names even were unknown, and 
 whose existence was unsuspected in those "good old times." 
 
 Greatness and goodness rarely travel in company, for where 
 great men exist, the little men are w^eak, and their masters 
 are profligate. Demosthenes thundered out his Philippics 
 while pocketing the bribes of Philip : Cicero displayed equal 
 eloquence in defence of Crassus and in the impeachment of 
 Verres : and Mirabeau was by turns the partisan of the 
 Revolution and the Throne. 
 
 The great man : lord of the little man who cultivates the 
 poor soils : pays himself for performing the duties of govern- 
 ment, and leaves little for his slave. The man who culti- 
 vates the rich soils pays his servants for attending to his 
 affairs, and keeps much himself. 
 
 Throughout India, the great man revels in luxury, while 
 2H 21 
 
242 MAN AND HIS FELLOW MAN. 
 
 the little man perishes, not unfrequently, of famine. The 
 general has large pay : but the soldier, who executes the 
 orders, receives little, and must pay himself by plunder. The 
 high officials are paid, and pay themselves in addition. The 
 lower ones receive little pa}^, and they too pay themselves. 
 Such, too, is the case in Russia, Spain, Mexico, Egypt, and 
 other countries in which the poorest soils are cultivated, and 
 where men are least free. 
 
 In France too such has been the universal rule. Kings, 
 princes, lords, gentlemen, bishops and archbishops, farmers- 
 general, and financiers of all kinds, paid themselves. Soldiers 
 and tax-collectors received little pay, but paid themselves by 
 living on the people. Such is still the case. Those who 
 administer the government take openly sixteen hundred mil- 
 lions a year out of a gross product of seven thousand millions : 
 and with this palaces are maintained : galleries established : 
 fetes and entertainments given : soldiers and sailors, and 
 equipages, and wives, and mistresses supported. To this is to 
 be added the prices, privately paid, for licenses for the build- 
 ing of opera-houses, and for concessions of railroads and pub- 
 lic contracts : and thus all pay themselves.* The poor subordi- 
 nate receives less than is required for his support, and he 
 too pays himself. The wretched conscript, torn from his family 
 and friends, receives five dollars a year, in addition to poor 
 clothing and little food, and he too must pay himself f The 
 miserable payer of taxes continues necessarily to cultivate the 
 worst soils, for he alone cannot pay himself. 
 
 * The proceedings in the case of M. Teste throw much light on the system. 
 
 + The pay of a common soldier is forty-eight centimes, [or nine cents] per 
 day. From this pittance ten centimes are withheld as a provision for the 
 linen and stockings he may require, and for the small articles necessary to his 
 dress and cleanliness ; thirty centimes are withheld for his food, and he is sup- 
 plied with one pound and a half of tolerable bread in addition; eight centimes, 
 ''about one and a half cents,) are given to him for pocket money. * * * 
 The soldier has two meals a day. * * * The first is composed of soup, and 
 a quarter of a pound of boiled beef; the second of a small portion of vegetables, 
 generally of potatoes or beans, with a quarter of a pound of mutton or veal. 
 The only drink given is water. 
 
MAN AND HIS FELLOW MAN. 243 
 
 In England, too, great men pay themselves : and hence the 
 enormous salaries of a country whose production is less than 
 that of the United States. Bishops accumulate vast fortunes, 
 and chancellors become << leviathans of wealth." Ministers 
 and ambassadors, to great private fortunes, add the emolu- 
 ments of office, varying from $30,000 to $60,000 per 
 annum. Viceroys and governors-general have princely 
 revenues, and chancellors' sons exist on salaries of $20,000 
 a year : while noble clerks sell to the government the privi- 
 lege of suppressing their useless offices, for pensions vary- 
 ing from $6000 to $10,000, and even more. Lords, ladies, 
 chancellors and judges, whose name is legion, figure on 
 the pension list, while sinecures abound. Meanwhile, 
 the poor subordinate, who does the work : the letter-sorter 
 and the tide-waiter : starve upon miserable salaries : and 
 hence the dangers that attend the transmission of money by 
 the post,* and hence, too, the bribery of custom-house offi- 
 cers, and the frauds upon the revenue. With the thirty years 
 of peace, and the consequent growth of wealth and population, 
 some change has been effected, and the great are somewhat 
 less paid, while the subordinate receives somewhat more: but 
 the fact that land still pays itself is made obvious on all 
 occasions. 
 
 If we look to Attica, we may trace the gradual rise of this 
 state of things from the days of Solon to those of Pericles, 
 who involved his country in war in preference to producing 
 his accounts : and thence to Herodes Atticus, who paid him- 
 self so abundantly as to incur the displeasure of a master 
 well versed in the payment of himself and friends. So in 
 Rome, as cultivation diminished, we may trace the growth 
 of the habit of self payment from the days of Cincinnatus, 
 
 * Colonel Maberly, the deputy postmaster-general, stated some years since 
 that the losses were terrific. In the United States, on the contrary, with 
 14,000 post-offices, and with more remittances of money than all the world be- 
 side, the losses are so trivial as to be estimated at only the two-hundredth part 
 of one per cent. 
 
244 MAN AND HIS FELT.OW MAN. 
 
 who tilled his own little farm, to those of Scipio whose 
 accounts were not producible : to those of Pompey and 
 Caesar, whose debts were counted by millions ; and those of 
 Commodus, who, in his brief reign, squandered the accumu- 
 lations of his father and found the vast revenues of the 
 empire insufficient for the gratification of his beastly appe- 
 tites. With each step in this progress, we find population 
 and wealth diminishing, the fertile lands abandoned, and the 
 people becoming more and more slaves. 
 
 In the United States, the people pay their servants, and all 
 are paid according to their services. In the New England 
 states, the people govern themselves, and their servants have 
 little to do, and therefore receive little. The people have, 
 therefore, self-government, good government, and cheap 
 government. As with all other machinery, it becomes less 
 costly as it improves in quality. The friction on a railroad 
 is small, and therefore goods are cheaply carried. The 
 turnpike gives more friction and more cost. As we pass 
 south from New England we find less self-government : less 
 good government : and more costly government. The people 
 who cultivate inferior soils are obliged to content themselves 
 with turnpikes, and with governors to whom they pay high 
 salaries. In the government of the Union, the president re- 
 ceives a salary that is large in proportion to the business that 
 he has to do, yet moderate by comparison. The chief offi- 
 cers of government are reasonably paid, but the inferior ones 
 are always fully paid.* The custom-house officer has full 
 wages, and hence the small amount of frauds upon the 
 revenue. The letter-sorter receives full wages, and hence 
 it is that the transmission of money through a country 
 with fourteen thousand post-offices is attended with risk so 
 
 * " The mean of American salaries is much superior to ours. When the 
 Federal or State governments want capable men, they do as American mer- 
 chants do, they pay them. * * * In the Treasury Department, of one hun- 
 dred and fifty-eight persons employed, there are but six who have less than 
 §51000 ; but it is equally true that there are only two who have more than 
 $2060:'— Chevalier. 
 
MAN AND HIS FKLLOW MAN. 245 
 
 small as scarcely to be estimated. The common soldier has 
 high wages. Labour is always in demand, and he must 
 have the market price. Wars, therefore, are expensive and 
 undesirable : while in France they constitute cheap pas- 
 time for the great, who take large salaries themselves and 
 give the poor soldier almost nothing in return for his time. 
 
 Where wealth and population grow, the price of labour 
 rises, and soldiers and sailors must have hi^fher wagfes to 
 secure their services. As the better soils are cultivated, 
 wars, therefore, become more and more expensive : and thus 
 while the habit of union and peace tends steadily to increase, 
 the costliness of war tends in the same direction. In every 
 w^ay, therefore, does wealth tend to promote the further 
 growth of wealth, and the development of the rich treasures 
 of the earth. 
 
 If now we inquire, what is the service rendered by those 
 who thus pay themselves, we find it to resolve itself into the 
 one word, government ; and by this is meant the manage- 
 ment of the affairs of others. The minister governs all : the 
 general governs soldiers, and the admiral governs sailors. 
 The people govern nothing, not even themselves and the pro- 
 ducts of their labour. Of that they are relieved by the class of 
 the great, w^ho pay themselves for their trouble, and whose 
 trade is war : for in time of war the spoil of friends and foes is 
 largely distributed, and they direct the distribution. If we seek 
 to find other services rendered in return for the large pay that 
 is received, we shall find none. The great write no books. 
 They furnish no ideas. They invent no machines. Bacon and 
 Locke: Shakspeare and Milton : Arkwright and Watt: Wash- 
 ington and Franklin: benefactors of the human race : came 
 from the ranks of the little men, as has every man to whose 
 labours society has been indebted. Great men and govern- 
 ments patronize authors and artists, to the destruction of taste 
 in literature and art : and authors and artists starve under 
 their patronage. With the growth of wealth and population 
 authors and artists are found contributing to supply the 
 
 Q-j* 
 
246 MAN AND HIS FELLOW MAN. 
 
 wants of the large class of little men, and then taste im- 
 proves : and then authors and artists grow rich. Doing 
 little good themselves, and being thus the cause of little 
 good in others, the class of great men is one with which we 
 may readily dispense ; and the most rapid advance in civili- 
 zation will invariably be found where, and when, it is least 
 numerous. 
 
 With the increase of population and wealth the better 
 soils come into cultivation, and men acquire the power of 
 self-government in regard to thought and action, and in 
 regard to the disposition of their labour and its proceeds ; 
 and with each step in this progress towards perfect individu- 
 ality there is an increasing tendency to union, peace and 
 harmony ; tending to promote the further growth of wealth, 
 and the further extension of cultivation, and to increase the 
 power of man to associate with his fellow man on terms of 
 strict equality. 
 
 The PAST says to the sovereign of the present : If you 
 would reign over a great nation : avoid war, and labour to 
 promote the growth of wealth. 
 
 To the representatives of the land : If you would have 
 your properties increase in value : avoid wars and labour to 
 promote the growth of population and of wealth. 
 
 To the people : if you would acquire the power to think 
 and act for yourselves : to determine how you will em- 
 ploy your faculties of body and of mind, and what shall be 
 the disposition of the proceeds : labour to prevent war, and 
 waste. 
 
MAN. 247 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MAN. 
 
 The savaffe lives in constant dread of starvation. He 
 draws his supply of food from the poorest soils. The lonely 
 cultivator of the almost desert land is forced to depend 
 upon the thin soil of the hills for support, and is in constant 
 fear for his life, and for the safety of his little property. In 
 every stranger he sees one poor as himself: one to whom 
 his little stock of wealth, trivial as it is, would be a treasure : 
 or if, perchance, the stranger come from distant and civil- 
 ized lands : from among a people who cultivate the rich soils 
 of the earth : the lonely man sees in the nails and beads, 
 and other treasures of his visitor, what <■<■ would make him 
 rich indeed ;" and avarice seizes on his soul. His labour, 
 severe as it is, scarcely yields him food, and he has no means 
 with which to buy. He murders his visitor, and seizes on 
 his goods. Here we have combined, fear, rapacity, treachery, 
 and cruelty : and such are, uniformly, the characteristics of 
 the men who are forced to rely on the poorest soils of the 
 earth for the means of subsistence. 
 
 The man who cultivates the rich soils is animated by Ho[ e. 
 He finds his labours blessed with large returns, and he sees 
 in the underlying marl or lime, and in the inexhaustible sup- 
 plies of coal and iron by which he is surrounded, the means 
 of adding to his power over the comforts, conveniences, and 
 luxuries of life. His neighbours are men who, like himself, 
 have property, and who, also like himself, could fight in its 
 defence should' occasion make it necessary: but both he 
 
248 MAN. 
 
 and they feel that in their union there is strength, and they 
 know no fear. In the future they feel perfect confidence, 
 and from that confidence spring feelings of liberality and 
 benevolence. 
 
 By many of the teachers of Mr. Ricardo's doctrine, it is 
 held that man works because he fears starvation. By others, 
 taxation is held to be a strong stimulus to exertion.* Fear, 
 the characteristic of the slave, is in their estimation the great 
 moving principle in man : and the whip, in the form of taxa- 
 tion, is held to be useful in compelling him to extract from soils 
 of" constantly increasing sterility" the means of support, and 
 the rent required by his lord. That such should be their 
 estimate of the character of man is not extraordinary. Mr. 
 Ricardo makes him, throughout, the victim of a sad necessity 
 that precludes the existence of hope. He is destitute of 
 power over the land, or over himself, and he can have no 
 confidence in the future. The machine he uses must de- 
 teriorate. He may escape, but Ids children must pay the 
 penalty he has incurred by aiding to increase the numbers 
 of mankind, and thus compelling resort to less productive 
 soils. 
 
 How far such views are in accordance with facts, we pro- 
 pose now to examine. If man does commence with the fer- 
 tile soils, and proceed downward tow^ard the poor ones, we 
 must find, with the growth of population, a constantly increas- 
 ing tendency towards the vices of the slave : fear, cruelty, 
 rapacity and treachery. If, on the contrary, he commences 
 with the poor soils, and if, with the growth of population, he 
 is enabled to pass to better and ultimately to the best soils, 
 we must find him constantly animated by hope, and prompted 
 to new exertions for the improvement of his own condi- 
 
 * " To the desire of lising in the world, implanted in the breast of every 
 individual, an increase of taxation superadds the fear of being cast down to a 
 lower station, of being deprived of conveniences and gratifications which habit 
 has rendered all but indispensable, and the combined influence of the two 
 principles produces results that could not be produced by the unassisted agen- 
 cy of either." — McCidluck. 
 
MAN. 249 
 
 tion and that of his fellow-men : and with every step in that 
 direction the vices of the slave must disappear, to be replaced 
 by the virtues of the freeman. 
 
 « Hope springs eternal in the human breast," 
 
 and she is the mother of liberality and benevolence, of kind- 
 ness and gentleness. Without her, they can have no exist- 
 ence. 
 
 If we trace the history of the people of Athens, from the 
 days of her prosperity, prior to the Persian wars, we can see 
 the gradual growth of the vices of the slave. Fear prompts 
 them to the atrocious butcheries of Corcyra and of Mytilene. 
 Rapacity is shown in the seizing of the common treasure : 
 iji the unceasing growth of taxes ; in the perpetual increase 
 of their own pay as judges and legislators ; and in the appro- 
 priation of the tribute to the maintenance of theatres from 
 which the tribute payers were excluded. Universal tyranny : 
 universal indolence : and universal pauperism : accompany 
 extended dominion. 
 
 In Laconia, we find a people that cultivated the poorest 
 soils for the benefit of their Spartan masters : and there we 
 find, at home, fear of the poor Helot prompting to acts of 
 treachery and cruelty, while abroad we see fear of Athens 
 exhibited in the starvation of the prisoners of Sicily : in the 
 cold-blooded massacre following the battle of Mgos Potamos ; 
 and in the history of the thirty tyrants. With each step in 
 their downward progress we see land concentrating itself in 
 fewer hands, until at length nearly the whole becomes the 
 property of a single individual : and at each we see avarice 
 and all the vices of slavery more and more abounding. 
 
 In Rome, we can see increasing fear manifested in the 
 murder of Pontius : in the cold-blooded destruction of all 
 prisoners of distinction at the close of every triumph : in the 
 ruin of Carthage : in the proscriptions and massacres of 
 Marius and Sylla, and of the successive triumvirates : and 
 in those of Tiberius, Nero, and their successors : and with 
 21 
 
250 MAN. 
 
 each step iii their progress, we can see land more and more 
 concentrating itself: the fertile soils more and more aban- 
 doned : and slaves more and more taking the place of the 
 free people of the days of Serviiis. With each step, those 
 within the walls become more and more pauperized ; and 
 with each, rapacity, cruelty, and perfidy become more and 
 more the distinguishing characteristics of the whole mass : 
 rich and poor : nobles and plebeians : warriors and poli- 
 ticians. 
 
 For centuries in the history of Naples and of modern 
 Rome, we may see indolence increasing as poverty compels 
 the abandonment of the more fertile soils, and produces fear 
 of starvation : while rapacity, treachery, cruelty, and jea- 
 lousy, gradually come to pervade every order of society. In 
 Florence, they may be seen advancing steadily, as wars and 
 desolation force men to cultivate the poor soils of the earth, 
 and substitute poverty for wealth. Perpetual fear is mani- 
 fested by unceasing poisonings and open murders : and 
 Tuscany at large presents a scene of rapacity, treachery, and 
 cruelty, fitting it for the birth-place of the principal actor in 
 the massacre of the St. Bartholomew. If, again, we trace the 
 history of the same beautiful country during the last hundred 
 years : from the accession of the present race of sovereigns : 
 we may see population and wealth gradually increasing : 
 land becoming divided : and cultivation extending itself over 
 the fertile soils : while hope is seen taking the place of fear ; 
 and justice and benevolence becoming substituted for the 
 imiversal rapacity and tyranny which had driven population 
 and wealth from the land, and had compelled its inhabitants 
 to fly to the poor soils of the hills for safety. 
 
 If we look to Spain, we may see perpetual fear manifested 
 in the proceedings of the Inquisition, and of the government, 
 whether in Naples, or Milan, Sicily, or the Netherlands. It 
 may again be seen pervading her whole colonial system. If 
 we desire to meet rapacity, cruelty, and jealousy increasing 
 as depopulation and poverty compel the abandonment of the 
 
MAN. 251 
 
 most fertile soils, we may find it in every page of her 
 history. 
 
 In France, perpetually at war, we see in the people almost 
 constant fear of starvation : in the church, perpetual fear of 
 liberal ideas, manifested by the atrocious burnings at slow 
 fires of miserable heretics of both sexes ; by the persecutions 
 of the unfortunate Vaudois ; and by the dragonnades of Lou- 
 vois : in the lawyers, by unceasing intrigues against the 
 nobles, and in the nobles, by corresponding intrigues against 
 the upstart nobiUty of the gown : in the class of nobles 
 and gentlemen, perpetual fear of insurrection, manifested by 
 the building of forts and castles, and by the unceasing pro- 
 hibitions of the use of even the most simple arms by the un- 
 happy people : in princes, perpetual fear of assassination, 
 as shown in thousands of instances, but most strongly in the 
 barricades of the bridges of Montereau, and of the Sevre : 
 and in kings, by a system of espionnage unparalleled in the 
 world for baseness and meanness. 
 
 If we desire to see rapacity and cruelty, we may find it in 
 every page of her history, at home and abroad ; in the plunder 
 and destruction of the Albigenses ; in the wars of the Bour- 
 gicignons and Armognacs ; in those of Louis XI. and the bold 
 Charles ; those of the League, and of the Fronde. If we 
 look abroad we may find it at every period in her intercourse 
 with unhappy Italy : with Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, 
 and Holland. If we desire to find jealousy, it will be met in 
 the unceasing invasions of Guienne and Normandy ; and in 
 the perpetual succession of the puerile wars of Francis I. 
 and Henry II. It will be found again in the fomenting of 
 the unceasing wars of Germany and Italy, the object being 
 the depression and ruin of her neighbours, in the vain hope 
 of thereby raising herself. 
 
 If we seek for perfidy, it may be found in the thousand- 
 times repeated abandonment of her Italian allies ; in her 
 conduct towards the unfortunate house of Savoy ; in her treat- 
 ment of the people of Catalonia ; in the tiger-like attacks of 
 
252 MAN. 
 
 Louis XIV. upon the people of the Netherlands and Holland; 
 in the ruin of Franche Comte, to whose neutrality she had 
 in her hours of distress and danger been so repeatedly in- 
 debted ; in her conduct on various occasions to the Swiss ; 
 in her perpetual violation of the rights of the people of 
 Guienne, and Normandy, and Roussillon, and of each suc- 
 cessive province added to the kingdom ; in her negotiations 
 with the Turks, her allies against Austria and Italy : in 
 short, at every step of her progress from the days of Charle- 
 magne, and in every page of her history, internal and ex- 
 ternal. 
 
 Even now, w^e see fear in the fortifications of Paris ; in 
 the enormous armies maintained throughout the kingdom in 
 a time of general peace ; in the censorship and perpetual 
 persecution of the press ; in her system of passports ; in her, 
 system of espionnage ; in the opening of private letters ; 
 and everywhere in her jealous interference with her unfor- 
 tunate neighbours of Switzerland, Italy, and Spain. We see 
 rapacity unequalled, in the collection of sixteen hundred 
 millions of taxes, and their distribution among countless 
 officials, embracing the families and friends of all connected 
 with the government.* 
 
 If we seek cruelty, w^e may find it in the suffocation of 
 hundreds of unfortunate Moors in their last remaining place 
 of refuge ; in the razzias of Algeria ; and in the recent pro- 
 ceedings at Tahiti. In every movement we may see jealousy 
 of England. That power is so unfortunate as to have a great 
 marine and numerous colonies, and France is unhappy that 
 she has them not ; and that she may have them, she w^astes 
 hundreds of millions on worthless Algeria. 
 
 England has a great trade with the East, employing labour 
 
 * The whole number of officials appointed and paid by the government, 
 liable to removal, and susceptible of promotion , and annuitants or pension 
 ers; is 931,977, and the amount of their salaries and pensions is 397,000,000 
 of francs, or nearly 80,000,000 of dollars ! To this must be added 400,000 
 soldiers and 60,000 sailors and marines, making a total of 1,392,000 persons 
 receiving pay from that portion of the nation which styles itself" The State." 
 
MAN. 253 
 
 and capital that could be better employed at home ; and 
 France, to rival her, expends millions on embassies to China, 
 and expeditions to Japan, with little to send to either, and 
 with little reason to hope that they will find in her a market 
 for their products.* 
 
 Poverty and WTetchedness : the necessary consequence of 
 misgovernment : exist in every part of that great country ; 
 and where they are found, the habit of union can have no 
 place. t Society is divided into two great classes, separated 
 by an impassable gulf: those who labour to produce and 
 may not enjoy, and those who enjoy without producing. In 
 such a state of things, fraud and deception : the habit of 
 robbery and plunder : become habitual. | Confidence in the 
 future can have no existence, and without that, feelings of 
 liberahty and benevolence can find little place in the heart 
 of man.§ 
 
 * " I have always thought and said that the alliance of France was an advan- 
 tage for which all the powers of Europe would contend, so soon as she should 
 have established her government on a solid foundation, and abandoned that 
 system of policy which consists in an unceasing repetition of the assertion 
 that the whole world, envious of her glory and jealous of her power, is leagued 
 against her ; that they threaten her independence, and would destroy her in- 
 stitutions, but that she has only to raise her voice, to affright the sovereigns 
 and liberate their subjects : ' she, the first, the most enlightened, the bravest, and 
 the only free, of all the nations.' This stupid and antiquated system can result 
 only in wounding their feelings, extinguishing their ancient sympathies, and 
 causing them to call in question her glory, her genius, and her power. It 
 tends to produce weakness and isolation." — Girardi^i. 
 
 ■\ " The citizen is unconcerned, as to the condition of his village, the police 
 of his street, the repairs of his church, or of the parsonage ; for he looks upon 
 all these things as unconnected with himself; and as the property of a pow- 
 erful stranger whom he calls the government." — De Tocqueville. 
 
 ^ According to the Journal des Debats, many parts of France now exhibit 
 a state of things resembling that which existed in Wales but a short time 
 since. That paper says: 
 
 " Bands of mendicants continue to spread terror in the whole of the Bocage. 
 These individuals, dressed in gray blouses, their faces smeared with soot, six or 
 seven or more together, obtain grain and money, uttering the most horrible 
 threats against those who venture to make any observation to them. Similar 
 scenes have taken place in the district of Parthenay." 
 
 § In France, " without the walls of the prison, religious ardour is met with 
 in the ministers of religion only. If they are kept from the penitentiary, the 
 influence of religion will disappear : philanthropy alone will remain for the 
 
 22 
 
254 MAN. 
 
 More than any other nation in Europe, England has en- 
 joyed peace at home, yet has her poHcy been marked by 
 many and serious errors. She has looked abroad, and ships, 
 colonies, and commerce have involved her in ruinous wars, 
 while her own richest soils have remained uncultivated. 
 War, and preparation for it, have produced here their usual 
 effects, in a degree corresponding with the extent to which 
 war has been her trade. We see, here, fear exhibiting it- 
 self in the maintenance of a standing army : in the prohibi- 
 tion to the people of Ireland of the right to carry arms : in 
 the revival in that country of the system of the curfew : in the 
 opening of private letters :* in the trials for high treason that 
 marked the early years of the late war : in the Manchester 
 massacre : in the barbarous punishments of soldiers : in the 
 collusion between high officers of the government and offi- 
 cers charged with summoning juries for the trial of state pri- 
 soners :f in the Rebecca riots : in the throwing of vitriol an;] 
 various other modes adopted for inflicting personal injury : in 
 the proceedings of the Luddites : in the constant resistance to 
 the introduction of improvements in agricultural and manufac- 
 turing machinery : and in various other of the modes of action 
 
 reformation of criminals. It cannot be denied that there are with us generous 
 individuals, who, endowed with profound sensibility, are zealous to alleviate 
 any misery, and to heal the wounds of humanity : so far their attention, ex- 
 clusively occupied with the physical situation of the prisoners, has neglected 
 a much more precious interest, that of their moral reformation. * * * But 
 these sincere philanthropists are rare; in most cases philanthropy is with us 
 but an affair of the imagination." — De Beaumont and De Tocqucville. 
 
 * " Let us begin by acknowledging that the case attempted to be made out 
 against the present government, as guilty of something worse in the shape of 
 post-office espionnage than their predecessors, has not hitherto been sustained. 
 * * * The moment the Marquis of Normandy stated in the House of 
 Lords that he had opened letters while in ohice in Ireland, it became evident 
 to all impartial reasoning men that the two parties were upon an equal foot- 
 ing." — Westminster Review, 1844. 
 
 ■j- Direct interferences have been proved " to have taken place between the so- 
 licitor of the treasury and the officer whose duty it was to have maintained an 
 impartial position between the subject and the crown," by means of which the 
 crown has been enabled to pack the juries on trials of high treason. See 
 Westminster Review, vol. 45, p. 210. 
 
MAN. 255 
 
 adopted by individuals, and by those charged with the duties 
 of government. Here, as elsewhere, fear has been accompa- 
 nied with cruelty, as shown in her mad-houses, the horrors of 
 which have, until recently, almost exceeded belief: in her mon- 
 strous system of impressment ; in the prodigious extent to 
 which capital punishments have, until recently, been carried : 
 in the excessive overworking of young and feeble operatives : 
 in the harshness exercised towards the class of unfortunate 
 people who, from ill health, or inability to obtain employ- 
 ment, are thrown upon the public for support ; as shown 
 in the recent poor-law system, so merciless that it could not 
 be enforced in reference to some of its most important fea- 
 tures : in the horrible treatment of pauper lunatics :* in the 
 maintenance of places of exile like that of Norfolk island, the 
 "hell upon earth :" in the punishment of poachers rf in the 
 expulsion of the Highlanders ; and, more recently, in that of 
 the people of Sutherland 4 and both cruelty and rapacity 
 are fully shown in the taxation of India, where duties are 
 imposed upon all the necessaries of life, and salt is monopo- 
 lized for the benefit of proprietors of India stock. Through- 
 
 * <' Examples of the most horrifying description have been recorded by the 
 poor-law commissioners, who, in their published reports, have given innumera- 
 ble instances of the grossest barbarity. The portion of the domestic accom- 
 modation usually assigned to these unfortunates is that commonly devoted to 
 the reception of coals, &c. ; namely, the triangular space formed between the 
 stairs and the ground-floor. In this confined, dark, and damp corner may be 
 found at this very time no small number of our fellow-beings, huddled, crouch- 
 ing and gibbering with less apparent intelligence, and under worse treatment 
 than the lower domestic animals." — Westminster Review, vol. 45, p. 192. 
 
 I In Buckinghamshire, with a population of 237,000, there were of summary 
 convictions in 1839, 363; 1840, 370; 1841, 407; 1842,511; and 1843, 
 466. Game law convictions in 1839, 89; 1840, 99; 1841, 125; 1842, 134; 
 and 1843, 178. Proportion per cent, of game law to summary convictions in 
 
 1839, 21.5; 1840, 26.1 ; 1841, 30.7; 1842, 26.1 ; and 1843, 31.8. Propor- 
 tion of game law convictions to 100,000 of male population in 1839, 118; 
 
 1840, 130; 1841, 163; 1842, 174; and 1843, 230. Increase per cent. 95.2. 
 i: Three thousand families were expelled from their htlle farms on the Suther- 
 land estate, and their villages burnt. Two Sicres per family were allowed them 
 elsewhere, to be held on short leases, on payment of a rent of two shillings and 
 six pence per acre. Nearly the whole race of Highlanders has been expelled 
 in a similar manner, and their habitations destroyed. 
 
256 MAN. 
 
 out England, Hope does not, as a rule, prevail. The " un- 
 easy class" is large. Every man looks with anxiety to the 
 future for himself, or his children. The avenues to employ- 
 ment are blocked against those whose means are insufficient 
 to command <' connection," and therefore is it that great sums 
 are paid for <' good wills ;" for shares in established houses ; 
 and for appointments to office. The necessary consequence 
 of such a condition of affairs is the existence throughout 
 society of power on the one hand, and of feebleness and 
 servility on the other. The labourer must vote as he is or- 
 dered, or he maybe ejected from his cottage: and he must be 
 grateful in the highest degree for the allotment of a quarter 
 of an acre that he may cultivate on payment of an exorbitant 
 rent. The operative must submit, for employment is scarce. 
 The clerk must bend, for clerkships are not abundant. 
 
 She is now, however, turning her attention homeward. She 
 is making railroads, and bringing into cultivation better soils: 
 and each step in that direction will tend to give to the la- 
 bourer increased hope in the future, while to the landlord it 
 will give increased confidence that it rests with himself alone 
 to secure not only a continuance of the present income from 
 his property, but a steady and rapid increase. With each 
 step, we shall find man more and more acquiring power over 
 himself, and greater self-reliance, essential to the exten- 
 sion of those feelings of liberality, benevolence and kindness, 
 by which portions of British society have been so honourably 
 distinguished. 
 
 By no portion of the human race has peace been so steadily 
 maintained as by the people of the United States, during 
 the sixty years which followed the recognition of their inde- 
 pendence, and in no country have wealth and population so 
 rapidly grown. In none, therefore, does man exercise so 
 much power over himself. In none prevails so universally 
 confidence in themselves, and in the future.* Hope ani- 
 
 * " Society says to the poor man in America, labour ! and at eighteen 
 years you will earn more, labourer as you are, than a captain can do in Eu- 
 
MAN. 257 
 
 mates all to industry, and stimulates the foculties for the 
 invention of machinery for increasing the productiveness of 
 labour,* while prompting all to union for the promotion of 
 works of public usefulness, of charity and benevolence. f In 
 none is there so little religious jealousy, for there are no 
 spoils to be divided. In none so little jealousy of station, 
 for all feel that they themselves can rise. In none so little 
 jealousy of property, for all have or can obtain it.J In 
 none does there exist a recognition so universal of the supe- 
 rior claims of talent, for all read. In none so little deference 
 
 rope. You will live in abundance, you will be well clothed, well lodged, and 
 you will be able to accumulate capital. Be assiduous, sober, and religious, 
 and you will find a devoted and submissive companion ; you will have a home 
 better provided with comforts than that of many of the employers in Europe. 
 From a workman you will become an employer ; you will have apprentices 
 and domestics in your turn ; you will have credit and abundant means ; you 
 will become a manufacturer or great farmer ; you will speculate and become 
 rich ; you will build a town, and give it your name ; you will become a mem- 
 ber of the legislature of your state, or alderman of your city, and then mem- 
 ber of Congress; your son will have the same chance of being president, as 
 the son of the President himself. Labour ! and if the chance of business 
 should be against you, and you should fall, you will speedily rise again, for 
 here failure is not considered like a wound received in battle ; it will not cause 
 you to loose esteem or confidence, provided you have been always temperate 
 and regular, a good Christian, and faithful husband." — Chevalier. 
 
 * « Tall, slender, and well-made, the American appears built expressly for 
 labour. He has not his equal in the world for rapidity of work. None so 
 readily fall into new modes of practice. He is always ready to change them, 
 or his tools, or even his trade. He is a machinist in his soul. * * * 
 There is not a countryman in Connecticut or Massachusetts, who has not in- 
 vented his machine." — Chevalier. 
 
 ■f "■ The Americans have great earnestness of character. * * * Only 
 let them fully apprehend the importance of an object, and you will see them 
 move to it with a directness of mind, and a scorn of sacrifices, which would 
 surprise weaker natures. * * * j know of no country where there are 
 more examples of beneficence and magnificence. The rich will act nobly 
 out of their abundance ; and the poor will act as nobly out of their penury." — 
 Visit to the .American Churches. 
 
 " In no country in the world do the citizens make such exertions for the 
 common weal ; and I am acquainted with no people which has established 
 schools as numerous and as efficacious, places of worship better suited to 
 the wants of the inhabitants, or roads kept in better repair." — De Tocque- 
 ville. 
 
 t <' In America, those complaints against property in general, which are so 
 
 2 K 
 
258 MAN. 
 
 to authority, for all think.* In none does there exist so 
 universally the feeling of self-respect. f In none is avarice 
 so rarely seen. J In none are the contributions of money 
 and service, in aid of literary and scientific, religious and 
 charitable institutions :§ of schools, colleges, libraries, hos- 
 
 frequent in Europe, are never heard, because in America there are no pau- 
 pers ; and as every one has property of his ovv^n to defend, every one recognises 
 the principle upon vi^hich he holds it." — De Tocqueville. 
 
 * " The inhabitants of the United States are never fettered by the axioms 
 of their professions; they escape from all the prejudices of their present sta- 
 tion ; they are not more attached to one line of operation than to another; 
 they are not more prone to employ an old method than a new one ; they 
 have no rooted habits, and they easily shake off the influence which the 
 habits of other nations might exercise upon their minds, from a conviction 
 that their country is unlike any other, and that its situation is without a pre- 
 cedent in the world. America is a land of wonders, in which every thing is 
 in constant motion, and every movement seems an improvement. The idea 
 of novelty is there indissolubly connected with the idea of amelioration. No 
 natural boundary seems to be set to the efforts of man, and what is not yet 
 done, is only what he has not yet attempted to do." — De Tocqueville. 
 
 ■f " The mass of the American people are more fully initiated than the 
 mass of European population, in what relates to the dignity of man, or at 
 least, in regard to their own dignity. The American workman is full of self- 
 respect, which he manifests not only by an extreme susceptibility, and by his 
 repugnance to use the term master, which he replaces by that of employer, but 
 also by much greater good faith, exactitude, and scrupuloiisness in his transac- 
 tions. He is exempt from the vices of the slave, such as lying and stealing, 
 which are so frequent among our labourers, particularly those of our cities 
 and factories." — Chevalier. 
 
 t " It might be thought, that among a people so profoundly absorbed by 
 the care of their material interests, misers would abound. Such is not the 
 case." — Clievalier. 
 
 "The universal moving power with an x\merican is the desire of wealth, 
 but it would be to deceive ourselves to suppose that he is not capable of pe- 
 cuniary sacrifices. He has the habit of giving, and he practises it without 
 regret, more frequently than ourselves, and more largely also; but his munifi- 
 cence and his gifts are governed by reason and by calculation. It is neither 
 enthusiasm nor passion that opens his purse." — Chevalier. 
 
 § " There is no village in the United States without its church, no deno- 
 mination of Christians in any city without its house of prayer, no congrega- 
 tion in any of the new settlements without the spiritual consolation of a pas- 
 tor." — Grund. 
 
 " Whatever may be the actual use of the means to be found in this coun- 
 try, certainly those means, as they contribute to supply the church with a 
 well-trained and efficient ministry, excel any thing which we have at home. 
 The student for the sacred calling gets a better classical and general education 
 than he would get in our dissenting colleges, while his professional education 
 is not inferior; and he gets a theological education unspeakably better than 
 
MAN. 259 
 
 pitals, asylums for the deaf, the dumb, the blind,* the 
 youthful and the adult criminal ;f so great : because in 
 none is land so powerless, and in none is man so strong or 
 so united.J In none does there exist so strong a tendency 
 towards bringing into activity all the vast treasures of the 
 earth ; because in none is the capitalist, large and small, so 
 free to invest his accumulations at his pleasure. In none is 
 the labourer so free to select his employer. In none is the 
 employer so free to discharge his labourer. In none is the 
 reward of labour so great. In none are fleets and armies 
 so small : and in none does there exist so strong an induce- 
 ment to the application of all the powers of body and of 
 mind, in the manner deemed likely most to contribute to the 
 advancement of physical, moral, intellectual, and political 
 condition. § 
 
 Oxford or Cambridge would afford him, though his classical advantages 
 would be less." — Visit to the American Churches. 
 
 " I have seen a list of bequests and donations made during the last thirty 
 years, for the benefit of religious, charitable, and literary institutions, in the 
 State of Massachusetts alone, and they amounted to no less a sum than 
 $6,000,000, or more than £1,000,000 sterling."— iyeW. 
 
 * " It appears doubtful whether the education of the blind has ever been 
 carried so far as at present in the United States ; and there is one set of par- 
 ticulars, at least, in which we would do well to learn from the new country." 
 — Marlineau. 
 
 I " In America, the progress of the reform of prisons has been of a charac- 
 ter essentially religious. Men, prompted by religious feelings, have conceived 
 and accomplished every thing which has been undertaken ; they were not left 
 alone; but their zeal gave the impulse to all, and thus excited in all minds 
 the ardour which animated theirs." — De Beaumont and De Tocqueville. 
 
 " A multitude of charitable persons, who are not ministers by profession, 
 sacrifice, nevertheless, a great part of their time to the moral reformation of 
 criminals." — Ibid. 
 
 t " In no country does crime more rarely elude punishment. The reason 
 is, that every one conceives himself to be interested in furnishing evidence of 
 the act committed, and of stopping the delinquent. During my stay in the 
 United States, I witnessed the spontaneous formation of committees for the 
 pursuit and prosecution of a man who had committed a great crime in a cer- 
 tain county. In Europe, a criminal is an unhappy being who is struggling 
 for his life against the ministers of justice, while the population is merely a 
 spectator of the conflict : in America, he is looked upon as the enemy of the 
 human race, and the whole of mankind is against him." — De TorquevUle. 
 
 § "In spite of the constant influx of uneducated and pennyless adventurers 
 
260 MAN. 
 
 We are told, that " God hath made man upright, but 
 he has sought out many inventions." Man was made 
 upright, and man is upright, when permitted so to be. 
 Throughout the world, he is disposed to labour for the 
 maintenance and improvement of his condition, wherever 
 he sees that such improvement follows labour : but unhap- 
 pily there has existed at every period, and in every portion of 
 the world, a class to whom labour was disagreeable, and who 
 preferred living on that of others, paying themselves for 
 performing the duties of government. In some cases, they 
 exercise greater, and in others less, power over those by 
 whom they are surrounded ; and in all cases, the vices of the 
 slave are found existing in the precise ratio of that power : 
 while with its diminution we find them invariably becoming 
 replaced by the virtuous habits of freemen. England has 
 increased more rapidly in wealth and population than the 
 rest of Europe, and, therefore it is that there those vices 
 are found least existing : while France has remained almost 
 stationary, and, therefore it is that in that country hope 
 scarcely exists, while fear, and jealousy, and cruelty, and 
 avarice so much abound. 
 
 That such is the case is not the fault of the people 
 but of the government, which deprives them of the power, 
 and the hope, of improvement. Great numbers of French- 
 men have crossed the Atlantic to settle in the United 
 States, where they have manifested the possession of all the 
 qualities requisite for excellent citizens, and so would they 
 do at home, had they hope to animate them to exertion. 
 The Union possesses no class of citizens more orderly, in- 
 dustrious, and respectable, than those derived from France. 
 The same, however, may be said of the natives of every 
 clime. The Englishman brings with him the habit of strikes, 
 turn-outs, and combinations, but it passes gradually away, 
 
 from Europe, I believe it would be impossible to find 5,000,000 in any other 
 region of the globe whose average moral, social, and intellectual condition 
 stands so high." — J-XjeU. 
 
MAN. 261 
 
 as he finds that he has rights, and has also the power to 
 maintain them. The German labours and thrives every- 
 where. The Irishman brings with him his party feuds : and 
 Catholic and Orangemen maintain, for a time, the cordial 
 hatred engendered by long years of oppression on one hand 
 and unquiet endurance on the other : but in time this, too, 
 passes away, and all become Americans, the causes of hate 
 forgotten. So would it everywhere be, were men permitted 
 to cultivate the land in peace, and to enjoy the fruits of their 
 labour ; but so long as large armies and fleets are to be 
 maintained : so long as the major part of the produce of the 
 land shall continue to be consumed by those who do not 
 labour : and so long as men shall be compelled to cultivate 
 poor soils when they might have rich ones : virtue and happi- 
 ness cannot increase. The people, everywhere, love peace, 
 and everywhere they desire to unite with each other. 
 Their rulers, everywhere, love war, and preparation for war. 
 
 The PAST says to the landlord of the present : — If you 
 would desire to see your property increase in value : strive 
 for the maintenance of peace, that population and wealth 
 may grow ; and that habits of union, and feelings of bene- 
 volence and kindness, may prevail throughout the society 
 of which you are a member. 
 
 To the labourer it says : If you would acquire the 
 power of union with your fellows for the promotion of feel- 
 ings of mutual kindness and benevolence : if you would 
 acquire confidence in the future : if you would be animated 
 by hope : strive for the maintenance of peace. 
 
262 MAN AND HIS HELPMATE. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MAN AND HIS HELPMATE. 
 
 The savage derives his subsistence from the poorest soils. 
 He roams abroad, and shoots the deer: but leaves to his un- 
 happy helpmate the task of carrying it home on her shoulders, 
 and that of preparing it for his consumption. He helps him- 
 self, and v^hen there is sufficient for both, she may eat. 
 When it is otherwise, she may starve. She is his slave, ever 
 ready to prostitute herself to the stranger for a mouthful of 
 food, a bead, or a nail. 
 
 The man who cultivates the rich soils of the earth sees in 
 woman the source of his greatest happiness. The companion 
 of his hours of enjoyment, he turns instinctively to her for so- 
 lace in the hours of affliction. He labours, that she may 
 rest. He economizes, that she may enjoy the comforts and 
 luxuries of life : while she regards him as the chosen partnc 
 of her existence, and the father of her children ; and, as 
 such, entitled to exclusive possession of her affections. 
 
 If we trace the history of woman in Athens, we may see 
 the gradual decline of her influence as incessant wars brought 
 poverty and depopulation, and as the cultivation of the fertile 
 soils was more and more abandoned ; until we meet, on the one 
 hand, the Hetcercz^ constituting an important element of so- 
 ciety : and, on the other, the female slave, engaged in the 
 severest labours, and not unfrequently perishing for want of 
 food : while abroad, women and children are involved with 
 husbands and fathers in the atrocious punishments that fol- 
 low resistance to the orders of a rapacious military aristo- 
 
MAN AND HIS HELPMATE. 263 
 
 cracy, eager to divide among themselves the plunder of 
 subject cities. 
 
 If we look to Rome in the prosperous days when the fer- 
 tile lands of Latiura, cultivated by their free owners, gave 
 food to numerous cities, we may see woman respected, and 
 respecting herself. If we seek her in the days when popu- 
 lation had declined, and cultivation had been abandoned to 
 slaves, and when Italy had ceased to afford food for her 
 greatly diminished numbers, we find her type in Messalina 
 and Agrippina, Poppoea and Faustina. 
 
 In modern Italy, with the decay of population and of 
 wealth, we see thousands of women, who have witnessed the 
 massacre of their husbands and their sons, driven abroad, to 
 perish of starvation, or subjected to the last outrages by 
 hordes of wandering barbarians : Franks or Germans : while 
 in Lucrece Borgia, or Beatrice Cenci, we find the type of 
 woman in the higher ranks of life. In the poorest parts of 
 Italy : those in which land is least divided : may now be found 
 the wealthiest women: while the wife of the poor serf slaves 
 in the field to obtain a small allowance of the poorest food. 
 Increasing inequality of condition, and increasing crime, are 
 thus the invariable attendants of poverty and the abandon- 
 ment of the fertile soils of the earth. If w^e desire other evi- 
 dences of this, w^e may turn to France in the terrific days of 
 the Merovingians : and there we find the sex a slave to the 
 worst passions of men, the subjects of female barbarians occu- 
 pying thrones, who are known to history by the names of Fre- 
 degonda and Brunechild : women almost unmatched for crime. 
 
 Exhausted by wars of conquest under Charlemagne, we 
 find France a prey to invasion from every side, by barbarians 
 who respected neither age nor sex. The cultivation of the 
 land was abandoned, and the people who escaped the sword 
 perished of starvation. Poverty and depopulation gave birth 
 to the barbarism of the feudal system, for which the world 
 stands her debtor. With each step in its progress men 
 were forced to resort to poorer soils : and wilb each we see 
 
264 MAN AND HIS HELPMATE. 
 
 the poorer freeman gradually losing control over his actions, 
 and becoming daily more and more the slave of his lord. 
 With each, we see the honour of his wife and daughter be- 
 coming less and less secure ; until at length we find the droit 
 de ja7nbageetdecuissageuui'verSci[]ysiSseTted,3.nd so generally 
 exercised that the eldest born of the tenant is held more 
 honourable than the others : it being probable that it was the 
 child of the lord. Concubinage becomes universal, and 
 bastardy ceases to cause any feeling of disgrace. Dissolute 
 queens provide mistresses for their husbands : while princes, 
 styled "the good," or « great," number their concubines by 
 dozens : and hdtards and grand hdtards fill the highest oflfice 
 of state, and monopolize the great dignities of the church : 
 or distinguish themselves as ecorcheurs^ or flayers of the un- 
 fortunate peasant, whose wife perishes of starvation while 
 they accumulate vast fortunes, and take rank among the good 
 and great. Later, queens find in the easy virtue of their 
 maids of honour, security for the adhesion of their partisans : 
 and gentlemen find in rape one of the inducements to the in- 
 vasion of the unfortunate lands of Italy or Spain, Germany 
 or the Netherlands. Cities and towns are sacked : and no- 
 bles and gentlemen gorge themselves with plunder, while 
 women and children ask in vain for food. Titled prostitutes 
 next direct the aflfairs of state, and women suffer at the stake 
 for errors of opinion : while wives and daughters of the 
 poor serfs labour in the field, seeking in vain from the mise- 
 rable soils they cultivate the means of supporting life. Un- 
 ceasing wars and universal poverty are accompanied by 
 excessive inequality, and by the dissoluteness of manners 
 that invariably attends the absence of all control on the part 
 of the many, and the consciousness of the possession of un- 
 limited power on the part of the few. Duchesses now pub- 
 lish to the world the histories of their amours, and princesses 
 of the blood are honoured by the notice of Montespans. 
 Queens and kept mistresses are compagnons du voyage, 
 and Brinvilliers furnishes poisons to enable amorous wives 
 
MAN AND HIS HELPMATE. 265 
 
 to change their husbands. Thus, by degrees, we reach the 
 period when incest ceases to be a crime, and the represen- 
 tative of majesty takes his mistresses indifferently from among 
 the daughters of others, or his own. The pare aux cerfs, or 
 royal academy for prostitutes, maintained at the cost of mil- 
 lions collected by taxes on salt and all other of the necessa- 
 ries of life, next occupies the time and mind of the sovereign : 
 while a du Barri holds the helm of state. Arriving at the 
 period of the Revolution, w^e see poissardes heading insurrec- 
 tions, w^hile queens, princesses, and duchesses, are dragged 
 to prison, preparatory to being made to feel the weight of the 
 revolutionary axe : and indiscriminate murder : noyades and 
 fusillades : sweeps off by thousands miserable men, w^hose 
 W'ives and daughters, reduced, perhaps, from affluence, are 
 forced to beg their bread from door to door, or seek a refuge 
 from starvation in the horrors of public prostitution. 
 
 In nothing is the brutalizing effect of perpetual war more 
 fully exhibited than in the total want of respect for female 
 life or honour, that is shown in every portion of the history 
 of France. The '' hons bouchers^^ of Charles the Bold spare 
 neither women nor children. The Bourguignons and Ar- 
 magnaes spare none. The Turkish allies of France sweep 
 off the women and children of Italy by thousands into cap- 
 tivity. On the other hand, Diana of Poictiers is more con- 
 spicuous in history than her royal, and more youthful, lover: 
 and the head of the house of Bourbon is rarely mentioned but 
 in company with his mistress, la belle Gabrielle: while thou- 
 sands feel for the sorrows of the unhappy La Fayette, who 
 w^ould find it difficult to bestow a thought upon the unfortu- 
 nate women of Milan, Mantua, or Naples, Ghent, or Bruges, 
 whose husbands and sons are mowed down by thousands ; 
 while they themselves are made to endure the last indignities 
 to which their sex is liable, and their daughters are forced to 
 seek in prostitution the means of obtaining food. The his- 
 tory of that unfortunate country is one of perpetual poverty ; 
 and a record of total inability to resort for support to any but 
 2L 23 
 
266 MAN AND HIS HELPMATE. 
 
 the poor soils : and the man who derives his subsistence 
 from those soils is always a barbarian : and not the less so 
 because he chances to wear a cocked hat and feathers. Ex- 
 treme inequality in the condition of the different portions of 
 the female sex, is one of the characteristics of barbarism : 
 and in every portion of the history of France is exhibited the 
 same inequality that is now shown in the poor girl who, un- 
 able to purchase fuel, sleeps in the day and works by night 
 in the stable that she may derive from the proximity of ani- 
 mals a supply of heat, on the one hand : and the vast fortune 
 of the Duchesse de Praslin, on the other.* 
 
 If we look at the condition of the sex in the present day, 
 we see the results of perpetual war, in the fact that women 
 still labour in the field : in the aversion to marriage on the 
 part of the men : and in the absolute necessity for the dot. 
 An unportioned woman has no chance of marriage : while 
 those who have portions see their husbands but for a moment, 
 before forming a connection that is intended to last for life. 
 Marriages de convenance are universal, and frequent adultery 
 is the necessary consequence : while tens of thousands of wo- 
 men see no immorality in the formation of temporary unions. 
 Foundling hospitals enable them to dispose of their offspring, 
 to perish by hundreds in the hands of hireling nurses paid 
 out of the proceeds of taxes imposed upon the honest and 
 virtuous labourer, whose unremitted exertions are insufficient 
 to enable him to procure a miserable subsistence for his wife 
 and his children : and who lives on, a creature without hope, 
 while mistresses and female stock- gamblers, titled and un- 
 titled, have boxes at the opera, and sport their gay equipages 
 at the Jete of Longchamps : while queens and princesses have 
 palaces that count almost by dozens, and young ladies, 
 just married, and become enceinte^ publish the fact through 
 
 * " The trousseau of Mademoiselle Martignon, who is going to marry the 
 Baron de Montmorenci, is to cost a hundred thousand crowns ($1 1 0,000). 
 There are to be a hundred dozen of chemises ; and so on, in proportion." — 
 French Newspaper, 
 
MAN AND HIS HELPMATE. 267 
 
 out the kingdom, to be received as cause for rejoicing by the 
 poor man who sees his wife or daughter dying for want of 
 food. Under such circumstances, it is not extraordinary that 
 in meeting three young Parisians, we should have reason 
 to feel assured of the middle one being a bastard : that being 
 the proportion of illegitimate to legitimate births. 
 
 In England, the position of the sex has been widely dif- 
 ferent. More than any other portion of Europe has the soil 
 of that country been exempt from the horrors of war, the 
 effect of which is seen in the fact that the cottage of the la- 
 bourer figures in every portion of the English landscape, 
 affording the strongest evidence of the long existence of in- 
 ternal peace. The husbandman has been there exempt from 
 the necessity of seeking protection within the w^alls of the 
 town. There he has, more than in almost any part of Eu- 
 rope, been enabled to economize the machinery of exchange 
 by living on the land that he cultivated, and thus has saved 
 the cost of transporting himself to his work, and that of trans- 
 porting the products of his labour to his place of residence : 
 and, still more important, he has had a place upon which he 
 might bestow those hours and half hours that in France are 
 necessarily wasted. He has had a home of his own, and 
 having the thing, he has made the word to express the 
 idea. 
 
 In no part of Europe has the feeling of perfect individu- 
 ality existed to the same extent as in England, and that it has 
 there existed has been due to the fact that there, more than 
 elsewhere, has internal peace existed, permitting man to place 
 himself on the spot upon which his labours w^re to be ap- 
 plied. The home of the individual man required a mistress, 
 and the choice of the man was influenced, necessarily, by 
 the fact that she was to be his companion in his home, dis- 
 tant perhaps from the homes of other men, and that he was 
 to be dependent upon her kindness and affection for the hap- 
 piness of his life, and for the care of his children. Peace 
 and the growth of wealth tended therefore to give to the 
 
268 MAN AND HIS HELPMATE. 
 
 weak woman power over the strong man : whereas war has, 
 in all ages, tended to render her his victim. 
 
 With each step in the progress of wealth and population, 
 we may see an improvement in the condition of woman, from 
 the day when powerful barons contested the rights of the 
 heiress of Henry I., and the poor Saxon neif was sold to 
 slavery in Ireland ; and that when the daughter of Torquil 
 Wolfganger presided over the revels of Front de Bceuf; 
 to those in which the throne was filled by the masculine 
 Elizabeth : but with the following century came a long pe- 
 riod of internal war and waste, to be followed by one 
 of extreme demoralization ; that of the reigns of Nell 
 Gwynn and the Duchesses of Portsmouth and Cleveland. 
 Royal and noble bastards then abounded. From the Revolu- 
 tion of 1688, until we approach the close of the last century, 
 wealth and population gradually increased, and the people 
 were better fed, better clothed, and better lodged than in any 
 former period : the effect of which may be seen in the im- 
 proved condition of the sex. Many of the abominations 
 which marked the early years of the century had passed 
 away before the commencement of the great war. Kings 
 ceased to have mistresses to aid in the management of the 
 affairs of state, and fleet marriages became less common. 
 With that war and its enormous waste, we find, however, a 
 new state of things. Thefow now become immensely rich, 
 while the many become poor. The price of corn rises, and 
 that of man falls. Landholders become too great to manage 
 their own affairs, and they must have great tenants, with 
 great farms. Cottages disappear, and almshouses become 
 filled. Labour ceases to yield food, and women seek to have 
 bastards that they may obtain allowances, and thereby obtain 
 husbands. Indiscriminate intercourse becomes so common 
 as in some degree to arrest the growth of population ;* while 
 
 * It was stated twelve or fifteen years since by a clergyman : we think the 
 Rev. Mr. Cunningham: that the morals of his parish were improving; and 
 the reason given for this belief was, that bastards had become more numerous, 
 from which fact he inferred that indiscriminate intercourse had become less 
 common. 
 
MAN Ai\D HIS HELPMATE. 269 
 
 thousands of children perish of neglect and want of food. 
 Great club-houses, and houses of prostitution increase in a 
 ratio corresponding to each other, and thus we find that each 
 step in the progress of war and waste : necessarily accompa- 
 nied wdth growing inequality : is attended with a deteriora- 
 tion of the condition of the sex. 
 
 With the long continued peace and the consequent growth 
 of wealth, there has been a gradual improvement in the con- 
 dition of the sex, in England, but bondagers, i. e., female 
 field-labourers, still figure in the leases of Northumbrian land- 
 holders ; half-starved women are yet conspicuous among the 
 habitues of gin-shops : sales of wives with halters round 
 their necks have not yet disappeared : women and girls still 
 labour in coal mines, and sometimes in a state of perfect 
 nudity : and adultery is not unfrequently the consequence 
 of marriages in which property and not inclination is con- 
 sulted. A state of society in which exists inequality to the 
 extent to which it is found in England, is not favourable to 
 female honour. Heavy taxes tend to produce poverty, and 
 mischievous regulations bar men from finding employment, 
 and hence marriage is far less universal than it ought to be. 
 Taxes and regulations tend to produce a large class with mo- 
 ney to spend, and with no employment for time, and hence 
 a disposition for gallantry that would not otherwise exist. 
 The steady and regular application of time or talent is 
 the best security for morals, and that is invariably seen 
 most to exist where labour yields the largest reward. All 
 men would marry, if all could do so with safety to them- 
 selves. In such a state of things, the exceptions are only 
 sufficient to prove the rule. The universal possession of 
 property is the best guarantee for the security of property ; 
 and the universal possession of wives and families is the best 
 security for morals ; for husbands and fathers are interested 
 in the repression of every thing tending to promote immo- 
 rality. 
 
 In Scotland, improvement would appear to be less certain. 
 
 23* 
 
270 MAN AND HIS HELPMATE. 
 
 There, entails increase in number. There, sheep have taken 
 the place of men whose cottages have been burned, and who 
 have been compelled to seek refuge within towns and cities : 
 and with their homes the sex has been compelled to lose 
 the pride of female honour. Glasgow presents a scene of 
 wretchedness rarely equalled among civilized men, and houses 
 of prostitution exist in the ratio of one to twenty- eight ! 
 Such are the results of the increasing power of land, and 
 diminishing power of man. 
 
 Perpetual peace abroad and at home has given to the 
 United States constantly increasing wealth, and every man 
 has been thereby enabled to feel that he may marry without 
 hesitation. All, therefore, do marry; and hence the rapid 
 increase of population : and hence the general morality. 
 Bastardy is rare. If we seek to find it, it must be among 
 the people who cultivate the poorer soils. Thirty years 
 since, it abounded among the Germans of Pennsylvania, 
 who raised small crops from the heavy clay; and then women 
 laboured in the fields : but it has gradually diminished as 
 population and wealth have grown, and as they have been 
 enabled to combine the inferior lime with the superior clay, 
 and have thus obtained a better soil. Receding gradually, 
 it may yet be found in the counties more distant from the 
 city, where a scattered population still obtain small crops 
 from poor soils. It may be found in all those counties in 
 which poor farmers sell all their hay, and buy no lime. In 
 general, however, it exists to a very small extent ; and the 
 sex, respecting themselves in a higher degree, are respected, 
 in a degree unknown to other portions of the globe. Dowry 
 is rarely thought of.* Marriages de convenance scarcely 
 
 * « We buy our wives with our fortunes, or we sell ourselves to them for 
 their dowries. The American chooses her, or rather offers himself to her for 
 her beauty, her intelligence, and the qualities of her heart; it is the only 
 dowry which he seeks. Thus, while we make of that which is most sacred 
 a matter of business, these traders affect a delicacy, and an elevation of sen- 
 timent, which would have done honour to the most perfect models of chi- 
 valry." — Chevalier. 
 
MAN AND HIS HELPMATE. 271 
 
 exist. The marriage tie is held sacred,* and all because 
 each man has, or can have, his own home, within which 
 he is sole master : except so far as he defers its management 
 to its mistress, whose control, within doors, is most com- 
 plete ; but there she stops. f Everywhere is manifested to- 
 wards the sex: old and young: rich and poor: high and 
 low : a degree of deference elsewhere unthought of | They 
 travel, unprotected, for thousands of miles, fearing no intru- 
 sion : and encountering none of those discomforts to which 
 they are exposed in every part of Europe. § With marriage, 
 the task of providing for the family is assumed by the husband ; 
 and woman then is left to the performance of the duties of the 
 household, and the care of her children: and everywhere the 
 labour incident to the performance of those duties is lightened 
 by improved machinery. || In no part of the Union, however, 
 is she seen to the same advantage as in Massachusetts, where 
 man derives from the cultivation of a naturally sterile soil re- 
 
 * " You may estimate the morality of any population, when you have ascer- 
 tained that of the women ; and one cannot contemplate American society 
 without admiration for the respect which there encircles the tie of marriage. 
 The same sentiment existed to a like degree among no nations of antiquity ; 
 and the existing societies of Europe, in their corruption, have not even a con- 
 ception of such purity of morals." — 'ilf. de Beaumont. 
 
 " The marriage tie is more sacred among American workmen than among 
 the middle classes of various countries of Europe." — Chevalier. 
 
 ■j- " Not only does the American mechanic and farmer relieve, as much as 
 possible, his wife from all severe labour, all disagreeable employments, but 
 there is also, in relation to them, and to women in general, a disposition to 
 oblige, that is unknown among us, even in men who pique themselves upon 
 cultivation of mind and literary education." — CJtevalier. 
 
 i " One of the first peculiarities that must strike a foreigner ia the United 
 States is the deference paid universally to the sex, without regard to rank or 
 station." — Lyell. 
 
 § " We have allowed the administration of the customs to adopt practices 
 unworthy of a civilized nation. It is inexplicable that they should have im- 
 posed upon the French, who believe themselves the most polished nation of 
 the earth, rules, in virtue of which their wives and daughters are personally 
 examined and felt, in filthy holes and corners, by female furies. These scan- 
 dalous brutalities of the agents of the treasury are inexcusable, for they pro- 
 duce nothing to the revenue." — Chevalier. 
 
 II "The inventive spirit of the people of New England, and of their de- 
 scendants throughout the Union, is displayed in the production of machinery 
 for economizing the time and labour of their wives." — Chevalier. 
 
272 MAN an;) I:'.s :]::l?mate. 
 
 turns to labour unknown to those who cultivate the prairies of 
 the West : and where may be seen, congregating in thousands, 
 female operatives among whom bastardy is unknown. The 
 greatest of all the moral phenomena of the world is to be 
 found in the city of Lowell, and the enlightened traveller 
 will find in its examination abundant compensation for a fail- 
 ure of his visit to Niagara.* 
 
 With each step in our progress south, men cultivate poorer 
 soils, and the power of combination diminishes ; and with 
 each such step the value of female labour, and the power of 
 woman to provide for and defend herself, diminishes, until 
 we find her and her children becoming the property of an- 
 other. That all may become free, and that woman every- 
 where may acquire power over her own actions, determin- 
 ing for herself who she will marry and who she will not ; 
 that she may everywhere obtain a home in which to devote 
 herself to the performance of those duties for which she was 
 intended ; the happy wife becoming the mother of children 
 educated to be useful to themselves, their parents, and socie- 
 ty : it is essential that wealth should be permitted to increase. 
 It does increase most rapidly where men cultivate the most 
 fertile soils ; and that those soils may be cultivated, com- 
 bination of action is indispensable. The consumer must take 
 his place by the side of the producer. With each step of 
 increase in the density of population, the power of combina- 
 tion increases, the consumer and the producer being enabled 
 
 * « The factories at Lowell are not only on a great scale, but have been so 
 managed as to yield high profits, a fact which should be impressed on the 
 mind of every foreigner who visits them, lest after admiring the gentility of 
 manner and address of the women, he should go away with the idea that he 
 had been seeing a model mill, or a set of gentlemen and ladies playing at a 
 factory for their amusement." — Lyell. 
 
 " Morning and evening, and at meal times, seeing them passing in the 
 streets, well dressed, and again, seeing suspended on the walls of the facto- 
 ries, among the vases of flowers, and the shrubs which they cultivate, their 
 scarfs, and their shawls, and the hoods of green silk with which they envelope 
 their heads, to secure them from the heat and dust in walking, I said to my- 
 self. This is not Manchester." — Chevalien 
 
MAN AND HIS IIELPMATK. 273 
 
 more and more to place themselves by the side of each other. 
 Population and wealth increase most rapidly where women 
 are most chaste, and where they are most chaste they are 
 most valued: whereas, where neither population nor wealth 
 is permitted to increase, woman is, and must ever be, a slave 
 and a prostitute ; and man a barbarian, cultivating the poor- 
 est soils. 
 
 The PAST says to the sovereign of the present : «« If you 
 desire that woman should occupy the position for which she 
 \vas intended by her Creator: cultivate peace." 
 
 To the landlord it says : " If you desire that your lands 
 shall become valuable : avoid war, and permit wealth to in- 
 crease, that woman may be chaste and population grow." 
 
 To the labourer it says : " If you desire that the honour of 
 your wife and daughter be respected : labour to promote the 
 maintenance of peace." 
 
 To w^oman it says : " If you w^ould be a happy wife, mis- 
 tress of your own home, and surrounded by your children : 
 love those who cultivate peace." 
 
274 MAN AND HIS FAMILY. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MAN AND HIS FAMILY. 
 
 The savage, deriving from the poor soils a wretched and 
 precarious subsistence, and compelled to change his place 
 from day to day, sees in the birth of a child but an addition 
 to his burthens, and but for the affection of the mother, few, 
 particularly of the weaker sex, would live a single day. 
 The child, in turn, arrived at maturity, sees in the parent 
 but a useless consumer of the small stock of food, and 
 leaves him to perish in the desert ; or exposes him on the 
 river bank, there to die the lingering death of starvation, or 
 to become food for tigers : or, more mercifully, buries him 
 alive, and thus terminates at once a life of tyranny over 
 others, that has been productive of little but wretchedness to 
 himself. 
 
 The man who cultivates the rich soils of the earth rejoices 
 in the birth of his child. The great machine in the prepa- 
 ration of which he is engaged, yields to his labour a daily 
 increasing recompense, and with each addition to his family 
 he finds a more rapid increase of his wealth. Food increases 
 more rapidly than mouths to consume it : and with each 
 addition to their number, he finds himself enabled to devote 
 more and more of his attention to the study of their cha- 
 racters and the formation of their minds, with a view to 
 making them good sons, preparatory to their becoming 
 good and useful citizens. He unites with his neighbours 
 for the establishment of schools, and colleges, and libra- 
 ries ; and he economizes his own expenses, that they may 
 want none of the training required to enable them to 
 fill, usefully to themselves and beneficially to the commu- 
 
MAN AND HIS FAMILY. 275 
 
 nity, the station, be it what it may, in which they shall be 
 placed. The child, in turn, desires to aid the parent. 
 Arrived at manhood, he remembers that in his youth his 
 feelings and his rights had been respected, and he now pays 
 the debt incurred in infancy, respecting in his parent the 
 rights that, in his turn, he would have respected in him- 
 self. 
 
 By nothing is the progress of mankind in population and 
 wealth made more manifest than by the change in the relation 
 of parent and child. In the infancy of cultivation the one is 
 a tyrant and the other a slave ; but with each step in the pro 
 gress of civilization, we find a tendency towards equality ot 
 condition, each learning more and more to regard the other 
 as a companion and fHend, differing in age, but equally 
 labouring for the common good : the father granting to the 
 son the benefit of his experience, while the son contri- 
 butes as far as in his power lies, to the performance of the 
 labours required for the great object of maintaining and im- 
 proving their common condition. 
 
 The Spartans lived on the produce of the poor soils, cul- 
 tivated by slaves. The child, if unfit to become a warrior, 
 w^as destroyed. If saved, it was the property of the State. 
 The parent acquired no claims upon the affections of his son, 
 and the latter, arrived at maturity, felt that he had no debt 
 to pay. 
 
 In the earlier and happier days of Rome, men drew large 
 supplies of food from the rich soils, and then fathers and 
 children were friends ; but with tyranny abroad comes tyranny 
 at home, and the fierce warrior is seen exercising over his 
 son the power of life and death. With the gradual progress 
 of decline, family hatreds grow, and husbands and wives, 
 fathers, and sons, and daughters, are seen engaged in deadly 
 strife. With each step land becomes more and more con- 
 solidated, and man becomes more weak : and with each is 
 seen the growth of family hatred. Constantine murders 
 his son. Constans, Constantius, and Constantine contend 
 
276 MAN AND HIS FAMILY. 
 
 for the empire of the world : but as that empire diminishes 
 in extent, we see mothers murdering sons, and brothers de- 
 posing and blinding brothers, the bitterness of hate growling 
 with the abandonment of the fertile lands, and the increasing 
 worthlessness of the prize. 
 
 Throughout the eastern world, where poor men cultivate 
 the poorest soils, we see a perpetual series of family dis- 
 cords. Fathers are deposed and blinded by their sons : 
 sons are murdered by fathers : and brothers are assassi- 
 nated by brothers. In the lower walks of life, we may 
 see the poor Hindoo, old and unable to labour, exposed 
 upon the banks of the Ganges by order of sons who, anxious 
 to prevent increase in the number of useless mouths, destroy 
 their own children : although surrounded by the most fertile 
 lands, w^aiting but for the growth of population and of 
 wealth to yield ample supplies of food and of all other of 
 the necessaries of life. 
 
 In modern Italy, with the diminution of population and 
 of wealth, and the abandonment of the rich soils of the Cam- 
 pagna, we see nunneries innumerable, filled with unwilling 
 daughters forced to undergo a living death for the benefit of 
 sons who indulge themselves in uncontrolled license among 
 the unfortunate women of plundered towns and cities, driven 
 to prostitution for the support of life. There, too, we find 
 murders and poisonings among fathers, brothers, sons, and 
 nephews. Poverty produces everywhere repulsion and hate, 
 and where it exists family affection can but rarely find a 
 place. 
 
 In the rapidly growing Holland, and in the Netherlands of 
 the middle ages, we meet a better state of things. There, 
 increasing wealth facilitated the cultivation of the various 
 soils, and the producer and consumer were enabled to place 
 themselves side by side. Population grew, and with it the 
 demand for labour. The parent saw in the child the future 
 support of his age, and the child, grow^n to manhood, remem- 
 bered the debt contracted in his youth. 
 
MAN AND HIS FAMILY. 277 
 
 France, always at war, and always poor, has restricted 
 herself to the cultivation of the worst soils. Her men were 
 ever in the field, engaged in the duties of their vocation: 
 in the Netherlands, Germany, or Hungary : in Spain, 
 Piedmont, the Milanese, Naples, or Sicily : while at home 
 their wives were the prey of bands of ecorcheurs, and of rob- 
 bers of every nation, invited alternately by the Bourguignon 
 and the Armagnac : the Leaguer and the royalist : the sove- 
 reign and the rebellious noble. Of the children who w^ere 
 born, a large proportion perished in their infancy. Wealth 
 and population were sometimes stationary, while at other 
 times they went backward. At others, they advanced, yet 
 slowly : and the result of a long series of ages is, that she 
 presents still to view a scattered population engaged in cul- 
 tivating the poorest soils. The feeling of '< home" has had 
 no existence. The foundling hospital repeats the story of 
 Sparta. Few children are born, and of them but one-half 
 attain maturity, then to be taken from their parents, to seek, 
 in the fields of Germany, of Russia, or of Algeria, the means 
 of subsistence : and that at the moment when the habits of 
 life are to become fixed. The parent hopes little from the 
 son, whose first duty is to that portion of society which governs 
 the rest, and calls itself "the State." He does, therefore, 
 little for him. He gives him hard work, and no instruction.* 
 
 * " Frugality in Nantes, with the labouring classes, is the eifect of necessi- 
 ty more than virtue. Drunkenness is common, and temperance is almost a 
 stranger to them. In the country it is nearly as bad ; nine out of ten of the 
 little farmers who come to this market, Wednesdays and Saturdays, and par- 
 ticularly at the fairs, return home in a state of intoxication. The life led by 
 them when on military duty, from the age of twenty to twenty-eight, most 
 certainly demoralizes them. * * To prevent the increase and lessen the 
 state of disorder into which the greater part of the labouring class and me- 
 chanics of Nantes has fallen, a number of master tradesmen and proprietors 
 of factories will not employ those men who do not agree to allow a certain 
 sum weekly to be retained from their wages for the use of the wife and fami- 
 ly The example spreads, and will, no doubt, become more general ; but this 
 circumstance also shows forth, in strong colours, the immoral state of the 
 working class in France." — Report on La Loire Infcricurc, bij H. Newman, H, 
 B. M. Consul, to the Commissioners on the Poor Laws. 
 
 24 
 
278 MAN AND HIS FAMILY. 
 
 The son, in turn, remembers the lessons of his youth. He 
 neglects his parent, and tyrannizes over his child.* As a 
 natural consequence, crime in families abounds. Poverty 
 instigates to murder, and parents perish by the hands of chil- 
 dren by descent or marriage : wives by those of husbands, 
 and husbands by those of wives, to an extent unknown in 
 the other countries of Europe : the natural result of unceasing 
 w^ar and waste. It is not, however, to the lower sphere of 
 life alone that we must look for such events. Extreme in- 
 equality of condition tends to the production of crime among 
 the highest as well as among the most lowly. The starving 
 wretch seeks food on the highway, while the marshal seeks 
 in the plunder of cities the means with which to indulge his 
 passion for display. Both are equally criminal, and both 
 equally the offspring of war. The world now rings with the 
 Praslin tragedy, but thousands of cases less patent to the 
 world, might be produced to show how small is the extent 
 to which the feeling of attachment to home, or family, exists 
 throughout the population of France. The system forbids 
 its existence. 
 
 England has grown rich and populous. She has cultivated 
 far better soils, and there has the feeling of attachment to 
 home and family been more fully exhibited than in most other 
 portions of Europe. Nevertheless, the provisions for main- 
 taining the concentration of land, by which the progress of 
 cultivation has been so much arrested, have equally tended 
 to discourage the growth of harmony in families. The father 
 feels himself a life-renter, and he is jealous of the rights of 
 his son. The son watches the movements of his father, and 
 a chancery injunction stays the parent engaged in the com- 
 
 * "Experience proves that most workmen, who are fathers of families, will 
 only consent to send their children to school during the years when they can earn 
 absolutely nothing, and that they are withdrawn as soon as their weak arms 
 will enable them to earn a few centimes, and that it is to this deplorable abuse 
 of paternal power, goaded by poverty, that we should attribute the moral and 
 physical weakness that is here exhibited at all stages of life." — Report of the 
 Prefect of the Department of the North. 
 
MAN AND HIS FAMILY. 279 
 
 mission of acts of waste. Younger sons see in the elder 
 brother a rich man, made so by the accident of priority of 
 birth, and they feel themselves to be poor and dependent on 
 his bounty. Wives become poor at the death of husbands, 
 while sons are made rich. Mothers of great sons spend their 
 last years in the great almshouse for decayed nobles, Hamp- 
 ton Court.* The system retards the development of the 
 powers of the earth, and the growth of intellect : and pre- 
 vents the existence of family affection : and all because it 
 tends to the maintenance of inequality of condition. To 
 that inequality it is due that we see so great a body of the 
 <' uneasy class" of younger sons side by side with vast 
 wealth. Thence arises the general thirst for office among 
 men whose abilities would qualify them to work with advan- 
 tage to themselves, their families, and their countrymen, 
 were a way opened for them ; but who are compelled to soli- 
 cit favours at home, or to seek in the cultivation of the poor 
 soils of Canada or of Australia that support which would be 
 afforded in vast abundance by the rich, but undivided and 
 therefore undeveloped, soils at home. Still more strongly is 
 this the case in Scotland. There, entails abound. Through- 
 out half the kingdom the rich soils lie unimproved, while 
 poor men cultivate the poor ones. Scotchmen emigrate in 
 shoals to Canada ; some of their own motion, but thousands 
 at the order of their landlords, in whose hands accumulate 
 immense estates, while impoverished daughters and sisters, 
 reared to affluence and unable to work, hide their diminished 
 heads in poor villages, thankful if their little allowances suf- 
 fice to preserve them from starvation. Family pride abounds : 
 but there, as everywhere, the affection of the family is in the 
 inverse ratio of its pride — or vanity. 
 
 Throughout Great Britain, restrictions on land have tended 
 to render man superabundant, and to compel him to seek 
 
 * Such was the case with the lady who was mother to Lords Wellington, 
 Wellesley, Mornington, and Cowley. 
 
280 MAN AND HIS FAMILY. 
 
 employment from manufacturers whose markets were uncer- 
 tain, and whose wages were not unfrequently ahogether sus- 
 pended. Labour has overflowed, and wives have been compel- 
 led to abandon the care of their families, and to seek support 
 in factory and colliery work : while children have been taxed 
 far beyond their powers, to produce wages to be expended 
 in dissipation by their parents. The history of both wives 
 and children, as developed in the recent reports to Par- 
 liament, is an awful one, and tends to show how abso- 
 lutely the feelings of family affection may be blunted by the 
 working of an unsound system. Throughout the whole 
 island, there is now an universal demand for more wages 
 and less work : and Parliament, which has already interfered 
 to compel the parents to do that which parental affection has 
 failed to prompt them, is now called upon to interfere between 
 the employer and the employed, of all ages ; while the former 
 sees ruin in the prospect of any reduction in the labours of 
 the latter. That such interferences should be needed is evi- 
 dence abundant of the unsoundness of the system to which 
 it owes its rise. Were man permitted to develope the powers 
 of the earth, he would acquire power over his own actions, 
 and would then determine for himself the hours of labour, 
 wdthout the aid of Parliament. Every step towards perfect 
 freedom in the actual possessor of land is a step towards 
 freedom in man. The fruits of the tree of Scotch and Eng- 
 lish entails are agricultural paupers, starving operatives, over- 
 worked children, and " uneasy" ladies and gentlemen — 
 younger brothers and sisters. 
 
 In the United States, where all marry, all see the increase 
 in the numbers of their families without alarm. The growth 
 of wealth so far exceeds that of population, that the demand 
 for labour is constantly in advance of the supply. In addi- 
 tion to the natural increase the immigration from abroad grows 
 with each successive year, and the demand advances with its 
 growth, for each producer is a consumer : and each makes him- 
 self a market for much of the products of his own labour, while 
 
MAN AND HIS FAMILY. 281 
 
 consuming a portion of the products of his neighbours. Such 
 is even now the case, but it would have been at all times still 
 more strongly felt had not the erroneous policy of England 
 forced men to seek the west who might have been so much 
 more advantageously employed in the east. With each step in 
 their progress, men cultivate better soils, obtaining increased 
 returns to labour: and hence the steady increase in the quan- 
 tity of the comforts and conveniences of life at the command 
 of the labourer, accompanied with a steady increase in the 
 inducement to the exertion of the physical and mental facul- 
 ties. The father works that the children may be clothed 
 and educated, and when the proper time arrives they work 
 for themselves, but not till then. How great are the exer- 
 tions of parents for the education of their children may be 
 seen from the fact that in the public schools of New York 
 may be found one-fourth of the whole population of the state : 
 while in the libraries belonging to those schools may be found 
 twelve hundred thousand volumes, accumulated in about a 
 dozen years, and now accumulating at the rate of a hundred 
 thousand in each year : and were concentration on the rich soils 
 possible, the number would soon be doubled. How small is the 
 labour required from children of immature years may be seen 
 in the fact that in the mills of Lowell, there are none below 
 twelve, while but seven per cent, are below seventeen : where- 
 as in England, before the late interferences, no less than 
 thirty-six per cent, were below the latter age, while many 
 were of such exceedinglytender years as to render their long 
 continued employment in the manner described destructive 
 of all power of development ; and hence the numerous crip- 
 ples. Such, likewise, is the case in France, in some of 
 whose manufacturing departments, almost two-fifths are ex- 
 empted from the conscription because of bodily ailments.* 
 
 * " The paupers are described as consisting of weavers, unable at times to 
 gupport their families, and wholly chargeable to public or private charity in 
 case of illness, scarcity, or discharge from work ; of workmen, ignorant, impro- 
 vident, brutified by debauchery, or enervated by manufacturing labour, and 
 
 2N 24* 
 
282 MAN AND HIS FAMILY. 
 
 If we compare with the coal mines of England those of 
 Pennsylvania, w^e see similar differences. In the first, we 
 see girls and boys, sometimes of very tender age, and some- 
 times working together in a state of absolute nudity : whereas, 
 in the second, we see few boys, and none but those that are 
 fully competent to the labour at which they are employed. In 
 no part of the world, therefore, are children so soon fitted to 
 provide for themselves, because in none is the parent in so 
 great a degree the companion of the child; and consequently 
 in none are the faculties of the latter so early developed. In 
 the relation of parent and child there exists, therefore, the 
 strongest tendency to harmony, while in that of the children 
 with each other there is little room for cause of difference. 
 In the eye of the law, all are equal. If there be property to 
 be divided, any inequality of division must be a consequence of 
 favour on the part of the parent, whose control over that property 
 is, as it should be, absolute ; and all have therefore reason to 
 cultivate his good opinion. Throughout the whole country, 
 there prevails, however, a feeling of independence, and a con- 
 sciousness of ability to rise, which forbid that sons should ve- 
 getate while waiting for the division of the father's land : and 
 there is, consequently, less of what is sometimes termed 
 "waiting for dead men's shoes," and less wrangling about 
 the partition of estates than in any country of the world : 
 although the amount now annually divided is fully equal to 
 that of the United Kingdom, if not even greater. 
 
 With each step in the passage from the poor to the fertile 
 soils, man acquires more power over his own actions, and 
 a more perfect consciousness of his rights, accompanied by 
 a corresponding sense of his duties. As the power of con- 
 centration and of combination of action increases, labour is 
 
 habitually unable to support their families ; of aged persons, prematurely in- 
 firm, and abandoned by their children ; of children and orphans, a great num- 
 ber of whom labour under incurable disease or deformity ; and of numerous fa- 
 milies of hereditary paupers and beggars heaped together in loathsome cellars 
 and garrets, and for the most part subject to infirmities, and addicted to brutal 
 vice and depravity. 8ee Villeneuve : Economic Chretienne. 
 
MAN AND HIS FAMILY. 283 
 
 more largely paid : and each step is marked by an increase 
 in the power of the parent to perform his duties to the child, 
 and a diminishing necessity on the part of the child for the 
 performance of those duties, in case of death or accident to 
 the parent : while each is marked by an increasing 'power 
 on the part of the child to aid the parent, and a diminishing 
 necessity on that of the latter for depending on such aid. 
 Their union becomes more and more voluntary, and is, 
 therefore, on both sides, more and more marked by the per- 
 formance of duties, and the respect for rights. 
 
 The PAST says to the parent of the present : <<If you de- 
 sire to do justice to all your children : strive for the main- 
 tenance of peace. With peace come wealth and the cultiva- 
 tion of the more fertile soils : and with them comes the 
 division of land, by aid of which your sons and daughters 
 will be enabled to marry and settle near you, and you will 
 be surrounded by happy families of children and grand- 
 children." 
 
 To the children it says : <« If you desire to remain with 
 your parents, and to have your children, in turn, remain 
 w^ith you : strive for the maintenance of peace." 
 
 To all it says : " Family affection is inconsistent with 
 war, and preparation for war : for with these come taxes, 
 and poverty, and dispersion over the poor soils of the 
 earth." 
 
284 CONCENTRATION AND CENTRALIZATION. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 CONCENTRATION AND CENTRALIZATION. 
 
 The people of the Happy Valley commenced the work of 
 cultivation on the sides of the hills by which it was shut in 
 from the world. Could we have had a view of them in the 
 early stages of the settlement, we should have seen a few fami- 
 lies on the various sides, north, south, east, and west, culti- 
 vating the thin soils, and deriving from their labour a slender 
 subsistence, while below the rich soils were covered with 
 magnificent trees, through which rolled a beautiful stream. 
 Intercourse between the families must have been impossible, 
 except by keeping round the sides of the hills, themselves 
 very frequently indented by ravines also filled with trees, and 
 hence all intercourse must have been attended with severe 
 labour. By slow degrees we find them, however, working 
 downward, and all looking inward toward the banks of the 
 little stream. Population increases and cultivation extends 
 itself, and the young people desire to meet together ; and 
 marriages take place ; and exchanges arise ; and places of 
 exchange are needed ; and farmer's sons become black- 
 smiths and tanners, and shofemakers, and tailors, and hatters, 
 and carpenters, and masons, and weavers ; and thus, by 
 degrees, a town arises : and now we see a little community 
 perfect in itself, and capable of advancing in civilization 
 were it to have intercourse with none other in the world. 
 
 If now we enter the home of one of these happy farmers, 
 we find him also turning his eyes inward. His wife, his 
 children, his farm, his cattle, and his house, stand first in his 
 thoughts. In these it is that he finds his happiness. We 
 
CONCENTRATION AND CENTRALIZATION. 285 
 
 should, however, greatly err if we supposed the man whose 
 thoughts are thus concentrated upon his home to be inca- 
 pable of associating with his fellow men, or to be in any degree 
 incapacitated for so doing. On the contrary, it is because 
 of his combination with them that he is enabled to exercise 
 the power of concentration. The miller is near him, and he 
 is not obliged to travel abroad with his grain when he desires 
 to have it converted into flour. His near neighbours are 
 the tanner, the shoemaker, the hatter and the butcher, and 
 he is in the habit of daily intercourse with them. He dis- 
 cusses with them and with others of his fellow-citizens, the 
 laying out of roads ; the arrangements of the little and grow- 
 ing town ; the building of churches ; the institution of 
 schools and little libraries for his children, and the formation 
 of a library for their own joint use : and he combines with 
 them in all the arrangements for the maintenance of perfect 
 security of person and property ; for the settlement of differ- 
 ences that may arise among their fellow-citizens ; for the col- 
 lection of the contributions required for the making of roads 
 and for other purposes ; and for a vast variety of other mat- 
 ters interesting to the community at large. Combination 
 tends to promote security and the growth of w^ealth, and 
 wealth enables him daily more and more to concentrate his 
 thoughts upon his home, and its occupants : and this concen- 
 tration, in its turn, promotes the growth of wealth, by enabling 
 him daily more and more to reflect upon the measures neces- 
 sary to the advancement of the common good : to devote his 
 leisure in aid of those less fortunate than himself: to acquire 
 knowledge by the study of nature, or of books: and thus still 
 further to advance the interests of the society of which he 
 has the happiness to be a member. The labours incident 
 to the performance of the general business of the society 
 are hght, for they are divided among all; and they cost little, 
 for they are performed by the men who have themselves to 
 contribute towards its payment. All work and all pay, and 
 hence the work and the pay fall lightly upon each. 
 
286 
 
 CONCENTRATION AND CENTRALIZATION. 
 
 With each step in the extension of cultivation over the 
 fertile soils towards the foot of the hill, the return to labour 
 increases, and means are obtained for carrying the work of 
 cultivation upwards towards the hill-top. Rich lands, 
 whose soil is the accumulation of centuries, furnish pasture 
 for fine herds of cattle. Manure abounds, for the consumer 
 has taken his place by the producer. The miller, the black- 
 smith, and other mechanics, exchange their products with the 
 farmer, whose horses are rarely on the road, but almost always 
 at the plough : and thus, from day to day, and hour to hour, 
 the power of man over land, and over himself, is seen to 
 grow, and with each step grows his love of home. 
 
 If, now, we place ourselves on the hill-top, we may look 
 down into other valleys like the first. In each the work of 
 cultivation has commenced on the hill-side : and in each we 
 see the eyes of its inhabitants turned downwards towards the 
 rich lands that occupy the centre of the little settlement. In 
 each we see the attention of all turned inwards towards their 
 homes, and their common home. In each we see the growth 
 of wealth marked by the extension of cultivation up- 
 wards, and in each we see the gradual advance of roads 
 towards the hill, or mountain, top : and among all the com- 
 munities of all these little valleys, we see a tendency towards 
 the establishment of communication with each other, for 
 purposes of trade, and for facilitating operations of common 
 interest. 
 
 If, now, we take a bird's-eye view of these various commu- 
 nities, we shall see in each an infinite number of little pyra- 
 mids, with heights proportioned to their breadth and depth. 
 With the extension of the breadth of cultivation we have seen 
 it rising in its height until it has advanced far up the steep 
 hill-side ; and on all sides we see it rising higher as it 
 sinks deeper into the fertile soils of the valley below. In 
 each we see a variety of schools surmounted by an aca- 
 demy for the more advanced : and that, as wealth and popu- 
 lation shall increase, and academies shall become more nu- 
 
CONCENTRATION AND CENTRALIZATION. 287 
 
 merous, and as the love of knowledge sinks deeper into their 
 souls, to be itself surmounted by a college. In each we see 
 the little associations for purposes of general interest to the 
 various sections of the valley, surmounted by a general one 
 assembled in the little town, the common centre of attraction 
 to the whole people. 
 
 With the establishment of intercourse among these little 
 communities, the tendency to union, so well begun in each, 
 is seen to spread. Each grows in wealth and population, 
 and intercourse becomes more frequent ; and next we find 
 them all combining for the making of roads, or canals, the 
 founding of colleges, and other works calculated to promote 
 the common good. The union becomes more complete : and 
 rules are adopted for the determination of the relations of the 
 several communities, and of those of the members of each, 
 with each other : and thus by degrees a government is formed. 
 General law^s now embrace the whole of the various societies 
 constituting this new pyramid, which now surmounts the 
 whole. 
 
 If we now look down again into the several societies, we 
 shall see that to their members the importance of these laws 
 diminishes with distance. First stands the home. Next, 
 the common home of the original community : and, lastly, 
 the general home of the several communities. In the first, each 
 finds his chief source of happiness. In the second, he finds 
 means of augmenting that happiness, by combination with 
 his neighbours for the maintenance of the roads in daily use 
 by himself and them : for the support of schools required by 
 his children, the library required for himself, and the church 
 required by his family. In the third, he combines with more 
 distant neighbours for the maintenance of roads which he 
 sometimes uses, and for the regulation of affairs of general 
 interest, by which he may at times be affected : whereas in 
 the regulation of those of his own little community he has a 
 daily and hourly interest : and in those of his own home, one 
 that ceases neither day nor night. 
 
288 CONCENTRATION AND CENTRALIZATION. 
 
 General laws are formed, but local regulations remain un- 
 touched : and thus each little community preserves its perfect 
 individuaUty, rendered more perfect by union with its neigh- 
 bours ; for the union of all adds to the power of each for the 
 maintenance of the perfect security essential to the growth 
 of wealth and population, and the further extension of culti- 
 vation. Each has now its own government for all matters 
 appertaining to its members, while each submits to general 
 rules for the conduct of their people towards those of the ad- 
 jacent communities. The base of each widens, and their 
 relations with each other become more intimate, as better 
 soils are taken into cultivation : and with each step their 
 power of union and their strength increase ; yet concentra- 
 tion w^ithin the limits of each becomes more and more com- 
 plete. Each now has churches of various denominations. 
 Each has high schools, and preparatory schools. Each has 
 the fashioner and the producer by the side of each other. 
 Each sees to its own roads and bridges, and each has its lo- 
 cal court for the settlement of differences among its people. 
 The machinery of all this is simple, and the cost is light ; for 
 those w^ho look to the affairs of the community do so in the 
 intervals of their own employments : and as the people deter- 
 mine for themselves whom and what they will pay, they de- 
 sire to have little waste. In time, twenty, thirty, fifty, or a 
 hundred of these little communities, at first scattered over 
 the land, and separated by broad tracts of forest, and deep 
 and rapid rivers running through the most fertile lands : or 
 by hills and mountains : are brought into connection w4th 
 each other : and these numerous little pyramids now form a 
 great pyramid, or State. Perfect concentration, however, still 
 exists. Local rules still govern local interests, and local 
 judges decide local differences. Local roads and bridges 
 are made under the direction of local officers: and local mills, 
 and shops, and factories, furnish the producer with mouths to 
 consume on the ground the various products of the earth. 
 The State, thus formed, is neighbour to another little State ; 
 
CONCENTRATION AND CENTRALIZATION. 289 
 
 and with the further growth of population and wealth inter- 
 course arises, and a new union is now formed ; each, however, 
 still preserving its local organization and its laws, so far as 
 regards the interest of its own people, but adopting such as 
 may be deemed equitable in relation to those of their own 
 State with those of the other. Each grows again : and within 
 each the little pyramids rise, increasing in height, and 
 breadth, and density : and again arise new unions with other 
 and more distant little States ; and with each step wealth and 
 population advance more rapidly. The great union acquires 
 strength from the increasing strength of the various parts of 
 which it is composed ; and the little unions acquire it, be- 
 cause of the perfect concentration of their local concerns, by 
 means of which each is left to determine for itself what to do, 
 and what to omit doing, in regard to its own business : and 
 to do it by persons selected by themselves, and to do it eco- 
 nomically. With each step in their progress of wealth and 
 population, there is in each little community an increasing 
 number of persons possessing each his own land, and his own 
 house, upon which he concentrates his exertions for his own 
 physical improvement ; and his own wife, and his own chil- 
 dren, in whom centre his hopes of happiness : and for the 
 promotion of whose ease, and comfort, and enjoyment, he 
 is at all times anxious to exert his physical and intellectual 
 faculties. The machine is simple. It moves of itself, for 
 each man moves his share. The work is done, yet it is 
 difficult to see by whom. The labour is light, for it is 
 done by many. The strength is great: for it has the form 
 which all matter tends to take, and which is, consequently, 
 the most natural. Its power of resistance is great. Its power 
 of motion is small, and hence its tendency to peace. 
 
 Such is concentration. Opposed thereto is centralization. 
 The one looks inward, and tends to promote a love of home 
 and of quiet happiness, and a desire for union ; facilitating 
 the growth of wealth and the preparation of the great machine 
 of production, and enabling man acquire a love of books 
 2 25 
 
290 CONCENTRATION AND CENTRALIZATION. 
 
 and a habit of independent thought and action. Here each 
 man minds his own business, and superintends the applica- 
 tion of the proceeds of his own labour. Centralization, on 
 the contrary, looks outward, and tends to promote a love of 
 war and discord, and a disrelish for home and its pursuits, 
 preventing the growth of wealth, and retarding the prepara- 
 tion of the great machine. Under it men are forced to move 
 in masses, governed by ministers, and generals, and admi- 
 rals : and the habit of independent thought or action has no 
 existence. Here no man is permitted to mind his ow^n busi- 
 ness, and no man controls the application of the proceeds of 
 his labour. The State manages every thing, and the State 
 is composed of those whose profits are derived from manag- 
 ing the affairs of others. 
 
 Throughout the world has existed a tendency to the con- 
 centration of man, as may be seen by studying the progress 
 of Attica and of Greece generally : of the cities of Latium : 
 of those of the Netherlands, and of India : but in the early 
 periods of the history of man, he is seen uniformly to have 
 been exceedingly poor, and compelled to depend for subsist- 
 ence on the poorest soils ; as witness eastern Argolis, so early 
 abandoned : and hence the perpetual contests in Greece for 
 the possession of little tracts of land capable of yielding food. 
 In this fact may be found the cause of the difficulty of general 
 association, seen invariably in the early periods of society : 
 and to this may be traced the existence of power on the one 
 hand, and that of slavery on the other. Individual power 
 over bodies of men has been, at all times, and in all nations, 
 attended by contests for the exercise of that power. Poverty 
 tends thus to produce foreign war, to increase poverty, and 
 to produce the concentration of land : and this, in turn, tends 
 to produce civil war, to augment poverty, and to increase 
 the appetite for foreign wars ; as is shown in the histories of 
 all countries, but especially in those of Greece, Rome, and 
 France. It was reserved for later times, when w^ealth, mate- 
 rial and intellectual, more abounded ; and when men could 
 
CONCENTRATION AND CENTRALIZATION. 291 
 
 occupy better soils than those of Attica and the eastern slope 
 of Argolis, to exhibit the gradual formation of a community 
 in a manner perfectly natural, and almost undisturbed by 
 foreign or domestic wars. 
 
 France has never, from the days of Clovis, exhibited any 
 material tendency to the concentration of man, or of wealth 
 upon land : or of the affections of man upon either wife or 
 family. In the early period of her history, we jfind barons in- 
 numerable, engaged in collecting men and taxes, for the pur- 
 pose of carrying them forth from their territories, to spread ruin 
 among their neighbours. For a brief period, we find nobles 
 and sovereigns granting charters to cities and towns, to en- 
 able them to acquire power to become centres of their various 
 neighbourhoods, and thus to bring the consumer to the side 
 of the producer. Perpetual war and desolation enfeeble the 
 towns and they gradually lose the few privileges they have 
 obtained, and the consumer and producer are again separated. 
 Great nobles and kings are next seen gathering together all 
 of men and wealth that can be commanded, and carrying 
 them forth into Italy and Spain, Germany and the Nether- 
 lands : there to be employed in the acquisition of power over 
 the wealth of other men. The great city of Paris : great be- 
 cause alone capable of affording the slightest protection to 
 person and property, and therefore the resort, from all parts 
 of the kingdom, of those who had been plundered and de- 
 sired to plunder in turn : fares like the rest, and loses its pri- 
 viles^es. If the reader desire now to see and understand the 
 process by which poverty has been maintained in France, 
 and the causes why she still continues to cultivate poor soils, 
 he may study the history of that city in the reigns of Charles 
 VI. and VII., and then satisfy himself what must have been 
 the condition of the lesser cities of Amiens and Beauvais, 
 Aix and Thoidouse. The rights of the people have had no 
 existence. The right to labour, even, was deemed to be 
 held of the crown, and crown and nobles made themselves 
 the conduits by which the population and wealth of the 
 
292 CONCENTRATION AND CENTRALIZATION. 
 
 kingdom were passed to foreign countries. With the excep- 
 tion of a feeble attempt to establish local courts in opposi- 
 tion to the parliament of Paris, we meet, for centuries, with 
 no attempt at the local concentration of either man or power 
 in any portion of the kingdom. Every thing had to go forth 
 from the place of production in payment of the taille, and the 
 thousand other taxes : and the people were corveeable a vo~ 
 lonte, to make the roads by which it was to pass out. With 
 the Revolution was swept away the very shadow of local 
 administration. From that moment, every thing went forth, 
 to every part of Europe, and on the seas and oceans by 
 which it was surrounded.* Conscriptions were anticipated, 
 and boys of sixteen were torn from their mothers' arms. 
 None remained at home but the blind, the halt, and the lame, 
 and the stunted ; and thus was France exhausted. The 
 little pyramids had never risen, and the great ones could 
 not rise. Paris and the Emperor stood alone, columns in the 
 desert, and on the first attack both toppled over. 
 
 From that hour to the present every thing has continued to 
 go forth from the land to Paris, there to be distributed and 
 exported by means of armies and fleets; or in the payment for 
 luxuries consumed by kings, and princes, and nobles, and 
 gentleman, and financiers, and all others of the class who 
 live by managing the business of others. Seventy per cent. 
 of the whole revenue of the land-owner in this manner goes 
 forth in the payment of taxes and interest ; and hence it is 
 that the kingdom exhibits throughout a dreary flat, occupied 
 by a poor people who scratch the poorest soils, and who 
 pretend to the exercise of no single right : being still, in 
 fact, though not in theory, tailleahle et corveeable a merci et 
 a TYiisericorde. Prefects, and mayors, and deputies, and depu- 
 ties' assistants : all are provided for them. If the bridge re- 
 quires to be rebuilt, it is to be done, or not done, for, and 
 
 * "But France got drunk with blood to vomit crime, 
 And fatal have her saturnalia l)een 
 To Freedom's cause, in every age and clime." — Byron. 
 
CONCENTRATION AND CENTRALIZATION. 293 
 
 not by, them. If the road requires repair, orders therefor 
 must come from Paris. If the mine proprietor desire to 
 open his coal, he must solicit permission at Paris, and pay 
 for it. If the baker desires to open a shop, he must seek 
 permission, and pay for it. Local institutions have no exist- 
 ence. Local expenditure has none. Local manufactures, 
 or local unions, or local action of any kind, have none. 
 They can have none, for the whole product of the kingdom, 
 except what is needed for the absolute support of life, is 
 swallowed up by officers of the crown, to pass by ever}^ 
 channel to Paris, that thence it may be forced out to Alge- 
 ria for the subjugation of Abd-el-Kader ; to Spain, to pro- 
 mote intrigues in which the people have no interest ; to 
 Egypt and elsewhere, to procure knowledge of olden times 
 and of hieroglyphics, while the people at large are unable to 
 read or write their own language ; to create picture galleries 
 for a people, one-half of whom are forced to obtain bread- 
 tickets to save them from starvation : and, in short, by every 
 means that can be devised to drive it forth from the land, 
 and to prevent the concentration of man or of wealth in any 
 portion of the kingdom. The system grows with what it 
 feeds on. Under the government of the Restoration, a 
 thousand millions sufficed. Gradually it rose to twelve, 
 thirteen, fifteen, and now even sixteen hundred millions are 
 insufficient ; yet at this moment, when people pay for the 
 privilege of abandoning lands they have not means to cultivate, 
 we see complaints that the sovereign has not yet been ena- 
 bled to provide the proper retiring pensions for ministers. 
 Such being the system, w^e feel disposed to believe with M. 
 Rubichon^* that the government must eventually become pro- 
 prietor of the whole soil of France. That time arrived, and 
 it seems likely soon to arrive, the whole kingdom will pre- 
 sent a dead level of serfdom, preparatory to the recom- 
 
 * Editor of the Statistics of France, recently published by order of the 
 king. 
 
 25* 
 
294 CONCENTRATION AND CENTRALIZATION. 
 
 menceraent of troubles similar to those which marked the 
 close of the last century. 
 
 Louis Philippe is called the Napoleon of peace. His 
 only claim to the title is that he has not himself made war 
 in Europe. The French people do not desire war, nor have 
 they ever desired it. The peace of Europe has been per- 
 petually disturbed by sovereigns of France, who have 
 ruined the people over whom they presided. Louis Philippe 
 has not made war in Europe, but around him everywhere he 
 has promoted war ; and he is now exhausting France, and 
 rendering her poor and turbulent, preparatory to becoming 
 revolutionary. He has restored to the people no one right 
 of which they had been deprived ; but he has deprived them 
 of rights, and of the power to protect themselves, by in- 
 creased demands for men and money to go forth from France. 
 The thing which is called in France centralization is the re- 
 verse of concentration. The latter tends to enable men to 
 cultivate better soils, and to unite for the purpose of govern- 
 ing themselves. The former, to compel men to abandon good 
 soils and fly to poor ones ; and to submit to being governed 
 by others. Some little concentration exists in Paris, and hence 
 the necessity for bringing it under the control of cannon. 
 
 Peace at home, and the consequent growth of wealth and 
 population, have tended to produce local concentration in 
 England ; but that tendency has been, and still is, neutral- 
 ized by a thousand opposing influences. Towns and cities 
 have corporations, with privileges exercising strong repulsive 
 tendencies. Parliament centralizes the power of Eng- 
 land, Scotland, and Ireland, within the walls of St. Ste- 
 phen's, that it may devote itself more advantageously to 
 the management of the affairs of the world, and thus expel 
 the population and the wealth that might be advantageously 
 employed at home. The bank centralizes the money power, 
 that it may promote the expulsion of the wealth that escapes 
 the government, in loans to Russia and Mexico, Indiana and 
 Illinois : in making banks in Australia, and railroads in France 
 
CONCENTRATION AND CENTRALIZATION. 295 
 
 and India. The bar centralizes legal power in London, that 
 a few may acquire large fortunes, to be invested in govern- 
 ment loans that are applied to the maintenance of fleets and 
 armies. The manufacturers centralize capital in Manchester 
 and Stockport, that they may supply cheap cloths to 
 foreign countries, that would benefit themselves and Eng- 
 land much more largely were they permitted to place the 
 consumer and the producer by the side of each other. The 
 land-owner centralizes his rents, to be expended in London, 
 Paris, or Italy ; when, if they were expended where they had 
 been produced, they would have given more and better food 
 to his tenants, and more rent to himself. He centralizes the 
 road-making power in the hands of himself and his fellows, 
 that he may sell his land at high prices to the road-makers. 
 
 Every thing tends to centralize itself in London ; and 
 hence it is that picture-galleries are created, while nothing 
 is given to the great work of placing the whole people 
 in a condition to read and Jhink for themselves. Hence it is 
 that so much care is bestowed upon the relations of the peo- 
 ple of Syria, Portugal, and Italy, with each other, and so 
 little upon those of the peopleof England among themselves. 
 Hence, too, it is that bishoprics are established abroad, 
 while to the labourer's child at home is scarcely taught the 
 existence of a Deity. Hence, too, the care bestow^ed upon 
 the negro slave in America by a people surrounded by starv- 
 ing operatives and half-clothed labourers. 
 
 The tendency of centralization in England, as in France, 
 is to cause men to mind the business of others, and to 
 neglect their ow^n ; to cause them to look from home : and 
 hence it is that << ships, commerce, and colonies" is the 
 motto of England. She is now turning her attention towards 
 home ; and men are finding that if they would continue to 
 have rents they must make roads and improve their lands ; 
 and that every such investment yields twice or thrice the 
 rate of interest afforded by other modes in which labour can 
 be employed. Even this, however, is done in a manner 
 
296 CONCENTRATION AND CENTRALIZATION. 
 
 tending to concentrate wealth in a few hands. Iron masters, 
 railroad kings, and great landlords, grow rich : while the 
 mass of little capitalists are ruined by a speculation that 
 owes its origin to the centralization of power in the hands 
 of great bankers, and great legislators. Concentration is, 
 however, taking the place of centralization, and cotton mills 
 are closed as railroads are made. Food will become 
 cheaper, and clothing less cheap ; and other nations may 
 be permitted to place the consumer by the side of the pro- 
 ducer. When that time shall arrive, we shall see the ter- 
 mination of the system of government commissions for the 
 centralization of power in the hands of the few, who charge 
 themselves w^ith the management of the affairs of others : 
 paying themselves largely for the work. 
 
 In the growth of the United States, we have the exempli- 
 fication of the natural system. At first we find a few scat- 
 tered settlements gradually approaching each other ; they 
 form states, and the states at length form a union, growing 
 from year to year by the addition of new states ; yet towns, 
 counties, and states preserve each their local administration 
 and government, managing their own affairs in their own 
 way : and leaving to the general association little more than 
 the management of the affairs of the whole body with other 
 bodies beyond their limits. 
 
 In Massachusetts, the oldest of the States, this exemplifi- 
 cation is by far the most complete. Concentration of man, 
 of wealth and power, and of the human affections, exists 
 to a degree unequalled in the world : and hence the small 
 amount of business that devolves upon the public servants. 
 Wealth tends to stay at home, and to be invested where it is 
 produced ; and hence the rapid advance in prosperity. 
 Passing south and west, we find diminishing concentration : 
 diminishing power in the people to assert their right to 
 manage their own affairs in their own way : and increasing 
 power in their deputies to compel them to manage those 
 affairs in the way dictated by others. In no part of the 
 
CONCENTRATION AND CENTRALIZATION. 297 
 
 world, however, do the people do so much for themselves, 
 and ill no part is it so well and so cheaply done, as in the 
 United States at large.* 
 
 The result of the three systems is as follow^s : 
 The product of the thirty-five millions of the people of 
 France is about $1400,000,000, of which those charged with 
 the administration of the affairs of the nation take almost a 
 fourth, or ten dollars a head. That of the twenty-eight mil- 
 lions of the United Kingdom is about $1800,000,000, of which 
 those charged with the management of affairs of Church and 
 State, take about a sixth, or ten dollars a head. That of 
 the twenty-one millions of the people of the United States 
 exceeds $2000,000,000, of which the various governments, 
 local and general, county and city, take about a forty-eighth 
 part, or two dollars a head.f The product and division per 
 head are, therefore, as follow^s : 
 
 Product. 
 
 Labour and Capital. 
 
 Government 
 
 France - . . 40 - 
 
 30 
 
 10 
 
 Great Britain and Ireland - 64 - 
 
 - 54 - 
 
 - 10 
 
 United States - - 95 - 
 
 93 
 
 2 
 
 In the first, the people leave all to the government, which is 
 largely paid, and nothing is done for them. In the second, the 
 people do much, but much is left to the government, and 
 
 * '< Of all nations this is perhaps the one whose government affords the 
 least scope for glory. None has the burden of directing her. It is her nature 
 and her passion to go by herself. The conduct of affairs does not depend upon 
 a certain number of persons ; it is the work of all. The efforts are universal ; 
 and any individual impulse would only interfere with the general movement. 
 In this country political ability consists not in doing, but in standing off and 
 letting alone. Magnificent is the spectacle of a whole people moving and go- 
 verning itself; — but nowhere do individuals appear so small." — De Beaumont. 
 ■j-The taxes were thus estimated by 31. Chevalier, ten years since, for the 
 State of New York : 
 
 Federal taxes $1 40 
 
 State taxes .-.---- 19 
 
 County tax -.-.._- 31 
 
 Local school-tax -..-_- 9 
 
 $1 99 
 This may be taken as a fair average for the Union, and the variation from 
 hat time to the present is not material. 
 
 2P 
 
298 CONCENTRATION AND CENTRALIZATION. 
 
 something is done. In the last the people do almost every 
 thing, and leave little to the government, which is slightly 
 paid, and every thing is done. The first looks altogether 
 abroad, and cultivates the worst soils at home. The second 
 looks very much abroad, and cultivates a vast amount of poor 
 soils at home. The third concentrates its energies at home, 
 and passes as rapidly as it can from the poor to the better 
 soils, and labour is every day more largely rewarded. With 
 concentration, the production would be greatly increased, 
 while the necessity for government would be lessened : be- 
 cause the power of self-government would be increased. 
 
 The great prosperity of the people of the United States 
 is uniformly attributed to their abundance of fertile soils. 
 They have been supposed to be receiving wages for their 
 labour, plus the excess that elsewhere would be absorbed as 
 rent. Forced, however, to squander their labours over the 
 poor soils of the west, and to use a vast amount of the infe- 
 rior machinery of exchange, they appear to have been re- 
 ceiving only wages minus the profits of the capital which has 
 been wasted in subjecting to cultivation poor soils, when 
 fertile ones v/ere at hand waiting the demand for their pro- 
 ducts. The rich meadow-lands of Pennsylvania and of 
 various other States have remained covered with timber, 
 while thousands have sought the west, there to commence the 
 work of cultivation on dry prairie-land upon which trees 
 will not grow ; and to obtain from an acre of land thirty or 
 forty bushels of Indian corn that must be converted into pork 
 before it can reach a market, distant thousands of miles : 
 whereas, by the careful cultivation of the better soils of the 
 older States, their labour might have been blessed with re- 
 turns far greater. An acre of turnips in England is made to 
 yield twelve or fourteen tons. Acres of potatoes yield fre- 
 quently almost as much ; whereas an acre of prairie-land 
 yields but a ton of Indian corn, the most productive of all 
 grains. The meadow-land of Pennsylvania is not worth the 
 cost of clearing, because the market for its products has ao 
 
CONCENTRATION AND CENTRALIZATION. 299 
 
 existence: and until the consumer shall place himself side by 
 side with the producer, it can have none. Place him there, 
 and then nothing will be lost. The rich soils will give forth 
 their products, and the refuse will remain on the spot, to go 
 back into the ground : and thus the produce of the rich will 
 fatten the poor ones. The land round cities is valuable, 
 because the soil gives forth its produce by tons : not bushels. 
 An acre of potatoes w^U outweigh a dozen acres of wheat, 
 and its refuse will fertilize an acre of poor soil ; but from the 
 produce of an acre of wheat sent abroad to be exchanged, 
 nothing goes back upon the land. We see everywhere that 
 when furnaces are built, coal mines opened, or mills esta- 
 blished, land in the immediate vicinity becomes more valu- 
 able : and it is because that, when the consumer and the 
 producer come together, man is enabled to compel the rich 
 soils to exert their powers in giving forth the vast supplies of 
 food of which they are capable, and to pay them back by giv- 
 ing them the w^hole refuse : and until they do come together, 
 nothing can be done. To render the meadow land worth the 
 cost of clearing, the farmer must have a market on the ground 
 for his milk and cream, his veal and his beef. If compelled 
 to convert the milk into cheese, giving the refuse to his 
 hogs ; and to drive his lean cattle to market : sending also to 
 distant markets the food they would have consumed in the 
 process of being fattened, and thus losing altogether the 
 manure : the land is but little more valuable than the prairies 
 of the west, always to be had at the minimum price of a 
 dollar and twenty-five cents an acre : whereas to clear the 
 trees and stumps and level the ground might cost twenty 
 dollars : and hence it is that men fly from rich soils to poor 
 ones. The people of the United States are now scattered 
 over a million of square miles, and over that vast surface 
 they have been forced to make roads, and to build court- 
 houses, schools, and churches : whereas, had they been per- 
 mitted to follow the bent of their inclinations they would not, 
 at this time, have passed the Mississippi. The tendency of 
 
300 CONCENTRATION AND CENTRALIZATION. 
 
 man is to combine his exertions with those of his fellow men ; 
 and when we find him doing otherwise the cause will be 
 found, invariably, in the existence of some essential error in 
 the course of policy. Self-interest prompts him to this union. 
 He feels that two, ten, or twelve, acting together, can accom- 
 plish that which would be impossible to a thousand men, 
 each acting alone : yet is he seen flying off to the wilderness, 
 abandoning his home, his parents, and his friends, while 
 meadows uncleared exist in unlimited quantity, soliciting 
 his acceptance of their gifts. To produce an effect so con- 
 trary to the laws of nature, a powerful repulsive force must 
 exist. It does exist, and the extent of its power may be 
 measured by an examination of the condition of the adjacent 
 province of Canada. Concentration therein is impossible. 
 The man who should undertake there to establish a work of 
 almost any description, would inevitably be ruined by the 
 perpetual fluctuations of the English system. 
 
 But a few months since, the prices of cotton cloths were 
 high. Now, the mills are closed, and a single town exhibits 
 twelve hundred houses unoccupied. The cotton manufac- 
 turer of Canada would be ruined. Three years since, the 
 price of iron was low, because peers would permit but 
 few railroads to be made. Now, it is high, because they 
 have permitted the formation of roads innumerable. A 
 month hence railroad building may stop, and then the 
 world will be flooded with iron, and foreigners will be 
 ruined. Against such revulsions, the product of a system 
 that is to the last degree unsound, the people of the British 
 provinces have no protection. Ministers are omnipotent : 
 Parliament is omnipotent ; and the Bank is omnipotent. 
 They make war or peace : grant or refuse railroads : make 
 money abundant or scarce, at their pleasure ; and the poor 
 colonies must bear all : and hence the utter worthlessness 
 of land, as is shown by the occurrences of every day.* 
 
 * " By describing one siJe of the frontier, and reversing the picture, the 
 other would be described. On the American side, all is activity and bustle. 
 
CONCENTRATION AND CENTRALIZATION. 301 
 
 Railroads and canals are made with government assistance, 
 but they are almost unused, and so must they continue to 
 be, until the people shall acquire the power of self-protec- 
 tion : or until England shall have learned to obtain her own 
 food from her own rich soils, and to permit those who occupy 
 the other portions of the earth to consume, on the ground 
 on which it is produced, their own food, returning to the soil 
 its refuse : and thus facilitating the construction of the 
 great machine, and the development of all its wonderful 
 powers. 
 
 From first to last we may see in the great fathers of the 
 country a full belief that the proximity of the consumer and 
 the producer was essential to the promotion of agriculture. 
 
 The forest has been widely cleared : every year numerous settlements are 
 formed, and thousands of farms are created out of the waste ; the country is 
 intersected with common roads, &c. * * * On the British side of the 
 line, with the exception of a few favoured spots, where some approach to 
 American prosperity is apparent, all seems waste and desolate. * * The 
 ancient city of Montreal, which is naturally the capital of Canada, will not 
 bear the least comparison, in any respect, with Buffalo, which is a creation of 
 yesterday. But it is not in the difference between the larger towns on the two 
 sides that we shall find the best evidence of our inferiority. That painful but 
 most undeniable truth is most manifest in the country districts through which 
 the line of national separation passes, for a distance of a thousand miles. 
 There, on the side of both the Canadas, and also of New Brunswick and 
 Nova Scotia, a widely scattered population, poor, and apparently unenterpris- 
 ing, though hardy and industrious, separated from each other by tracts of 
 intervening forests, without towns or markets, almost without roads, living in 
 mean houses, drawing little more than a rude subsistence from ill cultivated 
 land, and seemingly incapable of improving their condition, present the most 
 instructive contrast to their enterprising and thriving neighbours on the Ame- 
 rican side. * * * Throughout the frontier, from Amherstburgh to the ocean, 
 the market value of land is much greater on the American than on the British 
 side. In not a few parts of the frontier this difference amounts to a thousand 
 per cent. * * * The price of land in Vermont and New Hampshire, 
 close to the line, is five dollars per acre, and in the adjoining British townships, 
 only one dollar. On this side of the hne, a very large extent of land is wholly 
 unsaleable even at such low prices, while on the other side property is conti- 
 nually changing hands. * * * I am positively assured that superior na- 
 tural fertility belongs to the British territory. In Upper Canada, the whole of 
 the great peninsula between Lakes Erie and Huron, comprising nearly half 
 of the available land of the province, is generally considered the best grain 
 country of the American continent." — Lord Durham. 
 
 26 
 
302 CONCENTRATION AND CENTRALIZATION. 
 
 They had seen the effects of provincial government. They 
 had been in the situation in which Canada now is placed, 
 and they had felt its hardships. The people of that pro- 
 vince are poor, and so must they remain pending the exist- 
 ence of the system : because, while it lasts, they must con- 
 tinue to scatter themselves over the po®r soils. There great 
 men are numerous. They are busily employed in governing 
 the poor and scattered little men, and paying themselves : as 
 they will continue to do, so long as the power of concentra- 
 tion on the rich soils shall continue to be denied. The 
 abundance of land is said to be the cause of American pros- 
 perity, but Canada has land in greater abundance, and yet she 
 is too poor to make a road : too poor to keep her own people, 
 wh® are now deserting her capital to open houses of trade 
 in New York : too poor to keep the unhappy immigrants 
 from Ireland : while the ever-growing wealth of the Union, 
 blessed as it has heretofore been with peace, has furnidied 
 means of employment for all that came direct from the Bri- 
 tish Isles and from Europe at large, and all that overflowed 
 from Canada ; and having received them, has placed them 
 at once in a situation to obtain, if they would, houses, lots, 
 and lands : homes of their own. 
 
 The right of resistance to wrong is inherent in every man : 
 and every man and every nation may be at times compelled 
 to resort to war in self-defence. War is an evil, and so are 
 tariffs of protection : yet both may be necessary, and both 
 are sometimes necessary. But for universal resistance, the 
 corn-laws would still exist, and the land-owners of England 
 would not yet have felt the necessity of looking towards 
 home. Concentration is now advancing in the United States 
 because the interferences of England are diminished, and 
 thus we see mills slowly rising throughout the Southern 
 States, filled with black operatives. Planters now raise the 
 food required for their hands, and ploughs and other agricul- 
 tural implements are made at home : and hence it is that the 
 overcharofed markets of the w^orld are reheved of the sur- 
 
CONCENTRATION AND CENTRALIZATION. 303 
 
 plus cotton, and that the planter obtains for a crop of two 
 millions more than could have been yielded by one of three 
 millions. With a large crop freights are high, and the ma- 
 chinery of exchange absorbs a large proportion of the small 
 price obtained abroad. With a small crop, freights are low 
 and prices abroad are high ; and the planter obtains a large 
 reward, enabling him to clear and drain his rich soils. He 
 is placing the consumer by the side of the producer, and 
 with every step in this course he will obtain increased re- 
 turns from a diminished surface. With each, he will im- 
 prove his own condition, while the labour of those by whom 
 he is surrounded will become daily more valuable : and with 
 each, there will be seen an increasing tendency to improve- 
 ment in their physical, moral, intellectual and political con- 
 dition. If we now turn our eyes to Pennsylvania, we see 
 the same results. To bring into activity the coal mines of 
 the eastern portion of that State, has required an expenditure 
 of $50,000,000, by aid of which they now send to market 
 three millions of tons of coal, worth $6,000,000 : all of 
 which is expended on the spot, in payments to labourers 
 employed in mining coal, constructing engines, and build- 
 ing houses. Small as is, as yet, the result, it has doubled 
 the value of every farm, over hundreds of thousands of 
 acres. The farmer has now a market for his timber, and he 
 clears his rich lands with profit to himself from furnishing 
 wood to be used in propping mines, building boats, laying 
 railroads, and building houses. He has a market for his 
 cabbages, his turnips, and his potatoes ; his veal and his 
 beef; and he is thus gradually acquiring power to force out 
 from the great treasury of food what nature intended it 
 should give forth : and that power is consequent upon the 
 fact that men have come to eat it. Close the mines, and he 
 must raise wheat to compete with the product of the dry 
 lands of western prairies : and at once must his lands decline 
 in value. To accomplish thus much required a vast sum : 
 but, as we have already seen, in every operation connected 
 
304 CONCENTRATION AND CENTRALIZATION. 
 
 with the fashioning of the great machine, the first cost is 
 the greatest. The land that yields coal yields also iron ore. 
 A hundred furnaces would produce five hundred thousand 
 tons of iron, worth, at the price in England, $12,000,000, or 
 twice as ranch as the present yield of coal : and yet these hun- 
 dred furnaces, that would bring to the producer twice as many 
 mouths as does now the coal, would cost but $3,000,000. 
 Why, then, are they not built ? Capital abounds for every 
 purpose, and iron which should be sold for fifteen dollars, 
 commands thirty dollars : and yet furnaces are built but 
 slowly. The reason is to be found in the fact that every 
 species of manufacture is a lottery, and will so continue 
 while the policy of England remains unchanged. The fur- 
 nace-builder must calculate upon paying himself in a year 
 or two, and so much time may not be allowed him. Even 
 at this moment, the increasing difficulties of the times may 
 have caused the abandonment of great lines of roads, dimi- 
 nishing the demand for iron, and lessening the price one- 
 half: and if so the furnaces and rolling-mills of Pennsyl-- 
 vania may be closed. Pending the existence of this state of 
 things in a nation possessing the power that is wielded by 
 England, all operations of trade or manufacture requiring 
 large expenditure, must continue to be mere gambling ; and, 
 as a necessary consequence, they must continue to be mono- 
 polized by the few who can afford to incur large risks for 
 the chance of large profits : and those are not the men who 
 work most economically. When the manufacture of iron 
 shall become safe, it will fall into the hands of working 
 men : and then iron will be cheap. While such fluctuations 
 shall continue, all operations in agriculture must likewise con- 
 tinue to be attended with great vibrations, consequent upon the 
 changes of EngKsh action. At one time, cabbages and po- 
 tatoes will find a market on the ground, as in parts of the 
 country now they do. At another, they will rot in the ground 
 for want of a market, as some years since they did. 
 
 The tendency of the whole system of the United States, 
 
CONCENTRATION AND CENTRALIZATION. 305 
 
 is that of taking- from the great machine all that it will 
 yield, and of giving nothing back : and that tendency flows 
 necessarily from the want of power over their own actions. 
 Concentration is natural, and dispersion is unnatural, yet dis- 
 persion flows naturally from the absence of that power. The 
 farmer of New York raises wheat, which exhausts the land. 
 That wheat he sells, and both grain and straw are lost. 
 The average yield per acre, originally twenty bushels, falls 
 one-third. Had he a market on the ground for wheat, and milk 
 and veal, he could cultivate rich soils, and the same labour 
 that now yields ten bushels would yield him forty : and with 
 each year he could clear such soils, for increasing popula- 
 tion would produce demand for timber, and stone, and clay 
 for bricks ; and with each the great machine would yield 
 forth more largely the treasures with which it is charged. 
 He sows his wheat early and it is killed by the fly. Had 
 he a market on the ground, for the produce of the rich soils 
 now covered with timber, he could so improve his land as to 
 sow it late, and then it would escape the fly. He sows his 
 wheat on bottom lands, and it is killed by frost. Had he a 
 market on the ground for veal and beef, he could enrich 
 his higher lands with the manure produced on the lower 
 ones, and then he would escape the frost. The farmer of 
 Ohio raises wheat on thin soils, and it is killed by drought. 
 He tries raising corn and wheat on the river soils, and it is 
 drowned out, or destroyed by rust. He obtains ten bushels 
 to the acre, w^hich he must sell : and the produce of his land 
 diminishes with each year. Were the consumer near him, 
 his lower lands would be appropriated to meadows for his 
 cattle, whose manure would enrich the poor soils of the 
 higher lands, and drought would not then materially affect 
 them. Another obtains thirty bushels of Indian corn from 
 rich land, that, under a proper system of drainage, might 
 yield a hundred bushels : but while he wastes his labour and 
 manure on the road, no drainage can take place. Thirty- 
 two tons of corn, sown broad- cast, have been obtained from 
 2Q 26* 
 
306 CONCENTRATION AND CENTRALIZATION. 
 
 an acre, in Massachusetts. That acre was enriched with 
 the manure yielded by western corn, consumed in the rich 
 State that has already placed the consumer by the side of 
 the producer. When Ohio shall make a market for such 
 crops, she will have them. 
 
 The Kentuckian exhausts his land with hemp, and then 
 wastes his manure on the road, in carrying it to market. Had 
 he a market on the ground for corn and oats, peas and beans, 
 cabbages, and potatoes, and turnips, he might restore the 
 waste : but the rich bottom lands must remain undrained 
 until he can place the consumer side by side with the pro- 
 ducer. 
 
 Virginia is exhausted by tobacco, and men desert their 
 homes to seek in the west new lands, to be again exhausted : 
 and thus are labour and manure wasted, while the great 
 machine deteriorates, because men cannot come to take from 
 it the vast supplies of food with which it is charged. 
 Thousands of acres, heavily timbered with oak, poplar, 
 beech, sugar-tree, elm and hickory, are offered at about the 
 government price, or a dollar an acre, and on long credit, but 
 they are not worth clearing : and they cannot be cleared, 
 until there shall arise a demand for lumber for the construc- 
 tion of houses, mills, and railroads : and that cannot arise 
 so long as men shall continue to be limited to the use of the 
 worst machinery of exchange ; wasting on the roads the ma- 
 nure yielded by the products of their poor soils, and the labour 
 that might be applied to the clearing of the rich ones. An 
 acre of wheat has been made to produce a hundred bush- 
 els, and such will, at some future day, be the produce of 
 these lands : but the consumer and the producer will then be 
 near neighbours to each other, and all the manure produced 
 by the land will go back again to the great giver of these 
 rich supplies. She pays well those that feed her, but she 
 starves those who starve her : and she expels them. 
 
 The cotton planter raises small crops on thin soils, and he, 
 too, is ruined by drought. He tries rich soils, and rains 
 
CONCENTRATION AND CENTRALIZATION. 307 
 
 destroy his crop, even 1o the extent of more than two hundred 
 thousand bales, worth many millions of dollars, in a single 
 season. Were he near neighbour to consumers of food, 
 vegetable and animal, he could raise large crops of grass 
 and food on rich lands, and manure the poor ones : and then 
 he would suffer little from drought or rain. He would have 
 always at hand, aid in harvest, and his cotton fields would 
 yield him larger crops from smaller surface. 
 
 South Carolina has millions of acres admirably adapted to 
 the raising of rich grasses, the manure produced from which 
 would enrich the exhausted cotton lands : but she exports 
 rice and cotton, and loses all the manure, and must continue 
 so to do until the consumer of veal, and beef, and corn, shall 
 take his place by the side of the producer of cotton. When 
 that time shall arrive, her wealth and population will both 
 increase : but until then both must continue to diminish. 
 
 The sugar planter raises large crops, but they too are 
 drowned out : or, if they escape the loss from rain, they 
 perish with the frost. Had he neighbours who would con- 
 sume food produced from rich land, he might raise his sugar 
 on lighter soils while draining his heavier ones ; and he 
 would have at hand supplies of labour to aid him in his 
 harvest. He now prays for the appearance of the cotton 
 worm, as the farmer of Ohio prays for the potato-rot in Ire- 
 land. The one wants hands to make his crop, and the other 
 mouths to eat it. Both are thus compelled to wish their 
 neighbours ill, and for the same reason : because the con- 
 sumer of food cannot take his place by the side of the pro- 
 ducer. The direct effect of the dispersion of man is to cause 
 vast loss of labour and manure, and to prevent the growth 
 of those feelings of kindness that are found where men pos- 
 sess the power to concentrate themselves, and to combine 
 their efforts for the general good. 
 
 The prosperity of the people of the United States is not due 
 to the abundance of land. It exists despite of the necessity 
 that has been forced upon them, for squandering their labour 
 
308 CONCENTRATION AND CENTRALIZATION. 
 
 over the surface of hundreds of millions of acres of poor 
 soils, leaving untouched the rich soils that lie beneath. It 
 exists, despite of the necessity for living apart, when they 
 might have lived in communion with each other, combining 
 their exertions for the establishment of better schools, larger 
 libraries, better houses and gardens, and all of the thousand 
 aids to the development of intellect, of taste, and of the 
 affections. It is, in despite of these obstacles, that they have 
 schools where every man is educated :* that they have colleges 
 and libraries fitted to produce men like Prescott and Bancroft, 
 Kent and Story, Irving and Cooper, Norton and Robinson, 
 Anthon and Pickering : that mind has been developed in the 
 construction of machinery,! enabling them to establish with the 
 mistress of the manufacturing world a competition that, more 
 than any thing else, has tended to produce the abolition of re- 
 straints upon agriculture ; and which in its turn tends now to 
 produce a total change in her system and that of the world, by 
 aid of which the machinery of exchange will be diminished in 
 quantity and perfected in quality : the consumer of Germany, 
 Italy, Canada, the United States and India, taking his place 
 by the side of the man who produces the food he is to eat. 
 With each step in the progress of this change, labour will 
 become more and more productive : man will learn more and 
 more to concentrate his thoughts and affections upon home : 
 he will learn more and more to unite with his fellow man, 
 and will acquire daily increasing power over the land and 
 
 * '' In New England, every citizen receives the elementary notions of human 
 knowledge ; he is moreover taught the doctrines and the evidences of his re- 
 ligion, the history of his country, and the leading features of its constitution. 
 In the States of Connecticut and Massachusetts, it is extremely rare to find 
 a man imperfectly acquainted with all these things, and a person wholly 
 ignorant of them is a sort of phenomenon." — De Tocqueville. 
 
 + " The Americans possess a quicker mechanical genius than even our- 
 selves — as witness their patents and improvements for which we are indebted 
 to individuals of that country in mechanics, such as spinning, engraving, &c. 
 We gave additional speed to our ships, by improving upon the naval archi- 
 tecture of the Dutch ; and the similitude again applies to the superiority 
 which, in comparison with British models, the Americans have, for all the 
 purposes of activity and economy, imparted to their vessels." — Cobden. 
 
CONCENTRATION AND CENTRALIZATION. 309 
 
 over himself: and he will become richer and happier, more 
 virtuous, more intelligent and more free. 
 
 That the people of the United States should have acquired 
 power thus to affect the movements of the world, has been 
 due to the fact that they have abstained from war, and pre- 
 parations for war, while other nations have wasted millions 
 of lives and thousands of millions of treasure on useless 
 fleets and armies, and in wars of desolation. That they have 
 to so great an extent remained at peace, has been due to the 
 fact that the war-making power rested with the whole peo- 
 ple : with the men who paid the taxes, each one of whom 
 had in his house and lot, his farm, his shop or mill, a little 
 saving-fund in which he could deposit his time and money; 
 and a home occupied by his wife and children, the deposita- 
 ries of his affections. For them to go to war is difficult, 
 because with them alone rests the powder to declare it ; and 
 before such declaration can take place, a majority in fa- 
 vour of such a measure must be obtained. Among them 
 is an infinite variety of interests. Some produce corn, 
 and some cotton : and others tobacco, or rice. Some ma- 
 nufacture wool: others wood or cotton. Some own ships: 
 and others steamboats. All these people may lose by 
 w^ar, and few can gain much. Under such circumstances, 
 before a majority can be obtained, much discussion is 
 needed in and out of the newspapers ; in and out of the 
 halls of Congress. Time is gained. The arguments for 
 and against the w^ar are read abroad as well as at home. 
 The cost of war is discussed on both sides, and the value of 
 the trade at risk is brought into view : and the result is a 
 settlement of the difficulty. Such is the history of the Ore- 
 gon and Maine boundary questions. Slow action is safe 
 action ; and where a nation takes the form of a pyramid, 
 with a great base and very small top, the motion is slow, and 
 appears devoid of energy : w^hereas, in one like that of 
 France, where the pyramid is inverted, the movement is 
 rapid, and energy appears to exist ; but here, as elsewhere, 
 
310 CONCENTRATION AND CENTRALIZATION. 
 
 the amount of power exerted is in the inverse ratio of the 
 time employed. 
 
 It may be suggested that concentration might have a ten- 
 dency to prevent the expansion of mind consequent upon the 
 existence of the present system, and that men would think 
 too much of home, and become selfish. Directly the reverse 
 is the effect that is produced in private and in public life. 
 The prudent man that is fond of his home, his wife, and his 
 children, has leisure to read and to think. The voluptuary 
 and the spendthrift have leisure for nothing that tends to the 
 expansion of mind. Such we see to be the case in France. 
 Every speech in the chambers, and every newspaper, abounds 
 in selfish views. If we look back through her history, among 
 sovereigns, nobles, leagues, and leaguers, the whole presents 
 a picture of selfishness not to be exceeded in the world. If 
 we look at the people, it is the same. Expansion of mind 
 and liberality of feeling cannot exist where men cultivate the 
 poorer soils, for communication is slow and diflScult ; and 
 man must mix freely with his fellow man, or he remains a 
 barbarian. 
 
 In the course of England we find far less selfishness than 
 in that of France ; but it invariably appears during long 
 periods of war, like those of India, and that long one 
 which closed with the battle of Waterloo. Each step in the 
 progress of the latter was marked by growing disregard of 
 the rights of man abroad and at home, until neutrals were 
 driven from the ocean, and the people of England were 
 driven, almost en masse, to the poor-house. If we trace the 
 progress of feeling from the days of the Edwards to the pre- 
 sent time, we may see growing liberality with increasing 
 population. If we look at the kingdom now, we may see 
 the intensity of selfishness in many of the highest, and very 
 many of the lowest orders : the one owners of extensive 
 and ill-cultivated lands, looking to corn laws for support : 
 and the other habitues of the gin shop. If we desire to find 
 liberality of feeling, it may be met in abundance among 
 
CONCENTRATION AND CENTRALIZATION. 311 
 
 the middle class of people who rejoice in the comforts of 
 home. 
 
 We have shown that in no country does there exist the 
 same tendency to concentration of affection, of feeling, of 
 action, and of wealth, as in Massachusetts: yet there maybe 
 found liberality of feeling in the highest degree. How, in- 
 deed, could it be otherwise, when every boy, however poor, 
 has in the little library of the town school, towards which his 
 father pays his little contribution, and in which the son feels 
 himself as much at home as the sons of the wealthiest, books 
 that enlighten him in regard to the modes of thinking and act- 
 ing throughout the world : and may now, or soon will, read in 
 the morning's penny newspaper the history of the proceed- 
 ings of the previous evening in every principal town in the 
 Union, from New Orleans and St. Louis to the very ex- 
 tremity of Maine ? With every diminution in the quantity 
 required of the machinery of exchange, whether of things 
 or ideas, we find expansion of intellect, liberality of views, 
 and the disappearance of selfishness. Concentration, by 
 means of which the consumer and the producer are brought 
 together, has the same effect in nations as in families ; and if 
 we desire to see improvement in moral feeling, in habits of 
 kindness, and in the disposition to make exertions for the 
 common good, we shall find it as we look more and more 
 inward, and endeavour more and more to render pleasant 
 that home in which we are placed: in which, but for the in- 
 terference of the laws of man with those of the Deity, there 
 might in all time past have existed a degree of happiness, 
 of which, in most nations, its inhabitants have had but little 
 idea. 
 
 Passing southward from Massachusetts, eldest born of the 
 family of States, we find, from north to south, and from east to 
 west, a tendency in the same directio^n: but diminishing as 
 men become more and more scattered, and the fertile soils 
 are seen more and more unoccupied. Throughout the whole 
 system exists, in a greater or less degree, the tendency to con- 
 
312 CONCENTRATION AND CENTRALIZATION. 
 
 centration of feeling and affection, as is best shown in the 
 existence of twenty-two hundred newspapers, each giving 
 to its readers the history of the proceedings of the neigh- 
 bourhood ; and in the universal tendency to have in every 
 little settlement, schools where the young can meet for in- 
 struction ; and places for the worship of the Deity, where all, 
 young and old, can meet. The liome stands first; and where 
 that is the case, there will be found in the highest degree the 
 power of obtaining knowledge relative to things distant from 
 home* 
 
 Were France to turn her regards inward instead of out- 
 ward, and dispense with fleets and armies, and foreign mis- 
 sions, and the numerous other absurdities that characterize 
 her system, the expenses of her government need not exceed 
 those of the United States. That done, wealth would increase ; 
 and her people would cultivate the rich soils instead of the 
 poor ones : and population would then advance. The United 
 Kingdom contains less than a hundred millions of acres, occu- 
 pied by twenty-eight millions of people, and the machinery 
 of government that is needed is less than in the United 
 States, where twenty-one millions occupy six hundred mil- 
 lions of acres ; for where people are concentrated they pro- 
 tect themselves : whereas, where they are scattered they re- 
 quire protection. Were the expenditure of England reduced 
 to five millions of pounds wealth would grow rapidly ; for 
 everybody would work, either with his head or his hands : 
 and the experience of every day in that country goes to show 
 
 * " I travelled along a portion of the frontier of the United States in a cart 
 which was termed the mail. We passed, day and night, with great rapidity, 
 along roads which were scarcely marked out, through immense forests. * * * 
 From time to time we came to a hut in the midst of a forest, which was a 
 post-office. The mail dropped an enormous bundle of letters at the door of 
 this isolated dwelling, and we pursued our way at full gallop, leaving the in- 
 habitants of the neighbouring log houses to send for their share of the trea- 
 sure. * * * It is difficult to imagine the iyicrcdlble rapidity with whicK public 
 opinion circulates in the midst of these deserts, I do not think that so much 
 intellectual intercourse takes place in the most enlightened and populous districts 
 of France.'''' — De Tocqueville 
 
CONCENTRATION AND CENTRALIZATION. 313 
 
 the rapid improvement of the higher orders, since it has been 
 discovered that if men would maintain their places in society 
 they must contribute towards its well-being, as the world gives 
 nothing for nothing. In no part of the world do all classes, 
 from the highest to the lowest, so uniformly labour for the 
 advancement of the interests of the society in which they are 
 placed, as in Massachusetts : and in none do men who have 
 acquired fortune exert so much influence : and simply be- 
 cause, with all their fortunes, they continue to work almost 
 to the close of life. They are always ready to unite in what 
 is needed to be done, and to contribute both time and mo- 
 ney to its accomplishment : and society respects them, be- 
 cause they promote the good of society. In less enlightened 
 parts of the Union, men of wealth do little for the promotion 
 of the interests of those around them, and the latter take no 
 interest in them. All this may equally be seen by comparing 
 the rapidly growing Liverpool wdth the stationary Bristol. 
 Concentration tends to promote activity of mind, and that 
 activity will exhibit itself more usefully abroad in the precise 
 proportion that it manifests itself usefully at home. The na- 
 tion that keeps itself poor by efforts in behalf of " the liber- 
 ties of Europe," exhibiting to the world a whole people in 
 the almshouse, does far less for the extension of freedom 
 than it w^ould do w^ere it to mind its own business, and ex- 
 hibit the beneficial effects of freedom in universal prosperity 
 and happiness. The Parliament that occupies itself with the 
 affairs of Spain and Italy, and India and Canada ; and reports 
 on coal mines, and drainage, and interments, exhibiting a 
 near approach to barbarism ; does less for liberty than a Con- 
 gress whose attention is turned exclusively homew^ard, leaving 
 the liberties of the world to take care of themselves. The 
 influence of the United States upon the world is now greater 
 than that of England, because it maintains little army or 
 navy ; and its people increase in numbers, and grow" rich by 
 minding their own business. True grandeur goes with peace 
 and prosperity, and the cultivation of the rich soils of the 
 2 R 27 
 
314 CONCENTRATION AND CENTBALIZATION. 
 
 earth. Littleness and selfishness are the invariable accom- 
 paniments of war and the cultivation of the poor soils. 
 
 The highest degree of security for the rights of persons 
 and of property that exists in the world is to be found in 
 Massachusetts : and it is there obtained at the smallest cost, 
 because there the people do most for themselves ; and those 
 charged with the duties of government do least. As we pass 
 from that State and from New England generally, south and 
 west, security diminishes, and the cost increases. In every 
 part of the world security diminishes with the increased cost 
 of government. The latter is greater in France than in any 
 other portion of Europe : and hence ifis that the government 
 builds fortifications, and that every man feels that he is sit- 
 ting on a volcano that may burst forth at any instant. In 
 that country centralization is carried to the highest point; 
 while in Massachusetts is shown the perfection of concen- 
 tration. In the one, man's necessities are great : while in 
 the other, his powers are greatest. 
 
 The PAST says to the landholder of the present : ''If you 
 desire that your property increase in value : labour to pro- 
 mote the growth of wealth, and the concentration of man for 
 the purpose of eating the food where it is produced." 
 
 To the labourer it says : "If you desire a large return to 
 your labour ; to live in your own house, or on your own 
 farm, eating your food on the ground on which it is pro- 
 duced: labour to promote the growth of wealth." 
 
 To all it says : " If you would be free, and happy, and 
 rich : labour to promote concentration, whose companions are 
 peace and wealth ; and avoid centralization, whose compa- 
 nions are poverty and war, followed by the dispersion of 
 man over the poor soils of the earth." 
 
COLONIZATION. 315 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 COLONIZATION. 
 
 Look to it from what quarter we may, we see the human 
 race descending from the great centre of the eastern conti- 
 nent, the plateau of Asia, and seeking in the lower lands the 
 means of obtaining increased supplies of food ; those first 
 cultivated having been, invariably, possessed of the smallest 
 quantity of the food-producing properties. Emigration is, 
 therefore, in strict accordance with the laws of nature. From 
 that point the first people proceed to occupy the land given 
 for their use. At every stage of their course we see them 
 arresting their march, and stopping to apply themselves to 
 the cultivation of the upper and poor soils, and by degrees 
 bringing into action the more productive ones. In the in- 
 fancy of the stately tree, its roots are short and just beneath 
 the surface ; but with each day of its growth we find them 
 spreading in all directions further from the trunk, while the 
 great tap root descends deep into the lower soils, and both 
 unite to give stability to the beautiful mass of branches and 
 foliage. Next, we find lateral roots sending up suckers, 
 w^hich, like their parent, derive their earliest nourishment from 
 the superficial soil : but w^hich, with age repeat the operation 
 exhibited in the first, and thus establish new centres of attrac- 
 tion for the various elements provided for the support of vege- 
 table life. The first still goes on, and as its height increases 
 the great root sinks deeper, while the lateral ones still ex- 
 tend themselves, and at each step stability is increased. 
 Surrounded by its descendants of various ages, diminishing 
 in height and their roots in depth as they recede from th»' 
 great centre, it forms a perfect double pyramid. 
 
3J0 COLONIZATION. 
 
 Precisely such is the course of man. He stops and la- 
 bours ; and wealth begins to grow. He builds houses ; and 
 population and wealth increase. He sends forth the little 
 shoots, while the few houses become a town. Wealth and 
 population again increase, and he is enabled to descend deeper 
 into the earth, from which he derives increased supplies. 
 The town becomes a city, whose wealth exerts a force of 
 attraction upon the population around, in the ratio which its 
 own mass bears to the mass to be acted upon. Upon the 
 old and the rich they exert a strong attractive power : but 
 upon the young and the active, it is less, and is not unfre- 
 quently counteracted by similar yet weaker forces, acting 
 in an opposite direction ; and the latter are seen preferring 
 the poor soils somewhat distant, which with their small means 
 they can cultivate, to the richer soils nearer the centre. The lit- 
 tle settlements around become towns, and new roads are made. 
 Roads are wealth, and they give value to the poor and still 
 more distant lands ; and thus is counterbalanced the attrac- 
 tion of the towns, and even of that of the great city, whose 
 force is diminished by distance ; and here we find the 
 younger and poorer members, whose fortune is in their 
 ^strength of muscle alone, establishing their abode. Popula- 
 tion and wealth continue to grow, and therewith the attractive 
 power of the city tends to increase ; but therewith further 
 roads continue to be made, and these constituents of wealth 
 tend to attract in the opposite direction. Man, therefore, 
 like all other matter, once in motion, tends to continue his 
 onward course, but is invariably attracted by wealth : and 
 thus is he subjected to forces similar to those which keep in 
 order the great planetary system : the centripetal and the 
 centrifugal : and find him where we may, he will be seen 
 advancing towards civilization more or less rapidly, precisely 
 in the ratio of the existence and perfect balance of these op- 
 posing forces. 
 
 The construction of a little log- cabin in the wilderness is a 
 strong inducement to the next settler to take up his abode in 
 
COLONIZATION. 317 
 
 the neighbourhood. If its owner possess a plough and a 
 horse, the attraction of wealth is greatly increased, if the new 
 emigrant be less rich. The two combined now attract more 
 powerfully, and the third and fourth follow. With each addi- 
 tion the attraction becomes stronger, and it is greatly in- 
 creased if these last are enabled to add to the stock of wealth, 
 oxen and horses, ploughs, harrows, and axes. Population 
 increases, and a little store arises, the nucleus of the village 
 now about to appear. At another step we find the church 
 and the school-house, and with these additions to the wealth 
 of the neighbourhood the attraction is felt throughout an in- 
 creased extent of country, until neutralized by the counter- 
 attraction of other settlements at a distance. That such is 
 the course of things may readily be proved by any one who 
 w411 trace the growth of towns and cities in the old world or 
 the new", where wealth and population grow. 
 
 Such is the natural tendency of things : but man has " sought 
 out many inventions." These "inventions" are seen in 
 the form of wars, producing taxation ; and in that of regu- 
 lation ; for he fancies, not unfrequently, that the laws esta- 
 blished by the Deity are insufficient ; and therefore makes, 
 perhaps with the best intentions, others totally inconsistent 
 with the great natural ones established for his government in 
 his relations with his fellow man. These interferences are 
 sometimes found existing to an extent so great that wealth 
 diminishes : and then increasing poverty is seen to exercise 
 a strong repulsive power, and men are compelled to increase 
 their distances from each other in the hope to obtain from 
 the miserable soils then cultivated, the food necessary for 
 the preservation of existence. Thus, we see the poor Arab 
 occupying countries that in other days afforded large returns 
 to labour, enabling a dense population to obtain abundant 
 supplies of the necessaries, comforts, and luxuries of life. 
 The same course of events may be seen, on a large scale, in 
 the histories of Mexico and India. 
 
 At other times, the repulsive forces are found existing in 
 
 27* 
 
318 COLONIZATION. 
 
 a degree causing wealth to increase but slowly in its ratio 
 to population, and towns and cities then exerting but little 
 attractive power : while from the small demand for labour, 
 and consequent poverty of the labourer, the mass to be 
 attracted is so small that no movement whatsoever is pro- 
 duced. In this state of things there wall exist very sight 
 tendency towards bringing into activity the stronger and less 
 accessible powers of the earth in lands already cultivated ; or 
 towards facilitating, by means of roads, the cultivation of 
 newer lands : and men will then be seen vegetating where 
 they are born ; doing as their fathers did, and living as they 
 lived : too poor to emigrate, and almost too poor to live at 
 home. Such is the state of things presented by many parts 
 of France and southern Germany, where man's necessities 
 are great, and his power is small. 
 
 Again, we find taxation and regulation, with but occa- 
 sional war. Wealth does grow, but still slowly. The cen- 
 tres of attraction exert small force, and the bodies to be 
 attracted are generally light, but variable in their capacity 
 to obey its influence. If now, more powerful attraction be 
 elsewhere established : if wealth accumulate more rapidly 
 in a new direction than in the original one : the smaller 
 bodies will be first attracted, and the merely labouring po- 
 pulation will be drawn in that direction, provided they pos- 
 sess within themselves the power of motion : for the mere 
 pauper is irresistibly attracted by the spot on which he 
 stands.* If the new force continue to increase and the older 
 ones remain stationary, the larger masses begin to move, 
 and now the mechanic and the small farmer are attracted. 
 Another step in the same direction exhibits moving off, the 
 larger farmer, and the man possessed of capital to employ 
 mechanics : and thus, class after class moves in regular suc- 
 cession. Such, precisely, is the case with Ireland. Twenty 
 years since, the mere labourer, or the young man of some- 
 
 * See page 155, ante, for the state of things within the limits of the City 
 of London. 
 
COLONIZATION. 319 
 
 what better condition, possessed of nothing but the ability and 
 the disposition to work, constituted the only class that fled 
 to America. By degrees, the small farmers came, but with 
 the rapid growth of wealth on one side and its almost 
 stationary condition on the other, each year has witnessed an 
 improvement in the class of immigrants ; and now men with 
 substantial, but moderate, capitals, are seen to traverse the 
 Atlantic with their wives and children : seeking the employ- 
 ment for their time, their talents, and their capital, which in 
 their father-land cannot be obtained. Again, we may see 
 continued peace promoting the rapid growth of wealth and po- 
 pulation, and the centres of attraction increasing rapidly and 
 producing a strong attractive force ; neutralized, however, 
 by taxation for preparation for future wars, and regulation 
 by which wealth is rendered stagnant and forced to seek 
 abroad the employment denied at home. The force exerted 
 is not then in the ratio of its mass. In this state of things, 
 railroads, ships, and steamers are constructed, all acting as 
 conductors to any existing opposing force. External attrac- 
 tion being thus added to internal repulsion, a strong centri- 
 fugal force is the result. Such is the condition of England 
 in relation to the United States. Her force of attraction 
 should have stood first among that of the nations of the 
 world, but it has, at all times, been diminished by endless 
 taxation for the maintenance of armies ; for the payment of 
 interest upon moneys borrowed for the support of armies and 
 fleets in past times ; and for the salaries of hosts of officers 
 whose services would soon cease to be required were eco- 
 nomy to come in fashion : by taxation for the support of an 
 immense church establishment : and by endless regulations 
 that forbid association, and tend to maintain existing mono- 
 polies in land, in trade, in banking, and in every other of the 
 pursuits of life. But for them, labour and capital would be 
 attracted to England : whereas they are incessantly being ex- 
 pelled from it. 
 * If we look now to the starting point of European civiliza- 
 
320 COLONIZATION. 
 
 tion in America, to Massachusetts, we shall find there the 
 equilibrium more perfectly established and maintained than 
 elsewhere in the world. With a soil naturally sterile for all 
 the purposes of agriculture, and destitute of coal, that State 
 supports a population of a hundred to the square mile ; bet- 
 ter fed, better clothed, better lodged, and better taught than 
 any other in existence: and there wealth grows with a rapid- 
 ity elsewhere totally unexampled. Perfect freedom to asso- 
 ciate has produced the universal habit of association, which is 
 there carried to its highest point, and therefore it is that wealth 
 tends to remain in the places of its accumulation : in the little 
 towns and cities of the State : the result of which is exhi- 
 bited in the establishment of an attractive power of prodi- 
 gious force. Her neighbours possess better food-producing 
 soils, and they have coal and iron, while she has ice and 
 granite. Among them, too, wealth grows rapidly: for in all 
 may be seen existing, more or less, the same absence of in- 
 terference to which is due her rapid growth/ By them is, 
 therefore, exercised a force of counter-attraction so great 
 that w^ere she by taxation or mischievous regulations to 
 produce a repulsive force within, wealth and population 
 would both rapidly diminish : and she would be placed in the 
 same position relative to them now occupied by Dorset and 
 Hampshire, in relation to Lancashire and Yorkshire. In 
 her the equihbrium is perfect. Labour and capital never 
 emigrate for want of demand at home, but because of a 
 somewhat greater (Remand abroad that tempts the young to 
 seek elsewhere their fortunes : and hence is it that labour and 
 skill are there so liberally rewarded. They make rich soils, 
 for they have power to compel the great machine to answer 
 to their demands ; and they themselves grow^ rich, while the 
 poor emigrant obtains, not unfrequently, little but disease 
 and death from the proximity of soils not exceeded in the 
 world for their power to afford return to labour ; which yet 
 he is unable to subject to the plough. They place the con- 
 sumer by the producer. They gather the manure yielded 
 
COLONIZATION. 321 
 
 by the soils of the west, and by its aid obtain from an acre 
 a hundred bushels of corn: while the emigrant, surrounded 
 by rich soils, obtains but forty, and sees his product dimi- 
 nish yearly, because he returns to the great machine no por- 
 tion even of the refuse of its gifts. Here we see exemplified, 
 on a great scale, the operation that may, on a small one, be 
 found in progress on the farm of every improving farmer. 
 He begins on the hill-side, and as he works down to the rich 
 soils and abstracts from them their manure, he carries it up 
 the hill to enrich the poor ones. The man of Massachusetts 
 began on the poor soils of his high and rocky land, but he 
 is gradually working his way, by force of wealth, and the 
 power and habit of union, into the richer lands of the south ; 
 and carrying up the hill, to make a soil, that manure which 
 the farmer and planter of the south and west cannot reserve 
 even to such extent as to enable them to maintain their soil 
 as they found it : still less to improve it. When the latter 
 shall have acquired the power of concentration, they will 
 keep their manures and improve their soils : but not until 
 then. 
 
 By all the advocates of the Ricardo doctrine, the prosperous 
 condition of the people of the United States is attributed to 
 the abundance of fertile land, yet, in all other countries 
 men have been most poor where land was most abundant, 
 and where the inhabitants had, apparently, most the choice 
 of soils. Fertile land, uncultivated, abounded in the days 
 of the Edwards, yet a supply of food was then obtained 
 with far more difficulty than now. It is more abundant, by 
 far, in Mexico than in the United States, yet inferior food is 
 obtained at the cost of far more labour. The whole agricul- 
 tural product of Mexico, with a population of eight millions, 
 is far less than that of a single American state. It is more 
 abundant in Russia, South America, India, Ceylon and 
 Brazil, yet in all food is far more scarce. The reason why 
 labour is in demand and largely paid is, that peace having 
 been maintained, the whole people have been engaged in 
 2 S 
 
322 COLONIZATION. 
 
 the work of production instead of that of carrying muskets 
 and sabres, and therefore wealth has rapidly increased. 
 
 Of the correctness of the view we have submitted in re- 
 gard to the tendency of wealth to attract population, the 
 reader may be fully satisfied by a glance around his own 
 neighbourhood, or over his own state or kingdom, reside 
 where he may. Such an examination will, we think, result 
 in a conviction that the law is universal in its application, as 
 are any of the laws of physics. Having so satisfied him- 
 self, he will be prepared to accompany us in an examination 
 of the several systems of colonization now in progress : the 
 Enghsh, French, American and African. 
 
 That which now chiefly occupies the English mind is the 
 one based on Mr. Ricardo's doctrine of the value of land, 
 and which was first introduced about fifteen years since, in 
 a work entitled England and America. It was there shown, 
 as the writer thought, that the system of the United States 
 tended to scatter population too widely : that land was 
 sold too cheap, and that the people would be more prosper- 
 ous if the government took from them a larger amount 
 of their capital, by way of facilitating them in the work of 
 clearing the timber and draining the meadows. In that 
 and other works subsequently published, it was also shown 
 that England possessed, in her colonies, a vast quantity of 
 land of the best description, capable of yielding a large re- 
 turn to labour : and that nothing was needed to render it 
 highly valuable but that <« a sufficient price" should be put 
 upon it, the proceeds of sales to be expended in transporting 
 labourers to the land. The idea took rapidly, and coloniza- 
 tion became the rage. To buy land at from 125. to 205. 
 per acre, and to apply the purchase-money to the transport of 
 labourers, and by this simple process to render it as valuable 
 as that which at home would command a hundred pounds 
 
COLONIZATION. 323 
 
 an acre, was abundantly captivating. The «< political econo- 
 mists" were highly delighted with it, and books containing 
 the most glowing descriptions of the vast wealth certain to 
 be realized, were published. The only difficulty appeared 
 to be that of determining what was the price at which it 
 would not be too cheap.* High-priced land was deemed most 
 likely to secure high wages to the labourers.! Men of fortune 
 invested their w^hole means in carrying out colonists and 
 implements of husbandry. Companies w^ere formed for 
 northern and southern, eastern and western, Australia ; for 
 New Zealand, north and south ; and immense grants of territory 
 were obtained from the government : coupled, however, with 
 the condition that the proceeds were to go to ridding the 
 country of that portion of its population which w^as held to 
 be surplus; that portion w^hose necessities were great, and 
 whose powers were small. 
 
 There exists in England a large class that in the United 
 States constitutes the most useful of all classes, and that 
 would be so everywhere, if permitted : but which there 
 occupies a most uncomfortable position. It is the class of 
 small capitalists : men who have time, and talents, and 
 labour, that they would desire to employ ; and a small 
 amount of capital that would enable them to render their 
 time and labour profitable to themselves, and highly so to 
 society, if opportunity could be found. Being, how^ever, 
 surrounded by monopolies, some of which result from law 
 and others from custom, while a third and great class results 
 from the concentration of the ownership of land ; that oppor- 
 tunity cannot be found, and time, talents, education, and 
 capital, hang heavily on their hands. They are too large 
 for labourers, and too small to be large farmers, and the 
 
 * "Land in the new colony, instead of being extravagantly dear, would be 
 remarkably cheap at £2 = $9 60, per acre." — Torrens. 
 
 -j- i( Wages must be higher in the new Australian colony than in the old 
 Australian colonies, as long as waste land shall continue to be sold at a higher 
 price in the new than in the old." — Ibid. 
 
324 
 
 COLONIZATION. 
 
 land-owner will have none of them. They are too small to 
 become cotton manufacturers by themselves, and the law 
 forbids their association for becoming such, by regulations 
 that tend to destroy the habit of union. They are too small 
 for bankers, and the law surrounds associations for banking 
 purposes with penalties that secure to great bankers and 
 great speculators a monopoly of that trade. They are too 
 large for shopmen, and too small to command what is called 
 «'a connection." They are too large for curates, and too 
 small for bishops : too large for apothecaries, and too small 
 for doctors : too large to go before the mast, and too small to 
 obtain a place in the cabin : and this applies to almost every 
 pursuit in life, the consequence of which is that they are 
 known as «« the uneasy class" of society. To the difficulty 
 which such men find in obtaining employment for their time 
 and their means is due the fact that heavy bonuses are given 
 for employment accompanied with small but certain re- 
 muneration ; the party thus sinking his capital in exchange 
 for an annuity to be earned by the application of his labour : 
 that such large sums are given for presentations in the church : 
 that good- wills in shops, banking houses, &c., command so 
 high a price : and to this is likewise due the vast amount of 
 business transacted by life insurance offices, whose profits 
 are derived from managing the capital of thousands who, if 
 they were permitted, would manage it far better themselves. 
 Throughout that country abound clever and well-informed 
 men with moderate means, who are willing to abandon all 
 hope of rising in the world, and to sell themselves for life, 
 for small fixed incomes : one of the strongest evidences of 
 unsoundness in the system. The same thing may be found 
 in portions of the United States. Its extent is very limited 
 where population is most dense, and men are seen obtaining 
 large returns from the originally poor soils : but it increases 
 as we pass south and west, towards those parts where land 
 is abundant, and where men obtain a poor subsistence from 
 poor soils, while surrounded by rich ones that they cannot 
 
COLONIZATION. 325 
 
 cultivate. The more perfect the power of man over land, 
 the greater is his power over himself, and the less is he 
 disposed to confine himself to the effort towards maintaining 
 his condition : abandoning the hope of improving it. 
 
 To this class, the discovery of the new principle of colo- 
 nization was a god-send. Their time and their capital were 
 almost unproductive. Instead of three per cent, consols, 
 they could have hundred per cent, lands. Home had many 
 attractions, but their situation, on the whole, was uneasy. 
 They were, in many cases, gentlemen in feeling and charac- 
 ter, but at home they could not live as became gentlemen. 
 In Australia, they could have farms consisting of the most 
 fertile lands, with rent-paying tenants, and employ their own 
 time in hunting or fishing, reading or writing ; while their 
 wives and daughters could amuse themselves with music and 
 drawing. The prospect was immeasurably attractive, and 
 accordingly the offices were besieged by applicants for land. 
 Clergymen and half-pay officers sold out and invested their 
 little fortunes in certificates that were to entitle them to fer- 
 tile soils somewhere : but where, they knew, and apparently 
 cared, not. That it was land appeared to be all-sufficient 
 for them. Lawyers and doctors, with small capitals and 
 smaller practice, w^ere eager to settle in this new El Dorado, 
 where they might combine the profits of professional occupa- 
 tion with a little rent-roll, and pass downwards through life 
 in the enjoyment of a good table, garnished with old wine. 
 Farmers threw up their leases, preferring to constitute them- 
 selves rent-receivers, and thus becoming gentlemen of lei- 
 sure, instead of remaining rent-payers. Small traders, me- 
 chanics, and men of every class in society, purchased prizes 
 in the new and grand lottery. Ships were laden with furni- 
 ture, books, pictures, materials for drawing, pianos, music, 
 flutes, fishing tackle, fowling-pieces, and all other of the ap- 
 pliances necessary for the enjoyment of perfect happiness. 
 Delicate and highly educated women, wives and daughters, 
 embarked for Australia, confident that they should find in the 
 
 28 
 
326 COLONIZATION. 
 
 enjoyment of perfect repose, ample amends for the loss of the 
 society of the friends of their youth. With their arrival in 
 the colony, the beautiful vision disappeared. The fertile 
 lands were inaccessible, and those which were accessible 
 
 '^ w^ere worthless, except for sheep-runs. High and dry lands, 
 without trees, were abundant : and bottom-lands, covered 
 with timber that they could not fell, were equally so. Both 
 were to them equally valueless. Labour was scarce and high, 
 for the order of things had been inverted, and the capitalist 
 had gone ahead of the labourer : the true emigrant. Ladies 
 and gentlemen had to wait on themselves. Li short, all the 
 troubles, and difficulties, and annoyances, so well described 
 by Mrs, Kirkland in her admirable account of the '« New 
 Home," were experienced by these deluded and unfortunate 
 colonists ; the only difference being that their's were tenfold 
 greater than her's. They had pianos and harps in abundance, 
 but they required only axes and spades, pots and kettles. 
 The bubble burst, and all that remained was blighted hope, 
 accompanied by a consciousness of having wasted fortune in 
 pursuit of an ignis fatuus. They were blind, and they had 
 permitted themselves to be led by the blind. 
 
 The whole history of these colonies is one of endless dis- 
 putes and troubles. The Government would take them into 
 its care. Governors who knew little were appointed by se- 
 cretaries who knew less, and they not unfrequently evinced 
 
 * a total want of capacity for the performance of their own 
 duties, and an equal want of respect for the rights of others. 
 As colonial secretaries had shown themselves determined to 
 be masters, and determined not to permit officers and directors 
 of associations for the promotion of the great scheme to ex- 
 ercise the powers of government, the latter were glad to throw 
 upon the shoulders of the former the burden of failure that 
 necessarily resulted from its own inherent defects ; and a 
 scene of wrangling has ensued, resulting in leaving it some- 
 what doubtful with the public whether the fault was in the 
 projection, or in the carrying out of the scheme. All that is 
 
COLONIZATION. 327 
 
 generally known is, that a vast number of people have been 
 ruined by the purchase of farms that are totally worthless : that 
 "accommodation land," as it is termed, i. e., land that was 
 calculated for the supply of beans and peas to towns which 
 never existed, was sold in lots of two, or three, or five 
 acres, at enormous prices by lucky speculators ; that the go- 
 vernment itself retailed lots, a dozen at a time, at prices 
 worthy almost of Liverpool and Manchester, in towns that 
 scarcely existed but on paper : that those prices were paid 
 because "the original and inexhaustible powers of the soil" 
 were so great that population and wealth must so rapidly 
 increase that it was difficult to tell to what size these towns 
 and cities might not grow ; and that, therefore, the govern- 
 ment thought it inexpedient to wholesale them. Concentra- 
 tion, too, was the order of the day. Men must not be per- 
 mitted to exercise the right of self-government so far as to 
 judge for themselves where they w^ould place their houses, or 
 their stores. Land was fixed at so high a price that they 
 might be compelled to remain together, and thus their powers 
 were diminished, that their powers might become greater. 
 Such was the scheme that lured to Australia tens of thou- 
 sands of accomplished men and women, possessed of mo- 
 derate competence. Many have died, while very many have 
 returned beggars from this land of promise. The thing is 
 dead, never again to be revived, though many even yet write 
 about it. But few weeks have elapsed since the necessity for 
 a new and grand plan of emigration was urged on the govern- 
 ment, and by men standing high in the political and econo- 
 mical world : to the exceeding terror of the poor Canadians, 
 who dreaded to see a repetition of the horrors of Australia. 
 
 The number of people transported to the wilderness was 
 great, and the amount of capital sunk in the speculation was 
 enormous. The larger the amount of property sent to the colo- 
 ny, the greater was held to be the profit of the mother country. 
 Tables of exports were printed, showing how large a market 
 h'vd been secured : but imports there were none. It was all 
 
328 COLONIZATION. 
 
 pure loss. For some years past emigration has, fortunately 
 for the colonies, wholly ceased. They will now proceed in 
 the natural way, cultivating the lands that are accessible and 
 using others as sheep-walks, by which means they will ar- 
 rive in time to be respectable members of the British colo- 
 nial family ; and at some future period they may become 
 sufficiently wealthy to attract further emigration, which now 
 they are not. 
 
 The scheme failed because it was in direct opposition to 
 the laws of nature : and to the lessons of the past. The wil- 
 derness offers little attraction to the labourer and still less to 
 the capitalist, large or small. In all successful colonization, 
 the former is found just ahead of the houses, and towns, and 
 roads of his predecessors, and if he pass too far ahead, he 
 starves. He prepares the way for the little capitalist who is 
 willing to pay some one for clearing a little land, and build- 
 ing a log-house ; and the latter, in his turn, smooths the way 
 for one a little larger : but all must keep within sight and hear- 
 ing of their predecessors. No one voluntarily goes upon land 
 that has not already acquired some little value by the appli- 
 cation of some labour in the construction of communications. 
 The first settler adds a little to that value by preparing a few 
 acres of land and building the house. The second increases 
 it, and thus it rises in time, from being absolutely worthless, to 
 becoming worth something, and passes gradually from one 
 or two, to six, eight, or ten dollars per acre ; but in no case 
 w^ill it exchange for as much labour as it would cost to place 
 it in the same condition, were it again reduced to its original 
 state ; and the reason that it will not do so is that with every 
 step in the progress of wealth and population better soils can 
 be obtained with less labour. That which is now required 
 for combining the lime with the clay, is not one-fifth as great 
 as was first expended in clearing and enclosing the poor 
 clay : yet the new soil thus produced is of treble power. 
 
 We know of no case in which the emigration of capitalists 
 has been successful. Few men have undertaken the work, 
 
COLONIZATION. 329 
 
 possessed of greater advantages for the work than the founder 
 of Pennsylvania, yet he sunk nearly his whole fortune in the 
 operation. He received the grant in payment of a debt of 
 ^£30,000, and after having, in twenty years, expended 
 ^£52,000, he had received less than .£20,000 : leaving him 
 minus above £62,000, for which he offered to receive £12,000 
 from the government, and relinquish his claim. The Swedes 
 and Dutch had preceded him, and thus paved the way for 
 his arrival. Without this, his loss would have been vastly 
 greater. The same experiment has been tried in other colo- 
 nies, and always with the same result. One of the Peel 
 family, a few years since, undertook the business of coloni- 
 zation, and sunk, we think, about £70,000 in a few short 
 months. At Sydney ; in Van Diemen's land ; and in that other 
 colony of Norfolk Island, fitly designated as " a hell upon 
 earth," the only title to which it can fairly lay claim ; the 
 State has been the great capitalist, and were it now to sell 
 out, it would be found that had it been an enterprise of pri- 
 vate capitalists they would have been ruined had they pos- 
 sessed the fortunes of the Barings, the Rothschilds, and 
 Astor, and fifty more such, united. Australia would not 
 now sell, in the market of the world, for one-twentieth of its 
 cost. The difference has been paid out of taxes on tea, 
 coffee, sugar, beer, &c., by which men were impoverished 
 and driven to crime, to prepare them for the new colony fit- 
 ting for their reception. 
 
 Neither is it possible, as we believe, to find an instance of 
 the emigration of people able and willing to labour, to an 
 entirely new country, that has been successful ; except where 
 they were animated by something more than the mere de- 
 sire of wealth : and the efforts of colonists not so animated 
 have always failed, except where supported out of taxation 
 upon the people who remained behind. The French colonies 
 were supported by the government, or they failed. The first 
 emigrants to Oregon would have starved, but for the exist- 
 ence of the settlements of the Hudson's Bay Company. The 
 2 T 28* 
 
330 COLONIZATION. 
 
 recent emigrants to California would have been in the same 
 condition but for the existence of a certain amount of wealth, 
 in cleared and cultivated lands, in oxen and mules, and 
 houses, belonging to the earlier settlers. The settlement of 
 South Africa, a few years since, was a failure as complete as 
 was that at the Belize, where many of the settlers starved in 
 view of the richest lands of the world, which they had not 
 means to clear and occupy. The Swedes made no progress, 
 nor did the cavaliers of Virginia, and therefore was it that 
 the latter requires slaves. The South Carolina settlement, 
 planned by Locke, with its caciques and its various absurd 
 machinery, was an entire failure. That such is the case, is the 
 consequence of a great law of nature which forbids that man 
 should profit by the superior soils until he has won them by 
 severe labour, for which they are the reward. The settler in 
 Mississippi cultivates the poor land on the hill in full view 
 of the river bottom, because the scrub-pine is more easily 
 removed than the oak ; and because he knows that if it were 
 even in his power to remove the latter, the land on which it 
 is growing is wet, and he has not the means to drain it : and 
 that he should be ruined in the attempt. He obtains a bare 
 subsistence from the poor soil on which he works, because 
 he can sometimes sell his labour to a neighbour, or borrow a 
 plough or a horse, or sell wood to a steamboat : and were he 
 deprived of the advantages thus resulting from the existence 
 of other wealth than his own, he would starve. What induce- 
 ment, then, can man have to go out of sight and hearing of 
 his fellow man ? He is everywhere, when permitted, seen 
 seeking union with him, and deriving aid and comfort from 
 that union. He finds the greatest demand for his labour 
 where that union is rendered possible by the existence of 
 wealth : for without it there can be none. In the wilderness, 
 he finds land, and land only, which is not wealth, and it 
 can therefore exert no attractive power. The more he has 
 of it, the poorer he is. Left to himself, then, man will never 
 seek it, unless the desire of emancipation from tyranny over 
 
COLONIZATION. 331 
 
 his thoughts or his actions induce him to submit to the priva- 
 tions incident thereto. That, and that alone, enabled the 
 Pilofrims to endure the horrors of the first winter on the bleak 
 shores of Massachusetts Bay. 
 
 The author of this plan of colonization saw, and saw 
 truly, in the tendency of the people of the United States to 
 scatter themselves over the wild lands of the west, a cause 
 of poverty and not of wealth. He saw that concentration 
 was needed, but he erred in regard to the means by which 
 it should be sought. He assumed that man always selected 
 first the rich soils : although he might have seen remaining 
 uncultivated in the old states, millions of acres of rich 
 lands, while men passed westward to cultivate prairie lands, 
 where water is almost a luxury. Had he seen the true cause 
 of man thus squandering his labour in the wilderness of 
 America, he would have found the true remedy for the 
 apparent over-population of Britain ; but this he did not see, 
 and therefore was it that he was led to attribute the waste 
 of labour to excess in the exercise of the right of self- 
 government : whereas the true reason was to be found in the 
 almost total absence of the existence of any power to deter- 
 mine for themselves where they would live and where they 
 would not. They would have preferred remaining at home with 
 their relative and friends, but the misdirection of the wealth 
 and labour of England produced a repulsive force, driving 
 them abroad to seek in the wilderness that which home 
 would not afford : and therefore was it that they went west 
 to obtain ten bushels of wheat per acre, leaving behind land, 
 unoccupied, that would have given almost as many tons of 
 })Otatoes, the manure from which would have enriched the 
 poor soils already in cultivation. These they could not 
 raise because too bulky for transportation, and there existed 
 no market for milk, eggs, veal or beef: and therefore was it 
 that they sought the west where they could obtain Indian 
 corn, which, being converted into pork, might perhaps be 
 received by England in payment for shirts and pantaloons. 
 
332 COLONIZATION. 
 
 The author of the scheme saw that concentration was 
 needed on the one side of the Atlantic, and therefore was it 
 that he proposed de- concentration of the people of the oppo- 
 site side, to be followed by forced concentration in the 
 southern hemisphere. Men were to be deprived of the 
 right of selecting for themselves, and to that end land was to 
 be fixed high : and they were to be made to pay twenty or 
 forty shillings an acre for that for which man had done 
 nothing, while for that in the Western States for which man 
 had already done much in the form of communications, the 
 government asked but five shillings. That he should so 
 far have erred is extraordinary : but that so many thousands 
 should have risked their fortunes and happiness on such a 
 scheme is far more so. 
 
 The colonial system of England has been, and is, hei 
 greatest curse. To acquire, and to retain, colonial subjects : 
 for as equals they have never been regarded : wealth has 
 been expended that would have made of every field in the 
 United Kingdom a garden from which the occupant, enabled 
 by its aid to bring into activity the better soils, would have 
 drawn an amount of food thrice exceeding what the poorer 
 ones have given him. So applied, it would have been attended 
 with a vast increase of wealth and population, and the roads 
 would long since have afforded facilities of communication 
 almost equalling those of the present day. To wars for 
 colonies may be attributed the whole of the present enor- 
 mous debt with which she is burthened ; and by the weight 
 of which she will be distanced in the race she has now to 
 run, with a people who, bone of her bone and flesh of her 
 flesh, have no such load to carry. To retain them now, she 
 maintains an immense army and a prodigious fleet, requiring 
 taxes to an extent that tends to produce repulsion and to 
 drive abroad both man and wealth that should remain at 
 nome. 
 
 Were she at once to grant to every colony the right of 
 self-government, a fleet as large as that of the United States 
 
COLONIZATION. 333 
 
 would perform all the duties of maintaining the police of the 
 ocean, and no army whatsoever would be needed. She 
 would thus save twelve millions, and in such a case a penny- 
 saved is more than a penny gained. That sum is the inte- 
 rest of four hundred millions, or half of her whole debt. 
 The vast sums now wasted on preparations for war would 
 speedily extinguish that debt; and were its reduction once 
 fairly commenced each man would feel himself lightened 
 of a load, while the increase of his productive power would 
 enable him to bear more easily that portion which remained. 
 Wealth would grow with greatly increased rapidity, and its 
 application to agriculture and to the extension of roads and 
 railroads would produce an increased demand for labour, 
 with increase of wages tending to enable the labourer to 
 improve his physical, moral, and intellectual condition. 
 Population would then increase more rapidly, and the 
 demand would grow more rapidly than the supply. Every 
 new appropriation of capital to a road would produce farther 
 demand for capital for engines and cars ; for ploughs, and 
 spades, and pickaxes, and tiles, and lime, and marl, and 
 houses, and shops, and saw-mills, and grist-mills: and then 
 everybody, labourer and capitalist, would have reason to be 
 content, for the value of capital would rise with the increased 
 demand at home, resulting from the habit of looking 
 towards home ; and from the growih of the power of the 
 great food-producing machine. We now see the three per 
 cents., which were for a long time worth 107, selling at 80. 
 With each step in the progress of freedom, mere annuities, 
 whether for the use of capital or labour, would be less 
 sought after, and consols would, and will, fall to 70, and 
 perhaps far less. 
 
 Those who doubt this may satisfy themselves by looking 
 to the continent, and seeing at how low a rate money is, 
 and in times past has been, supplied to governments in some 
 of the poorer countries of Europe. When their trade shall 
 become more free wealth will increase more rapidly, and th 
 
334 COLONIZATION. 
 
 rate of interest will rise as it has done in England. Govern- 
 ments will then dispense with armies and wars, for both will 
 become more costly. The capitalist will then have larger 
 profits, for he will manage his own capital : and the labourer 
 will have larger wages, for he will manage his own labour. 
 The true interests of both are therefore identical, and nothing 
 can injure one without equally injuring the other. The price 
 of money rose during the long war, but the price of commo- 
 dities advanced in a more rapid ratio, and the capitalist 
 received less in quantity while receiving more in proportion. 
 The interest of jGIOO will now purchase twice the amount 
 of comfort that it would have done when consols were at 48. 
 Freed from the burden of colonies, any and everywhere, 
 she would need no army abroad and she would require none 
 at home, because increasing prosperity resulting from the 
 abolition of taxes, would be attended by increased disposi- 
 tion for the performance of duties, and increased respect for 
 the rights of others, among the whole people, tc Strikes" 
 would become less abundant among those who work, because 
 tax-gatherers and receivers ; and pensioners, and sinecurists, 
 and admirals, — red, blue, and yellow ; the class which pre- 
 fers not to work : would be less numerous. She would need 
 no army for home defence, for harmony would prevail 
 throughout the whole system, taking the place of existing dis- 
 cord ; and millions of men, feeling that they had rights, and 
 possessing over their neighbours the same advantages that 
 enabled a few thousand yeomen, at Cressy and Poictiers, to 
 triumph over the countless mob of princes, nobles, and gen- 
 tlemen to whom they were opposed, would be at all times 
 ready to defend their homes, their wives and children ; while 
 railroads would enable her, at a moment's notice, to place them 
 where their services were needed. Her apparent strength 
 would be less, but her real strength would be far greater; 
 and it would increase with prodigious rapidity. Wealth is 
 strength, as has been shown, time after time, by the people 
 of the Netherlands and Holland, and of the free cities of Ger- 
 
COLONIZATION. 335 
 
 many, in their ability to defend themselves against the in- 
 vading armies of France : and as would have been shown by 
 Italy, had she not possessed within her bosom, in the Church, 
 a power deriving from abroad its ability to produce division 
 and weakness at home. Wealth results, not from the labour 
 of men who carry muskets, but from that of those who carry 
 spades and pickaxes : and if the former do not give wealth, 
 they cannot give strength, physical, moral, intellectual, or 
 political. Ten millions spent in railroads give more strength : 
 more power of self-protection and advancement : than could 
 be given by all the fleets and armies of the world assembled 
 at a cost of hundreds of millions. 
 
 Were the millions now thus spent applied throughout 
 Great Britain to improving the great food-producing machine, 
 the result would be a constant increase in the power to make 
 more roads ; to cultivate still better soils ; to participate in the 
 advantages of union for the maintenance of perfect security at 
 home, and against interference from abroad; and to unite for 
 the dissemination of instruction throughout the whole body of 
 the people : tending thus to make them feel that they could 
 protect themselves, and that without either fleets or armies. 
 Seeing this, none would venture even to hint invasion. In- 
 stead of fort-building, and " great activity in the dock-yards," 
 such as has been seen even within the last three years, forts 
 would be dismantled and their cannon would be melted, 
 wMe the vast machinery of the dock-yards would be applied 
 to the production of machines destined for the improvement, 
 and not for the destruction, of man. With every step in the 
 progress towards increased wealth and population, causes of 
 quarrel would diminish, while the self-defensive power would 
 be increased. She is now indisposed to quarrel with the 
 United States, because they are populous and rich ; but she 
 feels small annoyance at a dispute with the scattered people 
 of Buenos Ayres, who have land in abundance, and therefore 
 cultivate the poorest soils. The people of the United States 
 use spades and ploughs. They dispense with armies and 
 
336 COLONIZATION. 
 
 fleets, and hence their self-protective power. Were they to 
 adopt the conscription for land and naval service^, and the 
 endless taxation of France, they v^ould soon become as weak 
 as France. That power has alw^ays maintained the largest 
 armies in Europe ; and she has, with the exception of Eng- 
 land, expended most largely on her fleets, and to what pur- 
 pose ? From the days of Rollo to those of Blucher and Wel- 
 lington, she has shown herself, when the time of trial came, 
 almost incapable of self-defence, whether on her land or on 
 her sea frontier. The tendency of her whole system has been 
 to take from the labourer the wealth that he produced, and 
 give to those w^ho did not labour the disposal of it, and they 
 have invariably disposed of it to suit their own purposes. 
 
 Such, too, has been the tendency of the colonization sys- 
 tem of England. It has given to secretaries and those who 
 desired to be secretaries ; admirals and generals, and those 
 who sought to place themselves at the head of fleets and 
 armies; the disposal of wealth that they had not laboured to 
 produce : and the consequence has been waste, for no man 
 economizes in the expenditure of that for which he does not 
 work. Nor has that been the only mode in which such effect 
 has been, and is now being, produced. Large sums have 
 been forced to the West India islands, to be managed — and 
 mismanaged — by agents. There, wealth did not grow: 
 and population was diminished because of the denial to the 
 slave of the comforts necessary for his physical and moral 
 improvement : and necessary to increase of numbers. Large 
 sums go to Canada, for the construction of canals, forts, &c., 
 to be expended by those who take no part in their produc- 
 tion. Large sums have gone to Australia, and those who 
 desire to understand the mode of obtaining small results with 
 great means, may study with advantage the proceedings 
 of several of the governors. Large sums are on their way 
 to India, to make railroads ; but those who are to spend 
 them are not those who labour to produce them.^The whole 
 system of colonization tends to withdraw capital from the 
 
COLONIZATION. 337 
 
 control of its owner, and diminishes in that respect the power 
 of self-government ; and by that it may be judged. When 
 wealth is permitted freely to be invested, it stays at home ; 
 as is the case in New England to an extent unknown in the 
 world : and it is so, simply because every man has near him 
 a little money-shop, or manufacturing establishment, in which 
 he invests his twenty, fifty, or one hundred dollars, as 
 fast as earned, preparatory to the purchase of a little farm ; 
 the opening of a shop ; or the establishment of a little fac- 
 tory ; and by the very act making a market for his further 
 accumulations : enabling the farmer to sink deeper into the 
 rich soil, to increase his products, and to become a customer 
 to the new store. Wealth, there, drops gently as the dew, 
 and everywhere produces the same effect in affording life 
 and nourishment to all, the little and the great : stimulating 
 the one to exertion that he may become great, and the other 
 to increased exertion that he may maintain his position. If 
 we look to other parts of the Union, we shall see States with- 
 drawing capital from the control of their owners, to be 
 wasted in making canals and railroads that would have 
 been profitable had they been made by the men who la- 
 boured to produce the means by which they were made : for 
 then they would have been made economically. Pennsylva- 
 nia has, by restriction, driven wealth out of the State, to 
 be sunk in banks and railroads in Mississippi : while borrow- 
 ing the capital which Englishmen were not permitted to use 
 at home to make their own roads and canals. What has been 
 the consequence ? Waste, loss, and ruin — temporary at least 
 — every where. /If, now, we inquire who have been the small- 
 est losers by the calamitous events of the past ten years, we 
 shall find them among the people of New England — the men 
 w^ho cultivate the hardest soil in the Union : that which would 
 appear to afford the least chance for profitable investment : 
 that which produces ice and granite in abundance, but 
 affords no coal. There wealth increases more rapidly than 
 elsewhere in the world ; and there it tends most to remain 
 2U 29 
 
338 COLONIZATION. 
 
 under the direct and immediate control of the owner. Nev- 
 ertheless, the Yankees are the greatest colonists in the world; 
 and there are none so ready to drive a railroad through New 
 York or Ohio, or to seize on the profits of a speculation in 
 opium, or in bird's-nests : but when they do so, they take 
 care that the men who manage their concerns abroad shall 
 be owners like themselves, directly interested in the result.* 
 The great capitalist needs the aid of the small one who has 
 little but his time and talent to sell ; and hence the latter 
 can always find a market for that time and talent, and has 
 always before him the knowledge that he can rise if he will. 
 He goes abroad, to stay permanently in Illinois, or tempora- 
 rily in Canton or the Sandwich Islands, not because he must, 
 but because he will. His self-government is perfect, because 
 that of the capitalist is so ; and hence it is that colonization, 
 
 * "No fact which I have met with has so much surprised me as the extra- 
 ordinary diffusion of the American commerce, and the great spirit of enter- 
 prise manifested by them. In many places, where the British merchants can 
 find no commerce apparently worth their attention, the Americans carry on a 
 lucrative and prosperous trade ; and, in half-civilized countries, where the 
 largest profits are always realized, the Americans are so eminently successful, 
 that the British merchant cannot attempt to compete with them. 
 
 " This appears to arise from the following circumstance : — The masters of 
 the American vessels engaged in this kind of trade are, in many instances, 
 whole, and, in all other instances, part, owners of the vessel and cargo ; 
 whereas masters of English vessels have frequently little or no interest in the 
 vessel and cargo ; and are, moreover, frequently tied down by directions from 
 the firm for whom they act. The difference between these two cases is very 
 great. The American can turn every circumstance that occurs to account ; 
 he can instantly enter into any speculation that holds out a prospect of suc- 
 cess ; and can act with rapidity and decision, on his own responsibility. The 
 English master, on the contrary, has usually a prescribed line of duty to fulfil, 
 from which he cannot vary." * * * 
 
 " While this port (Mombas, on the east coast of Africa,) was in the pos- 
 session of the English, but one British merchant vessel arrived there, yet three 
 American vessels entered the harbour. The master of the English vessel was 
 not a part owner — the Americans were all part owners, and carried on a lu- 
 crative trade, shipping a large quantity of ivory ; whereas the English master 
 was placed in a very unpleasant position ; for, owing to the orders he had re- 
 ceived from his owners, he had not been able to ship a cargo suited to the 
 market of Mombas; and if Lieut. Emery had not kindly cashed a bill for 
 him, the speculation would have been a total failure." — Greyh Expeditions 
 in South Australia. 
 
COLONIZATION. 339 
 
 both of labour and of capital, goes on with such rapidity 
 where the tendency to local investment is so great. In no 
 part of the world are the necessities of man so small : in 
 none are his powers so great. 
 
 Such w^ould become the case in England, were colonies 
 abandoned, fleets sold, and armies disbanded. There would, 
 however, be no more dividends of Indian taxes collected 
 on the principle of Mr. Ricardo, and called rents as an ex- 
 cuse for grinding the poor wretch who is already so reduced 
 by taxation that he cultivates the earth unaided by spade, 
 reaping-hook, cart, horse, or mule; who then divides the pro- 
 duce equally betw^een himself and the collector of rents ; then 
 gives half the balance for the privilege of eating a little salt 
 in his bread ; and finally pounds the grain with a stone, for 
 want of a mill : yet happy if, after affording him a handful 
 of rice per day, the balance be sufficient to enable him at 
 occasional intervals to -purchase a rag to cover his naked- 
 ness. Neither would there be so large a number of profita- 
 ble offices to divide among younger sons of wealthy land- 
 owners, but fathers would then see the necessity of provid- 
 ing for the children whom they had begotten for their own 
 good pleasure ; and the small landholder, cultivating his 
 ow^n little farm for his own profit, and therefore w^ell culti- 
 vating it, would gradually replace the great landholder and 
 his great son, the poor cornet of dragoons, or navy lieute- 
 nant, execrating the peace and hoping for war, plunder, 
 and promotion ; and that other son wdio seeks employment 
 in the Church as the best means of advancing his condition 
 in life, and watches eagerly for the death of the incumbent 
 of his father's wealthy parish ; or pays a large price for the 
 privilege of participating during the week with the farmer by 
 aid of the forced division of crops which he has not laboured 
 to produce, while teaching on Sunday the great lesson, <' do 
 unto jour neighbours as ye would that they should do unto 
 you." Rents w^ould then rise rapidly in amount, but the 
 proportion w^hich they would bear to the product w^ould de- 
 
340 COLONIZATION. 
 
 crease rapidly. The man who worked would produce more 
 and would take a larger proportion of that increased quan 
 tity as the reward of the labour and skill expended : while 
 he who did not work, although receiving more in amount, 
 would find the standard of living rise more rapidly than his 
 means, and would see that if he did nothing — if he stood 
 still while the rest of the earth moved — he would be left be- 
 hind in the race. The class of great men ; and the uneasy 
 class, with good blood in their veins, and little money in their 
 pockets ; and the pauper class : all of them, in all ages and 
 nations, the disturbers of the world : w^ould disappear, and 
 the happy and prosperous class ; the lovers of peace and har- 
 mony; of labour, physical and intellectual; of instruction, 
 secular or religious ; of wealth, as a means towards the 
 attainment of a great end, and not as the end itself; of that 
 equality which secures to all men the exercise of those rights 
 which they desire to enjoy themselves, — and secures it in the 
 ratio of their performance of their own duties ; — would daily 
 increase in number : and with that increase would England 
 grow for ages in population and wealth : leaving it for future 
 advocates of the Malthusian theory to determine how many 
 centuries were to elapse before it would become necessary 
 to establish w^hat is called " systematic colonization," by 
 which is meant the substitution of the will of the few who 
 administer the governeQent and expend capital w^hich they 
 do not labour to produce, "for that of the many who do labour 
 and wish to be permitted to determine for themselves where 
 they will be employed, and what they w^ill do with their 
 wages. Systematic colonization means nothing but the forced 
 export of men who would live at home if they could, and 
 who could do so if taxation and regulation permitted ; and 
 its advocates will invariably be found among those who de- 
 rive their means of support from the proceeds of taxation, 
 regulation, and monopoly. 
 
 It is impossible to look at England, or Scotland, without 
 seeing that all this is now going on. The landlord is waking 
 
COLONIZATION. 341 
 
 up to the fact that he is losing his place in society, and that if 
 he would keep it he must work, and his capital must work. 
 His rents increase, but the standard of living rises and he must 
 economize, or his rents will cease to grow. The outlet for his 
 sons in the army, and navy, and church, and colonies, is be- 
 coming daily less, and children and grandchildren become 
 more numerous, and fewer of them die off. He must provide 
 for them, for the people will not. Wars are not as profitable as 
 heretofore : and the prospect is that in the lapse of a little time 
 they will cease to occur. Cotton manufacturers, and spin- 
 ners and traders' sons, are now at the head of affairs, and 
 they have small respect for men who are fond of spoil, 
 whether in the form of the plunder of a city, or of a treasure- 
 ship : or in that of tithes. They are, it is true, the repre- 
 sentatives of the past unsound commercial policy, but they 
 are far better than the men who represented her military 
 policy. Both, however, are part and parcel of the same 
 system, and both will eventually disappear. All are learning 
 to work, the consequence of which is that at no time were the 
 better soils so rapidly brought into cultivation ; at no time 
 has the reward of labour so rapidly increased : and at no 
 time has there been seen so strong a tendency to the ap- 
 proach of the period when every man would feel that con- 
 sideration by the world is the reward of service rendered to 
 the world by the exercise of physical and mental faculties : 
 and that if he desire to eat and drink largely, he must work 
 steadily and devotedly : but at no time has the reward of 
 service been so great. The habit of labour brings the habit 
 of peace ; the sense of security ; the love of literature and 
 art ; the happy home, and the leisure for its enjoyment, 
 rendered doubly grateful by the necessity for exertion of the 
 faculties of mind and body at other times and elsewhere. 
 The great landholder no longer vegetates. His wife no 
 longer dies of ennui. Every faculty of mind and body is 
 stimulated into action, and man is now learning to live by 
 helping those around to live. With each step in this pro 
 
 29* 
 
342 COLONIZATION. 
 
 gress, the power of man over land, and over himself, will 
 grow : food will become more abundant : and schemes of 
 colonization will tend to disappear. 
 
 More than ten centuries have elapsed since France com- 
 menced the work of colonization, under Pepin and Charle- 
 magne : substituting the barbarities of the feudal system for the 
 peaceful government of the Lombards, under which northern 
 Italy was then rapidly advancing towards civilization. From 
 that day to the present she has sent colonies throughout 
 Italy, and into Spain, the Netherlands, Holland, and Ger- 
 many ; but they have always consisted of the uneasy class : 
 that of gentlemen whose pride of family forbade that they 
 should work, and whose wealth went little further than was 
 needed for the provision of such weapons of offence as were 
 necessary for the plunder of the rich cities of those coun- 
 tries : in turn, Ghent and Metz, Turin and Barcelona, Milan, 
 Florence and Naples. The consequence has been that they 
 have never taken root, and that the limits of France are now 
 more contracted than when the process of colonization com- 
 menced. Even ancient Gaul itself is still divided into 
 several kingdoms, between which there exists the same 
 feeling of antipathy that but a little while since was felt by the 
 Bourguignon and the Armagnac, the Breton and the Norman, 
 the Gascon and the Provencal. War has produced depopu- 
 lation and poverty, driving the remaining people to the 
 poorer lands to labour by themselves ; whereas peace would 
 have produced wealth and population and union: and all Gaul 
 would, if permitted, long since have formed one strong and 
 independent state, intersected in every direction by roads 
 and canals, and requiring neither armies nor fleets for the 
 preservation of its independence. The attractive power of 
 wealth has never been permitted to exist, even at home ; for 
 the colonists who returned gorged wdth the plunder of 
 
COLONIZATION. 343 
 
 Italian cities, were always eager for the plunder of Italian 
 merchants and usurers who might, incautiously, venture 
 wuth in their grasp : and when they could not be found, they 
 were always prepared to exercise their skill upon their 
 fellow countrymen. Wealthy England and Flanders exer- 
 cised a strong attractive power and drew largely from 
 France, which thus lost her most industrious people ; the 
 men w^ho cultivated the richest soils: and there remained 
 only those who could not fly, and who, limited to the 
 cultivation of the least fertile soils, remained poor, and thus 
 has France itself to this day remained poor. 
 
 Poor people cannot emigrate. Voluntary emigration from 
 France has therefore never existed. For centuries has she 
 prosecuted the work of colonization, but always with ill 
 success : for the government has been invariably the leader, 
 and the work has been attempted with the sword, and with- 
 out the spade. The English colonies in America sought 
 w^ealth and not power. They moved on gradually, appro- 
 priating land as they needed it for cultivation. France 
 allied herself with the savages, and endeavoured to seize on 
 the whole country north and west of the Ohio and the Missis- 
 sippi. The one prospered and desired peace, while the 
 other was poor and restless : and the result was that the 
 peaceful man expelled his poor and troublesome neighbour, 
 as the only means of preserving peace. The Puritans and 
 Quakers remained : ultimately, perhaps, to combine the whole 
 continent in one great union, while France has scarcely a 
 foot of ground upon it. Thus has the spade triumphed over 
 the sword. 
 
 The French ministry were of the Ricardo school of politi- 
 cal economists. They thought abundance of land with fine 
 timber and flooded by innumerable streams, meant wealth ; 
 and they gladly undertook the settlement of Louisiana, sending 
 thither the rogues and vagabonds, and prostitutes, of Paris, 
 from whose labours large returns were looked for. All the 
 world was eager for a division of the profits; the excitement 
 
344 
 
 COLONIZATION. 
 
 exceeding that which but recently has prevailed in England, 
 in the precise ratio which the gambling spirit of poor and 
 anti- commercial France, accustomed to set her whole fortunes 
 on the hazard of a battle, was greater than that of wealthy 
 and trading England. The difference between the two con- 
 sisted, however, only in the extent to which the madness was 
 carried. 
 
 Everywhere else the result has been the same. The Eng- 
 lish colonists of India went partly for the purposes of trade, 
 and England had power to maintain trade. Those of France 
 went to fight, because the power to maintain trade did not 
 exist. France exported chiefly men and arms, and with 
 those commodities the market of India was already over- 
 stocked. The merchant expelled the soldier. 
 
 She is now colonizing Tahiti and Algeria, as she did Al- 
 sace, Lorraine, and Franche Comte : by first converting them 
 into deserts. Algeria is said now to be flourishing, and it 
 may so continue as long as she shall continue to send annu- 
 ally fifteen or twenty thousand men, and some hundreds of 
 milhons of money to pay them ; but when those supplies 
 shall cease, Algeria will follow the course of all her previous 
 colonies. There are now strong inducements to go there. 
 The man who stays at home pays those who go, and taxes 
 swallow up one-fourth of the whole product of the kingdom. 
 If he go himself, he ceases to be a payer and becomes a 
 payee. 
 
 Were the colony this day put up to sale, it would not pro- 
 duce, in the market of the world a single dollar. France 
 has wasted a hundred thousand hves, and many hundred mil- 
 lions of money in buying land possessing no intrinsic value 
 whatsoever, while holding twelve milHons of acres of her best 
 soils still in forest : while her coal and iron are yet almost 
 untouched : while her marl and her lime remain where na- 
 ture placed them, beneath the poor soils now cultivated for 
 want of means to bring into activity the better ones : while 
 meadows remain undrained and untouched by the spade or 
 
COLONIZATION. 345 
 
 the plough : while a large portion of her land is held in com- 
 mon : Avhile the product of her agriculture is but five times 
 the seed : while importing corn, and coal, and iron : and 
 while almost destitute of roads or canals by which the little 
 } roduce of her agriculture might reach a market. She wants 
 wealth, and she buys more land ! Such was her policy in 
 America, and w^e have seen the result. Such will it be in Af- 
 rica. The people of France are too poor to found colonies, 
 and France is too poor to keep them when founded. If she 
 cannot now, after thousands of years of occupation, with the 
 advantage of the wealth that has been slowly accumulated, 
 cultivate her good soils at home, what hope can there be that 
 she will do so abroad .'' There is none. We heard of the 
 prosperity of Australian colonies, and we now hear of that of 
 Algeria. The one was, and the other is, supported by taxa- 
 tion upon the people at home, and the prosperity of the one 
 is as factitious as was that of the other. The characteris- 
 tics of French colonial policy are restlessness and feebleness. 
 That of all successful colonies is quiet energy. 
 
 The colonization of the United States differs from that of the 
 two countries we have considered, in the great fact that they 
 desire no subjects. The colonists are equal with the people 
 of the States from which they sprang, and hence the quiet 
 and beautiful action of the system. The poor and widely 
 scattered three millions of 1783 : inhabitants of the thirteen 
 provinces : have grown to more than twenty millions, inhabit- 
 ing thirty states ; of whom every man exercises independent 
 action, or is in train soon to do so, even although now deemed 
 and held to be a slave. Population has increased with won- 
 derful rapidity, but wealth has far outgrown it. The two 
 forces — the centripetal and the centrifugal — here balance each 
 other perfectly, so far as regards internal action : but external 
 action increases greatly the centrifugal force, and thus pre- 
 2X 
 
346 COLONIZx\TION. 
 
 vents, to a vast extent, the growth of wealth, of comfort, 
 of civilization, and of happiness. Factories, steam-engines, 
 and other articles of wealth attract the labourer towards the 
 place on which he stands. Railroads and canals attract him 
 towards uncleared land : or half-cleared land. On one hand, 
 he sees the little bank : or the manufacturing corporation : 
 saving funds, in which he may deposit the surplus of his earn- 
 ings until ready to open a store : or buy a little farm : or 
 commence manufacturing on his own account. On the other, 
 he sees the larger farm, of eighty, one hundred and sixty, 
 three hundred and twenty, or even six hundred and forty 
 acres, that may require the unceasing labour of his life to 
 bring into cultivation : but which will be his own, and an 
 inheritance for his children. That is to be his savings' bank. 
 In it he deposits all the spare half hours and quarter hours 
 that, w^orking for another, would be wasted. He has every 
 inducement to economize his time and money, for his farm 
 wants, and will pay for, both. He may be an independent 
 farmer, if he will : and he does will it. Such would, how- 
 ever, more frequently be the case, could he remain at home. 
 Throughout all the old states land is held in quantities far 
 too large for thorough cultivation, and the result is seen in 
 the fact that meadow-lands remain undrained : that men 
 still cultivate clay unable to bring it into combination with the 
 lime : and that vast bodies of wood still cover the most fertile 
 soils ; whereas, were concentration permitted, wealth would 
 grow at double pace : land would become more divided : and 
 men would obtain from twenty acres highly cultivated, a re- 
 ward twice exceeding that which they have from farms in 
 the wilderness ten times as large. 
 
 The government facilitates this operation, by purchasing 
 the lands from the poor remnants of the original occupants 
 now fast passing, and necessarily so, out of existence. It 
 pays them well, by granting them annuities far exceeding 
 any value their land could have obtained had not the white 
 man brought with him the love of labour ; the habit of order 
 
COLONIZATION. 347 
 
 and economy, and the consequent power of accumulating 
 wealth : qualities which they themselves did not possess. 
 By their aid the poor Indian is enabled, at every step of 
 their progress, to acquire food more readily than before, as 
 all may see who will compare the situation of the distant 
 tribes with that of the nearer ones. The habits of the savage 
 are, however, wasteful. He hates labour, and he loves rum 
 and war ; and he cannot avail himself of the advantages that 
 are offered to him by civilization. 
 
 The price that is paid appears to be, and is, small, yet it 
 is more than they are really worth, and they are resold for less 
 than cost : as we have already showm. They are held in 
 trust, not for Americans alone but for the world. The man 
 of every clime, American or English, Dutchman or Dane, 
 Swede or Norw^egian, Frenchman or German, Catholic or 
 Episcopalian, Calvinist or Lutheran, Mohammedan or Pagan, 
 may claim and receive his share in the trust, on payment of 
 a sum that barely indemnifies the community by whom they 
 have been acquired, for the cost of purchase, survey, and sale : 
 and without including a thousand expenses incident to the 
 operation, among which may be included nearly the whole 
 cost of the army, as its chief employment has heretofore been 
 that of providing for the security of the persons and property 
 of settlers on those lands. 
 
 Here we may see and trace the true cause of value in 
 land. The millions of acres belonging to the savage are 
 valueless. He starves, surrounded by rich meadows, covered 
 with the finest timber. The white man approaches, and roads 
 are made : and land acquires some value, for which he is paid, 
 although he has contributed nothing towards its production. 
 It is surveyed, and by this simple act it acquires more value. 
 At length it reaches the minimum price, and some of it is 
 sold. Further roads and settlements are made, and more 
 is sold, and when all shall come to be disposed of, the true 
 account of expenditure and receipt will not balance. There 
 will remain a large debit to the public lands, although it will 
 
348 COLONIZATION. 
 
 not appear, much of it being charged to other accounts : and 
 most of it having been paid by individuals in the form of 
 taxes. If land had any intrinsic value, there would be a 
 large profit. As it has none : as it always sells for less than 
 cost : there is a loss. 
 
 The first settlement made the wave of colonization rolls 
 on, the poorest emigrant taking the lead and preparing with 
 his small means a little of the poorer land, and a little 
 house, for the better man that is to follow. To him he sells 
 his improvements, pushing on ahead to perform again the 
 same operation. The settlement grows to be a State, and 
 quietly forms for itself a constitution of government, when, of 
 right, it takes a place in the Union. From first to last, self- 
 government is the rule. The colonist goes w^hen and where 
 he pleases, consulting nobody. He and his fellows make 
 their own constitution of government, and elect their own go- 
 vernors, legislators, members of Congress, and local officers. 
 
 The beautiful effect of the habit of self-government is fully 
 shown in the recent settlement of Oregon. The people were 
 beyond the limits of any territorial government, and they 
 formed a system for themselves ; doing it quietly and perfectly : 
 and now we have the annual message of the governor of the 
 little State as regularly as that of the President of the Union. 
 They have, happily for themselves, no great men among 
 them, and therefore all may become great. 
 
 To those familiar with the land system of the United States, 
 it is scarcely necessary to speak of its beautiful simplicity : or 
 of the care with which it guards, so far as law can do so, the 
 rights of the poorer class of settlers, w^ho squat upon lands 
 before the time arrives for selling them. In perfect harmony 
 with this simplicity is the quiet grandeur of its results : so 
 widely different from those of the recent settlements in Aus- 
 tralia. The one is natural, the other systematic colonization. 
 The one is governed by the practical good sense of men who 
 think and act for themselves, while the other is directed by 
 men who think that their fellow men are not competent to 
 
COLONIZATION. 349 
 
 determine what is best for their interests. The one class 
 know that men must scatter themselves over the poor lands 
 before attempting the rich ones. The other thinks that if 
 land were put at " a sufficient price," men might be com- 
 pelled to cultivate the rich ones first. The only perfectly 
 successful colonization in the world is that of the United 
 States : and it is successful because its practice is in direct 
 opposition to the theory of Mr. Ricardo and his follow^ers, 
 who cannot find in it, from first to last, a single fact in sup- 
 port of their doctrines. 
 
 The system is a good one ; but it would be far better were 
 it less needed. The same labour that has been expended 
 in the colonization of Texas, Oregon, and California, would 
 have yielded thrice the results had concentration on the older 
 lands been possible. The man who buys a share in lands 
 already cleared and cultivated, obtains it at far less than cost : 
 while he who goes to the new ones must pay cost, and a 
 large cost it is. Were that, how^ever, the only loss, it would 
 be cause of less regret than now it is, when we see that the 
 acquisition of Texas has involved the country in a w^ar that 
 has already cost perhaps fifty millions, and may result in an 
 expenditure of hundreds of millions. That war is due to the 
 existence of the repulsive force produced hy the misdirection 
 of the wealth and labour of England. Had the people of the 
 United States been permitted to bring into activity the fertile 
 soils of the older States, concentrating their population, and 
 placing the consumer by the side of the producer, Texas, 
 and Oregon, and California, would have oflfered no induce- 
 ment for settlement : labour would have been more produc- 
 tive : wealth would now be far greater: and the country w^ould 
 be still at peace. The universal thirst for land results from 
 the necessity for occupying much land, to be badly cultivated 
 by men who remain much poorer than they need be. Were 
 concentration now rendered possible, that thirst w^ould disap- 
 pear, for men would obtain large returns from smaller surfaces, 
 and become rich : and peaceful habits would come with wealth. 
 
 30 
 
350 COLONIZATION. 
 
 Lastly, we come to the colonization of Africa, undertaken 
 with the most benevolent motives, by men who thought they 
 saw in that vast and almost unoccupied land, with its 
 abundance of the most fertile soils, an outlet for the negroes 
 of the south; but who have long since found that the poverty 
 of Africa exercised small attractive force when set against 
 that of the wealth of the Union. There, as elsewhere, men 
 have had to commence with the poor soils, and to enable 
 them to do so and prosper, constant contributions have been 
 and will continue to be required. The process will, never- 
 theless, be continued, and by it civilization will be carried 
 into the heart of Africa : and thus will that quarter of the 
 globe be made to participate in the benefits resulting from the 
 peaceful policy and growing wealth of the United States. 
 
 African colonization has been opposed by many who fail 
 to see that when men remain at peace and permit wealth to 
 grow, the great laws of nature invariably triumph over the 
 weak and pitiful inventions of man. They would have im- 
 mediate, unconditional, emancipation, result how it may. 
 We propose now to show what has been the course of 
 southern colonization, with a view to show how perfectly the 
 facts observed have been in accordance with the views sub- 
 mitted to the consideration of our readers ; and, as we hope, 
 to satisfy them that here as everywhere slavery came with 
 poverty, and that freedom comes with growing wealth and 
 population : that here, as everywhere, the latter are compan- 
 ions of peaceful and quiet action : and that if they would free 
 the slave with most advantage to himself, they must act with, 
 and not against, the man to whom the laws have guarantied 
 the right of property in that slave and in his children. Well 
 understood, the interests of all are in perfect harmony with 
 each other, and point, as we believe, invariably towards the 
 same course of action. 
 
COLONIZATION. 351 
 
 Raleigh's first settlement in Carolina was that of a man se- 
 duced by the idea of speedy wealth to be derived from the 
 cultivation of fertile soils. It was made on the Island of 
 Roanoke, described as the paradise of the world, for the 
 luxuriance of its vegetation, the plumage of its birds, and 
 the brilliancy of its skies. The soil was too rich, and his 
 people perished. Upon these attempts, he wasted .£40,000, 
 for those days a vast sum : and it was a total loss, the result 
 being to him even worse than that realized by the founder 
 of Pennsylvania. The next colonization of North Carolina 
 was voluntary, and, therefore, successful. Settlers came from 
 New England, and exercised the right of self-government 
 by selecting for themselves ; and they went at once to the 
 poor soils on which they could raise corn for subsistence, 
 while engaged in the work of clearing richer lands and ex- 
 changing the lumber for clothing and other commodities. 
 Other settlers followed ; voluntary emigrants from Virginia, 
 driven by persecution for difference of religious opinion : and 
 they also prospered, because they selected for themselves. 
 Prosperity produced union and strength, and when they at 
 a subsequent period found themselves oppressed by the pro- 
 prietary governor of the state that was to be governed on 
 the system devised by Locke and Shaftesbury, they expelled 
 him and determined to govern themselves. They had be- 
 come colonists by virtue of the exercise of the right of self- 
 government : and they were ready to work and to fight to 
 maintain that right. They had no great men for leaders, 
 and they would not have landlords claiming rent for the use 
 of lands whose whole rent-producing powers were due to 
 their own exertions. Thus colonized by men who laboured 
 for themselves ; thought for themselves ; and acted for them- 
 selves ; North Carolina has always been distinguished among 
 the Southern States for the simplicity of her institutions : for 
 the moderation of her expenditure : and for her attachment 
 to freedom. 
 
 Virginia was granted to the noblemen, gentlemen, and 
 
352 COLONIZATION. 
 
 merchants of London, in whom was vested the whole ma- 
 nagement of the colony ; while even the local councillors 
 held their appointment from the king, and at his pleasure. 
 In him was vested supreme legislative authority, the emi- 
 grant being denied the exercise of the right of self-govern- 
 ment in any single matter : even in that of worshipping the 
 Deity after his own fashion : the Church of England being 
 established as the church, and only church, of the colony. 
 These noblemen and gentlemen were absentee landlords, 
 who wanted rents ; and they sent tenants, instead of creating 
 land-owners. As a necessary consequence, the character of 
 the emigrants was inferior. They were men who expected 
 to reap from fertile soils the same large profits that have so 
 recently been looked for, and with such entire confidence, by 
 the settlers in Australia ; and they were of the same class : 
 poor gentlemen who knew not how to work. Of the first 
 expedition, consisting in all of one hundred and five persons, 
 but twelve w^re labourers; and the mechanics were very few" 
 in number. Their sanguine expectations were disappointed. 
 Food could be obtained only as a reward for labour, and they 
 were of the class not born to work. The next expedition 
 consisted, as before, of <' vagabond gentlemen," to whom 
 were now added a few goldsmiths, in search of mines and 
 not of the means of acquiring wealth by honest labour. The 
 landlords now demanded pay from their poor tenants ; and 
 threatened that if the ship returned without a full freight, 
 they would leave the colony to perish. In reply to this they 
 were informed by Captain Smith, to w^hom it was now no 
 secret that men must commence with poor soils, that he 
 wanted " carpenters, husbandmen, gardeners, blacksmiths, 
 masons, and diggers up of trees' roots :" of whom, as he told 
 them, thirty would be more valuable «' than a thousand such 
 as we have." Land was abundant, and they could select 
 at pleasure from among the fertile soils ; but labour was fol- 
 lowed by small returns, because they had to cultivate poor 
 soils. New subscriptions became necessary, and now num- 
 
COLONIZATION. 353 
 
 bers of the nobility and gentry became proprietors ; where- 
 upon grants of new powers were obtained from the govern- 
 ment, and the landlords became sole masters. A governor 
 and captain-general, holding his appointment for life, was 
 now sent out ; and was accompanied by stately officers with 
 high-sounding titles, and charges with nominal duties, but 
 real claims to be paid for the services they might be supposed 
 to render. The governor was to possess absolute power : a 
 necessary consequence of which was, that the emigrants who 
 accompanied him were men who, claiming to exercise no 
 rights, respected none: dissolute gallants, impoverished gen- 
 tlemen, broken tradesmen, rakes, and libertines : men who 
 preferred swords to axes. Idleness and vice, jealousy and 
 hatred, abounded. Poverty, too, abounded, and they could 
 not pay taxes. In default of other modes of contribution, 
 lotteries were instituted, the profits of which went to the sup- 
 port of government ; and thus the landlords contributed to 
 maintain in them the gambling spirit which had led them to 
 the New World. As gentlemen could not work, and food 
 could not be obtained without severe labour, the importation 
 of labourers under bonds of servitude had been, from the 
 first, common ; and the trade in men became, by degrees, 
 lucrative : those who had cost £S and .£10, being sold as 
 high, sometimes, as j£60. Trade was stimulated by such 
 profits ; particularly as the importer obtained from the noble- 
 men and gentlemen proprietors a grant of fifty acres of land 
 for each person thus introduced : and thus did the aristocracy 
 of England establish the slave trade of Virginia.* Slaves 
 worked hard, and were hardly treated : the gentlemen owners 
 employed themselves in hunting, fishing, cultivating the 
 breed of horses, and other similar amusements : and the go- 
 
 * In the seventeenth century, the gentlemen of England gave the land, and 
 sold the slave. In the nineteenth, the plan is different. They now sell the 
 land, and give the slave. The " systematic colonization" of our time differs 
 in scarcely any thing else from that which distinguished the age of Jeffries and 
 James II. 
 
 2 Y 30* 
 
354 COLONIZATION. 
 
 vernors and officers who represented the noble proprietors 
 pkindered the colonists, and cheated their employers.* At 
 the close of fifteen years, after an expenditure of j£60,000, 
 we find the former numbering but six hundred. Neither popu- 
 lation nor wealth can grow, although fertile land is abundant. 
 Factions arise among the proprietors, discontented with the 
 small returns to their investments. Turbulence among the 
 settlers is followed by massacre by the savages ; and the 
 number of plantations is reduced from eighty down to eight. f 
 Next we have '<a petition of grace" to the government of 
 England for a monopoly of the right of supplying tobacco : 
 and thus the first application for interference with trade, on 
 this continent, may, we beheve, be traced to Virginia. The 
 colonists who do not work themselves, and cultivate their lands 
 by aid of slave labour, cannot compete with other colonists 
 who do work. The petition is granted : but the crown now 
 determines to have the right of monopolizing the tobacco the 
 poor people have to sell, thus converting the grant into a 
 means of taxation. The company of noble proprietors is now 
 dissolved, the result being, as in all similar cases it has been, 
 total loss. I The control of the colony passing to the crown, 
 its emancipation is followed by a very brief period of im- 
 provement ; but governors are now appointed favourable to 
 the claims of those who desire large grants of land, with con- 
 cessions of jurisdiction: and thus estates grow large, requiring 
 constant increase in the shipments of white slaves from Eng- 
 land. Land thus concentrates itself, and man becomes, here 
 as everywhere, poor and disunited. Frequent quarrels with 
 the Indians are followed by massacres of the whites, and 
 population is thus restrained : and without population wealth 
 cannot grow. Slaves cultivate poor soils, and masters amuse 
 
 * In this portion of the history, striking resemblances in the two periods may 
 be found. 
 
 ■f New Zealand, in the present century, is the pendant to Virginia in the 
 seventeenth. 
 
 i Here, again, may be found the counterpart of Australia. 
 
COLONIZATION. 355 
 
 themselves with hunting ; expending on horses much of the 
 large proportion of the fruits of the soil which falls to their 
 share. The Revolution in England now causes a large addi- 
 tion to the population, in the form of cavaliers : " men of 
 consideration :" bringing with them the dissolute habits en- 
 gendered by civil war : and churchmen, eager to enforce in 
 the New World the rights, of the exercise of which they 
 had been deprived in the Old. The population is now 
 twenty thousand, of whom the blacks constitute less than 
 one-fiftieth part: although thirty years have now elapsed 
 since the importation of the first African slaves. At the date 
 of the Restoration we find landed proprietors possessing two 
 thousand acres, and spending their lives in indolence. The 
 horse is fully cared for, and the breed is highly improved. 
 The " planter's pace" has become proverbial. Man is, 
 however, less carefully provided for, because of the constant 
 accession of pilgrims to the New World under orders from 
 mayors and justices of the west of England, who divide 
 among themselves the profits of the trade. Land thus con- 
 tinues to grow in power as man declines. The poor soils 
 only are yet cultivated, for wealth grows at *'the planter's 
 pace," — always a slow one in this regard. Roads are mere 
 horse-paths. Bridges are unknown. The only coin known 
 in the payment of debts is tobacco. Exchanges are few, 
 and towns have scarcely an existence. Schools and printing- 
 presses are unknown. 
 
 Step by step we trace the progress of an aristocracy, 
 with increasing selfishness and increasing disregard for 
 the rights of those by whom they are surrounded ; the 
 natural result of colonization by the class to whom labour is 
 a sacrifice : and here, as everywhere, this is accompanied 
 by increasing incapacity for self-defence, either for the 
 maintenance of their own rights, or those of their fellow- 
 citizens. Royalist emigrants, elated at the Restoration, 
 now become masters. Acts of conformity are passed. 
 Salaries and taxes grow larger, while the land is exempt 
 
356 • COLONIZATION. 
 
 from contributions. Magistrates assess county taxes at their 
 pleasure, and landholders form courts that judge without 
 appeal. Burgesses pay themselves liberally for their services 
 in voting taxes, while limiting the right of suffrage to free- 
 holders and housekeepers : and submit to the provisions of 
 the navigation act because too poor to own ships by which 
 they may evade it as do the people of New England, now 
 becoming rich from the cultivation of a sterile soil by the 
 hands of freemen. Land grows in power daily, and man, 
 great and small, becomes daily weaker. Voluntary immi- 
 gration has no existence, because the markets are well sup- 
 plied wdth slaves from Bristol and other English ports, and 
 freemen could not exist upon the small proportion retained 
 by the producer out of the very small returns obtained from 
 land constantly cropped : which, too, is cultivated with 
 machinery so indifferent that the top soil alone comes into 
 action. Much of the wealth of the colony goes therefore 
 to " knavish justices," and kidnappers, in England, whereas, 
 under a different system, it w^ould make roads and build 
 ships : and growing wealth would then exercise a gently 
 attractive power over men who could govern themselves, 
 and travel at their own cost. Aristocracy grows daily. 
 The tendency which prevailed in the earlier days of the 
 colony, to a division of property among the members of 
 the family, now ceases to exist, and the law of primogeni- 
 ture becomes the general rule of action. The land becomes 
 still more powerful, and the people become still more 
 weak. The death of a slave from excess of punishment 
 ceases to be punishable by law, and it is declared lawful to 
 w^ound, or even to kill them, in making their escape. Among 
 the different portions of society, or among the members of 
 the same portion, there exists no tendency to union or har- 
 mony ; because, as wealth cannot grow, men are still forced 
 to scatter themselves over the poor soils, and concentration 
 is therefore impossible. Forests still cover the most fertile 
 lands, and swamps capable of yielding vast returns to 
 
COLONIZATION. 357 
 
 labour are interspersed between the little settlements. The 
 very few have fine houses : but log-houses, of one story, in 
 which shutters supply the want of glass, are the ordinary 
 residences of men who purchase slaves, read no books or 
 newspapers, and tolerate no lawyers: while children grow 
 up uneducated, because of the total want of schools. What 
 then must be the condition of the slave? What could 
 be his proportion of the product of his labour? Aris- 
 tocracy is here, as elsewhere in all countries and at all 
 periods, marked by turbulence and discord. Rebellion, 
 civil war, and carnage, coupled with the display of avarice 
 and rapacity in a high degree, fill up several years of the 
 colonial history, during all of which we observe a steady 
 influx of English slaves : sometimes young persons kid- 
 napped and hurried on board of ship ; and at others, persons 
 charged with small crimes, who prefer being sold by the 
 magistrates and judges rather than risk confinement in such 
 horrid prisons as those which existed in the days when land 
 was absolute and the people weak.* The arrival of a nohle 
 governor is distinguished by the doubling of the salary of 
 his office, as necessary to the maintenance of his dignity : 
 and by the relinquishment on the part of the aristocratic 
 assembly of all control over taxation, at a time when from 
 the extreme impoverishment and restless state of the people, 
 economy was more than ever necessary. Failing to respect 
 the rights of those beneath them, they are unable to guard 
 their own, and thus oppression and weakness are seen 
 going hand in hand together. Rebellions and executions 
 follow in the train of tyranny and rapacity. His successor, 
 another of the noble race, fruges consumere nati, dis- 
 tinguished, even beyond his successor for rapacity and 
 for meanness, divides perquisites with his clerks. The re- 
 bellion of Monmouth now adds largely to the population of 
 
 * The whole system has its counterpart in Australia, but the latter pre- 
 sents one feature of barbarism unknown to the seventeenth century, to wit, 
 Norfolk. Island, the disgrace of the age. 
 
358 COLONIZATION. 
 
 the colony. The prisoners made on that occasion, and who 
 escape the hangman, are distributed among the queen and 
 courtiers, by whom they are sold at ten or fifteen pounds 
 each : to be resold in Virginia for forty or fifty pounds. 
 Among them are numerous persons of family and education. 
 To this date, the importation of negro slaves has been ex- 
 ceedingly limited, white slaves being found cheaper and 
 better. The tobacco ships have brought them as return cargo, 
 whereas the negro would require a voyage to the coast of 
 Africa, to which no cargo could be carried : and, therefore, 
 so long as the exportation from England can be main- 
 tained, the other branch of the slave trade can attain but 
 little development. With the close of the reign of James II. 
 that traffic falls oflf, even if it be not entirely discontinued ; 
 and thereafter the supply comes chiefly from the African 
 coast. Such is the history of the origin of American slavery. 
 
 In 1663, Lords Clarendon, Albemarle, and other noble- 
 men, obtained a grant of the country now included in the 
 two Carolinas, with absolute authority, and with the expecta- 
 tion of obtaining large rents from the rich land included 
 within their domain. With the usual rapacity of their class 
 we find them obtaining, two years later, further grants of the 
 land now included in all the States south and west, and ex- 
 tending far into Mexico. The new and great State now lo 
 be formed required a constitution that should accord in mag- 
 nificence with its extent, and to Locke and Shaftesbury are 
 we indebted for that which was then prepared, the only one 
 formed for any portion of the British dominions in America, 
 by the aristocracy exclusively, and therefore the only one in 
 which is avowed the intention of keeping the people in a 
 state of slavery. To the extent of two-fifths the land was 
 to be inalienable, the property of barons, caciques, pala- 
 tines, &c.,with tenants, adscripts of the soil, subject to the 
 
COLONIZATION. 359 
 
 jurisdiction of lords from whose decision there was no 
 appeal. The leet men were to be leet men through all gene- 
 rations. A grand council of fifty, of whom fourteen only, 
 holding their seats for life, represented the commons, was 
 mixed up in the scheme with courts of heraldry ; of cere- 
 monies and pedigrees ; and of fashions and sports : and 
 this absurd scheme it was fully believed would endure for 
 ever. Land was to be all, and man nothing. 
 
 The first settlement was formed on rich soils whose fatal 
 atmosphere had destroyed the native inhabitants ; and the 
 whites naturall}^ followed them. The second, Charleston, 
 was placed near the junction of two rivers, where the vege- 
 tation was luxuriant. The settlers, in keeping with the 
 magnificence of the proprietors, were generally men of noble 
 family impoverished in the civil wars : men who could not 
 work, and who needed others to do the labour. The climate 
 was pestilential and white labourers would not come, even 
 for full wages. Labourers were, therefore, to be purchased ; 
 and in a short time the slaves were twice as numerous as the 
 whites. In no part of the Union have the settlers been to 
 the same extent men of high birth and wealthy family con- 
 nections as in this state ; and in none has there existed, at 
 all times, so strong a tendency towards cultivating rich soils 
 in advance of their natural order: and in none, consequent- 
 ly, has there been so great a disparity of condition between 
 the planter and the labourer; the condition of the negro 
 being worse than in any other portion of the Union : the 
 highest aristocracy being here, as everywhere, surrounded by 
 the poorest democracy. The natural consequence is, that 
 population diminishes and land is almost valueless. Aris- 
 tocracy and disunion, poverty and concentration of land, 
 are ever found in close companionship with each other. 
 
 The cause of the existence of slavery in the United States 
 is now, we think, obvious. Lupoverished branches or de- 
 pendents of the English aristocracy sought wealth without 
 labour. Unwilling to work themselves, and unable to offer 
 
360 COLONIZATION. 
 
 inducements to the free labourer, who could have land else- 
 where for himself, they first enslaved their poorer country- 
 men ; and when that source of supply was stopped, they took 
 the negro. Had no aristocracy existed in England, no 
 negro slavery could have arisen in America. The reader 
 who may chance to be familiar with the books of the recent 
 settlers in Australia, can hardly fail to see in the sketch of 
 Virginian history now furnished very many points of resem- 
 blance : all of which are due to the fact that in both the settlers 
 were unused to labour, and therefore unfit for the business 
 of settlement. Everywhere in those books there is a com- 
 plaint of the high price of labour. The land is good enough, 
 but labour is too dear to work it, and it will not pay. If 
 the labour market could but be over-stocked, so that the 
 land-owners could make their own terms, the latter would be 
 rich. They wanted slaves, although not fully aware of the 
 fact. The man who cannot work and who undertakes the 
 work of settlement, must have slaves, or he must starve : and 
 the reason is, that all rent is consideration paid for the use 
 of those advantages which result from labour expended on 
 land, and not for land itself. *Until labour has been so 
 applied, entitling its owner to a share, it has no value ; and 
 he who will work it must have the product, be it what it may, 
 much or little : but it is always little, and with less he could 
 not live. He must commence with the poorer lands that he 
 can cultivate, while waiting the clearing of the woods and 
 draining of the marshes which cover the rich soils. His wages, 
 therefore, absorb the whole. Virginia and South Carolina 
 were settled by those who consumed without producing, and 
 hence the existence of the curse of negro slavery, which made 
 no way at the north, because the food, and clothing, and 
 lodging, of the slave were more than his labour was worth. 
 He would there have been, as now he would be, an incum- 
 brance on the earth. 
 
 * « After an enormous expenditure of capital, the returns were far less than 
 might have been derived from a similar amount in England, and property was 
 steadily depreciating in value." — Henderson^s New South Wales. 
 
COLONIZATION. 361 
 
 The number of blacks, slave and free, existing in the 
 United States at the first census, was 757,000, of whom 
 60,000 were free, leaving 697,000 slaves. How many had 
 been imported, it is impossible now to say ; but we doubt if 
 the total amount of importation had exceeded 250,000. It was 
 probably short of that number. The slave trade continued 
 to be permitted by law until 1808, a period of eighteen 
 years, during which time the number imported could not 
 have exceeded 100,000, as the whole increase from 1790 to 
 1810 was only 620,000 ; and according to the rate of natu- 
 ral increase since that time, it would have been 520,000. 
 We think, therefore, that we are safe in saying that the whole 
 negro race in the Union, amounting now to about 3,250,000, 
 are descended from 350,000 barbarians, whose condition as 
 slaves was far better than it had been when nominally free, 
 and liable at every hour to be robbed or murdered, or 
 both. 
 
 At the period of the first census, the country had, in a 
 considerable degree, recovered from the effects of the war 
 of independence. Since that time, it has advanced steadily 
 in population and wealth, but with vastly more rapid pace in 
 the northern than in the southern portions ; because in the 
 one every man labours for himself, and every one accumu- 
 lates something as a contribution to the general stock of 
 wealth. The difference in the relative advance causes the 
 southern portion to appear almost stationary ; but such is far 
 from having been the case. Population and wealth have both 
 advanced greatly, and there has been a vast increase in the 
 productive power, accompanied with a corresponding in- 
 crease in the proportion of the labourer ; who is now far better 
 fed, clothed, lodged, and taught, than at any former period. 
 With this increase of wealth the planter has acquired the 
 ability to seek more fertile soils, and we observe him, accom- 
 panied by the black race whose services he employs, regularly 
 descending the slope from the mountains of Virginia and Ken- 
 tucky towards the better lands in the vicinity of the Gulf 
 2Z 31 
 
362 COLONIZATION. 
 
 of Mexico ; and with every step in their progress, the value 
 of labour rises. The labourer himself acquires more value in 
 the eyes of his master, who feeds and clothes him better : 
 gives him better shelter ; better medical attendance ; more 
 privileges in regard to land for his own use and that of his 
 family ; and thus enables him more and more to exercise the 
 right of self-government. With every step in this progress 
 he acquires more value in his own estimation, without which 
 he could make no progress in the work of preparing him- 
 self for the ultimate perfect exercise of that right.. To enable 
 the reader to trace this operation, we give the table on the 
 opposite page, in which the several States occupying the 
 same latitudes are placed together. 
 
 The process that is thus exhibited as now going on before 
 our eyes, is frequently stigmatized as an internal slave trade, 
 and legislative action is not unfrequently invoked for its pre- 
 vention ; when it is the precise course that has, in every 
 quarter of the world, led man to freedom. As the people 
 of Italy became more rich, they sought the rich soils at the 
 foot of their hills, and became more free. War drove them 
 back to the hills, and they became slaves. As the people 
 of England now become more rich, they seek the fertile soils, 
 and become more and more free wdth every stage of the pro- 
 cess. So is it with the people of Prussia. So was it with 
 the people of Egypt, of Argos, and of Attica, and so has it 
 been with every nation of the world. To shut up the negro 
 race in Virginia and Kentucky would be their ruin. The 
 Almighty never intended them to mix with the white race, 
 nor is it desirable that they should do so ; for as a separate 
 and independent race of free men, they will be happier, bet- 
 ter, and more useful, than in any other condition. They are 
 now gradually concentrating on the soils best suited to them, 
 and wdth results similar to those everywhere else observed. 
 Farms and houses, towns and cities, roads and railroads : 
 steamboats and electric telegraphs, cotton factories, furnaces, 
 and other evidences of increasing power of accumulation, 
 
COLONIZATION. 
 
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364 COLONIZATION. 
 
 resulting from increased productiveness of labour, are seen 
 to rise with a rapidity totally unknown in the older slave 
 States, where the poor soils are still cultivated : where roads 
 improve but slowly, and railroads are scarcely known. In 
 the new States, the tendency to concentration — to placing 
 the consumer side by side with the producer — exists in a 
 strong degree, whereas, in the older ones it has scarcely an 
 existence. The latter are yet in the transition state. The 
 slave race is going out, and the free race is coming in : and 
 until the change shall be effected, they cannot move wdth 
 much rapidity. The time is now not far distant when the 
 whole race wdll be concentrated in the southerntier of States. 
 Including South Carolina, more than one-half were there in 
 1840. At the next census, the proportion will probably be 
 three-fifths, if not more ; and at the end of another decen- 
 nial period, it will probably exceed four-fifths : and as popu- 
 lation and wealth shall increase, as better soils shall be cul- 
 tivated, and as the consumer shall, more and more, take his 
 place by the side of the producer, their labour will become 
 steadily more productive. With the increase of production 
 they will obtain the control, for their own use, of a largei 
 proportion of the proceeds of their labour : and that propor- 
 tion will steadily increase until there will be seen to arise a 
 class of free black men, cultivating for their own use their 
 ow^n land, bought from their old masters, who will find in 
 the price of the land a compensation for the price of the 
 labourer. Ultimately, and at no distant period, those States 
 will be owned and inhabited by a race of free citizens, dif- 
 fering in colour but similar in rights, and equal in capacity 
 to their fellow- citizens of the north. 
 
 To those who doubt this, and there will be many, we have 
 to say that the laws of nature are the same in the New World 
 as in the old : in the present age and all past ages : for the 
 black man and the white : and that if this result do not arrive, 
 it will be in opposition to all past experience. Man always 
 has become more free as he has passed from the cultivation 
 
COLONIZATION. 365 
 
 of poor soils to rich ones, and he always will. He cannot do 
 this unless population and wealth increase. The interest 
 of the planter favours the increase of population, and popula- 
 tion cannot increase where morals do not improve. His 
 interest favours increase of wealth, because improved ma- 
 chinery enables him to grow more cotton or corn : improved 
 gins enable him to prepare his cotton better and with less 
 labour: while steamboats and railroads facilitate his connec- 
 tion with the great markets. With another step, he will 
 make his market at home, converting his cotton into cloth 
 by aid of the food grown on his own rich lands, now uncul- 
 tivated : and with every diminution in the quantity of the 
 machinery of exchange, wealth will still more rapidly in- 
 crease. The planter desires the growth of wealth and popula- 
 tion ; and they bear on their wings division of land, and free- 
 dom, and happiness, and prosperity,to man. The interests of 
 all are in perfect harmony with each other, and the day is 
 not far distant when all will admit the fact. At present, the 
 majority of planters deny to the minority the right of judging 
 for themselves in the matter of educating slaves, of emanci- 
 pating them, &c. ; but we need desire no better evidence of 
 the tendency to education and emancipation than the fact of 
 the existence of such laws. Without it, they would not be 
 needed. Even as it is, the education law is almost a nul- 
 lity, and, ere long, the minority will become the majority : 
 and when that shall be the case, the whole class of planters 
 will be restored to the exercise of rights in regard to their 
 property of which they are thus deprived, because, as it is 
 said, the public good requires it. Leagues for the pubHc 
 good always abound where aristocracies exist ; but selfish- 
 ness is their characteristic, wherever found. The war-cry 
 varies, but the object is still the same. Sometimes they 
 fight for the liberties of Europe, while, at others, it is for the 
 plunder of Italy, of India, or of Holland. Such combinations 
 always exist where land is concentrated, and man divided ; 
 and they most exist where land is most concentrated, and 
 
 31* 
 
366 COLONIZATION. 
 
 man cultivates the poorest soils, as may, at this moment, be 
 seen on both sides of the Atlantic. The history of France 
 shows us several such leagues, the members of which, in 
 every case, had in view the private good alone : and all were 
 willing to be bought at their own prices. We do not allege 
 this of the people of the south. We have no doubt that 
 many, very many, seriously believe that in maintaining such 
 laws they are doing what is best for all, black and white : 
 but they might reflect that their fellow-planter, who educates 
 his slave, has the same right to judge for himself as they : 
 and so he will, and does, and ought : law or no law. Wealth 
 will grow, and freedom will come, let the laws be as they may : 
 provided they remain at peace and diminish the cost of their 
 machinery of exchange. Let them do this, and black senators 
 will ultimately sit in the Congress of the United States : and 
 the Union will then be sounder, and stronger, and richer, and 
 more rapidly advancing in wealth and population, than at any 
 previous period. 
 
 It is supposed by many that it is necessary to pass laws 
 to prevent the extension of slavery over new territories : but 
 we are disposed to believe that a very brief examination of 
 the facts of the case will show that such a measure is an 
 unnecessary interference with the rights of those who are 
 equal with themselves. Great natural laws tend now daily 
 to produce the results desired, and evasion of those laws is 
 impossible ; whereas no law could be made that would 
 exist, or that should exist, did the interests of those subject 
 to it require its repeal. 
 
 If we examine attentively the movements of the population 
 of the Southern States, we shall see existing on the part of 
 the planter, a universal tendency downwards towards the 
 richer lands : while, on the part of the free labourer, or the 
 man whose means are limited to the ownership of one or 
 two negroes, there is a tendency, equally universal, towards 
 the higher lands: and thus we see the free population, the far- 
 mers, of Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia and Tennessee, 
 
COLONIZATION. 
 
 367 
 
 clustering together in the neighbourhood of the mountains, 
 while the country intermediate between them and the ocean 
 is in a great degree occupied by planters : and hence it is 
 that we see an unceasing contest between the eastern and 
 western portions of Virginia for political supremacy. The free 
 man always seeks the heads of the streams : the dry and poor 
 lands : for the commencement of his labours, because his means 
 are small, and he is satisfied if he obtain wages for his time and 
 labour : and his profits are to be found in the value that he 
 gives his land.* The planter is a capitalist, who wants pro- 
 fits of capital, or rent ; and as land cannot be made to yield 
 more in return to the labour of the people who work for him 
 than it would do to that of the man who worked for himself, 
 it follows that if the product is to be divided into two parts ; 
 one for the labourer, and the other for the labourer's owner ; 
 the latter must be a deduction from the former, and the la- 
 bourer must receive less than the ordinary rate of wages. In 
 
 
 * TVestern North Carolina. 
 
 
 Slaves, Total Pop. 
 
 Ashe 
 
 479 - - - - 7,467 
 
 Cherokee - 
 
 - 199- - - - 3,427 
 
 Haywood 
 
 303 - - - - 4,975 
 
 Henderson - 
 
 - 466 - - - - 5,129 
 
 Lincoln 
 
 2,711 . - - - 25,660 
 
 Burke 
 
 . 3,159 ... - 15,799 
 
 
 Western, Virginia. 
 
 
 Slaves. Total Pop 
 
 Brooke - 
 
 54 - - - - 7,948 
 
 Marshall 
 
 - 46 - - - - 6,937 
 
 Ohio 
 
 231 ... - 13,367 
 
 liBwis 
 
 - 123 - - - - 3,151 
 
 Nicholas - 
 
 74 - - - - 2,223 
 
 Greenbrier - 
 
 - 1,314 .... 8,695 
 
 
 Eastern Tennessee. 
 
 
 Slaves. Total Pop 
 
 Marion 
 
 380 - - - - 6,070 
 
 Monroe 
 
 - 312 ... 12,056 
 
 Jefferson - 
 
 672 .... 12,076 
 
 Greene 
 
 - 509 ... 16,076 
 
 Blount 
 
 383 - - - - 11,745 
 
 Ganger 
 
 - 105 ... 10,552 
 
/ 
 
 368 COLONIZATION. 
 
 order that the product may be sufficiently large to bear this 
 division, the planter is forced to seek those soils and those 
 climates in which the powers of his labourers can be em- 
 ployed to the greatest advantage ; and as the negro originated 
 in the torrid region of Africa, it is natural to suppose that it 
 is in a climate corresponding thereto that his powers will be 
 most fully developed : whereas those of the white require a 
 higher and colder one, and he is thus seen to become less 
 active as he passes south. Each is excellent in his place. 
 The negro will do more work than the white man in Flori- 
 da, but the Yankee will do more than two neorroes in Mas- 
 sachusetts. The negro can produce more rice than the 
 white in the low lands of Carolina ; but the white, who lives 
 in the mountainous region of that state, will produce more 
 corn or wheat than his slave. The slave in Maryland and 
 Virginia is competing with the free labourer of Ohio, in the 
 production of wheat and tobacco ; and the latter is beating 
 the former out of market, and thereby producing a necessity 
 for his emigration towards the climate for which nature in- 
 tended him : and there he wull go, and there he will stay, 
 let man make what laws he may. 
 
 By law, slavery exists in Missouri, but what is its pro- 
 gress ? In 1830, the slaves were twenty-five thousand, and 
 the free people one hundred and eighteen thousand. In 1840, 
 the former were fifty-eight, and the latter three hundred and 
 twenty-four thousand. The natural increase would give 
 thirty-two thousand. It follows that twenty- six thousand 
 have been taken there : and if we examine where they have 
 gone, we find it is to the counties nearest the Mississippi, 
 where they have been temporarily arrested on their way to 
 the south. If w^e look to Arkansas, we obtain the following 
 results. The population in 1830 was : slave, five thousand, 
 free twenty-six thousand. In 1840, slave twenty thousand, 
 free seventy- seven thousand. Its numbers increase slowly, 
 because wealth grows slowly, and the free labourer is not at- 
 tracted there : while the planter finds no attraction sufficient to 
 
COLONIZATION. 369 
 
 induce him to ascend the Red River, when he has before him 
 the lower lands of Alabama and Mississippi, where wealth 
 is growing rapidly and attracting forcibly. So strongly is 
 this felt in Arkansas, that lands forfeited for non-payment of 
 taxes are at this moment offered gratuitously to settlers, for 
 freemen w^ill not go where slavery exists, and planters can- 
 not ascend rivers to cultivate poor lands. That state must, 
 therefore, soon cease to tolerate slavery within its limits. 
 The planter always^zes from mountains and hills, and heads of 
 streams, while the free labourer there commences his operations 
 and works downwards. The mass of the planter is great. 
 He represents fifty, one hundred, or five hundred persons, 
 who are property : and wealth is always strongly attracted 
 by wealth. The railroad now building across the whole of 
 the southern tier of states, constitutes an attractive powder that 
 is irresistible, and it is there that the black race tends : there 
 that it will stay. Arkansas and Missouri will soon become 
 free states, by virtue of a great general law : the law of self- 
 government. Texas, too, will be a free state. Of the slaves 
 who have been taken there, many have, we understand, al- 
 ready returned : the wild lands of that state, destitute of roads, 
 having proved less attractive than the towns and cities, and 
 steamboats and railroads, of Mississippi and Alabama. The 
 heavily moving planter does not go to the rich lands, but the 
 light and active Yankee, and the hard working German, are 
 going to the poorer ones of the elevated region in which a 
 cool climate and pure air enable them to work, and gradu- 
 ally to prepare the means for subduing the fertile land at 
 their feet. In a short time, the proportion of free to slave 
 population will be, as now in Missouri, so large that the 
 planter will deem it unsafe to venture there, even were it his 
 interest ; and that it will not be until railroads, and towns, 
 and cities shall become sufficiently numerous to exert a power 
 of attraction greater than Alabama and Mississippi*: and 
 that time is very distant. The start those states have taken 
 is so great that they will probably have attracted within their 
 3 A 
 
370 COLONIZATION. 
 
 limits the chief part of the negro population before Texas 
 will exercise any attractive influence whatsoever. 
 
 If the views thus submitted be true, and they are in strict 
 accordance with the facts which the last ten, twenty and 
 thirty years have presented for examination, there can be no 
 necessity for the passage of laws having for their object inter- 
 ference with the planter's rights of property. He will not go 
 to the high lands of California, for he will not go to those of 
 Arkansas or Texas. He will not go to the low lands of Texas, 
 where no population exists : and still less will he, should 
 Mexico ever unite her fortunes with those of the United 
 States, seek the low lands of that country, where labourers 
 may be hired for a less quantity of the necessaries and com- 
 forts of life than he is accustomed to give to the slave whom he 
 has purchased. Were Mexico this day within the Union no 
 planter would cross the Rio Grande, but tens of thousands 
 of Yankees would be found there, giving life and activity to 
 agriculture, and to commerce : stimulating the labourer, by 
 increased rewards, to increased production; opening new 
 markets for the manufactures, whether of iron or of cotton, 
 of the north, and for the cotton and sugar of the south : for 
 fertile as are the lower lands of Mexico, a long time has yet 
 to elapse before they can be rendered extensively productive. 
 The chmate is bad, because vegetation is too luxuriant : and 
 the work of drainage and clearing, essential to improvement 
 of climate, is a very slow one. 
 
 Carefully considered, we believe it will be seen that be- 
 tween the two great divisions of the Union there is a perfect 
 harmony of interests, and that all that is needed for the settle- 
 ment of the great slavery question, is the observance of the 
 most perfect respect for the rights of property : every man of 
 the free states doing to his neighbour of the south as, were 
 their positions changed, he would that his neighbour should 
 do unto him. In so doing, he will do that which will most 
 promote the growth of harmony and peace, union, wealth 
 and population, and without them there can be no im- 
 
COLONIZATION. 371 
 
 provement in the physical, moral, intellectual or political 
 condition of the objects of his solicitude. << Love one an- 
 other," is the great law of Christianity, and there is no rea- 
 son why the planter and the farmer should do otherwise. 
 The former asks only of the latter respect for his rights in 
 property acquired in accordance with law, and he has a right 
 to ask for them perfect respect, but while doing so he should 
 recollect that the whole system of southern legislation is 
 marked by interference by one portion of the planting inte- 
 rest with the rights of another portion, their neighbours. 
 The man who desires to educate, or to emancipate, his slave 
 is as much entitled to the exercise of his judgment in regard 
 to the management of his property as is his neighbour who 
 is resolved to do neither the one nor the other. He should 
 also recollect that the system of separating husbands and 
 wives, parents and children, is not in accordance with the 
 great moral law which teaches that men should do by others as 
 they would that others should do by them, and that persistence 
 in the practice offends the moral sense of those who are most 
 desirous to see enforced most fully the system of non-inter- 
 ference. The more perfectly he respects the rights of his 
 neighbours, and those of the people whom he claims to hold 
 as property, the more fully will he be able to maintain and 
 to defend his own. Such has been the case throughout the 
 world, and the more he shall study its history the better will he 
 be satisfied that obedience to the precepts of Christianity is not 
 more the duty than it is the policy both of men and of nations. 
 
 We may now examine the course of events in the British 
 West Indies, the scene of a recent great interference with 
 the rights of property. We have seen the effects of absentee 
 ownership in Virginia, but in the West Indies it was far 
 worse, because much longer continued : and because to the 
 exhaustion thus jiroduced was added that resulting from 
 frequent wars, occasional invasions, and unceasing restric- 
 
372 COLONIZATION. 
 
 tions on the one hand, and monopolies on the other. The 
 absentees wanted large rents from land on which little capi- 
 tal had been invested. The land would not support the 
 negro, the agent, and the owner, but the wants of the two 
 latter were imperative, and the negro had to suffer to the 
 extent required. To do this, he must begin by working 
 the rich land : the land of fevers and pestilence. He must 
 begin by sugar land, instead of corn or potato land. The 
 forfeit was his life, which was given to make up the rent 
 required. Population could not grow, under such circum- 
 stances, and it did not grow. By the census of 1824, there 
 were seven hundred and seventy-five thousand of the negro 
 race in those colonies. In 1834, they were reduced to 
 seven hundred thousand, showing a reduction of ten per 
 cent. 
 
 We have seen that in all other countries the fertile lands 
 were abandoned as population decreased, and such must 
 have been the case here. The value of slaves fell, neces- 
 sarily, from the same cause : and thus to the tyranny 
 that prevented all increase, and caused the number emanci- 
 pated to be far less than the number that had been im- 
 ported, was due the power of the government to effect eman- 
 cipation. Had they received the same treatment as the 
 slaves of the United States, there would have been no Ma- 
 roon wars to waste the population w^hich would have been 
 eight times as great and sixteen times as valuable: and then 
 forced emancipation would have been as impossible as impo- 
 litic, and as impolitic as unjust. The majority of the people 
 of England compelled a small minority to do that which if 
 right to be done at all should have been done by all : but the 
 measure that was to cost perhaps ^£100,000,000, was held to be 
 fully paid for with ^£20, 000,000. The difference has been since 
 made up in the cost of sugar, which doubled in price, and 
 the labourer of England was thus deprived of a necessary of 
 life. In this way, the landlords of the colonies and the 
 labourers at home have paid the cost of a violent interfer- 
 
COLONIZATION. 373 
 
 ence with rights acquired under sanction of the law, and 
 guarantied by the law.* 
 
 The labourer is now free, and the landlord receives 
 no rent. The former prefers raising yarns to sugar. He 
 can raise them on the high lands to which frep labour 
 always directs itself, and he can put the whole in his own 
 pocket, as wages. The absentee planter's agent cannot pay 
 the same wages, if he would live and enable his principal 
 to live. The consequence is, an universal cry for labourers, 
 who would be abundant enough at sufficient wages. Cheaper 
 labour is deemed necessary, and a new slave trade is organ- 
 ized. Hill-coolies are imported from India, and distributed 
 to do hard work at low wages, and to be t/-eated little better, 
 if the accounts we have seen be true, than the slaves of old : 
 although still living better than under the Company's govern- 
 ment. The whole framework of society in some of the colo- 
 nies seems to be broken up. la others, owing to peculiar cir- 
 cumstances, it is said to have worked better, but what is the 
 actual state of things in any of them it is exceedingly diffi- 
 cult to say, for all who attempt to describe the workings of 
 the measure are either its determined advocates or its deadly 
 enemies : and the one can see in it no WTong, the other no 
 right. One thing has been proved by it, and that is, that rents 
 cannot come from land upon which labour and capital have 
 not been, and are not continued to be, expended. The mere 
 land can pay nothing but wages, and the labourer must 
 become the owner, unless the owner live on it and improve 
 it and thus entitle himself to receive interest in the form of 
 rent. Were he even to attempt this, it is doubtful if he would 
 succeed ; for in all other countries the poor lands have been 
 first cultivated, and the rich lands last : and it would appear 
 that the natural order of things is about to be restored. 
 
 * Weakness and tyranny always go hand in hand. The planter of the 
 West Indies destroyed his slave, and had no power to protect himself. The 
 planter of the United States causes his slaves to increase, and therefore it 
 is that he has now llie power to protect himself in the enjoyment of his rights 
 of property. 
 
 32 
 
374 COLONIZATION. 
 
 The British islands furnished, of sugar, in 1836 3,600,000 cwts. 
 
 1839 2,800,000 
 
 1840-41, average, 2,180,000 
 
 1842-3-4, 2,500,000 
 
 1845 2,800,000 
 
 1846 2,100,000 
 
 The deficiency in sugar is not made up in coffee, the aver- 
 ao'e amount of which, from the British possessions, was, in 
 1835-6, above twenty-five millions, whereas the average for 
 1844-5 and 6, but little exceeded twenty-one millions. 
 
 The deficiency in the supply of sugar and coffee culti- 
 vated for export, has been attributed to an increasing dispo- 
 sition to raise food for consumption at home, but the Barba- 
 dian oi July last, says, << There is no food in the country, 
 starvation is staring us in the face. What a change has 
 come over Barbadoes ! The little island which used to feed 
 more than a hundred and twenty thousand people, and yet 
 export corn, yams and potatoes to the sister colonies, is 
 without supply, and the labouring inhabitants now crowd 
 into Bridgetown to buy American meal, rice, &c., to keep 
 themselves from starving ; and so great is the advance on 
 those necessaries of life, that a quarter of a dollar goes 
 very little way indeed. We may judge of the dreadful 
 scarcity of corn and potatoes, by the fact that the town is 
 m.ost abundantly supplied with poultry and butchers' meat, 
 which the cultivators of small tenements are selling off as 
 fast as they can, at a very low price, because they have not 
 the means of feeding their stock." 
 
 We have watched this experiment with great interest, but 
 have found it exceedingly difficult to understand the working 
 of it ; so far as we have been enabled to form a judgment, 
 it appears to be a total failure. Had it succeeded, it would 
 have been wonderful. By the above statement, it appears 
 that Barbadoes had once a population of a hundred and 
 twenty thousand. In 1834^ it was a hundred and three 
 thousand. We should be glad to know what it is now. If 
 population grow, all will come right. But if it diminish as it 
 
COLONIZATION. 375 
 
 has heretofore done, the land must relapse Into barbarism, and 
 such we have some apprehensions will be the case. 
 
 The Spanish colonists commenced with the low^er soils — 
 those which in the natural order of things are the last. 
 They w-anted gold and silver, which would not pay wages, 
 and therefore the people were enslaved. The results were 
 more disastrous than the working of the sugar lands of the 
 West Indies, for nearly the whole population was destroyed. 
 No land can be made to yield more than w^ages, except 
 w^here labour has been expended upon it, or for its advan- 
 tage : and then its selling price is always less than the cost. 
 The crown of Spain expended no capital but it took a large 
 rent, paid by the sacrifice of millions of lives. 
 
 In one case, however, a different system was pursued, and 
 the results contrast so strongly with those afforded by an 
 examination of the British islands, that w^e cannot omit to 
 notice it. The island of Porto Rico had been for three cen- 
 turies neglected. It was too rich. In 1802 it had a population 
 of 163,000, scattered over the island, on those parts that would 
 afford food for consumption : and received an annual remittance 
 from Mexico for the support of the government. About thirty 
 years since, Spain invited settlers : offering land, free of 
 expense even for the title papers, and perfect security as 
 regards the control of the property they might bring with 
 them : with freedom to leave when they pleased, and light 
 taxes to pay, if they stayed. The result was that population 
 and wealth increased wdth great rapidity. The former con- 
 sisted, in 1830, of 162,000 whites, 127,000 free blacks, 
 and 34,000 slaves, making a total of 323,000, or almost 
 double what it had been before. Immense forests had dis- 
 appeared before the axe. Marshes had been drained. Roads 
 had been made, and villages and towns had grown up, and 
 cities had increased. The number of proprietors was then 
 
376 COLONIZATION. 
 
 20,000, holding 1,500,000 acres, giving an average of 75 
 acres to each. The character of the land selected may be 
 seen from the fact that of 85,000 acres under cultivation, 
 there were but 11,000 under sugar cane, and 11,000 under 
 rice, while the remaining 63,000 were employed in growing 
 food for home consumption, except 9000 in coffee trees, 
 which grow on the higher lands. The remaining 1,400,000 
 acres owned by individuals, were nearly equally divided 
 between meadow and woodlands, waiting until the means 
 of the colonists should enable them to clear and drain 
 them : and affording, in the mean time, food for 200,000 
 horned cattle, 80,000 horses, and above 170,000 sheep, 
 goats and swine. Here we have a beautiful illustration of 
 the advantage of self-government. Had not the crown 
 offered perfect freedom of entry and departure, and equal 
 freedom as to the selection and mode of occupation of the 
 lands, such results could never have been obtained. 
 
 With the growth of population and of wealth man ac- 
 quires increased power to determine for himself what soils 
 he will cultivate ; and he takes the near or the distant, the 
 superficial or the profound, as he deems the one or the other 
 best fitted to enable him to improve his condition. With 
 each step in the progress of the power of man over land, 
 wealth tends to increase with greater rapidity, and with each 
 such step he is enabled to bring into activity better soils 
 with less labour. With each he becomes more and more a 
 being of power ^ and less a victim of necessity. 
 
 The PAST says to the freeman of the present : «« If you 
 desire that all men should be as free as yourself, respect the 
 rights of your neighbour, and unite with him in exertion for 
 the promotion of the growth of wealth : for freedom always 
 follows w^ealth." 
 
 To the planter, it says : " Labour for the maintenance 
 
COLONIZATION. 377 
 
 of peace, and for the promotion of the growth of wealth. 
 Your property will increase in value, and your lands will 
 become divided. Your slaves will become the free culti- 
 vators of those lands, and your rents will then be far greater 
 than they are now.^' 
 
 To all it says : «' Avoid war, and preparation for war !" 
 
 3B 
 
378 IRELAND. 
 
 CHAPTER Xir. 
 
 IRELAND. 
 
 In what we have thus far written, we have purposely 
 omitted all reference to Ireland, — desiring to treat it by it- 
 self, and to show, as we think conclusively, that there is no 
 exception to the law that we have submitted for the conside- 
 ration of our readers. 
 
 At the invasion, Ireland was advancing in civilization. It 
 was divided into five little kingdoms, among whom existed 
 those difficulties which in all cases have been seen to exist 
 where men were poor and scattered, because of the neces- 
 sity for depending on the least productive soils for a supply 
 of food ; but, had they been left to themselves, population 
 and wealth w^ould have grown, the better soils would have 
 been brought into cultivation, and Ireland would now occupy 
 the position in the world to which her advantages so emi- 
 nently entitle her : among the foremost in civilization. To 
 her insular position, England has been indebted for her free- 
 dom from invasion, and for the growth of wealth and the 
 habit of peace. Ireland enjoyed the same advantage as re- 
 garded the Continent, but she was unhappy in being the 
 near neighbour of the Norman aristocracy, a body whose 
 most distinguishing feature has at all times been unbounded 
 rapacity. Ireland was partially subjugated ; and thencefor- 
 ward the power and wealth of England became an element 
 of perpetual disturbance. The land was filled by English 
 agents, who were anxious for confiscations : and confisca- 
 tions were to be produced by rebellions. Rebellions were, 
 therefore, to be produced, and the mode of production was 
 
IRELAND. 379 
 
 oppression. Such is the history of Ireland, the prey of Eng- 
 land. 
 
 The natural result of this state of things, during the first 
 five centuries, was the entire insecurity of person and pro- 
 perty. Population and wealth did not advance, if they did 
 not even retrograde. The people still cultivated the poor 
 soils, and remained in a state of barbarism. The oppressions 
 of the Stuarts gave rise to disturbances, which resulted in the 
 expulsion, under James I., of the whole people of Ulster, who 
 had their choice of ' Hell, or Connaught ;' and that province, 
 to the extent of nearly three millions of acres, became the 
 property of the city of London, and other absentee landlords. 
 Ireland afterwards supported the Stuarts, and was repaid for 
 her services by the confiscation ofnearly eight millions of acres. 
 Ireland, nevertheless, supported James II., and was punished 
 by his daughter and her husband, by the confiscation of an- 
 other million. Thus the seventeenth century witnessed the 
 transfer to the aristocracy of England and their friends, of 
 nearly the whole land of Ireland that was fit for cultivation : 
 the whole quantity being twenty millions, of which one-third 
 is still waste. 
 
 A conduit was thus provided for all the produce of this 
 unfortunate island, over and above what was absolutely ne- 
 cessary to keep the miserable people from starvation. Some 
 portion of the new owners planted themselves in Ireland : 
 little sovereigns among their hapless dependants : and, as is 
 always the case under such circumstances, there was a per- 
 petual contest among the great men for the division of the 
 spoil ; and faction was carried to an extent to be exceeded 
 only in the history of France. The poverty of the people 
 rendered them turbulent, and armies and taxes w^ere ren- 
 dered more necessary. The people paid the taxes, and 
 their masters filled the offices, and squandered on luxuries 
 in Dublin, what was collected at the point of the bayonet 
 from people who ate potatoes in mud cabins, and went 
 clothed in rags. Every thing tended towards centralizing the 
 
380 IRELAND. 
 
 wealth of the kingdom in the capital, on its waj^ outward ; the 
 necessary consequence of which was that the people still cul- 
 tivated the poor soils, and concentration was impossible. 
 
 More effectually to prevent it, however, every practicable 
 measure was resorted to, for the purpose of preventing the 
 consumer taking his place by the side of the producer. Irish 
 manufactures were prohibited in England; while Ireland was 
 exposed, almost unguarded, to the influence of a system 
 which, by forcing the capital of England from employment 
 on the land, rendered it superabundant and unnaturally 
 cheap, and compelled it to seek manufactures and com- 
 merce.* Ireland was then prohibited from all direct inter- 
 course with foreign countries, or even the British colonies ; 
 and was thus deprived of the power of exchanging the pro- 
 ductions of its fields for sugar or coffee, except through 
 English ports. We see thus, that while the mass of the 
 products of the country was withdrawn never again to re- 
 turn, that portion which was to be exchanged was burdened 
 with the cost of a vast amount of useless and wasteful ma- 
 chinery, tending still further to arrest the progress of wealth 
 and the power of concentration. 
 
 That no measure of repression might be omitted, the peo- 
 ple who chanced to entertain on the subject of transubstantia- 
 tion ideas differing from those of the governing few, were 
 deprived of almost all the rights of person and property. 
 They could rise neither in the bar nor in the church: neither 
 in the local corporation nor in the state. f England had pro- 
 
 * King William, in one of his speeches to Parliament, declared that he 
 would " do every thing in his power to discourage the woollen manufacture 
 of Ireland." 
 
 •j- The chief disabilities imposed upon the Catholics during the reign of 
 William and Anne, were the following. They could not hold leases for more 
 than thirty-one years ; could neither purchase lands, teach publicly in schools, 
 have a horse of more than £5 value, vote for members of Parliament, nor 
 become barristers, or clerks, or attorneys, without taking the oath of allegiance 
 and supremacy ; hold any office under the crown, or become magistrates in 
 any town, without taking the sacrament, as prescribed by the English test 
 act, according to the usage of the Church of England ; nor take property 
 
IRELAND. 381 
 
 vided outlets for the property that might otherwise be accu- 
 mulated in Ireland; and by this measure she provided simi- 
 lar outlets for all the men of mind, who desired to rise, and 
 felt that they could rise, if permitted. Such men sought 
 employment in France or Spain, or on the continent of 
 America. The natural consequence of this was, that the 
 control of public affairs fell into the hands of the most 
 rapacious and contemptible band of jobbers, noble and 
 plebeian, that has been exhibited in the annals of the 
 world. 
 
 With the Union came perfect freedom of intercourse, and 
 with it came diminished power of concentration. The 
 wealth of Ireland tended now more than ever to England. 
 Dublin lost all its attractions. Power, and place, and pen- 
 sion, were to be sought in London ; and there went the land- 
 lords of Ireland. The feeble barriers that had been opposed 
 to the perpetual error of English policy now disappeared, 
 and the manufacturers of Ireland were ruined. The copy- 
 right law w^as extended to Ireland, and her printing-offices 
 were closed. From that day to the present, the unfortunate 
 country has been deprived of all power of concentration : of 
 all power to place the consumer by the side of the producer. 
 She is compelled to convert her food into pork, that it may 
 bear transportation to the place where it is to be exchanged 
 for cloth : when, otherwise, she would bring the fashioner 
 of the wool to the place where corn and wool were both pro- 
 duced, and would thus obtain twice the cloth for the same 
 quantity. Could she do this, the gain would be quadruple. 
 She would save the use of a vast amount of bad, and would 
 acquire the use of much of the best, machinery of exchange. 
 The profit derived from this w^ould enable her to bring into 
 
 from a Protestant by descent, bequest, or devise. Upon death, their inherit- 
 ances were equally divided among their children ; and all regular clergy, friars, 
 Jesuits, and Catholic bishops, were enjoined to quit the kingdom. Catholics 
 were in still more general terms deprived of the elective franchise, by an act 
 passed in 1727. 
 
382 IRELAND. 
 
 activity her best soils ; and the return to labour would be 
 doubled : while the value of the product, in cloth, would 
 also be doubled. 
 
 Ireland, thus deprived of all intercourse with the colonies 
 and with the world, might be supposed to be exempt from 
 the cost of supporting the fleets and armies necessary for re- 
 taining those colonies, and fighting the battles of the world : 
 but such is not the case. Of what escapes the landlords, 
 the landlord government of England takes four millions, for 
 the maintenance of armies and fleets for keeping Ireland 
 quiet ; and for the pay of English viceroys, English chan- 
 cellors, English secretaries, and English agents of all kinds : 
 whose savings are deposited in English funds, or invested in 
 the stock of English railways. Of what is accumulated 
 in Ireland by people who are there resident, the mass goes 
 to England, because all employment for capital in Ireland is 
 interdicted. From 1821 to 1833, the amount of Irish accu- 
 mulations transmitted across the Channel for investment in 
 the British funds, exceeded ten millions of pounds : and if 
 we could ascertain the investments in corporation stocks, it 
 is possible they might amount to almost as much more. 
 Even the savings of the little capitalist who deposits his 
 shilling in the savings fund, cannot escape absorption. By 
 law, those institutions are compelled to make their invest- 
 ments in the English funds ; and thirteen years since, the 
 amount so invested was a million and a half of pounds. 
 Centralization is perfect ; and hence the poverty and wretch- 
 edness of the whole people. 
 
 Having thus shown the numerous conduits provided for 
 the transfer of the wealth of Ireland to England, we may 
 now look to some of the machinery of exchange. That 
 wealth tends to promote the extension of the manufactures 
 of England, the demand for agricultural products, and the 
 demand for labour at certain seasons of the year in agricul- 
 ture. The labourer of Ireland, deprived of the power of 
 exchanging his products at home with those who will give 
 
IRELAND. 383 
 
 him cloth, finds that he must confine himself to the cultiva- 
 tion of that commodity of which the land will afford him the 
 greatest quantity, and that will least bear the expense of 
 transportation : the potato. He has, consequently, labour 
 to sell ; and as he has rent to pay, he must sell it, or be ex- 
 pelled from his little holding. He travels to Cork or Dub- 
 lin and makes his way to England, there to employ, in 
 obtaining a pound or two, the labour which might, if em- 
 ployed at home, have given to him and his employer twice 
 as many pounds as he had received shillings. Such is the 
 machinery of exchange provided for Ireland. Under such 
 a system, concentration cannot take place, and without that 
 civilization is impossible. 
 
 Such are the causes why the whole population of that 
 beautiful island is dependent upon the single chance of a 
 good crop of potatoes : why they starve if it fail : and why 
 they must continue to starve so long as they continue to 
 constitute a portion of the British empire, subject to laws 
 w^hose sole end is to draw from the land all that it can be 
 made to give forth, and to return nothing back to the great 
 giver.* 
 
 A system better calculated to perpetuate barbarism 
 never was devised ; yet English writers gravely ask if the 
 existence of the present state of things is not due to some 
 defect of the Irish character ! Had England been made the 
 prey of her continental neighbour, in like manner, such 
 would be now the question of the people of France. In 
 point of physical qualities, the people of Ireland are supe- 
 rior to most of those of the continent, and eminently so to 
 those of France : the reason for which may be found in 
 the perpetual exhaustion of the people of the latter by the 
 
 * Mr. Cashlan waited on Sir William Somnierville, the Irish Secretary, with 
 the tidings that in his parish there are sixteen hundred who have neither food 
 nor work. In these quarters, it would seem, nothing will teach the land- 
 lords; for he says, Lord Dillon, with a rental of £22,000 per annum, spent 
 in England, has fifteen thousand acres uncultivated there — and not a shilling 
 spent for eighteen months on drainage or reclamation. — Irish paper, 1847 
 
384 IRELAND. 
 
 drains for purposes of war. Governments are always par- 
 ticular to take the able-bodied, and those exempt from dis- 
 ease. The demands of that portion of the community of 
 France that administered the government : that is, which 
 collected taxes, and made wars for their own gratification 
 or emolument : have at times required all that were capable 
 of bearing arms ; and even now require, in parts of the 
 kingdom, almost every man that is suited for their purpose. 
 Of the whole mass of conscripts, nearly forty per cent, are 
 rejected for being under the standard, which is four feet ten 
 inches, French, or less than five feet two inches, English mea- 
 sure. In the Departement du JYord, out of five thousand four 
 hundred and thirty-three conscripts, that proportion is first 
 dropped for that reason. Then follow those who have con- 
 stitutional defects, and finally about twenty-eight per cent, 
 are rejected for disease and deformity ; and thus the number 
 left is barely sufficient to supply the annual demand. Such 
 has been the case for centuries, and the effect is here the 
 same that would be found on the farm of a man who sold all 
 his best calves to the butcher, and kept the inferior ones for 
 the purpose of propagation. The best men perish in the 
 field, and the blind, the halt, the lame, the stunted, and the 
 miserable, are left at home to labour, and to recruit the 
 population. Poverty prevents marriage, and libertinism is 
 common. Marriages are few, by comparison with those of 
 Ireland. The subjects are bad, and marriages are conse- 
 quently unprolific. Women cannot marry, because the pro- 
 portions of the sexes are disturbed, and hence a cause of 
 unchastity. In Ireland the proportions are better main- 
 tained, and nearly all marry, as it was intended they should 
 do. Women are therefore chaste, and all have children : 
 but of these many die for want of proper nourishment. 
 Population grows, and therewith w^ealth advances : and the 
 condition of the people slowly improves. 
 
 The growth of population is slow, because the slow 
 growth of wealth perpetually forces the younger and more 
 
IRELAND. 385 
 
 active portions of the people to seek abroad that subsistence 
 Avhich is denied to them at home. The statements in regard 
 to their numbers during the last century deserve no atten- 
 tion, because of their obvious incorrectness. In 1805, the 
 population was believed to be 5,395,000. In 1841, it was 
 8,175,000: at which rate, allowing for emigration, it would 
 double itself in about sixty years. 
 
 Hundreds of thousands of Irish men and women have 
 transferred themselves to the United States, and we have 
 abundant opportunity of knowing their character. Some- 
 times turbulent, the natural consequence of the situation in 
 which they have been placed, the men are, in general, hard- 
 working, industrious, and economical, and make excellent 
 citizens : while the women are unquestionably distinguished 
 for chastity. All have been educated in a bad school, but 
 all show what they might have been made, had the school 
 been better. 
 
 It is from the frequency of agrarian outrages, that the 
 English writers are disposed to infer the incapacity of the 
 Irish for civilization, yet it is from their occurrence that we 
 should most infer their capacity for it. The system is bad : it 
 destroys the souls and bodies of the men who are subject to 
 it: and the outrages complained of are but the natural result 
 of its existence, while they are evidence that man has not 
 yet been so ground down by slavery as to have lost all con- 
 sciousness of the existence of a right to resist. The mise- 
 rable Hindoo when oppressed by his tyrant governor takes 
 his seat before his door, with his wife and children, and 
 threatens to starve himself and them to death if his griev- 
 ances be not remedied. For centuries the poor peasant of 
 France, tailleable et corveeahle a merci et a jjiisericorde, dis- 
 appears from the page of history. To raise the Hindoo to 
 civilization, it would be necessary to teach him that he had 
 rights, and to do so would require far greater time than 
 w^ould be required for the Irishman, who, poor and oppressed 
 3 C 33 
 
386 IRELAND. 
 
 as he may be, has yet preserved the knowledge that they 
 once existed. 
 
 The task of the daughters of Danaiis was that of filling a 
 vessel pierced with holes. Could they have stopped the holes, 
 it would speedily have filled. The task of the people of 
 Ireland is the same, and until they apply that remedy, the 
 effort is hopeless. The mode of remedy is to be found in 
 self-government, and in that alone. Were she alone, she 
 w^ouid need neither fleets nor armies, for she has not an 
 enemy in the world. Everywhere regarded as the victim 
 of the policy of England, her sufferings have excited uni- 
 versal commiseration, and all would desire to aid, rather 
 than to interfere with her. Without fleets or armies, she 
 would require scarcely any taxes. She owes no debt, for 
 that of England was contracted by and for England alone. 
 She it was that wanted colonies, and commerce, and glory, in 
 which Ireland was not permitted to participate, and for 
 which Ireland ought not to pay. One leak would thus be 
 closed. 
 
 With the diminution of the repulsive power of taxation, 
 the attractive power would increase, and absentee landlords, 
 no longer claimants on the Enghsh government, and no 
 longer driven to France for escape from taxes, would find 
 a residence at home most profitable : while every man, from 
 the highest to the lowest, would find himself animated by 
 the desire to prove that Ireland ivas capable of self-govern- 
 ment. Peace and harmony w^ould take the place of riot and 
 outrage, and wealth would grow, in the form of roads and 
 mills : the better soils capable of yielding coal and iron, 
 and larger supplies of food, would come into activity, and 
 concentration would appear: a consequence of the power 
 of the consumer to take his place by the side of the pro- 
 ducer. The English manufacturer would find that he could 
 work to more advantage in Connaught, where food was 
 abundant and labour cheap, than in Manchester, where the 
 former was less abundant and the latter dearer: and by 
 
IRF.L^ND. 387 
 
 degrees factories wouKl make ihclr appearance in every part 
 of Ireland. With every such improvement in the machinery 
 of exchange, the power of production would increase : in- 
 dustry w^ould be stimulated : wages would rise : the million 
 of mud-built cabins would be replaced by neat cottages : 
 the value of land would rise : land would be divided and 
 would pass gradually into the ownership of those who culti- 
 vated it: and happiness and prosperity would take the place 
 of the existing scene of misery and wretchedness : and all 
 this would be accomplished without interfering in the slight- 
 est degree with one right of property. The man of Ireland 
 wants only to feel that he has a home : that it is his own : 
 to make it one in which he would desire to spend his days, 
 instead of braving all the horrors of the middle passage in 
 search of a place of refuge in the wdlds of Canada, to perish 
 on the voyage, or to die of disease on the shores of the St. 
 Lawrence. 
 
 The character of the present system is so monstrous that 
 it can be paralleled in India alone. There, as in Ireland, 
 the landholder takes all and gives nothing back to the land. 
 There, as in Ireland, the people perish of famine and pesti- 
 lence : and both must so continue to perish while their 
 existing relations with England continue to be maintained. 
 India, unhappily, has no newspapers. Ireland has but few, 
 yet we may judge from the few facts that are published, of 
 the vast multitude that are not. The latest journals are 
 filled with accounts of the eviction of tenants, whose houses 
 and cabins are thrown down ; their unfortunate inhabitants 
 being compelled to seek refuge in neighbouring glens, or 
 church-yards, there to die of famine or pestilence :^ and all 
 
 * Sir Edward Waller has ejected eight families, consisting of about forty- 
 seven persons. These most wretched beings have, since the period of their 
 eviction, been squatting in dykes and glens, literally burrowing in the earth for 
 shelter, victims to every inclemency of the weather, death hourly staring them in 
 the face. At Farnee, Maryglen, and Moyrath, in the neighbourhood of Keeper 
 Mountain, liord Bloomfield, who is in St. Petersburgh, through his agent, has 
 been at the same work of ejectment. About eight families, consisting of 
 
388 IRELAND. 
 
 this is the consequence of the pertinacious determination of 
 England that Ireland shall send her wool to England, accom- 
 panied by food for the man that is to twist and weave it: the 
 w^hole then to be carried back in the form of cloth, which 
 the poor wretch who raised the food cannot buy, because he 
 has not even potatoes for his family. 
 
 The present course of legislation is the most extraordinary 
 that the world has yet seen, and proves the uniform tendency 
 of injustice to produce injustice. The produce of Ireland 
 is transferred to England, there to be employed or consumed, 
 and the impoverished Irishman seeks to follow it. To 
 compel those who are not yet paupers to support those who 
 are, the Parliament of England passes a poor law, by virtue 
 of which nearly the whole land is confiscated. In one 
 county of the west, the present expenditure under that law 
 exceeds four millions of dollars, while the annual value of 
 all the property subject to the rate is but three millions and 
 a half, and much of this is subject to the claims of mort- 
 gagees: but the right of owners, and mortgagees, and all, are 
 extinguished. Over an extent of nearly six millions of 
 acres, the expenditure is at the rate of seventeen millions a 
 year, while the annual value is but twelve millions : and 
 these seventeen millions are to be employed in supporting 
 
 about forty -five persons, have been also sent abroad, without a roof to protect 
 them from the rigours of the weather. Their condition is immeasurably more 
 lamentable than we can describe. 
 
 On the 13th of July, according to the statement, and in the village called 
 " Glen," on the estate of the Earl of Cork, ejectments were executed by the 
 sub-sherifF of Cork, aided by the military and police force, on forty-eight 
 tenants. Their houses or cabins were thrown down, and the forty-eight 
 families, numbering about four hundred human beings, were turned out upon 
 the high road. Of these it is alleged that more than one hundred icere suffer- 
 ing from fever. They were obliged to take refuge in a neighbouring church- 
 yard. The church-yard of Ballysaliy contains many flat tombstones and 
 grass-covered graves ; and among those graves the ejected families slept for 
 four consecutive nights, huddled together. One poor woman was taken off 
 her bed four days after her confinement, and placed by the side of the ditch 
 with her infant, both in a state of helpless exhaustion. Another woman had 
 a family of seven, all suffering from fever. In a third family there were ten 
 persons in fever at the time of the ejectment. 
 
IRELAND. 389 
 
 people who are idle at home because they cannot find em- 
 ployment, with a view to prevent them from following to 
 England the corn and the pork that they are not permitted to 
 retain at home. The State is now making loans to promote 
 drainage, and it has lately expended some millions in mak- 
 ing roads, also called loans, not a shilling of which can — or 
 ought — ever be repaid. It passes laws to facilitate the sale 
 of encumbered estates, while its system tends to withdraw 
 from the country, to be invested in England, all the means 
 of purchase. It has even been proposed that the State 
 should, under certain circumstances, take possession of 
 lands and administer them in some manner or other. We 
 now forget the process that was to be pursued, but we know 
 that it was most remarkable for its folly and its injustice. 
 Each step is thus worse than the la.st, and each but renders 
 the case of Ireland more hopeless, and the connection with 
 England more intolerable. Under such circumstances it is 
 not extraordinary that the people of the former should be be- 
 coming daily more and more unanimous in favour of a repeal 
 of the Union, and of a recognition of the right to govern her- 
 self after her own fashion. 
 
 The present forced connection is ^ curse to both countries, 
 and the sooner it shall be dissolved, the better it will be for 
 both. Free and independent, Ireland will be to England the 
 best of friends, while subjugated Ireland must continue to 
 be, as she always has been, the bitterest of enemies. Allied 
 in feehng, but independent in government, they will be ever 
 ready to combine for self-defence, and wars of offence will 
 pass out of fashion. Peace will promote the growth of 
 wealth in both, and England will find in Ireland a better 
 customer than she has ever yet been, without the cost of 
 governing her. The blackest chapter in history is that which 
 contains the recital of Ireland's connection with England, 
 and so long as that country shall continue in her present 
 condition she will stand a living monument of injustice : a 
 great pauper, soliciting alms at home and abroad, and made 
 
390 IRELAND. 
 
 such by English farmers-general. So long as she shall thus 
 stand, the claims of England to occupy a high place in the 
 history of civihzation may well be disputed. She has 
 sown poverty and disunion, and she is now reaping the 
 harvest. 
 
 She has compelled the people to cultivate poor soils, while 
 surrounded by millions of acres that require drainage alone 
 to render them as productive as any lands in the world : to 
 content themselves with turf while coal abounded: to buy 
 iron when both ore and fuel existed in unlimited quantity : 
 to buy cloth while wasting more labour than would have 
 manufactured all the cloth consumed in Britain : and all this 
 she has done for the benefit of her own landlords, her own 
 manufacturers, and her own shipping merchants. Her policy 
 towards Ireland has been one of unmixed and unmitigated 
 selfishness, injustice and tyranny : and she has thus esta- 
 blished in the sister island, containing eight millions of inha- 
 bitants possessing the same rights as their masters her own 
 more favoured people, a realm over the portals of which are 
 inscribed 
 
 " Who enters here, leaves Hope behind :' 
 
 yet, in defiance of all this, England claims to occupy a high 
 place among civilized nations !* 
 
 The PAST says to the Irish landlord of the present : " If 
 you desire that your land increase in value and that your 
 rents increase in amount: strive for the freedom of Ireland." 
 
 To the labourer it says : " If you desire good wages, 
 plenty of food, and a home of your own: and for your 
 
 * "It is a strange thing that it should not be admitted in England, that one 
 nation has no right to govern anolher nation, and that such government can 
 know no other law than that of force, acco7npanied by robbery and tyranny ; 
 that the tyranny of a people is of all tyrannies the most intolerable, and 
 that which leaves the least resource to the oppressed, because a despot is 
 arrested by a regard to his own interest, he is restrained by remorse, or by 
 public opinion, but a multitude calculates nothing — it has no remorse— it 
 decrees to itself glory, when it deserves to feel only shame." — Turgot. 
 
IRELAND. 391 
 
 children, land of their own : strive for the freedom of Ire- 
 land." 
 
 To all it says : " In union there is strength. Be united 
 and you shall be free. Become free, and you will become 
 prosperous and happy." 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 As this sheet is going to press, we meet wifh a statement of the emigra- 
 tion of the present year to the St. Lawrence, by which it appears that out of 
 99,000, no less than 13,000 died on ship-board, or of disease contracted on 
 the voyage. Of the unhappy remainder, a large portion will probably perish 
 from having been forced abroad to a new and poor country in which exists but 
 small demand for labour, while themselves totally unprovided with the means 
 of purchasing food for themselves and their families. So monstrous a system 
 has never existed in the annals of the world, yet British ships, maintained out 
 of the taxes paid by starving Irishmen, are, at this moment, employe*''' i» the 
 suppression of the slave trade ! 
 
392 INDIA. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 INDIA. 
 
 The man who cultivates the poor soils, surrounded by 
 fertile lands covered with fine timber that he cannot clear, 
 is a wanderer, and most frequently a robber. The poor 
 tribe clustered on the side of the great mountain range, looks 
 with longing eyes upon the wealth of more active and 
 industrious men whose labours have subdued to cultivation 
 the richer soils, and have thus enabled milHons to obtain 
 abundant food from a surface that but recently gave to a few 
 thousands scarcely the means of supporting life. Envy and 
 jealousy prompt to war and plunder, and hence perpetual 
 interference with the rights of more industrious and richer men. 
 
 If we desire to find the seats of early civilization, we must 
 seek them in the lower lands near the foot of the Himalaya 
 range : in India and China : on the shores of the Tigris and 
 the Euphrates : in Asia Minor and in Greece : and, some- 
 what more distant, on the banks of the Nile. If, now, we 
 trace the history of those countries, we find a constant series 
 of invasions from the higher and poorer lands: one race of 
 barbarians succeeding another until at length civilization 
 disappears from all, and a few scattered people, half savage, 
 are seen obtaining from the cultivation of poor soils a mise- 
 rable subsistence, where formerly vast nations obtained from 
 the richer soils abundant rewards to labour. 
 
 If next we look further westward, we see civilization risinjr 
 in Italy and Sicily : in Carthage and in Spain : again to 
 disappear under the invasions of poor men, heretofore culti- 
 vating poor soils. Again it is found fiirther west, for a time 
 to disappear under the weight of invasion from the east, 
 
INDIA. 
 
 393 
 
 again to rise, secured by insular position from further inter- 
 ferences from abroad. Standing now in England, and 
 looking upwards towards the Alps, we may see civilization 
 gradually diminishing as our eyes ascend the slope ; and 
 with each step upwards, we see the traces of earlier cultiva- 
 tion. Extending our view towards the great range of Asia, 
 we see, on a large scale, the same great fact ; and with each 
 step downward in the scale of civilization, we find ourselves 
 approaching nearer the site of early cultivation : nearer to 
 the places occupied by men whose labours were unaided 
 by wealth in the form of spades and axes. 
 
 Turning our eyes now towards India, we may see a fur- 
 ther illustration of the fact that distance from the seat of early 
 occupation has been essential to permanent civilization. 
 The history of that great country during a long series of 
 centuries, is a record of perpetual invasions from the poor 
 tribes occupying the high and dry lands on the sides of the 
 great mountain range. At each intermission civilization 
 struggles into life, but each is followed by a new incursion, 
 when population is destroyed, the rich lands are again aban- 
 doned, and poverty and wretchedness, feebleness and inca- 
 pacity for self-defence, become again the sole heritage of 
 man. If we now look to the character of man, we may see 
 it change nearly in the ratio that security is increased by 
 distance from these mountain ranges. The Hindoo, ag- 
 grieved by his government, sits dhurnah. He will starve 
 himself, his wife and children, and thus destroy his master's 
 slaves. The Turkish rayah is found one step higher in the 
 scale, which rises gradually until we reach that country of 
 Europe in which security has most existed, and in which 
 wealth and population have most increased — England. On 
 a smaller scale, we may see the same fact illustrated as we 
 descend the Alps, the character of man steadily improving 
 as we pass towards the lands of the richer soils : Guienne 
 and Normandy : the Netherlands and Prussia : the Milanese 
 and Tuscany ; and always highest where wealth most exists, 
 3D 
 
394 INDIA. 
 
 for there it is that man is most enabled to apply his labour to 
 the fashioning of the great machine. 
 
 At one period in its history, Hindostan appears to have 
 enjoyed a high degree of prosperity. Each village consti- 
 tuted a little republic, having its own officers for the mainte- 
 nance of the public peace, and for other purposes. The 
 contributions to the state are supposed to have been one- 
 thirteenth of the produce of the land. The best soils were 
 then to a great extent cultivated. Wealth increased, educa- 
 tion was generally disseminated, and continued peace and 
 security were alone required for the attainment of the highest 
 civilization. Unhappily, how^ever, for them, they were too near 
 neighbours of poor men w^ho cultivated thin soils, and who 
 saw in labour with the sw^ord returns far larger than could be 
 obtained by labour with the plough. Invasion and destruc- 
 tion of property and life were followed by civil wars and 
 depopulation. The fertile soils were gradually abandoned, 
 and labour yielded less returns. Taxes became less and 
 less productive ; and each step downwards in production 
 was followed, necessarily, by a corresponding one upwards in 
 the proportion of the great landlord : the collector of rent or 
 tax : until at length the half of the diminished product was 
 held to be his right. Cultivation diminished as with the 
 growth of poverty the inducements to honest labour disap- 
 peared, and each diminution in the number of those who 
 lived by their own labour was attended by an increase in the 
 number of those who lived by that of others. The rights of 
 the little land-owner passed away and land gradually concen- 
 trated itself in the hands of the few^ and they did as has 
 been done at all times, and in all ages, by men who exer- 
 cised power over their fellow men. They plundered those 
 below, and were in turn plundered by those above them- 
 selves. The havildar, the head of a village, called his habi- 
 tation the durbar, and plundered of their meal and roots the 
 wretches within his jurisdiction ; the zemindar fleeced him 
 of the small pittance which his penurious tyranny had 
 
r INDIA. 395 
 
 scraped together ; the phoosdar, a military commandant of 
 the province, seized on the zemindar's collections, and bribed 
 the nabob's connivance in his villanies by a share of the 
 spoil ; the covetous eye of the nabob ranged over his domi- 
 nions for prey, and employed the plunder of his subjects in 
 bribing or resisting his superiors.* Great men became very 
 numerous, and, as usual, the poverty of the little men in- 
 creased with every addition to their number. 
 
 Such was the condition of that country forty years since. 
 During a large portion of the previous century it had been 
 the theatre of wars whose object was the determination of 
 the question whether England or France should have the 
 right of taxing its unhappy people ; and during the whole 
 period the former was filled with nabobs : men who had 
 accumulated fortunes by a display of rapacity rarely ex- 
 ceeded ; who plundered sovereigns, princes, and princesses, 
 with a full knowledge that what was taken from them must 
 be furnished by contributions from the poor starving wretches 
 by whom they were surrounded. 
 
 Since then, the whole tendency has been that of centrali- 
 zation. Late in the last century Lord Cornwallis had endea- 
 voured to set some bounds to the Company's claim for taxes, 
 but even that effort was accompanied by acts of grievous in- 
 justice. The whole class of little village proprietors was first 
 delivered over to the tender mercies of the zemindar, or great 
 landed proprietor, the result of which is that they have been 
 in a great measure, if not altogether, extinguished. Land 
 thus concentrated itself in the hands of the few, but respect 
 for their rights had as little existence as respect for those of 
 the unfortunate people below them. Everywhere, zemindary 
 estates were abandoned becauseof inability to pay the taxes, 
 and in some cases to the extent of a fifth of the whole num- 
 ber. Of the condition of the unfortunate ryot, or labourer, 
 subjected to their control, some idea maybe formed from the 
 
 * Sec Ormc on the Government of Hindostan. 
 
296 INDIA. 
 
 following passage taken from the fifth report of the select 
 committee of the House of Commons, by which it is seen 
 that the system of indirect taxation united all that is inju- 
 rious in the French octroi, and the Spanish alcahala. 
 
 " In addition to the assessment on the lands, or the shares 
 of their produce received from the inhabitants, they were 
 subject to the duties levied on the inJand trade, which were 
 collected by the renters under the zemindars. These duties, 
 which went by the name of sayer, as they extended to grain, 
 cattle, salt, and all the other necessaries of life, passing 
 through the country, and were collected by corrupt, partial, 
 and extortionate agents, produced the worst effects on the 
 state of society, by not only checking the progress of 
 industry, oppressing the manufacturer, and causing him to 
 debase his manufacture, but also by clogging the beneficial 
 operations of commerce in general, and abridging the com- 
 forts of the people at large. This latter description of im- 
 posts was originally considered as a branch of revenue too 
 much exposed to abuses to be intrusted to persons not liable 
 to restraint and punishment. It was therefore retained under 
 the immediate management of the government. The first 
 rates were easy, and the custom-houses few ; but in the 
 general relaxation of authority, this mode of raising revenue 
 for the support of the government was scandalously abused. 
 In the course of a little time, new duties were introduced, 
 under the pretence of charitable and religious donations, as 
 fees to the chokeydars, or account-keepers' guards, and 
 other officers at the stations, as protection money to a ze- 
 mindar ; or as a present to those who farmed the duties. 
 Not only had the duties been from time to time raised in 
 their amount, and multiplied in their number, at the discre- 
 tion of the zemindars and the renters under them, but they 
 were at length levied at almost every stage, and on every 
 successive transfer of property ; uniformity in the principles 
 of collection was completely wanting ; a diflferent mode of 
 taxation prevailing in every district in respect to all the 
 
INDIA. 397 
 
 varieties of goods, and other articles subject to impost. 
 This consuming system of oppression had, in some instances, 
 been aggravated by the company's government, which, when 
 possessed of a few factories, with a small extent of territory 
 around them, adopted the measure of placing chokies, or 
 custom stations, in the vicinity of each, for the purpose of 
 ascertaining the state of trade within their own limits, as 
 well as to afford them a source of revenue. Under the 
 head of sayer revenue was also included a variety of taxes, 
 indefinite in their amount, and vexatious in their nature, 
 called moturpha ; they consisted of imposts upon houses, 
 on the implements of agriculture, on looms, on merchants, 
 on artificers, and other professions and castes." 
 
 The Company, however, could not afford to part with its 
 right to levy taxes to an unlimited extent, under the pre- 
 tence of taking rent for the use of poor lands occupied by 
 men who cultivated the poorest soils: and the further pro- 
 gress of the permanent settlement was therefore stopped after 
 it had been established throughout Bengal, and over a small 
 portion of the Madras presidency. Throughout the remainder 
 of the Madras, and the whole of the Bombay presiden- 
 cies, the ryotw^ar system still exists, under which the amount 
 levied on each ryot is left to be determined at the discretion 
 of the European or native revenue officers, it being the 
 practice to compel the ryot to occupy as much land, and 
 consequently pay as much taxes, as is deemed proportioned 
 to his circumstances. He is not allowed, on payment even 
 of the high survey assessment fixed on each field, to culti- 
 vate only those fields to which he gives the preference ; his 
 task is assigned to him, and he is constrained to occupy all 
 such fields as are allotted to him by the revenue officers ; 
 and whether he cultivates them or not, he is saddled with the 
 rent of all. If driven by these oppressions to fly, and seek 
 a subsistence elsewhere, he is followed wherever he goes 
 and oppressed at discretion, or deprived of the advaijtages 
 he might expect from a change of residence. 
 
 34 
 
398 INDIA. 
 
 With every improvement in cultivation ; with every im- 
 provement in manufactures ; with every increase in the 
 quantity of labour; with every indication of increased com- 
 fort or wealth ; the taxes rise, or would rise : and as a 
 necessary consequence, the poor ryot feels little inducement 
 to exertion. Little as it might be, however, it is lessened 
 when he comes to exchange his productions for the necessa- 
 ries of life that he cannot produce. At every step in his 
 progress to market he finds a new tax, and when at market, 
 he buys his salt mixed with dirt from the Company's agent, 
 at six times the price at which it- should be sold : and thus, 
 of the little that escapes the collector of rents, a large por- 
 tion goes to the collector of taxes.* Under such circum- 
 stances, it is not extraordinary that the poor ryots should say 
 that " their skins only are left them." 
 
 The whole product of that country, over and above what 
 is necessary for the absolute preservation of life in ordinary 
 seasons — for in extraordinary ones the people perish by hun- 
 dreds of thousands by famine and pestilence — centralizes 
 itself in Calcutta, to go thence forth in the payment of vice- 
 roys, and officers without number, charged with managing the 
 affairs of these poor people : that is to say, with the collection 
 of taxes, and with their expenditure for the payment of armies 
 occupied in subduing the people of Burmah, or Scinde, or 
 Afghanistan, or those of the Punjaub; and with the transmis- 
 sion of that large portion which goes to England, to be divided 
 among the owners of East India stock : dividends to men who 
 live in palaces and ride in coaches, out of the proceeds of taxes 
 on salt paid by a poor wretch whose wages are two rupees, or 
 one dollar, per month, out of which he finds himself! Ab- 
 sentee-landlordism exists in Ireland, but it luxuriates in 
 India. Every thing is taken from the land that can be 
 
 * " The government, in purchasing salt, are in the habit of pressing it down 
 with hands and feet in the wooden measure ; but when they sell it, of filling 
 it up as light as can be, which makes a difference of twenty per cent.; 
 and other differences of measurement make an additional twenty per cent." — 
 Letter of Commissioner Grceme to the Board of Revenue, 
 
INDIA. 399 
 
 scratched out, and nothing goes back. Even the zemindar, 
 sometimes enriched by the oppression of the poor ryot, never 
 applies a rupee to the improvement of land subject to the 
 Company's claims for revenue. 
 
 Thus far, however, we have seen but a small portion of 
 the holes in this vast vessel of the Dana'ides. Forty years 
 since, the people of India supplied the world with cotton 
 manufactured goods. Their machinery was rough, it is true, 
 but it could readily have been improved ; and it would have 
 cost far less to carry to Calcutta a few ship-loads of ma- 
 chinery, for the conversion of Hindoo cotton into clothing for 
 Hindoo men and women, by aid of Hindoo labourers eat- 
 ing Hindoo rice ; than to carry tens of thousands of ship- 
 loads of cotton and rice to Manchester, to be returned in the 
 form of cloth to Calcutta : thence to be carried into the inte- 
 rior, in a country totally destitute of roads and bridges. 
 Such, however, was not the policy of England. She would 
 not cultivate her own fertile soils. She would not permit 
 capital to seek employment in fashioning her own great food- 
 producing machine : and she would eat the rice of India, 
 even although she might exclude the corn of Canada. She 
 would not permit the machinery of manufacture to go to In- 
 dia, or elsewhere ; and she would insist on supplying India 
 with cotton goods. She did take some food in exchange ; 
 but, to prevent improvement in that country, she subjected 
 cleaned rice to a heavy duty, from which paddy, or rough 
 rice, was exempted : thus offering a bounty to her people 
 for using an unnecessary quantity of bad machinery of ex- 
 change : a measure that could have been exceeded in folly 
 and rapacity only by a similar bounty on the import of cot- 
 ton in the rough, with a view to secure the profit of gin- 
 ning it. 
 
 England had grown rich. For more than half a century 
 the wealth of India had been transferred to her coffers by 
 aid of Clives, and Hastingses, and numerous other members 
 of the same family : men of the great race : and thus while the 
 
400 INDIA. 
 
 one became enriched, the other became poorer from day to 
 day. Towns and villages, by thousands, had been aban- 
 doned during endless wars; and extensive districts, embrac- 
 ing the most fertile lands, had relapsed into jungle : and 
 tigers now occupied the ground that before had given 
 food and clothing to hundreds of thousands of poor but in- 
 dustrious people : the consequence of which was, that the 
 poorest soils were cultivated with the worst machinery. 
 
 The stock of a ryot consisted of a plough not capable of 
 cutting deep furrows, and only intended to scratch the sur- 
 face of the soil, with two or three pairs of half-starved oxen. 
 This, a sickle used for a scythe, and a small spade or hoe 
 for weeding, constituted almost his only implements for hus- 
 bandry. Fagots of loose sticks, bound together, served for 
 a harrow. Carts could be little used in a country where 
 there were no roads, or none but bad ones. Corn, when 
 reaped, was heaped in a careless pile in the open air, to wait 
 his leisure for threshing, which was performed, not by man- 
 ual labour, but by the simple operation of cattle treading it 
 out of the ear. He had no barns for stacking or storing 
 grain, which was preserved, when required, in jars of un- 
 baked earth, or baskets made of twigs or grass. The cattle 
 wefe fed in the jungle, or common waste land adjoining his 
 farm ; and buffaloes, thus supported, generally supplied him 
 wuth milk. Horses were altogether unused in husbandry. 
 The fields had no enclosures. Production was small, and 
 the great landlord took one-half of the small amount, thus 
 rendering improvement of machinery impossible. He could 
 not buy looms and spinning-jennies, even if England would 
 have sold them, which she would not. The necessary result 
 was, that the poor manufacturer was first driven out of the 
 market of the world, and then out of his own : and thus the 
 small existing tendency to concentration was diminished. 
 From being a consumer side by side wdth the producer of 
 cotton, he was driven to seek elsewhere poor soils that he 
 might scratch with his stick, in the almost vain hope of ob- 
 
INDIA. 401 
 
 taining a sufficiency of food : and thus was the amount of 
 raw cotton to be exported, increased for the supposed bene- 
 fit of ships and factories owned by British capitalists, who 
 heeded Httle the sufferings of the poor Hindoo weaver, de- 
 prived of all market for his industry. Having thus com- 
 pelled the use of the inferior machinery of exchange in the 
 form of roads, in place of better machinery previously in 
 use, the export of cotton now went on : but at length the 
 people of the northern United States, driven to the poor 
 soils of new states and territories to raise food instead of 
 concentrating themselves on the rich soils of the old ones 
 for the purpose of consuming it, forced the planter from the 
 production of food to that of cotton with which he filled the 
 world : and now the poor Hindoo could produce for Europe 
 neither the raw material nor the cloth. Next, we find him, 
 m default of other employment, largely engaged in cultivat- 
 ing opium for his neighbours, the Chinese. The trade grows 
 large, and Chinamen use it freely because cheaply supplied. 
 The government takes alarm and destroys the opium, and 
 England takes offence : and now Chinese cities are ruined, 
 their men destroyed, and their women outraged, and the 
 country is laid waste : that English subjects may employ in 
 producing intoxicating drugs the labour that should be em- 
 ployed in converting cotton into cloth, while the labourer ate 
 food produced by the man who was to wear the cloth. 
 
 The tendency of the whole system is that of compelling 
 men to waste labour in transportation that might profitably 
 be applied to production. Cotton and rice must go to Eng- 
 land, that Englishmen may eat the one and fashion the 
 other. Such being the law, it might be supposed that some 
 labour might be applied towards perfecting, in some small 
 degree, that description of the machinery of exchange the 
 use of which was still to be permitted : to wit, roads and 
 bridges : but the reader would greatly err who might sup- 
 pose that possible. Of the vast revenues of that country, 
 derived from the appropriation of one-half of the gross pro- 
 3 E 34* 
 
402 INDIA. 
 
 duce, scarcely a rupee goes back upon the land. We have 
 now before us an account of all the works of improve- 
 ment in that country, with its population of one hundred 
 millions, during a period of seven years ; and it would be 
 exceeded by the state of Rhode Island, with its one hun- 
 dred thousand inhabitants. It is stated that the government 
 does now do something : that it actually expends twelve or 
 fifteen thousand pounds per annum in the repair of roads ! 
 and that, too, in a country whose people are forced by erro- 
 neous legislation over which they can have no control, to 
 export its great product, because they may not be permitted 
 to obtain machinery for fashioning it at home. The produce 
 of the great cotton-growing districts on the Nerbudda is car- 
 ried on oxen, each taking one hundred and sixty pounds, at 
 the extreme rate, in fair weather, of seven miles a day. The / 
 distance to Mirzapore, on the Ganges, is five hundred miles, 
 and the cost is two and a half pence, or five cents, per 
 pound. Thence it goes to Calcutta, a distance of eight 
 hundred miles, by water, unaided, we believe, by steam. 
 From another portion of the cotton-growing districts, in the 
 Ueccan, the transport occupies a continuous journey of two 
 months ; and in the rainy season the road is impassable, and 
 the traffic of the country is at a stand. In the absence of even 
 a defined road, the carriers, with their pack cattle, are com- 
 pelled to travel by daylight to prevent the loss of their bul- 
 locks in the jungles through which they have to pass, and 
 this under a burning sun of from one hundred to one hun- 
 dred and forty degrees. If the horde, sometimes amounting 
 to a thousand, is overtaken by rain, the cotton, saturated 
 with moisture, becomes heavy, and the black clayey soil, 
 through which lies the whole line of road, sinks under the 
 feet of a man above the ankle, and under that of a laden ox 
 to the knees : and in this predicament the cargo lies some- 
 times for weeks on the ground, and the merchant is ruined ! 
 " Black clayey soils," rich and fertile, are here superabund- 
 ant ; but the poor wretch who raises the cotton must culti- 
 
INDIA. 403 
 
 vate the high lands that require neither clearing nor drain- 
 age, and his masters take half the product of their poor soils, 
 while refusing even to make a road through the rich ones : yet 
 forcing him to send his cotton to market to be exchanged 
 for cotton cloth manufactured thousands of miles distant. A 
 system better calculated to compel men to continue culti- 
 vating the poorest soils, by aid of sticks, could not be 
 devised. 
 
 We have here another of the leaks in this great vessel, but 
 it is by no means the last. Of the revenues of this vast 
 empire no small share is distributed among the infinite number 
 of great men charged with the duties of government, who 
 pay themselves liberally : for a very few years of " exile" are 
 deemed to entitle each to acquire fortune for himself and his 
 children. Salaries are large, and savings are considerable : and 
 these savings are lent to the government to enable it to pay 
 the salaries : for large as are the revenues, the debt grows 
 regularly and rapidly. The lender, having accumulated a 
 fortune and having safely invested it at large interest, now 
 returns home, and thenceforth he is entitled to an annual re- 
 mittance of the interest : and to pay him and others like him, 
 and to make dividends on East India stock, almost twenty 
 millions of dollars are annually required : a sum sufficient to 
 make yearly a railroad of six hundred miles : and this is to be 
 paid by men who think that they might perhaps continue to 
 grow cotton, if in addition to bullocks they only had carts ! 
 
 Within the last sixty years there has been levied on the 
 poor Hindoos by and for the uses of that government, to aid 
 it in making dividends, paying salaries, and carrying on wars 
 in which, like that of Affghanistan, the poor tax-payers had 
 no interest, more than five thousand millions of dollars ! In 
 return for all this, the poor people have received at the hands 
 of their masters neither roads, nor canals, nor public works 
 of any description, except barracks, prisons, and hospitals 
 for their own troops. Deprived of all power to improve their 
 wretched machinery of production, they are compelled to 
 
404 INDIA. 
 
 abandon rich lands, and cultivate the poorest : those from 
 which the man who is destitute of a spade and an axe always 
 draws his supplies of food. Such lands can afford no more 
 than is absolutely necessary for the support of existence, yet 
 of the miserable product the company takes one-half and 
 calls it rent, and a large portion of the balance and calls it 
 taxes. The necessary consequence is, that any thing like 
 accumulation is impossible. Each year must furnish the 
 supplies of the year, and when a failure of crop takes place 
 the miserable people are swept off by hundreds of thou- 
 sands. In the twenty years, from 1818 to 1838, there were 
 nine years of famine. That of 1837-8 was terrific, yet the 
 unfortunate people were surrounded by millions upon mil- 
 lions of acres of the richest lands in the world that they 
 could not cultivate, because the government left them no 
 means. The rivers were choked with dead bodies in the pro- 
 vinces where this very abundance of waste land existed ; the 
 air putrefied with the stench of dead and dying human beings, 
 and animals; the jackals and vultures were seen preying on 
 the still animated bodies of our fellow-creatures. Mothers 
 drowned their children by night, unwilling that the morning 
 sun should witness their famishing state ; and whole families 
 of respectability poisoned themselves, rather than beg a little 
 rice for their support ; and, although a rupee's worth (half-a 
 dollar) of grain would sustain a man for thirty days, hydro- 
 phobia was becoming as prevalent as cholera ! 
 
 In other quarters, the dead were lying in hundreds by the 
 road-side, and it became necessary to form companies to 
 carry them to the river, with a view to the prevention of pes- 
 tilence. In Agra, the deaths were at the rate of ten thou- 
 sand per month : and yet at this very period enormous sums, 
 the proceeds of taxes imposed on these wretched beings, 
 were being lavished on the war in Affghanistan ! 
 
 So exhausted are these unfortunate people, that it becomes 
 necessary frequently to remit the taxes, because of inability 
 to collect them. No better evidence of their wretchedness 
 
INDIA. 405 
 
 need be offered than the fact that in lower Bengal, one of the 
 most prosperous portions of the Company's territories : that 
 in which they have been longest and most firmly established ; 
 the consumption of salt in three years, from 1834 to 1837, 
 was less by one-fifth than it had been in the three years from 
 1819 to 1822. Such is the necessary eflfect of a system that 
 drives men from rich soils to poor ones ; and then refuses to 
 supply even a defined road to the unfortunate cultivator, 
 w^ho wovdd consider himself " rich indeed," if that road 
 were made practicable for a cart, to enable him to drag the 
 produce of his miserable soils through the rich black clay 
 that lies between him and the far distant river. 
 
 Throughout India, the class of native great men : those 
 who live by the labour of others : is large. To them, how- 
 ever, is to be added the whole body of their foreign masters. 
 Till recently one of these latter who might have assaulted a 
 native or ploughed up his land, could drag him to a distant 
 city where the cost of litigation is expensive to a degree five 
 times exceeding those of the courts of England, enormous 
 even as they are. Officers of these courts accumulate im- 
 mense fortunes in a few years, out of the substance of ruined 
 suitors. At Madras the supreme court has, says Mr. Ma- 
 caulay, fiilfilled its mission : it has beggared every rich na- 
 tive within its jurisdiction and is inactive for want of some- 
 body to ruin. Great men are very numerous, and their shares 
 of the produce of the poor soils are always large. The la- 
 bour of collecting their taxes is great, and they fix them- 
 selves their reward. The system is the same wherever men 
 are forced to rely upon those soils for food. The many are 
 weak and disunited, and the few plunder them with im- 
 punity. 
 
 The Hindoo may well say that nothing is left him but his 
 skin. He knows no freedom but to die : and yet he is the 
 subject of England, whose people are furnishing the world 
 with missionary bishops to teach Christianity ; the basis of 
 which is, « Do unto your neighbour as ye would that he 
 
406 INDIA. 
 
 should do unto you." He is the slave of the same men who 
 look with "holy horror" upon the sugar of Brazil and upon 
 the cotton of Georgia : the latter raised by men who are better 
 fed, better clothed, better lodged, and better taught, than a con- 
 siderable portion of the people of England itself. He is their 
 slave ; for they will not permit him to combine his exertions 
 with those of his fellow men, to render their joint labour pro- 
 ductive. They will compel him to send food and cotton to 
 Manchester ; that the latter may be twisted and woven, and 
 then sent back to him. They will not permit concentration, 
 without which the rich soils cannot be reduced to cultiva- 
 tion : and until they shall be cultivated, famine and pestilence 
 must continue to sweep off the population : and East India 
 proprietors must continue to waste and destroy, annually, 
 millions of bushels of salt, that they may be enabled to realize 
 their dividends from selling the balance at a monopoly price 
 to the starving wretch who labours one-half of the year to 
 pay his rent, and one-fourth of the balance to pay for that 
 salt. The ecorcheurs of France, who flayed the unhappy 
 people engaged in the preparation of the great food-producing 
 machine, were bad ; but those of England in India are worse. 
 It is, throughout, a system of unmatched atrocity. Such is 
 the condition of the men who raise the " free" cotton of 
 India. 
 
 Nearly a century has now rolled round, since, by the 
 battle of Plassy, the ascendency of England in that great 
 country was secured ; and such is the result. The Hindoo 
 raises cotton, but he consumes only so much as will give him 
 a strip to cover his loins. He raises rice ; but he eats little, 
 for he may not even clean it : and all this is done that Eng- 
 land may be the workshop of the world, and that great ma- 
 nufacturers may accumulate millions by aid of the labour of 
 over-worked and under-fed operatives. A system more self- 
 ish and unsound could not be conceived ; nor could one 
 more utterly destructive, both for herself and others, possibly 
 exist. The results, everywhere, are the same : perpetual 
 
INDIA. 407 
 
 change of system, and perpetual need of change. Canada 
 stagnates : and governors and forms of government are 
 changed, but Canada still remains motionless. Ireland 
 starves, and Irishmen shoot agents : and curfew laws, and 
 bills prohibiting the carrying of arms, are passed ; but Ireland 
 still starves and borrows, and will not pay, because she can- 
 not. Jamaica tries hill-coolies and free negroes : and coolies 
 and negroes fail : and Jamaica still is poor. India cannot 
 send cotton that will sell, and agents are sent to teach the 
 poor Hindoo : who still cannot send cotton, because the rich 
 soils are so abundant that his half-starved cattle, driven by 
 their half-fed owner, cannot wade through them. Australia 
 raises, on the poorest soils, a small supply of wool for which 
 she must be paid ; while paying nothing for six millions of 
 dollars annually charged to her account. English capitalists 
 now propose railroads in India : but railroads never pay 
 w^hen made for people who cultivate the poorest soils, and 
 cannot themselves make roads. India will grow rich, 
 and rapidly grow, w^hen India shall be independent, and 
 shall protect herself against the radical error of the English 
 system ; but until she shall do so : until she shall acquire 
 power to place the consumer by the side of the producer : she 
 must remain poor. In few countries of the world would 
 population and wealth grow so rapidly, were she left alone : 
 but so long as she must remit twenty millions to pay interest, 
 and raise so many other millions to pay armies and officers, 
 while compelled to cultivate the poorest soils with the worst 
 machinery, neither can increase. England may change, and 
 change again, abroad : but, before she can effect any im- 
 provement, she must learn to look at home, and not abroad : 
 she must abandon the use of temporary machinery and take 
 to that which is permanent : she must raise her own food, and 
 permit others to consume their own. She must increase her 
 producers, and she must permit others to increase their con- 
 sumers : and when she shall do that, India and Canada, 
 Jamaica and Australia, will grow rich, while she will grow 
 
408 ' INDIA. 
 
 richer : but she will then cease to want colonies, or armies, 
 or fleets, or great men. In the annals of the world there is 
 recorded no instance of self-deception greater than that which 
 she now exhibits, except, perhaps, in that of France, who 
 seeks dominion by aid of the sword alone, while she goes 
 with sword and yard-stick. To which of the two should be 
 awarded the credit of doing most to pi event the increase of 
 human happiness, it might be difficult to decide ; but we are 
 disposed to think that she would carry off the palm. France 
 wasted the Palatinate with fire and sword. The work accom- 
 plished, the armies were withdrawn. The poor people who 
 were left breathed again : and, in time, they might restore 
 their houses, and obtain fresh spades and ploughs to enable 
 them to cultivate the rich soils. The yard-stick of England 
 is a much more effective instrument. It produces famines 
 and pestilences, recurring year after year, to sweep off all the 
 population rendered surplus by the denial of the power of 
 concentration. Her army is never withdrawn. The houses 
 that it levels cannot be rebuilt. The spades and ploughs 
 that it destroys cannot be replaced. The people 77mst go to 
 the poor soils, and they must have famines to keep the 
 population down to the supply of food that England permits 
 them to produce. The Company are disciples of Mr. Mal- 
 thus. They take rent for the use of the '<■ original and inde- 
 structible powers" of a soil that possesses scarcely any power, 
 and thus starve the population down to the level of sub- 
 sistence. 
 
 The PAST says to the people of England of the present : 
 " I have sinned. I have beggared the people of India. I 
 have taxed them until they have been forced to abandon the 
 rich soils, which are now overgrown. I have applied the 
 proceeds of taxes and contributions to the building of facto- 
 ries that have enabled me to ruin their poor fashioner. I have 
 driven them from making cloth to raising opium. I have 
 destroyed the power of concentration. I have produced fa- 
 mine and pestilence. I have converted people who were 
 
INDIA. 409 
 
 free into slaves. I, too, have suffered. My people have 
 starved, because Hindoos were unable to buy cloth, and food 
 was dear. Take warning by my example. Apply your 
 labour to the improvement of the great machine. Raise your 
 own food, and permit the poor Hindoo to make his own cloth. 
 Do unto them as ye would that they should do unto you, and 
 let them govern themselves. They will then increase in 
 numbers and in wealth, and ye will then increase more 
 rapidly." 
 
 3 F 35 
 
410 ANNEXATION. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 ANNEXATION. 
 
 The people who cultivate the poor soils cluster round the 
 hill-sides, and they are separated from their nearest neigh- 
 bours by large tracts of rich soil covered with forests, and 
 watered by broad rivers. With the growth of wealth and 
 population the rich soils are brought into activity : and with 
 each step the tendency to union is increased, and the nu- 
 merous tribes ultimately combine to make one great, and 
 rich, and powerful State. 
 
 While the people of England cultivated the poor soils of 
 the centre and south, the rich soils of Northumberland and 
 Cumberland, and those of the south of Scotland, were occu- 
 pied by a race of people, half-savage, to whom plunder offered 
 employment more agreeable than labour : and a state of per- 
 petual war was the natural result. With the growth of popu- 
 lation and of wealth, the smaller tribe was annexed to the 
 larger, and the kingdom of Great Britain was formed. 
 
 For centuries France has been engaged in the work of 
 annexation : but she has cultivated the poor soils, and failure 
 has been the result. Piedmont has been repeatedly annexed, 
 but annexation would not stand. Italy, and the Netherlands, 
 and Holland, have been annexed : but the strong repulsive 
 power of poverty again produced separation. She is now 
 annexing Algeria: but the union cannot stand, for France is 
 poor and still cultivates poor soils. 
 
 Holland and Belgium were annexed, but the first loved 
 ships, colonies, and commerce ; and foreign subjects : and 
 looked abroad, while the people of Belgium desired to look 
 to home. The one desired to cultivate the distant poor lands, 
 while the other preferred the near rich ones. The Dutch 
 
ANNEXATION. 411 
 
 were expelled, and Belgium adopted the measures necessary 
 for enabling her people to concentrate themselves for the 
 prosecution of the work of improving the great machine. 
 She now advances rapidly in wealth and population, while 
 Holland implores her flying citizens not to desert their country 
 in its hour of distress. 
 
 The British colonies are poor, and so they are likely to 
 remain. Unable to protect themselves, they feel in all its 
 force the perpetual vacillation of British policy. Concentra- 
 tion for the cultivation of fertile soils cannot take place. 
 The repulsive power is strong, and their connection with the 
 parent country draws towards its close. From year to year 
 new measures are adopted for their government. Slaves are 
 bought and freed in the west, while slaves are being made 
 in the east : and hill-coolies now cultivate sugar for their 
 masters on the fertile soils of Berbice and Demerara, while 
 the lately emancipated slave raises yams on the higher and 
 more healthy land for himself. At one time slave sugar is 
 prohibited, and arrangements are made for raising free sugar. 
 At another, slave sugar is admitted, and the producer of free 
 sugar is ruined. Thus is the system, internal and external, 
 one of perpetual change, and ruinous to all that are intimately 
 connected with her. 
 
 Forced unions are effected, and general associations are 
 now proposed, but at home the measures are the same. 
 The mother country will buy food, and will pay for it with 
 the produce of steam-engines and mills, instead of raising 
 her own food and permitting the colonists to have mills and 
 engines of their own. They must be made to continue to 
 use bad machinery of exchange, and they must therefore 
 continue poor. Annexation by the mother country is, there- 
 fore, impossible, and separation must come. 
 
 In the United States, we witness, at the present moment, 
 the process of annexation on the north and south. On the 
 one hand, the people who cultivate rich soils are rapidly 
 annexing Canada by aid of the peaceful machinery afforded 
 
412 ANNEXATION. 
 
 by increasing wealth. On the other, those who cultivate the 
 poor soils of the south and west are striving at the annexa- 
 tion of Mexico by the unprofitable machinery of war. The 
 one is making friends and strength. The other is as busily 
 employed in wasting its powers in making foes. The suc- 
 cess of the one is certain. The failure of the other is almost 
 equally so. The one pursues the mode that gave union to 
 the few scattered colonies : that of honest labour. The other 
 that which has in all times given to France disunion and 
 weakness : that of arms. Canada will come into the Union, 
 and Mexico most probably will not. The north will grow 
 strong by peace, and the south will grow weak by war. 
 The north concentrates its forces and places the consumer 
 by the side of the producer, and hence her attractive power. 
 The south sends the consumer to Mexico while the producer 
 remains at home, and hence her repulsive power. In the 
 north land is valuable, yet greediness of land has no exist- 
 ence. In the south and west land is cheap and abundant, 
 and hence the desire to have more land. If the south and 
 west desire to have power or to retain it, they must study 
 concentration and not dispersion. The more land they have, 
 the weaker they become : while at every step in the growth 
 of northern population, land becomes less abundant and 
 strength increases. The love of land is the characteristic 
 of the barbarian who cultivates poor soils. The love of 
 man is that of the civilized man who cultivates rich soils. 
 The one loves war and remains w^eak. The other loves peace 
 and grows in strength. 
 
 The expenditure of ten millions in placing the consumer 
 of food by the producer of cotton and food, would double 
 the power of the south. The expenditure of a hundred 
 millions in adding Mexico to the Union will diminish that 
 power in the same proportion : yet they will have wars, 
 for throughout the south, in default of concentration, there 
 are always found thousands anxious to manage the affairs 
 of nations, having no business at home to demand their 
 
ANNEXATION. 413 
 
 care. Hence it is that claimants for public employment 
 abound at the south of Mason and Dixon's line, while in the 
 land east of the Hudson they are few. The great men of the 
 south seek public life. The greatest men of the north find 
 more advantage in private life. The one furnishes the world 
 with statesmen, generals, and colonels : the class of men who 
 spend much and produce nothing. The other with mer- 
 chants and manufacturers, who produce much and spend 
 little. The one becomes rich, and with the rich man annexa- 
 tion is easy. The other prevents himself from growing rich, 
 and with him annexation is difficult. 
 
 The United States need concentration and not disper- 
 sion. Peacefully annexed, Mexico would do no harm, but 
 she would not add materially to the power of the Union, or 
 to the happiness of the people. She would gain much. 
 They would gain but little, yet they would gain, for all na- 
 tions prosper by the prosperity of their neighbours. With- 
 in the Union, Mexico would speedily double her popula- 
 tion, and that population would be as quiet and as indus- 
 trious as any in the world. The people everywhere love 
 peace, and everywhere they will labour, when improve- 
 ment is felt to follow exertion. Their rulers alone love 
 war. The peaceful annexation of Mexico would be a 
 great work, but the accomplishment of that object re- 
 quires spades and steam-engines, not swords and cannon. 
 It w^ould be a great boon conferred upon the world. 
 Southern Europe : France, Spain, and Italy : need an out- 
 let for their people, desirous to escape from taxation and 
 misrule, and w-ere Mexico a part of the Union, she would 
 attract much of the best population of those countries; and 
 would do much towards rendering man more valuable in 
 the estimation of men who have land, and of those who 
 exercise power. It would be a great work, and it is deeply 
 to be regretted that the thirst for land should have produced 
 a war that tends to prevent a measure so important for the 
 improvement of the condition oiman. 
 
 35* 
 
414 ANNEXATION. 
 
 With the growth of wealth and population men cultivate 
 better soils, and land becomes divided. With the division of 
 land comes the union of man, and with union comes the 
 power of man over himself, his thoughts and actions, his 
 labour and its proceeds. With self-government comes peace. 
 With peace, armies, and navies, and taxes, disappear. With 
 each step in this course the attractive power increases, and 
 the repulsive force diminishes, and the tendency to annexa- 
 tion : or to the union of nations for the maintenance of the 
 perfect freedom of man as a producer, a fashioner, or an 
 exchanger : as a thinker or an actor : grows. With each, 
 wealth and population tend more rapidly to increase, and 
 with each, man becomes more and more a being of power, 
 and less a victim of necessity. 
 
 The PAST says to the people of the present : I have made 
 war and preparations for war. I have kept on foot large 
 fleets and armies, and have raised heavy taxes. I have pre- 
 vented the growth of w^ealth and population. I have com- 
 pelled men to cultivate the poor soils of the earth. I have 
 prevented the division of land and the union of men and of 
 nations. I have made the few strong and the many weak. 
 Take warning by my example. Cultivate peace. Permit 
 population to grow, and ye will cultivate rich soils. Wealth 
 will then grow rapidly and land will be divided. Men 
 and nations will then become united. Armies, and navies, 
 and taxes, will disappear, and the many will become strong, 
 W'hile the few will become weak. All will then exercise the 
 power of perfect self-government, and all will learn to respect 
 in others those rights they would desire to have respected in 
 themselves. 
 
CIVILIZATION. 415 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 CIVILIZATION. 
 
 Civilization has, in all ages and countries, been found 
 where men have accumulated wealth by means of which they 
 have been enabled to subject to cultivation the rich soils of the 
 earth ; and it has disappeared as they have been forced to 
 abandon them and fly to the poor soils of the hills for safety. 
 Concentration on the former is essential to the progress of 
 civilization. With each step therein we have diminished 
 machinery of exchange : physical and intellectual. Men ex- 
 change more directly with each other the products of their 
 mind and of their hands : and with each step production, 
 material and intellectual, tends to increase. With the in- 
 crease of material product, the proportion of the labourer in- 
 creases, while that of land diminishes : and with each step, land 
 tends to become more and more divided. With the increase 
 of intellectual product, the machinery for the communication 
 of ideas improves, and the labourer finds increased facility 
 of obtaining knowledge, while the teacher obtains from a 
 small contribution on the part of each of his readers or hear- 
 ers a largely increased reward. Each step, therefore, in the 
 progress of civilization is marked by a tendency to equality 
 of physical and intellectual condition, and to the general 
 ownership of wealth, whether in land or other machinery of 
 production : or in the possession of books, pictures, statuary, 
 or other things tending to promote intellectual advancement. 
 
 With the division of land and the diffusion of weahh, the 
 power of the few tends to diminish, while the number of per- 
 sons interested in the maintenance of peace and in the enforce- 
 ment of perfect security in the enjoyment of the rights of person 
 
416 CIVILIZATION. 
 
 and property tends to increase ; and moral feeling improves, 
 because of the increased facility of obtaining the necessaries, 
 conveniences and comforts of life. Improvement and a ten- 
 dency towards perfect equality of moral feeling are therefore 
 characteristics of civilization. With each step in this pro- 
 gress, jealousy and avarice disappear, and harmony and good 
 feeling, and liberality of thought and of action, appear : ge- 
 nerosity towards the weak takes the place of oppression : 
 woman becomes the companion of man and ceases to be his 
 slave : children cease to be slaves and come to be compa- 
 nions : parents cease to be tyrants, and children respect and 
 love them : and all, men, women and children, acquire the 
 habit of self-government. With each step the necessity for 
 the use of the machinery of government, public or private, 
 tends to disappear, and with each the power of man to go- 
 vern himself is seen to increase. With each, the cost of 
 government decreases : and with each, wealth grows with in- 
 creased rapidity, enabling man to bring into activity better 
 soils, followed by a further increase in the return to labour, 
 and facilitating further accumulation. With each, he acquires 
 more and more the feeling of confidence in himself and in the 
 future, and wdth each, he becomes more and more animated 
 by Hope. With each, he learns more and more to appreciate 
 the comforts indicated by the good old English word Home, 
 and more and more to find in the great command to " do 
 unto others as he would that others should do unto him," the 
 guide of all his thoughts, his feelings, and his actions. 
 
 Civilization is marked by elevation and equality of physi- 
 cal, moral, intellectual, and political condition, and by the 
 tendency towards union and harmony among men and na- 
 tions. The highest civilization is marked by the most per- 
 fect individuality and the greatest tendency to union, whe- 
 ther of men or of nations. 
 
 In the early history of Attica, the tendency towards civili- 
 zation was very great, but the destruction of wealth and con- 
 sequent deterioration of physical condition attendant upon the 
 
CIVILIZATION. 417 
 
 Persian wars, was followed by a deterioration of moral and 
 political condition. The people learned to live on the labours 
 of others, while themselves the slaves of demagogues who 
 distributed among their followers small wages, the proceeds 
 of taxation and oppression ; and who employed their share 
 of the plunder in creating gardens, and building temples, to 
 hand down to admiring posterity their illustrious names. 
 Individuals now give names to the times in which they live, al- 
 w^ays a sign of declining civilization. The period most distin- 
 guished by lust for power and " glory," and known as the age 
 of Pericles, which owes its celebrity to men whose existence 
 was one of the results of the previous age of peace and growing 
 wealth, bequeathed to posterity Aristophanes, to whom we are 
 indebted as the vivid painter of the vices of the "lazy, cow- 
 ardly, talkative, and money-loving" tribe by whom he was sur- 
 rounded. With each step downward the few become greater 
 and more profligate. Generals plunder cities and betray their 
 fellows-citizens. Great orators make speeches on one side and 
 take bribes on the other, while the people become more and 
 more impoverished and enslaved. Depravity and corruption, 
 the necessary consequences of unceasing war and growing in- 
 equality, become universal, and with the decay of morals we 
 mark a steady increase of superstition and fanaticism, and all 
 other of the characteristics of increasing barbarism. 
 
 In early Rome we find a compliance with all the conditions 
 of advancing civilization, but with each step in the progress of 
 war and waste, we mark its decline. Great men have palaces 
 filled with their poor and enslaved debtors. Scipio, Metellus, 
 and others, form courts around themselves, wherein the arts are 
 exercised and the sciences taught by slaves, while the streets 
 of Rome witness exhibitions of captured princes and prin- 
 cesses, followed by thousands of captives and the plunder 
 of conquered nations ; and terminating in the execution, in 
 cold blood, at the capitol, of all who might be supposed to pos- 
 sess power to affect the future distribution of the spoils of the 
 3G 
 
418 CIVILIZATION. 
 
 world.* With each step in the downward progress, festivals 
 and games become more magnificent and more brutal, and 
 the people become more and more pauperized : the great 
 men become greater, and the little men become less : until 
 at length the exhausted empire becomes the property of bar- 
 barians, and civilization disappears from the earth. 
 
 In the history of France, we see little tendency towards 
 civilization. Wealth could not grow, and man could not 
 concentrate himself for the cultivation of the fertile soils : and 
 therefore has he remained always poor and disunited. For 
 want of roads, he has been unable to meet his fellow man 
 for the exchange of physical or intellectual products : and, 
 for want of a common language, he and his fellow man 
 have been unable to correspond, or to understand each other 
 if they met. t None of the conditions of civilization are here 
 complied with. Everywhere we see inferiority and ine- 
 quality of physical, moral, intellectual, and political con- 
 dition. J 
 
 M. Guizot regards France as <<the centre: the focus: of the 
 civilization of Europe." That country is and has been, in his 
 estimation, the great leader in European civilization, at the 
 
 * In relation to this period, M. Guizot says : " Take Rome, for example, 
 in the splendid days of the republic, at the close of the second Punic war ; 
 the moment of her greatest virtues, when she was rapidly advancing to the 
 empire of the world — when her social condition was evidently improving^ 
 
 f German is even now the language of an important portion of the people, 
 and the patois of one part of the kingdom is scarcely understood in another. 
 
 :^ " The olficial returns of particular classes of the population, such as the 
 conscripts and the convicts, recognise three degrees of ignorance and three of 
 instruction. Taking these returns as the basis of our calculations, we find the 
 following results for the whole of the population : — 
 
 1. Unable to read and to write ... 16,855,000 
 
 2. Able to read, but not to write - - . . 7,097,000 
 
 3. Reading and writing, but incorrectly - - . 6,968,000 
 
 4. Reading and writing correctly - - _ 2,430,000 
 
 5. Having the elements of classical education - - 735,000 
 
 6. Having completed their classical studies - - - 315,000 
 
 34,400,000" 
 France. London, 1844. 
 
CIVILIZATION. 419 
 
 head of which, from its pecuHar quahties, <'it has been emi- 
 nently quaUfied to march." 
 
 To us, she appears in the Hght of the constant and un- 
 wearied foe of civilization. To her was due the destruction 
 of the Lombard kingdom of Italy, in which civilization was 
 rapidly advancing. By her was Italy afterwards exhausted 
 and delivered over to the ferocious Spaniard. By her have 
 since been commenced all the wars that, from the days of 
 Ferdinand and Charles V., have prevented any advance 
 towards the improvement of the condition of its inhabitants : 
 ever unfortunate in their proximity to poor neighbours, who 
 saw in their wealthy cities, and in their treasures of art, 
 plunder that they desired to appropriate. 
 
 By her were the Netherlands and Holland ruined. To 
 her are due the expulsion of the best citizens of both : the 
 exhaustion of their wealth : the abandonment of rich soils, 
 and the cultivation of poor ones : and to her is due the pre- 
 sent enormous debt under which the industry of Holland is 
 paralyzed. 
 
 If we turn our eyes southward, the same picture meets 
 our eye. Catalonia was advancing in civilization, and there- 
 fore was it coveted. Therefore was it made the scene of 
 ceaseless wars in which was destroyed enormous wealth, 
 while the poor inhabitants were driven to seek from the poor 
 soils of the hills the return to labour which the fertile soils 
 w^ere no longer permitted to yield. Had France not existed, 
 civilization would have spread throughout Spain : for had 
 France not existed, the people who cultivated the poor soils of 
 Spain could not have drawn from Italy the means of destroy- 
 ing the civilization of those who cultivated the rich ones. 
 
 If now we look towards Germany, we see France the 
 perpetual enemy of the free cities : the perpetual ravager of 
 the rich lands, and unceasingly engaged in their depopulation. 
 To her intrigues was due the desolation of the Thirty Years' 
 war. To her was due the control by the house of Austria 
 of the passage of the Valteline, by means of which Spanish 
 
420 CIVILIZATION. 
 
 troops from Italy were enabled to co-operate with those of 
 the execrable Ferdinand in the destruction of the wealth of 
 Germany : and in the establishment of unlimited control over 
 the modes of thinking and acting of the people of Bohe- 
 mia, till then ranking among the most civilized people of 
 Europe. To her unceasing jealousy of Austria were due the 
 perpetual invasions of her Turkish allies, by which all eastern 
 Europe was impoverished. 
 
 If we turn our eyes towards Genoa, or Venice, or Sicily, 
 or Corsica, the result is the same. Wherever civilization 
 endeavoured to raise its head, there were found French 
 armies engaged in the work of its destruction. It could 
 not be otherwise. France kept herself poor, and her peo- 
 ple were driven to the cultivation of the least fertile soils : 
 and hence they were always preying upon each other. 
 Hence the barbarism of the Feudal System, which she in- 
 flicted upon Europe : hence the horrors of the Jacquerie : 
 hence the universal proscription of the industrious Hu- 
 guenots : the atrocities of St. Bartholomew's night, and of the 
 dragonnades : and hence the enormous mass of crime and 
 misery that attended the Revolution. The tendency of 
 every thing in France has been to produce poverty and ine- 
 quality : and thus it is that we see such vast wealth side by 
 side with extreme wretchedness. The few have been, and 
 are, the controllers of the destinies of the people, who have 
 had no voice in the regulation of their own actions : or in the 
 disposal of the proceeds of their labour : or in the determi- 
 nation of their modes of thought. 
 
 M. Guizot informs us that, " as a general thing, in France, 
 ideas have preceded and impelled the progress of the social 
 order ; they have been prepared in doctrine before being 
 accomplished in things, and in the march of civilization 
 mind has taken the lead." Theories have certainly always 
 preceded the accomplishment of «' things," and to the fact that 
 it has been so it is due that the latter have made so little pro- 
 gress. Knowledge is acquired from the study of the laws 
 
CIVILIZATION. 421 
 
 of nature, and where those laws are habitually set aside they 
 cannot be studied. They have been set aside, uniformly 
 and steadily, in France ; and hence it is that «< mind" has 
 taken the lead, and that laws have been manufactured by 
 ^reat men, who have " impelled the progress of the social 
 order" in the direction that suited their purpose. The theory 
 of the barons of the middle ages was, that they held their 
 power from God himself, and that they had a right to make 
 war on their own account : to exercise the droit de jam- 
 bage et de cuissage : and to follow the serf and seize his per- 
 son and his goods : most of which may be found reasserted 
 almost in our ow^n day, by Montlosier. They held that " the 
 liberties of the Gallican church" w^ere perfectly secured w^hen 
 the right of nomination to all places in that church was in 
 their hands, and when they could accumulate bishoprics with 
 immense revenues in the hands of their bastards and de- 
 pendents. They held, too, that " glory" was the great pur- 
 suit of gentlemen, while labour w^as worthy only of slaves. 
 France has alw^ays been the land of very great and very lit- 
 tle men : of those who respected no rights in others, and 
 could command from others no respect for their own. The 
 great had no leisure to study the laws of nature, and the 
 small were too poor and too miserable to have time or mind 
 so to do. The starving man has no leisure to study any 
 thing but how to obtain food. Wherever civilization has ex- 
 isted, it has gone from below upwards : from the people w^ho 
 minded their own business, to those who lived by managing 
 the affairs of others. The great have always been the foes 
 of civilization : while the small have been its friends. From 
 the ranks of the people sprang Bacon and Locke, Shakspeare 
 and Milton, Watt and Arkwright ; men to whom mankind 
 are more indebted than to all the kings and princes the earth 
 has seen. These men were observers of nature, and recorders 
 of her modes of operation. They lived among a people ac- 
 customed more than any other in Europe to permit the laws of 
 nature to act : and there, and there alone, could her laws be 
 
 36 
 
422 CIVILIZATION. 
 
 studied. The essential difference between English and 
 French mind is that one is based upon observation and the 
 other is not, and therefore it is that in France " ideas" have 
 been so numerous ; but there, as everywhere else, theory has 
 been in the inverse ratio of knowledge. Theories in relation 
 to Christianity most abounded w^hen its practice least existed. 
 The immaculate conception was most ardently debated at 
 the time when the Church sold absolution for the worst crimes 
 at the cheapest rate. The theory of France, at all times, has 
 been that her own grandeur was in ratio of the littleness of 
 her neighbours : yet littleness has been her characteristic, in 
 the field and in the cabinet. To that theory it is due that 
 she has at all times made herself "the focus: the centre:" 
 not of civilization, but of corruption and intrigue, and hence 
 it is that she is dreaded by all the friends of freedom. She 
 abounds now in theories. St. Simonianism and other sys- 
 tems of forced union have their origin where the tenden- 
 cy to voluntary union least exists. The advocates of each 
 successive theory hold that they alone have the truth : and 
 thus St. Simonianism is now persecuted,^ as Jansenism, and 
 Molinism, and Jesuitism, have been in past times. Intole- 
 rance towards freedom of thought marks her whole history. 
 Theories of liberty have always abounded, because practical 
 liberty has been unknown. Politico-economical theories 
 abound, yet in no part of the world is the true political 
 economy : that which teaches man to respect in others those 
 rights of which he desires the enjoyment for himself: so little 
 known. Theories of government, and constitutions, have 
 been innumerable : yet government has always, and under 
 every constitution, been administered for the sole benefit of 
 those charged with the performance of its duties. The present 
 theory of France is that Algeria will make her rich : yet she 
 becomes poorer. Her great theory is, that power and influence 
 are to be sought abroad, and she maintains great fleets and 
 armies out of the taxes of a starving people : and then dis- 
 tributes bread-tickets to half the population of Paris. Through- 
 
CIVILIZATION. 423 
 
 out her whole system, past and present, every thing has been 
 ii prepared in doctrine before being accomplished in things :" 
 that is, the few have undertaken to teach the many, and they 
 have made laws to suit themselves, instead of studying the 
 laws that nature made. The consequence has been, that no- 
 thing has been accomplished ; that French theories have been 
 barren, as must be all that are not based upon observation, 
 which cannot take place where practice does not exist. We 
 are not aware, at this moment, of a single idea in moral or 
 political science that is throughout the world received as true, 
 for w^hich we are indebted to that country. Whenever she 
 shall come to be a little practical ; whenever she shall have 
 acquired a little knowledge of the science of self-government ; 
 her theories of governing others will cease to exist : and 
 whenever she shall arrive at that point in the progress of 
 wealth when she shall cease to limit her cultivation to the 
 poorest soils, voluntary unions may arise, and then the system 
 of forced unions, whether for the building of forts, or the cul- 
 tivation of farms, will pass away. The healthy man never 
 studies the theory of disease or health. The sick man does, 
 and the very sick man gives to it his w^hole time and mind. 
 In no part of Europe is practice so unsound as in France. 
 In none do theories so much abound : and in none, con- 
 sequently, should we have a right to expect to find the 
 body-politic more sick. In none should we find it so. In 
 none is the tendency tow^ards civilization at home so small : 
 in none is the tendency to the obstruction of civilization 
 abroad so great. For centuries nearly all the wars of Eu- 
 rope have had their origin in France, and at this moment her 
 intrigues are the cause of nearly all the existing disturbances. 
 The insular position of England has given her peace, and 
 the laws of nature have there been far less habitually set aside 
 than in France. Hence it is that she has given to the w^orld 
 the great men to w^hom we have already referred : men who 
 owed their knowledge to a careful study of nature and her 
 laws, and to that labour which is required of every man who 
 
424 CIVILIZATION. 
 
 desires to cultivate the richest soils, whether physic^.! or in- 
 tellectual. 
 
 In no part of Europe has the tendency to civilization been 
 so great as in England : yet, if we now examine her condi- 
 tion, the conditions of civilization are complied with in but 
 a very limited degree. She uses much of the worst ma- 
 chinery of exchange, that she may cultivate poor and distant 
 soils while neglecting the rich ones at her feet : and there- 
 fore it is that land remains undivided in the hands of great 
 land-owners whose debts are counted by millions of pounds, 
 while surrounded by labourers living in mud hovels, and 
 earning 95. a week.* Here we have the civilization of Rome 
 in the days of Pompey and Caesar : or that of Pomerania, be- 
 fore the changes of the early years of the present century. 
 Where such things are, true civilization has made little pro- 
 gress. 
 
 Neither can we see much of it in a system that enables 
 great manufacturers to accumulate fortunes of millions of 
 pounds out of the labours of the people who occupy the 
 wretched cellars of Manchester : great ship-owners to do the 
 same, while surrounded by the poverty and starvation that 
 may be found in Liverpool : or great coal-proprietors, to fix 
 monopoly prices upon coal mined by naked women and chil- 
 dren, to enable them to accumulate fortunes at the expense 
 of poor consumers in London. There is no civilization in 
 the lanes and alleys of Glasgow ; nor in its numerous brothels, 
 filled with the daughters of peasants who have been hunted 
 out of their hills, until in the northern Highlands the poor 
 remainder have degenerated into a meagre and stunted race. 
 There is none in a system which exhibits throughout the 
 western Highlands and the Isles, a population of from sixty 
 to eighty thousand always in a state of destitution and ha- 
 bitually dependent upon charity ; and compelled, in case of 
 
 * The debts of one noble duke are stated to exceed two millions of pounds 
 sterling: and those of another have been stated to require sixty thousand 
 pounds for the payment of interest alone. 
 
CIVILIZATION. 425 
 
 any deficiency of crops, to seek foreign aid to save them from 
 the horrors of starvation. These poor people pay, for the 
 use of very poor soils, high rents to men who live in pa- 
 laces : great men : always the bane of little men. There is 
 no civilization in starving Ireland ; none in India depopu- 
 lated by starvation produced by enormous taxation for the 
 support of great armies maintained for securing the sale of 
 English cloths, or for the payment of interest on loans made 
 to their masters by English subjects, and dividends on stock 
 held by absentee landlords. 
 
 So long as England shall continue to constitute herself 
 head of a great empire, that empire must be considered as 
 one in its whole length and breadth ; and her claims to rank 
 in civilization must be weighed after an examination of the 
 condition of her whole people : the powerful duke and the oc- 
 cupant of the mud hovel: the great chief of the clan and his 
 miserable tenant : the wealthy manufacturer and the poor 
 operative : the Irish landholder and his starving tenant : the 
 rich West India proprietor and his late slave : the East India 
 proprietor and his present slaves, decimated, at brief inter- 
 vals, by famine and pestilence. So considered, the claims 
 of England to civilization do not stand high : nor can they 
 do so while she shall continue to present to view such enor- 
 mous contrasts. 
 
 Half a century since, and perhaps even more recently, 
 might be seen in the streets of Lisbon, men with good coats 
 on their backs, cocked hats upon their heads, and swords by 
 their sides, but with bare feet and legs. These men thought 
 themselves civilized, and so does England : and the civihza- 
 tion of the two is nearly alike. England has a very good 
 coat, by which her body is well covered : but it has very 
 short sleeves. The arms, to a great extent, are naked : and 
 those arms represent a large portion of the people of England, 
 badly fed, badly clothed, and very badly educated ; while 
 surrounded by rich lands, great mills, well-endowed colleges, 
 and vastly rich bishops and archbishops. Her body is well 
 3 H 36* 
 
426 CIVILIZATION. 
 
 covered, but her feet and legs, Ireland and India, are bare : 
 and she keeps them bare, that she may have more to put 
 upon her body : and she retains the sword by her side, that 
 she may compel them to remain bare : that she may compel 
 them to continue cultivating poor soils in sight of rich ones 
 undrained because of poverty, and uncultivated because un- 
 drained. In all this there is no civilization. 
 
 In the United States, the conditions of civilization are 
 complied with to an extent far beyond what elsewhere 
 exists, and if they are not fully and completely so the cause 
 is to be found in the fact that they cannot control their own 
 actions.* So soon as they shall resolve that they will do so, 
 they can place themselves at once at the head of all civili- 
 zation. Massachusetts does now occupy that place, because 
 she cultivates her richest soils ; but the whole nation may 
 cultivate rich soils, when it wills that it shall be done. 
 Then men will concentrate themselves, and the infinity of 
 little schools will become larger and better schools, when 
 children will be better taught at less cost. Then the vast 
 skeleton of railroads and canals will be filled up with branches 
 leading to every little town : and the little towns will become 
 great towns, because land will increase in value from the 
 great increase of the product and the diminished necessity 
 for use of the machinery of exchange. Then land will be- 
 come more and more divided : men will have large libraries 
 
 * Perfect individuality and the strongest tendency to combination of action 
 mark the highest civilization, and where they exist their effects will be seen 
 in the events of war, as well as those of peace. However little we may be 
 disposed to approve of the existing war, it is impossible to read the accounts 
 of the recent proceedings in the valley of Mexico without being struck with 
 the extent to which individuality and union have there been manifested. Gene- 
 nerals, colonels, captains, and lieutenants, seem to be acting for, and by, them- 
 selves, yet never was union more complete, and never was the wonderful 
 power of union more fully exhibited. We seem to know each regiment, each 
 officer, and almost each man. The perfection of individuality is seen in the 
 election of a colonel on the battle-field, by the men whom he was to com- 
 mand : and in the return of the name of every man killed or wounded, from 
 the highest officer to the lowest private. The perfection of the power of union 
 which accompanies this individuality is seen in the results. 
 
CIVILIZATION. 427 
 
 instead of small ones, and the farmer will have his daily 
 newspaper instead of his weekly one : and he will meet and 
 exchange ideas with the consumers of his products : and his 
 mind will become better informed ; and he will learn daily 
 more and more how to manage his farm and to govern himself. 
 
 Then will his wife become more and more exempt from 
 the hardships of labour, and his children will marry and 
 remain near him : and then he will learn daily more and 
 more to appreciate the comforts of home : and he will more 
 and more desire to render that home agreeable by the culti- 
 vation of flowers and trees, and by the collection of books and 
 of instruments calculated to aid him in the development of 
 his intellect, and that of those by whom he is surrounded. 
 Then will the consciousness of powder diminish, and the sense 
 of his duty towards his fellow man increase : and then will 
 he be seen daily more and more exerting himself to aid the 
 afflicted and to help the weak : doing to all, and daily more 
 and more, as he would that others should do unto him.* 
 
 The PAST says to the people of the present: «< Civiliza- 
 tion comes with wealth and the cultivation of the rich soils. 
 With them come concentration, large wages, increased pro- 
 ductiveness of land, and increased rents for the use of that 
 land. Wealth comes with peace. Labour then for the main- 
 tenance of peace." 
 
 * Efforts have been made to show that crime is more abundant in the 
 United States than in Europe. In the former, newspapers abound and every 
 thing is published. In the latter, newspapers are few, and little is published. 
 Archbishop Whateley says, and most correctly, that he has "no doubt that a 
 single murder in Great Britain has often furnished matter for discourse to 
 more than twenty times as many persons as any twenty such murders would 
 in Turkey." He adds that " we should remember, that there are not more 
 particles of dust in the sunbeam than in any other part of the room, though 
 we see them more where the light is stronger." 
 
THE FUTURE. 
 
 The population of the United States is at the present 
 moment about twenty-one millions ; and the surface com- 
 prised within the existing states and territories exceeds a 
 million of square miles, or six hundred and forty millions 
 of acres, each of which is capable, at a moderate estimate, 
 of feeding a full-grown man : and were it properly culti- 
 vated, it would clothe him too. The surface, then, that is 
 already organized, is capable of maintaining six hundred 
 and forty millions of people, or tw^o-thirds of the whole 
 population of the globe : and yet men are seen, by thou- 
 sands and almost tens of thousands, removing to Oregon and 
 California to appropriate more land, of which they must 
 cultivate the poor soils : while behind them are left fertile 
 lands covered wdth the finest timber, almost utterly value- 
 less ; as we have already shown. 
 
 For the benefit of the rich lands from w^hich man thus flies, 
 his predecessors have laboured during more than a century. 
 For their benefit, they have made roads, railroads, and canals : 
 have built houses, and towns, and cities : and he can pur- 
 chase them, with all their advantages of timber and soil, at 
 the price sometimes of sixty cents an acre — or one-tw^entieth 
 of the interest they have acquired in these improvements : 
 yet he flies from them to commence the work of cultivation 
 upon poor land that has no value, and that can never ac- 
 quire any but from the labour that he bestows upon it. 
 He flies from rich lands that he may have at far less than 
 cost, to obtain poor ones at full cost : and a heavy cost it is. 
 He flies from lands that are covered with manure that has 
 
 429 
 
430 • THE FUTURE. 
 
 accumulated for ages, and that he may have for little more 
 than the labour of clearing them, while men near towns pay 
 thousands of dollars a year for the manure yielded by the pro- 
 duce of poor lands cultivated by him and others like himself. 
 
 The natural tendency of man is to combine his labours 
 with those of his fellow man. He knows that two can roll, 
 and four can lift, a log, that one alone could neither roll nor 
 lift. Here, however, men are seen flying from their fellow 
 men, each one seeking to roll his own log, for lift it he can- 
 not. The labour of each is thus wasted on the road. The 
 manure of his horses is wasted on the road : and his labour 
 is unprofitably employed at the end of his journey. 
 
 The natural tendency of man is to combine his axe with 
 his neighbour's spade : lending one and borrowing the other. 
 Here, however, the man with the axe flies from the man who 
 has a spade. 
 
 The natural tendency of man is to begin on the thin soil 
 at the side of the hill, and to work down towards the rich 
 soil at its foot, gathering manure on the one with which to 
 enrich the other : but here man flies from the rich soils near 
 him, to seek the poor ones distant from him. 
 
 The natural tendency of man is to combine with his 
 neighbours for improving old roads : but here man flies to a 
 distance that he may employ his labour on new ones, while 
 the old ones remain unimproved : and henceforth two are to 
 be maintained instead of one. 
 
 The natural tendency of man is to combine with his 
 neighbours for improving the character of education in old 
 schools : but here he flies from his neighbours to places 
 where there are no schools, and where none can be until he 
 shall build it himself. 
 
 The natural tendency of man is to hold in regard old 
 places and old churches, mellowed by time and sanctified 
 by the recollection of those who had before inhabited them : 
 but here he flies from them, to cut out new places in the 
 woods, whose harshness and hardness are quintupled by the 
 
THE FUTURE. 431 
 
 recollection of the places he has left, occupied by the friends 
 of his early years. 
 
 Why is this so ? Why is it that men should fly from 
 western New York, where railroads run through rich 
 lands, covered with dense forests : through swamps that 
 need drainage alone to give to cultivation the richest soils 
 in the world : to seek the West, where they must cultivate 
 poor soils distant from market, and yielding but ten bushels 
 of wheat to the acre, and that small yield, too, annually de- 
 creasing* because of the necessity for starving the great 
 machine, by wasting on the road the manure yielded by the 
 horses or oxen employed in the work of transportation : 
 while the wheat itself is consumed abroad, leaving nothing 
 whatever to return to the land ? Why is it that throughout 
 that rich country, with its canals and railroads, its towns and 
 its telegraphs, population diminishes, and land concentrates 
 itself in fewer hands : always the signs of diminishing 
 wealth ? 
 
 Why is it that men fly the fertile valleys and rich slopes 
 of northern New York, near neighbours to both the St. Law- 
 rence and Lake Champlain, where steamboats abound : to 
 seek the shores of Lake Superior, there to obtain from the 
 poorer soils that always must he first cultivated, a reward 
 of little more than five times the seed ? Why is it that 
 rich meadow-lands on the Schuylkill remain unimproved, 
 while men seek Oregon and California ? Why is it that 
 vast forests still cover fine meadow-lands on the Susque- 
 hanna, capable of yielding crops whose tons would number 
 more than the bushels obtained from the wheat lands of 
 Ohio : furnishing manure in tons for fertilizing the poor soils 
 of the hills, on which now stand farm-houses in the midst 
 of farms that have been in cultivation for half a century ? 
 Why do men seek Iowa, to raise from an acre thirty bushels 
 of Indian corn, that before it can reach market must be con 
 
 * See Report of Commissioner of Patents, January, 1815, p. 25. 
 
432 THE FUTURE. 
 
 verted into pork, while the lower lands of Virginia and 
 Maryland are abandoned : lands that are nearer to the great 
 market of Europe, and from which, by careful cultivation, 
 a hundred bushels might be obtained ? Why is it that men 
 fly from the meadow lands of South Carolina, leaving the 
 remaining inhabitants a prey to fevers and malaria conse- 
 quent upon diminished population, to seek the thin lands of 
 Texas, at the heads of the streams ; there to raise small 
 crops to be wagoned over half-made roads down to new 
 towns, possessing no one of the conveniences that tend 
 so greatly to diminish the friction between the consumer and 
 the producer ? Why is it that men are everywhere seen 
 flying from their fellow men : from those destined by the 
 Deity to be their helpmates : from parents and relations : 
 from old houses, and old churches, and old school-houses ; 
 old comforts, and old feelings : and from all the conve- 
 niences and advantages that tend so largely to promote 
 their happiness and their respectability, and to increase their 
 powers of exertion : to seek in Texas and Iowa, Oregon 
 and California, new homes and new relations, amidst woods 
 that they cannot fell, and swamps that they cannot drain, and 
 upon the poor soils that yield, invariably, the smallest return 
 to labour ? 
 
 These things would seem almost impossible : yet if we 
 turn to India, we may see the poor Hindoo cultivating the 
 poorest soils, and then labouring, almost in vain, to drive 
 through the rich black clay that lies between him and his 
 market, the half-starved cattle that bear his miserable crop. 
 Here we have the same state of things ; and both here and 
 there it may be traced to the same cause : necessity. In 
 neither can men exercise power over the rich soils, because 
 in neither have men power over themselves ; and until they 
 shall have it, they must continue to fly from rich soils 
 capable of yielding tons, by aid of whose manure poor soils 
 might be enriched, to poor soils becoming daily poorer, be- 
 cause to ^hera even the manure yielded by their own little 
 
THE FUTURE. 433 
 
 product cannot be returned. They borrow from ihe earth, 
 and they do not repay : and therefore it is that they find an 
 empty exchequer; performing thus the process that farm- 
 ers are enabled to avoid, when, as in England and New 
 England, the consumer takes his place by the side of the 
 producer.* Therefore it is that the average produce of New 
 York is but fourteen bushels of wheat to the acre, while that 
 of Ohio is even less, although acres may readily be made to 
 yield forty or fifty bushels : and therefore it is that the ave- 
 rage produce of Indian corn is but twenty-five, when it 
 should be a hundred bushels, and that of potatoes but ninety 
 when it might be four hundred bushels. 
 
 If we desire to understand the cause of these extraordinary 
 facts, we may perhaps obtain what we want by taking a 
 bird's-eye view of a farm-house of western Pennsylvania, near 
 neighbour to the rich meadow-land above described. The 
 farmer is reading the newspaper, anxious to know what are the 
 crops of England, and whether or not the rot has destroyed the 
 potato crop in Ireland. Last year many of the people of Eu- 
 rope starved : but he sold his crop at a good price, and paid 
 off his debts. This year he wishes to purchase a new wagon, 
 and to add to his stock of horses : but, unhappily for him, the 
 farmers of England have had a favourable season, and the 
 rot has not appeared in Ireland. Starvation will not sweep 
 off its thousands, and he will get neither horses nor wagon. 
 
 His eldest son is preparing to remove to the west, to raise 
 wheat on dry lands in Wisconsin or Iowa, and to send to 
 the already overstocked markets increased supplies of food. 
 His daughter is grieving for the approaching loss of her 
 brother ; and of her sweetheart, the son of the neighbour- 
 ing wool-grower, who is about to leave for Michigan to raise 
 wool, that he may compete with his father who is studying 
 carefully the newspapers hoping to see that the sheep of Aus- 
 
 * For the remarkable results produced by the proper application of 
 manures, we would refer the reader to the account of a meeting at Drayton 
 Manor, the residence of Sir Robert Peel, in Skinner's Farmer's Library. 
 
 3 1 37 
 
434 THE FUTURE. 
 
 tralia have rotted off and thus diminished the supply of wool. 
 He wants to pay off his debts : but this he cannot do, unless 
 the price of wool should rise, and thus increase the difficulty 
 of obtaining clothing. Why do these sons move off? It is 
 because there is no demand for labour. All the land is held 
 in large farms because the poor soils alone are cultivated ; 
 and farmers that would live at all must farm and fence in a 
 great deal of land, where a dozen bushels to the acre are con- 
 sidered a good crop. Why does he not clear some of the 
 meadow-land? It is because there is no demand for milk, 
 or for fresh meat : for hay, or turnips, or potatoes : or for any 
 of those things of which the earth yields largely, and which 
 from their bulk will not bear carriage. He knows that 
 when the great machine yields by tons the product is worth 
 little unless there be mouths on the spot to eat, but that when 
 he restricts it to bushels the product may be transported to 
 the mouths. There is no demand for timber; for all the 
 young men fly to the west, and new houses are not needed. 
 The timber is valueless ; and the land is not worth clearing 
 to raise wheat, almost the only product of the earth that loill 
 bear carriage. To clear an acre would cost as much as 
 would buy a dozen in Iowa ; and the product of four acres, 
 at ten bushels each, would be equal to one of forty. He 
 therefore goes to the west to raise more wheat ; and his friend 
 goes to raise more wool ; and his sister remains at home 
 unmarried. Why does she not marry, and accompany her 
 lover ? It is because she has found no demand for her labour, 
 and has earned no wages to enable her to contribute to the 
 expense of furnishing the house. 
 
 Here, then, we have labour, male and female, superabun- 
 dant for want of wages with which to buy food, and clothing, 
 and houses : food superabundant, for want of mouths to eat it: 
 clothing material superabundant, for want of people to wear 
 it : timber superabundant, for want of people desiring to 
 build houses : fertile land superabundant, for want of people 
 to drink milk and eat butter and veal : and poor land super- 
 
THE FUTURE. 435 
 
 abundant, for want of the manure that has for ages accumu- 
 lated in the river bottom ; while the men who might eat the 
 veal and drink the milk produced on rich lands, are flying 
 to the west to waste their labour on poor ones : tliose who 
 should he consumers of food becoming producers of food. 
 
 Why is this ? It is because they want a market at which 
 the labour, male and female : the food and the wool : can 
 be exchanged for each other. They want a woollens mill, 
 and had they this, the sons would stay at home and eat 
 food, instead of going abroad to produce more. The 
 daughters would marry, and would want houses. The 
 timber would be cleared, and the fertile lands would be 
 cultivated. The manure would be made, and the poor 
 lands would be made rich. The milk would be drunk, and 
 the veal would be eaten, and the swamps would be drained 
 to make meadows. The saw- mill would come, and the 
 sawyer would eat corn. The blacksmith, the tailor, the 
 hatter, and the printer would come, and all would eat corn. 
 The town would grow up, and acres would become lots. The 
 farms would be divided, and the fencing of each diminished. 
 The railroad would be made, and the coal and iron would 
 come : and with each step in this progress, the farmer would 
 obtain a better price for his corn and his wool, enabling him 
 from year to year to appropriate more and more labour to the 
 development of the vast treasures of the earth ; to building 
 up the great machine, whose value would increase in the 
 precise ratio of the increase in the return to his labour. The 
 more he could take out of it, the more it would be worth. 
 
 The good people of this neighbourhood now use bad 
 machinery of exchange. They send to market annually five 
 thousand tons of food and wool : a fourth of which is 
 absorbed by the horses, and men, and machines, required 
 for its transportation and exchange ; and thus they pay 
 annually as much as would be required for the erection of a 
 place of home exchange. The amount thus spent is lost 
 for ever. The following year the same expenditure is 
 
436 THE FUTURE. 
 
 needed : and the next, and every succeeding one. The 
 same labour once applied at home, would stand ; and in the 
 following year the wagons, and horses, and men would be at 
 work upon the farms, clearing richer lands, and carrying 
 manure to the old ones ; and with every year new combina- 
 tions would arise : new and better lands would be cleared : 
 new houses would be needed : new demands for timber 
 would arise : new marriages would take place : new children 
 would be born : and with each step in the progress of popu- 
 lation and wealth, men would become richer and happier : 
 and land would be more divided : and farms would be bet- 
 ter cultivated : and schoolmasters and preachers would be 
 better : and man would acquire more power over land and 
 over himself. 
 
 Let us now take a similar view of one of our planting 
 friends in the south. His cotton is half picked, but early 
 frost has come and killed the rest. Why is this ? He had 
 not hands to pick it. Why had he not ? Because throughout 
 the year there is no demand for labour. His best lands are 
 uncleared, because there is no demand for lumber. His 
 meadow lands are undrained, because there is no demand 
 for milk or veal. He raises bushels of corn, when he might 
 have tons of turnips or potatoes. He, too, wants a market- 
 house. His neighbour is going west to the light soils 
 of Texas, leaving the rich soils untouched. He is going to 
 raise more cotton. If he stayed, he might be a consumer of 
 corn, and cotton, and milk, and veal, and beef. 
 
 If we now ask the worthy planter why he does not clear 
 the rich land close to the poorer soil that he now cultivates, 
 his answer will be, that he has offered twenty dollars an 
 acre for clearing it, and destroying the timber, but in vain : 
 nobody will undertake it. Nobody wants timber. There 
 are no houses wanted, for his neighbours are flying to poorer 
 and more distant soils. There are no railroad sills needed, 
 for the production of the neighbourhood diminishes, and 
 men will not make roads when such is the case. If we look 
 
THE FUTURE. 437 
 
 in upon him at his hours of leisure, we shall find him intent 
 upon the last news from England : desiring to know how 
 many mills are closed : how many are working half time : 
 how" many operatives have been discharged to starve : and 
 wondering within himself if a time will ever arrive when it 
 will be possible to calculate upon a continuance of the same 
 state of things in that country during any single half year. 
 If we look in upon him w^hen meeting with his neighbour 
 planters, we shall find them discussing the expediency of 
 restricting the culture of cotton ; or of holding conventions for 
 the purpose of determining how much shall be grown, wdth 
 a view to acquire some power over their own actions, and thus 
 to diminish their necessities — but all in vain. Each succes- 
 sive arrival brings with it the news of a further reduction in 
 prices, yet no means can be devised to bring the supply 
 dow^n to the demand : and yet his neighbour goes to Texas 
 to raise more cotton. 
 
 He and his neighbours send annually to market four thou- 
 sand bales, of which a fourth is swallowed up by the men 
 and horses and machines employed in the business of trans- 
 portation and exchange. A thousand bales would build a 
 market-house for labour, and corn, and cotton : and the new 
 machinery of exchange would stand. Thenceforward, the 
 produce of hundreds of these bales would go upon the land, 
 and newer and better soils w^ould be cleared : and labour 
 wotdd become more valuable : and w^ages w^ould rise : and 
 men would marry, and houses would be needed, and chil- 
 dren would be born : and land would become divided : and 
 the planter would in time become the landlord of happy 
 tenants, cultivating their own little farms for their own ad- 
 vantage : and slaves w^ould become free, while their masters 
 would become rich. 
 
 If we desire to see this process in full operation, we must 
 turn our eyes towards New England. The best soils are 
 there cultivated, because there is a market on the spot for 
 those productions which our great mother earth supplies in 
 
 37* 
 
438 THE FUTURE. 
 
 such profusion that they will not bear carriage. The Yankee 
 can take tons from the land, and he can return tons of 
 manure back to it, because he uses the best machinery of 
 exchange. He concentrates his population by tens of thou- 
 sands upon the poor soils of Massachusetts and Rhode 
 Island, and there he consumes the corn raised by the people 
 of the west, and places on his own thin soil the manure 
 that they lose. His soils double in productive power, while 
 theirs fall off. He becomes rich and richer every day, by con- 
 centration. They remain poor, and then they scatter them- 
 selves over new thin soils, to repeat in Iowa and Oregon 
 the process of exhaustion already so well commenced in New 
 York, Virginia, and Ohio. 
 
 If w'e desire to see it elsewhere, we must turn to Eastern 
 Pennsylvania. Population is there concentrating itself in the 
 coal and iron regions : and what is the result ? She has 
 ceased to be a corn-exporting State. Her miners now eat 
 the wheat of Michigan and Iowa. Her farmers are now 
 clearing richer land. Houses are needed, and mine-props 
 are needed : and railroad sills are needed : and boat 
 timber is needed : and in every spot, for fifty miles around 
 the coal region, the farmers are felling their trees, which 
 yield them the means of draining their meadows, while the 
 demand for milk, and beef, and veal, and potatoes, and tur- 
 nips, and all those vegetable products that the earth yields 
 in greatest abundance, enables them to grow rich themselves 
 and to make their poor soils rich. She has ceased to be a 
 rival to Ohio or Wisconsin in the market of the world, and 
 therefore their products are more valuable ; and with the in- 
 creased value of their productions the planter of Mississippi 
 and Alabama is enabled advantageously to devote more of 
 his land to raising food, and less to raising cotton, the 
 effect of which is found in the increased price of the latter. 
 Were the mines to be discontinued : were the furnaces to be 
 abandoned : her people would scatter over the west, to be- 
 come producers of food instead of consumers, and then more 
 
Tilt: FUTURE. 439 
 
 planters would raise cotton, and fewer would raise food : 
 the result of which would be seen in the fall in the price of 
 cotton. 
 
 Such is the effect of a trade of six millions of dollars, the 
 establishment of which has required fifty millions of dollars. 
 A million and a half more would put up fifty furnaces, capa- 
 ble of producing two hundred and fifty thousand tons of 
 iron, the producers of which would eat as much food, 
 occupy as many houses, and wear as much cloth, as those 
 who have been set in motion by the fifty millions already 
 expended. In the fashioning of the great machine, it is the 
 first step that costs, and each is but preparatory to a new 
 and greater one. 
 
 Three millions more w^ould erect rolling-mills to convert all 
 this iron into bars, and thus to produce a demand upon the 
 farmer and the planter as great as is now produced by the 
 fifty millions. 
 
 Ten millions would build a hundred great cotton factories, 
 furnishing a market for two hundred thousand bales of cot- 
 ton, and five millions of dollars' worth of corn and clothing. 
 
 The people who made the machinery and built the houses, 
 would be consumers of corn and cotton, and not producers 
 of either. They would want houses at home, instead of 
 houses in Texas or Iowa. The demand for houses would 
 make a market for timber. The demand for timber would 
 clear the rich soils with profit to their owner, who would sell 
 his trees instead of paying men for killing them. He would 
 produce more food, and more people would come to eat it, 
 and they would want more clothes, and more mills would 
 be needed, and more stone, and timber, and lime, and clay, 
 would be required : and with each step he would be improv- 
 ing the great machine, while concentration would afford him 
 means of improving his mind and his tastes, and of edu- 
 cating his children. 
 
 Six millions would build two hundred woollen factories, 
 that would use thirty millions of pounds of wool in a year ; 
 
440 THE FUTURE. 
 
 and distribute among farmers, workmen, and workwomen, 
 twenty millions of dollars in a year, to be applied to the 
 purchase of food, by which the farmer would be enabled 
 to improve his better lands : of wool, by means of which 
 he would be enabled to improve his breed, and increase 
 his product : of timber, by aid of which he would be en- 
 abled to clear his land : and of stone, by aid of which he 
 would be enabled to bring his quarries into use : while the con- 
 stantly increasing circulation of man and of machinery, and 
 of their products, would offer large inducements to improve 
 the roads by which he could transport to market the surplus, 
 for which he would obtain better prices ; because population 
 would increase far more rapidly than at present, and all 
 would stay at home instead of seeking the wilds of the west *.- 
 and the increased demand for labour throughout the country 
 would enable all to consume more : and thus his powers 
 when at market would increase as his necessity for seeking 
 that market decreased. 
 
 But is this all ? It is not. The future annual saving of 
 the machinery of exchange would go again upon the land, 
 and more would be raised, and wages would be greater, and 
 the demand for houses and machinery would make a market 
 for the labour of thousands, all of whom would themselves 
 want houses, and all would consume more food and clothing 
 than now : — and the quantity to be sent into the great market 
 of the world would be diminished, and prices would rise. The 
 farmer and planter would double their crops, while the ma- 
 chinery of transportation would itself improve, and the loss in 
 exchanging would diminish : and all would grow rich, and all 
 would acquire more power over land, and over themselves : 
 while their land would improve hourly in value. Their necessi- 
 ties would diminish, and their power would increase, and as 
 they made their own iron and cloth, and ate their own food, 
 they would want more silks, and books, and newspapers, and 
 pictures, and statues : and intellectual power would grow 
 
THE FUTURE. 441 
 
 with physical and moral power, and thus would improve- 
 ment keep pace with freedom. 
 
 Why is not all this done ? Let us ask the farmer. He 
 will tell us that cloth is sometimes high and sometimes low: 
 that the woollen manufacturers have invariably been ruined 
 by the perpetual fluctuations of England. Again, he will 
 say that if he and his neighbour farmers desired to associate 
 for the purpose of building a mill, they would have to be 
 bound, each for all: and that they cannot get a charter, as 
 there is no general law for that purpose, and the power freely 
 to associate has no existence. 
 
 Ask the planter. He will tell us that the cotton manu- 
 facturers have been ruined over and over again : that cotton 
 goods are sometimes high and sometimes low : that last year 
 they w^re high, and that now England is forcing them into 
 every market of the world :* that he has no charter, and that 
 without this he and his fellow planters cannot associate ; 
 whereas if they had a general law for the purpose, every 
 man in the neighbourhood would subscribe a little, and that 
 they might make an effort at concentration. 
 
 * Of 175 mills in Manchester, there were working full time, September 
 28, 1847, only 130 
 
 At the close of the following week, the number had diminished to - 125 
 In the first week the number altogether stopped was - - 23 
 
 In the second, it was -------- -24 
 
 In the first, the number working short time, was - - _ 23 
 
 In the second, it was ------- -26 
 
 The average number of hours was in the first but - - - 7J 
 
 In the second it was reduced to------ -^^ 
 
 In both, the number of persons working short time was about - 8000 
 In the first, the number altogether unemployed, was - - 7654 
 
 In the second, it had increased to - - - - - . 8736 
 
 October 19, the number working short time had risen to 12,198, and those 
 altogether unemployed to 10,341. The number unemployed in Lancashire is 
 said to exceed 50,000. 
 
 But a little while since, all were employed, and the labourers demanded a 
 limitation of the hours of labour. Now, the employers reduce the hours, 
 and the labourers suffer for want of employment. These changes occur in a 
 time of perfect peace, and are produced by cuai.j^es of policy over which 
 foreign nations have no control. They are destructive of the happiness, and 
 comfort, and respectability, of the people of England, as they are of those 
 of all her unfortunate subjects. 
 
 3K 
 
442 THE FUTURE. 
 
 Ask the farmer of Pennsylvania why he does not associate 
 with his neighbours to erect a furnace, and his answ^er wdll 
 be that three years since all the iron-masters were nearly 
 ruined: that iron is now^ <£10 per ton, but that before a 
 furnace could be built it would be down to £6, and their 
 capital would be sunk. He, too, would say that charters 
 were needed, and that charters could not be obtained. 
 
 Here lies the secret of dispersion. Here is to be found 
 the cause of the impossibility of concentration. The people 
 of the United States have no power over their own actions. 
 They waste annually more labour in hauling their products 
 tomarket, and their consumers Jrom market, to the west, there 
 to be employed in raising more food and cotton, than would 
 build markets for themselves. They waste on the roads 
 the manure yielded by the products of poor soils, and they 
 leave on the rich ones the manure that has accumulated for 
 ages, and that would render their poor ones rich; and w^hile 
 they shall continue so to do, they must scatter themselves 
 over the far west : they must leave home, and friends, and 
 school-houses, behind : they must continue to be hewers of 
 wood and drawers of water on the poor soils, instead of becom 
 ing rich on the fertile ones : they must continue to obtain 
 bushels w^here they might have tons : they must continue to 
 do as do the people of India : — cultivate poor soils and find 
 themselves bogged in the rich ones, through w^hich they 
 have to drag their products to market. 
 
 The annual loss to the people of the Union from the want 
 of the power to concentrate themselves on the rich soils, is far 
 more than the value of the whole exports of England to all 
 parts of the world, and, were she to give them the whole, 
 the gift would be injurious. It w^ould tend only to scatter 
 the people more widely, for concentration would then be 
 impossible, and without that the earth cannot he made to 
 yield : and unless it be made to do so, the poor soils cannot 
 be made rich. Population makes the food come Jrom the rich 
 soils, while depopulation forces men back to the poor ones. 
 
THE FUTURE. 443 
 
 The number of States employed in producing cotton is ten. 
 The whole product is about two millions of bales, and the 
 average is therefore about two hundred thousand bales per 
 State. To prepare a State for producing that quantity, and 
 the food that is to be consumed by the men who raise it, has 
 cost hundreds of millions of dollars. To place in that State 
 machinery requisite for its conversion into cloth would cost 
 ten milUons of dollars, or less than the amount annually 
 wasted : of labour for want of employment at home : of la- 
 bour and manure in transporting the product to market : of 
 labour and manure in transporting men to new lands: of crop 
 from the want of hands to pick it : of freights, because of the 
 increased demand for ships and wagons : and of prices, be- 
 cause of the surplus in the markets of the w^orld : and less 
 than half the amount annually wasted, because of the neces- 
 sity for cultivating poor soils while rich ones lie idle. 
 
 The cost of transporting the hides and the food to the 
 shoemaker, his awl and his lapstone, is great, and all the 
 manure is lost, and lost for ever. The cost of bringing the 
 awl and the lapstone to the hides and the food is small, and 
 all the manure is saved : and the great machine is improved, be- 
 cause the manure is saved and the shoemaker v/ants a house ; 
 and the house wants timber and stone, by the furnishing of 
 which the land is cleared. A large portion of the people of 
 the United States are busily employed in carrying the hides 
 and the food to the awl and the lapstone, and in driving peo- 
 ple who might use the awl to other places where they must 
 raise more hides and food. 
 
 What is the remedy for this state of things ? The answer 
 is easy : England must be made to raise her own food, and 
 she must be made to let other nations consume theirs. The 
 resistance of the United States put an end to the navigation 
 laws. Their resistance killed the right of search. Their 
 resistance killed the corn laws. Their resistance will kill 
 the colonial system, and give freedom to India and Ireland, 
 to the people of England, and to themselves. 
 
444 THE FUTURE. 
 
 To their resistance is due the fact that England has already 
 turned her attention, in some degree, homeward ; but the 
 work is not half done. To make a short war, it must be a 
 strong one. No set of men can now feel any confidence in 
 erecting iron- works, cotton-mills, or woollen-mills ; and un- 
 til all shall feel full confidence, the little capitalists cannot 
 get to work, and the business must remain in the hands of 
 great ones, who can run great risks : and while that shall be 
 the case, but little will be done. Almost all that exists in 
 the Union is the work of the millions of little men engaged 
 in improving the great machine, and when they, the little 
 farmers, and little mechanics, and little shopkeepers, shall 
 get to work, the production of iron, and of cotton and wool- 
 len cloth, will go ahead as rapidly as farming has done, and 
 then concentration will take place, and the rich soils will 
 come into cultivation, and every county in the Union will 
 have its iron, or its cotton, or its woollens exchange, and 
 then land will double in product and in value. There 
 is not one county that could not supply the stone, the 
 limber, and the labour necessary for building a furnace or 
 a mill, and the money necessary for the purchase of ma- 
 chinery : thus making a place of home exchange. Once 
 built, further capital is not needed. The grower of corn, 
 and hay, and oats, and w^ool, and the young men and young 
 women who have labour to sell, perform their exchanges at 
 the factory, which becomes a little bank in which each man 
 buys a share while accumulating means to build a house or 
 buy a farm, selling it again when the house is built or the farm 
 is bought. Throughout the Union, south of the Hudson, 
 there is scarcely a single county in which there is not more 
 capital unemployed than would build such a place of ex- 
 change: and scarcely one in which, for want of such a place, 
 there are not more people idle than would suffice to carry it 
 on. Were each county to help itself, all Would be helped. 
 
 Wealth is power. The people of the United States have 
 the wealth. That wealth has given them power, dispersed 
 
THE FUTURE. 445 
 
 as they were, to do much. Concentration will give them 
 greater wealth, and greater power. Their twenty-one mil- 
 lions produce at this moment a greater quantity of commodi- 
 ties than the people of England, while they build twice as 
 many houses ; make twice as many roads ; apply thrice the 
 labour to the improvement of land ; build four times as many 
 school-houses and churches ; and print ten times as many 
 newspapers. The machinery of production is greater than 
 that of England, and all they now want is better machinery 
 of exchange. Let the farmers and planters have this and 
 population will increase with greater rapidity than ever, for 
 young men will stay at home and marry instead of going to 
 the west ; and tens of thousands of mechanics, and of coal 
 and iron miners, will seek the United States ; while labourers 
 will come by hundreds of thousands, and every man will fur- 
 nish a mouth to be fed, instead of, as now, furnishing hands 
 to produce food. They will then be consumers of corn, and 
 wool, and cotton, instead of producers : customers instead of 
 rivals. Corn and cotton will be produced at less cost of 
 labour, and wages in corn and cotton will be higher : 
 while cloth and iron will be cheaper, and the farmer will 
 cease to have to pray for bad crops in Europe : while the 
 planter will find in the increased demand for his product 
 consequent upon the higher wages of England, and of Europe, 
 a certainty of a good market for all he has to spare. Coffee, 
 and tea, and sugar, will then be paid for in cotton cloths, 
 and the men who make the cloth will be customers to himself 
 and to his brother agriculturists of the north, who will use 
 more cotton than at present ; while Brazil and Cuba will want 
 more cloths, because they will have a better market for their 
 sugar. Every diminution in the machinery of exchange tends 
 to give more time for improving the great machine of produc- 
 tion, whether for cotton or sugar, wheat, rye, oats or hemp : 
 to increase the quantity produced : to increase the w^ages of 
 the labourer and the profits of the capitalist, landed or mo- 
 neyed : and to increase the comfort and happiness of all. 
 
 38 
 
446 THE FUTURE. 
 
 Let but the people of the United States set the example of 
 a determined resistance to the system, and it will be followed 
 by all Europe. French artisans will then seek America and 
 Germany, and France too wdll have to raise her own food. 
 Her sw^ords will be changed for ploughshares, and her forests 
 will disappear, while her coal mines will be opened. She, 
 too, will learn the art of concentration, and with each step of 
 her progress, the few will become less and the many greater. 
 The people of the United States owe this to themselves, and 
 to the world. They enjoy a higher degree of happiness than 
 has fallen to the lot of any other nation, and they should de- 
 sire to aid their fellow men in England, in Ireland, in Ger- 
 many and in India, and by helping themselves they will help 
 them. As colonies, India and Ireland will remain poor. 
 As independent nations, they will become rich, for they too 
 will insist on the right of placing the consumer by the side 
 of the producer. 
 
 Westward, the star of empire wends its way. From the 
 west to the east civilization has gone, and so it has yet to go : 
 from the base of the Alleghenies to the foot of the Himalaya. 
 The measure is one of peaceful and quiet, but determined, 
 and it should be of united, action. It is one that interests 
 
 Every man that wishes to cultivate rich lands instead of 
 poor ones : 
 
 Every man that would raise tons instead of bushels: 
 Every father that would wish to see his sons, and his sons' 
 sons settle round him : 
 
 Every mother that wishes to see her daughters married : 
 Every son that would have a wufe and a home of his own : 
 Every daughter that would have a husband : 
 Every journeyman that w^ould be an employer : 
 Every labourer that w^ould have a farm and house, or shop, 
 of his own: 
 
 Every property-holder that desires higher rents : 
 Every man that hates crime and loves virtue : 
 Every man that loves literature and art : 
 
THE FUTURE. 447 
 
 Every man that loves freedom : 
 
 Every man that loves the people of England : or of France : 
 
 Every man that loyes Ireland : 
 
 Every man that feels for India : 
 
 Every man that loves his old fatherland, Germany : 
 
 Every man that loves free trade : 
 
 Every man that loves peace : 
 
 Every man that loves his fellow man : 
 
 Every man that loves his Creator : 
 
 Every man that desires that the great law of Christ, " Do 
 unto others as ye would that others should do unto you," 
 should become universally operative. 
 
 It is the great work reserved for the people of these United 
 States, and they have the power to accomplish it. It should 
 be entered upon with the same feeling that animated the Pu- 
 ritans of old : the same that gave confidence to the men 
 who, seventy years since, signed the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence. It should be preceded by a return to peace with 
 an unfortunate neighbour, towards whom they now occupy 
 the position of a strong man pummeling a weak one already 
 on his back, to make him cry enough. That war has already 
 cost more than would have given to every county in the 
 Union a place for exchanging labour, corn, and cotton, or 
 wool, or iron ore, for cotton or woollen cloth, or iron : and if 
 it continue another year, it will cost at least as much more. 
 They have too much land already. They want but concen- 
 tration to enable them to become both rich and strong. 
 
 For two centuries past, the world has been perpetually dis- 
 turbed by the wars of England and France, for ships, colonies, 
 and commerce. Had France had no colonies, there would, 
 probably, have been no wars of the French Revolution after 
 the failure of the invasion of 1792. But for them, France would 
 have been permitted quietly to settle down, in which case 
 Italy and Spain, Holland, Germany, and Russia would have 
 escaped the war of twenty years, and France might now be 
 rich, powerful, and free. The system of both nations is one 
 
448 THE FUTURE, 
 
 of perpetual interference. At one time, Poland is to be ex- 
 cited : at another, she is to be abandoned. At one time, 
 Greece is to be aided : at another, Syria is to be delivered over 
 to the tender mercies of the Egyptian pasha : at a third, China 
 is to be made to buy opium, and to open her ports to the 
 cloths of the men who have ruined the poor fashioners of India. 
 At one moment, the affairs of Spain require the interposition 
 of England : at the next, we see her fleets in Portugal, dictat- 
 ing terms to people driven by oppression to revolt. At another, 
 France governs Spain, and the country is made a scene of 
 murderous war, while the court is one of endless intrigue, 
 having for its object the promotion of the interests — not of 
 France, but — of the family of Louis Philippe : all anxious, as 
 French princes have at all times been, for appanages at home, 
 and thrones abroad. For centuries has the European world 
 been agitated, by the princes of the houses of Valois and 
 Bourbon, and those of the house of Orleans are well dis- 
 posed to follow their example. For two years past has all 
 commerce with the La Plata been interdicted, because Eng- 
 land and France chose to interfere in affairs that were not 
 their own. They have failed, and the country is worse by 
 two years of war and poverty. Three years since, the affairs 
 of Texas claimed their attention. Now Switzerland is me- 
 naced, while Italy, fearing France, looks to England. But 
 a short time since, the people of the United States were to 
 be compelled to join in a crusade against the slave trade ; 
 which would soon cease to exist, were England and France 
 to permit the world to remain at peace. At every difference 
 of opinion as to rights, they are menaced with the destruc- 
 tion of their towns and cities, and the seizure of their ships. 
 At every quarrel, whether to maintain the trade in opium, or 
 to put down that in slaves, their trade is interrupted. The 
 two nations are everywhere seen meddling with everybody's 
 business, and neglecting their own. 
 
 They are the great bullies of the world. Italy would now 
 be strong to help herself, but for the wars of France and 
 
THE FUTURE. 449 
 
 England. So would Spain and Germany. Wars made for 
 private ends are afterwards carried on for "the public 
 good," and in defence of "the liberties of Europe," which 
 will take care of themselves whenever the armies and fleets 
 of England and France shall disappear, and not until then. 
 Both countries should be placed under bonds to keep the 
 peace ; and the peace-loving portions of the earth can take 
 those bonds when they wall. Both should be made to turn 
 their attention homeward : to raise their own food : to feed 
 their starving artisans : to improve their own morals : to 
 free their own people from the thousand restrictions under 
 which they labour : and thus would they set to the world an 
 example far more worthy to be followed than when they are 
 seen preaching liberty and practising oppression : paying for 
 slaves in the West Indies, and making slaves in the East by 
 means of taxes on salt for the payment of dividends on India 
 stock. Nations that pursue the natural system of concentra- 
 tion will find that the first of all rules is the simple one, 
 <« Let every man mind his owm business." The people of the 
 United States possess the power of compelling both nations 
 to follow this rule, for if they determine on the course that 
 is essential to their prosperity, it wall be followed throughout 
 Europe: and then fleets and armies must be abandoned, and 
 colonies must be left to exercise the right of self-government. 
 The <<true grandeur of nations" consists in the perfection 
 of the self-defensive power : and that is now possessed by the 
 United States in a degree greater than any other nation of the 
 world. They have laid the foundation of a pyramid whose base 
 is a million of square miles, occupied by twenty-one millions 
 of people, and filledwath little communities, each with its little 
 school-house, its church, and its newspaper. Each of these 
 little communities occupies space sufficient for a large one, 
 with its academy, or its college, its numerous churches, its 
 newspapers, its bookstores, and its libraries, all aiding to give 
 to the structure a height proportioned to its base : and that 
 height may be obtained whenever the planters and farmers of 
 3 L 38* 
 
450 THE FUTURE. 
 
 the Union shall determine to exercise the right peaceably to 
 defend themselves. Until they shall do so, concentration can- 
 not take place. Until they shall do so, their people must con- 
 tinue to waste their labour upon poor soils, yielding bushels, 
 while neglecting rich ones that would yield tons. Whenever 
 they shall do so, they will at once take the place to which they 
 are entitled by two centuries of peaceful action, in which 
 it is difficult to discover a single important error until the 
 occasion of the present war : and we cannot but hope that 
 they will speedily exhibit to the world a specimen of real 
 greatness, in abandoning a contest for land that they do not 
 want, with an enemy incapable of self-defence. They are 
 strong, and they can afford to be generous. With England 
 and with France lies the great contest, and it is for the exer- 
 cise of power over their own actions : for the exercise of the 
 right to stay at home and become rich by the cultivation of 
 rich soils, in preference to flying from home to remain poor 
 while cultivating poor ones : and every dollar spent in the 
 present contest tends to lessen the power vigorously to main- 
 tain that one which is to result in the emancipation of 
 the world from the tyranny of fleets and armies, and the esta- 
 blishment of perfect peace. The truest grandeur consists in 
 the most perfect power over ourselves, our thoughts and ac- 
 tions, and in conceding to all men the exercise of the same 
 powers that we desire for ourselves. The people of the 
 United States do not exercise that power : but they may do 
 so, and we trust they will. Their position is one of sur- 
 passing strength. They are twenty-one millions, among 
 whom there is universal activity and intelligence. Of these 
 seven hundred and fifty thousand are the product of the pre- 
 sent year, and soon the addition of a year will reach a mil- 
 lion. They have more school-houses and more scholars in 
 them, more churches and more hearers in them, more pub- 
 lic libraries and more books in them, than any other nation 
 of the world. They have more and better printing presses, 
 and they consume more paper ; and their authors are better 
 
THE FUTURE. 451 
 
 paid.* They have a mercantile marine that can perform 
 more service in a given time than any other. Their ma- 
 chinery of manufacture now takes precedence of that of 
 England. They have railroads, canals, and magnetic tele- 
 graphs, over a surface of five hundred millions of acres. They 
 have twenty millions of sheep, five millions of horses and 
 mules, fifteen millions of cattle, and thirty millions of hogs. f 
 They raise a thousand millions of bushels of food for man, and 
 almost a thousand millions of pounds of cotton ; and this vast 
 product can be doubled by the application of the same 
 quantity of labour, whenever they shall determine that they 
 will make their own cloth, and their own iron, and by 
 thus placing the consumer by the side of the producer 
 enable the latter to cultivate rich soils instead of poor ones. 
 So soon as they shall have thus determined, thousands of 
 tons of the surplus machinery of England, and tens of thou- 
 sands of her artisans, will be seen leaving her shores to place 
 themselves where food and cotton together grow, and where 
 liberal and constant wages will be the reward of moderate 
 but steady labour. 
 
 England presents to view a pyramid, but an inverted one, 
 the apex of which rests upon a vast population, a portion 
 of which is uninstructed to a degree almost incredible, while 
 another large portion is instructed in a very small degree ; 
 and the whole are wanting in the activity which in the United 
 States results from perfect self-government. Piled on these is 
 a vast poor-house establishment with its host of officers. On 
 this again stands Manchester : and on this rests a large mass 
 of great merchants and bankers, trading largely on credit 
 
 * We except from this the authors of such trash as " Le Juif Errant," 
 and of histories whose object is to teach that " glory" is the great object of 
 Ufe, and that it is to be sought at any sacrifice of honour or honesty. Such 
 writers are better paid in France. 
 
 j- Great Britain and Ireland, with a population of twenty-eight millions, 
 have forty millions of sheep, two millions of horses, and five millions of cattle. 
 France, with a [ opulation of thirty-five miUions, has thirty millions of sheep, 
 three millions of horses, seven millions of cattle, and five millions of hogs. 
 
452 THE FUTURE. 
 
 and but little on capital. On the top of this rest numerous 
 great corporations making large dividends out of Irish rents, 
 and taxes on the coal consumed by the artisans of London, or 
 the salt eaten by the unfortunate people of India : or the pro- 
 ceeds of high interest charged to unhappy traders and rail- 
 road speculators seduced, by liberal offers of loans at low inte- 
 rest, to risk their fortunes and their happiness upon the chance 
 of an approach towards steadiness in the action of a great 
 bank, that is governed by no principle but that of momentary 
 expediency.* On top of this, we see a great Church collect- 
 ing millions to be divided among archbishops, bishops, pre- 
 bends, and rectors, while curates do the work and starve on 
 servant's wages. Next, we see a great aristocracy, with vast 
 possessions cultivated by men who live in mud' hovels and 
 earn nine shillings a week ; and mortgages so heavy that 
 record offices are held in small esteem and deemed to be un- 
 desirable. Piled on this, Pelion upon Ossa, we have a fleet 
 and army, and colonies, requiring a hundred millions of dollars 
 annually for their support. Over all, stand the ministers 
 
 * Five weeks ago, when money was selling in the market at 6 per cent., the 
 managers of the Bank of England, having a great mass of that commodity 
 accumulating on their hands belonging to the public, notwithstanding that 
 their published weekly returns proclaimed that the value of money was 
 steadily increasing, commenced underselling their rivals in the market, and 
 offered their commodity at five per cent. The immediate effect of this extra 
 issue was what is called "relief;" money was easier, traders obtained discounts 
 rather more freely, and at a lower rate than before, property moved, and per- 
 sons were tempted to accept contracts which they would otherwise have 
 rejected. In the meanwhile, the weekly bank returns went on announcing 
 that the stock of gold was diminishing, and that the natural value of money 
 was enhancing, and such bystanders as ourselves awaited in breathless expec- 
 tation the inevitable result of this terrific proceeding on the part of the ma- 
 nagers of the bank. It came — those managers met one morning last week, 
 and found that they had got no more money than the)'- should want for pay- 
 ing the public dividends. They turned round in an instant upon the unfor- 
 tunates whom they had been pampering with treacherous nourishment, Tas 
 they had often done before,) and whom they had led and lulled into a fatal 
 security, and, by a contraction and denial of loans more sudden, more perfidi- 
 ous, and more remorseless than we ever before heard of, (but indispensably 
 necessary to save themselves from the consequences of the criminal act of 
 which they had been previously guilty,) plunged thousands into distress and 
 hundreds into ruin. — Kxaminer, October, 1847. 
 
THE FUTURE. 453 
 
 and great officers of state, surrounded by hosts of chancellors 
 and ex-chancellors, pensioners, sinecurists, and recipients of 
 the public moneys, of all grades and conditions of life, from 
 the great Duke himself down to the tide-waiter and letter- 
 sorter. 
 
 The machine is top-heavy. It rests on the shoulders of 
 the very poor : upon those of the little children and poor 
 women of Manchester: and at the slightest disturbance there, 
 it will topple over.* Such will be the case when the people 
 of the United States shall determine that they will place the 
 consumer of food by the side of the producer of food and 
 cotton. That done, of all this vast mass little will remain 
 but the land and the mortgages : and then machinery will 
 become, as it has already somewhat done, superabundant, 
 and much of it will find its way to America and Ireland, 
 India and Germany. Mechanics and coal miners will be- 
 come superabundant, and many will find their way to the 
 United States. Capital, no longer needed in manufactures, 
 will go upon the land, and food will become more abundant: 
 and labour in agriculture will be more and more needed, 
 and better paid ; because land-owners will find that they must 
 offer bounties to men to stay, instead of granting premiums 
 to those who will carry them into slavery in Van Diemen's 
 land and Norfolk Island. Systematic colonization will be 
 forgotten. Landlords will dispense w^ith great farmers, and 
 manage their affairs themselves : and the return to capital will 
 rise, because its employment will be directed by mind. 
 Great farms will be broken into little farms, and little farms 
 
 * The extreme unsoundness of the system is proved by the apprehensions 
 felt by the government on every occasion of stoppage of work. The Britan- 
 nia, of October 23, says, " The state of the manufacturing districts is so alarm- 
 ing that government, though it refuses all measures of relief, is providing a 
 strong military force to keep the peace. At Carlisle the local authorities have 
 received warrants from Sir George Grey, the Home Secretary, authorizing 
 them to call and enroll the pensioners of the district ; and a strong force of 
 cavalry is now stationed at Newridge. No one supposes that the winter can 
 be got through, should the distress not be mitigated, without some desperate 
 rioting." 
 
454 THE FUTURE. 
 
 will require cottages ; and land will be better cultivated, and 
 pay more rent. Land will pay more taxes, and labour less : 
 and landlords will cease to want fleets, or armies, or colonies, 
 because they will dislike taxes. Landlord's sons will have to 
 work, and landlord's properties will have to be divided. Titles 
 will disappear. The price of perpetual annuities will fall, and 
 the government will be unable to make loans.* Great bank- 
 ers will break and little ones will take their place. The 
 great will become less, and the little will become greater and 
 stronger ; and all will become happier. Wealth will grow 
 more rapidly, and wages will advance. Great corporations 
 will die, and little unions will start into existence. Ireland and 
 India and Germany will be permitted to eat their own food, 
 and make their own cloth ; and England will sell them steam- 
 engines and power-looms, while for a time she will send the 
 people of the United States the finer articles that they will 
 want in vast abundance when they shall have acquired power 
 to make the commoner ones for themselves. 
 
 The people of England are the friends of the people of the 
 United States. They are part and parcel of themselves. 
 To the aristocracy, landed, or moneyed, the latter owe 
 nothing. They sent slaves, and because the people of the 
 United States fed and clothed them well, and caused their 
 numbers to increase, they branded them as << slave breeders." 
 They seized the vessels of the United States by thousands, 
 ruining their owners, and then reproached them as "bank- 
 rupts." They forced the people to scatter to the west, and 
 then forced loans upon them to make roads : then ruined 
 them, and reproached them with <' repudiation." Time after 
 time they have filled the western world with ruin, and ruin 
 has invariably been followed by invective. To the7n, there 
 
 * This operation is now going on in Germany as well as in England. 
 The Austrian government has just prohibited the sale of railroad shares, in 
 hopes of compelling capitalists to make investments in the worthless stock of 
 a government by which repudiation has been repeatedly resorted to, to the 
 ruin of all who have trusted it. The day of Austrian loans and power is 
 over. 
 
THE FUTURE. 455 
 
 is no friendship due. Their system is unsound, unsteady, and 
 ruinous to the world, and to themselves ; and so will it con- 
 tinue until the many shall have acquired more power, and 
 the few shall exercise less. Their power hangs on fleets, 
 and armies, and colonies, and when these shall have passed 
 away order will succeed disorder and the world may hope 
 for peace. 
 
 With each step in this progress, England will acquire the 
 power of self-protection, which now has no existence. Her 
 policy is dependent upon that of foreign nations, and hence 
 the endless waste upon diplomacy. Foreign tariffs affright 
 her merchants, and compel the repeal of her corn laws. 
 The fear of losing her supplies of cotton compels the aban- 
 donment of the right of search, and the settlement of bound- 
 ary questions. She has no fixed system, and she can have 
 none : she can exercise in no degree the power of self- 
 government while she relies on poor soils abroad in prefer- 
 ence to rich ones at home. At this moment her whole policy 
 is dependent on the action of the United States. If they de- 
 termine that they will eat their own food, and work up their 
 own cotton, and smelt their own iron ore, the downfall of the 
 system of ships, commerce, and colonies is as certain to take 
 place as it is now certain that the navigation and corn laws 
 have been repealed. In confirmation of this view we take 
 the following passage from an English journal : 
 
 <^ It is a great mistake to date trading on reciprocity prin- 
 ciples at the treaties of 1824 ; a still greater to suppose that 
 the accession to these treaties by Great Britain was volun- 
 tary, and that she had it in her power to resist them. The 
 most indisputable fact is, that these treaties have each in 
 their turn been as much forced upon us — that we w^ere as 
 much driven into them — as if they had been dictated at the 
 triumphant cannon's mouth. In 1815, after the long, exhaust- 
 ing, desolating war with Bonaparte, Europe was only too 
 eager to obtain any peace ; nations and governments forbade 
 longer destruction, bloodshed, and misery ; and then in the 
 
456 THE FUTURE. 
 
 peace concluded between Great Britain and America, the 
 United States, by the articles which placed British and 
 American shipping on terms of equality with each other, ex- 
 acted such a recognition and establishment of the principles 
 of reciprocity, that, w^hether they demanded it sooner or later, 
 the concession of them could no longer be refused to other 
 nations. In fact, the United States, by thus setting the ex- 
 ample in this instance, as much abrogated our general naviga- 
 tion laws, as, by resisting the search on the high seas, they have 
 dealt the death-blow to that vexatious and presumptuous 
 claim. For it was, and still is becoming • every day more 
 and more apparent, that Great Britain, as a commercial nation, 
 cannot wage a w^ar of custom-houses. To her, international 
 retaliation of duties would be more fatal than defeat at Tra- 
 falgar and Waterloo. Wherefore, the threat of custom-house 
 hostility repealed our navigation laws — though our legislature 
 went through the form of doing so, and though Mr. Huskis- 
 son affected to originate it in 1824 in the House of Commons, 
 as a necessary and prudential measure, when he announced 
 the orders in council and the tariff on which the government 
 had decided."* 
 
 France presents to view another great inverted pyramid, 
 resting on the shoulders of the miserable people of Paris, one- 
 half of whom receive alms, in the form of bread tickets, when 
 crops are short : and the equally miserable owners of millions 
 of acres and half acres, cultivated by men who scarcely obtain 
 the means of subsistence : and the more miserable operatives 
 of Lyons and Sedan. The part which stands high in air, and 
 which should be the bottom, is broad, and there we see the 
 King busily employed in raising materials from below for the 
 purpose of widening the top ; creating appanages and vice- 
 royalties for his children, while all around are watching for 
 the time when the whole machine shall topple over; burying 
 in its ruins, king, princes, princesses, appanages , vice- 
 
 * New Quarterly Eeview, p. 136, vol. 6, 1845. 
 
THE FUTURE. 457 
 
 royalties, and all other of the bad machinery now so exten- 
 sively in use. Let but the people of the United States de- 
 termine that they will place the consumer by the side of the 
 producer, and thousands of the most useful men in that 
 country : great and little capitalists, and the best operatives of 
 all descriptions : will transfer themselves to the place where 
 labour is in demand, wages are high, and food is abundant.* 
 Then will it become necessary to offer them inducements to 
 stay at home : then will the people acquire power : and then 
 may the world see an approach to peace, for the people 
 everywhere love peace. Their rulers alone love war, and 
 war abounds where man is cheap and food is dear. 
 
 France and England are both hollow. With both power 
 is apparent, not real, and both must lay down their arms 
 when other nations shall determine that they will consume 
 their own food, and that France and England shall raise their 
 own. Wealth alone gives power. France is poor. Eng- 
 land is apparently very rich, but far less so than she appears 
 to be ; and no better evidence of the fact need be desired 
 than is to be found in the general ruin caused by the appro- 
 priation of a few millions' worth of land, and corn, and coal, 
 and iron ore, to the purpose of making roads. She dams 
 up capital, and w^hen it accumulates to the amount of eight 
 or ten millions she fancies herself very rich, and commences 
 the investment of twenty or thirty millions : and when the 
 work is half done, half the merchants and traders are ruined, 
 and half the operatives thrown out of work and obliged to 
 expend their little savings in the effort to obtain food.f Such 
 has been the course of events in every cycle of seven years 
 
 * « Workmen ! we who are now tied, abused, chained — who have no rights, 
 are not cared for ; no work, no bread, no future, as at present — let us go and 
 seek elsewjaere, for the Providence or nature which offers us all the treasures 
 of their love and beneficence. Let us go and make the foundations of Icaria 
 on the American land." — Le Populairc. 
 
 f The Times says, that "England is poor." England is veiy much less 
 rich than the world is accustomed to believe. She wustes too much to be very 
 rich. 
 
 3M 39 
 
458 THE FUTURE. 
 
 for the last half century, and such will it continue to be 
 until she shall be compelled to raise her own food. Should 
 the United States take the lead in the measures necessary to 
 this end by adopting vigorous measures for the specific end 
 of enabling themselves to dispense with the present cumbrous 
 and wasteful machinery of exchange, adopting for it the 
 cheap substitute that w^ould be afforded by placing the con- 
 sumer side by side w^ith the producer, the close of another 
 cycle of seven years would almost see the termination of the 
 system. With its termination trade may become free: abso- 
 lutely free : for in a natural state of things, those who pos- 
 sess abundant supplies of food, the great raw material of 
 manufacture, can need no protection. 
 
 With each step in the progress towards that point, the 
 people of Germany and Russia, and Spain, and Italy, and 
 Ireland, will acquire power to consume more and more the 
 food yielded by their own soil, on the ground on w^hich it is 
 produced ; and with each they will acquire power to con- 
 sume more clothing, for which they will require more cotton, 
 to be paid for in those commodities for which their soils and 
 climates are best fitted. With each, exchanges will be 
 made more and more directly between the consumer and the 
 producer, and the existing barbarous system of sending 
 cotton to Manchester to be there spun for Germany and 
 Russia; and food from Germany and Russia to be eaten 
 by those who spin it ; will tend to pass away. With each, 
 the planter wall produce his cotton at less cost of labour, 
 and the cost of exchanging for the products of other por- 
 tions of the world will diminish. With each, the power 
 of the peace-loving portions of the world will grow, while 
 that of the war-making portions will decline ; and with each, 
 the power of man everywhere over land and over himself, 
 his thoughts, his feelings, and his actions, will advance, with 
 a steady tendency towards the establishment of perfect self- 
 government. To the cotton planter this change is almost in- 
 dispensable. So long as England shall continue to be the 
 
THE FUTURE. 459 
 
 chief distributor of his great product, he can know nothing 
 of self-government, for he must continue to be subject to the 
 periodical revulsions with which that country is afflicted. At 
 the present moment numerous mills are closed, not for want 
 of orders but for want of means to execute them, and his 
 cotton falls heavily in price because of his dependence upon 
 Enghsh cotton manufacturers who are themselves dependent 
 on the movements of English banks and English politicians. 
 The intervention of England between the producer in Ame- 
 rica and the consumers of the continent constitutes a cum- 
 brous, costly, and wasteful portion of the machinery of ex- 
 change, and the substitution of direct intercourse with the 
 consumer would be attended with advantage similar to that 
 which results from replacing the cart or wagon by the rail- 
 road car. The more perfect the machinery the less is the 
 friction, and the greater the power. 
 
 Thus far, resistance to the great error of English policy 
 has been in the form of tariffs having for their object the 
 raising of revenue, and thereby affording incidental protection 
 to the consumer of food, and cotton, and wool, who desires 
 to place himself by the side of the producer. The system is 
 vicious and unsound. It is part and parcel of that which it 
 proposes to correct : of that which produces the depopulation 
 of India, and compels the people of the United States to fly 
 from rich soils to poor ones. 
 
 When the government of England prohibited the export 
 of machinery and the emigration of mechanics, the object 
 in view was precisely the same that was sought in dis- 
 couraging the manufacture of woollens in Ireland, and that 
 of nails in America : in depriving the people of the southern 
 provinces of this country of the right of Exchanging with 
 those of the north, and the people of Ireland from exchang- 
 ing with those of the West Indies, except through the me- 
 
460 THE FUTURE. 
 
 dium of English ports and English merchants : that of esta- 
 blishing a system of indirect taxation. 
 
 How perfectly that object has been accomplished, we pro- 
 pose now to show. The man w^ho raises cotton in India, 
 receives less than one penny per pound for it. When it 
 returns to him from Manchester in the form of cloth, after 
 having been dragged through the ^<- rich black clay" that 
 lies between him and the Ganges, it costs him certainly not 
 less than four pence a yard. He gives," therefore, four 
 pounds of cotton for one yard of cloth. A pound of cot- 
 ton will make three yards of coarse cloth. With pro- 
 per machinery, such as would be now in India but for. 
 the determination of England to tax the world for the main- 
 tenance of her system, a pound of cotton could be converted 
 into cloth with less labour than is required for the produc- 
 tion of the wool itself. Such being the case, a fair division 
 would give the producer of the cotton at least one-half of the 
 cloth, and he would receive a yard and a half for a pound, 
 whereas he now gives for one yard four pounds. If we now 
 add to this that because of the impoverishment that is thus 
 produced he is compelled to fly from the richest soils of the 
 world, and apply himself to the cultivation of poor ones that 
 yield for wages but two rupees, or one dollar, per month, 
 and for profits of capital but sixpence, or twelve cents, per 
 acre,* we may be enabled to form some small conception of 
 
 * " General Briggs states, that the greater portion of the soil in the districts 
 ceded by the Nizam to the British government in ] 800, was the rich black 
 land termed cotton ground. On the occasion of the survey, made between 
 1803 and 1807, there were entered in one district only (Bellary) 1,460,993 
 acres fit for producing cotton, of which 91 1,803 were in actual cultivation, and 
 which, according to Dr. Wight's table of produce, in that part of India should 
 have yielded 98,474,724 pounds: but in 1814-15, we find 740,845 acres had 
 been abandoned, and that the produce of the whole district did not exceed 
 6,278,000 pounds, instead of 98,474,724 pounds a few years before ; and 
 strange to say, that the same public report shows that more cotton passed into 
 and through the district in the same year from the remote districts of the 
 Nizam, than was produced in the district alluded to. The cause of the falling 
 off of the cotton culture under our government is but too apparent, for we 
 find on the same authority, namely, the public reports of the revenue collector 
 
THE FUTURE. 461 
 
 the extent of indirect taxation levied by England on that 
 unfortunate people, and we shall be safe in placing it at 
 more than twenty times the value of all the cloth and yarn 
 produced in England from all the cotton wool grown in 
 India, Egypt, and America. 
 
 The poor Irishman is, by the system, denied the use of 
 machinery, and he obtains one yard of cloth for the same 
 quantity of grain or pork that would give him two, three, or 
 four, if he could place the consumer by the producer. He 
 too cultivates poor lands, and then he travels to England 
 and spends half a dozen weeks in obtaining a fortnight's 
 wages. What is the extent of the indirect taxation here it 
 would be difficult to calculate, but it is quite sufficient to 
 account for all the misery of Ireland. 
 
 The planter in Tennessee sells his cotton for five cents per 
 pound. By the time it reaches Manchester, it costs eight. 
 He buys it back again, obtaining one yard of cloth for two 
 pounds of cotton, whereas, if he had the consumer of food in 
 his neighbourhood, he would obtain half the cloth yielded 
 by his cotton, and would have three yards in place of one. 
 He would then clear and cultivate rich soils, and wc'uld 
 obtain a bale to the acre instead of half a bale, and w^ould 
 sell his timber instead of wasting it as now he does. 
 
 The farmer of Ohio sells his wheat, grown on land that 
 yields ten bushels to the acre, at seventy cents. By the 
 time it reaches Manchester it is worth a dollar and a half, 
 at which price, with the addition of numerous charges, the far- 
 mer buys it back : the result of which is, that he obtains for 
 the produce of an acre of w^heat ninety yards of cloth, the 
 produce of about thirty pounds of cotton, for which the pro- 
 ducer in Tennessee has received a dollar and fifty cents, 
 and which could be converted into cloth for as much more. 
 
 in 1814-15, that the profit on cotton, according to his own estimate, Q*id not 
 exceed six and a half-pence per acre, while, according to the native collector, 
 whoso account is more likely to be correct, there was a dead loss in ordinary 
 seasons of five pence per acre." — •Economist. 
 
 39* 
 
462 THE FUTURE. 
 
 He cultivates poor soils, whereas, if he had the consumer 
 by his side, he might clear and cultivate rich ones that 
 would yield forty bushels to the acre, and he too could sell his 
 timber. 
 
 What is the extent of indirect taxation upon the people 
 of the United States by means of the system may perhaps 
 be estimated if we take into consideration the following 
 facts : — 
 
 I. The labour annually expended in the construction of 
 carts, and wagons, and ships, that would be unnecessary if 
 the consumer and producer could be permitted to take their 
 place by the side of each other, would produce as many 
 mills and furnaces as w^ould convert into cloth half the cotton 
 and wool produced, and smelt the ore for making all the iron 
 used in the Union. To the carts, and w^agons, and ships, may 
 be added the labour of horses and mules employed in the same 
 wasteful w^ork. 
 
 II. The time lost by the persons employed in the w^ork of 
 unnecessary transportation and exchange ; by those who are 
 idle in w^hole or in part for w^ant of a regular demand for 
 labour ; and by those who are on the road seeking for new 
 places of residence ; is more than would be required for the 
 work of converting all the wool into cloth, and all the ore 
 into iron. 
 
 III. The labour that is now given to the work of cultivat- 
 ing poor soils yielding ten bushels to the acre, instead of 
 rich ones that are capable of affording tons of food by aid of 
 which poor soils might be enriched, would yield double the 
 return could the consumer take his place by the side of the 
 producer and thus save the manure that is now wasted. 
 
 IV. The labour that is now wasted in making and repair- 
 ing roads through new states and territories, and among 
 scattered settlements in both old and new states, if applied 
 to the improvement of old roads would diminish annually, 
 and largely, the cost of transportation of those portions of 
 the products of the earth requiring to be exchanged. 
 
THE FUTURE. 463 
 
 It may safely be asserted that the labour of man as now 
 appHed is, on an average, but half as productive as it would 
 be were it possible for the consumer and the producer to be 
 near neighbours to each other, and if so, it follows that the in- 
 direct taxation by aid of the colonial system is equal to the 
 whole of the present product of the Union, which we have 
 estimated at two thousand millions of dollars. If we wish 
 evidence of the extent to which taxation is pushed by aid of 
 this system, we need only to look to all the colonies of Eng- 
 land throughout the world, Ireland, India, the West Indies, 
 Canada, Nova Scotia, and South Africa, and we shall find 
 exhaustion and depopulation universal, as it must continue 
 to be wherever the power of self-protection has no existence.* 
 
 * " Both from observation and reflection, I am convinced that a state en- 
 tirely destitute of manufactures, vv^hatever may be the extent and nature of its 
 staple productions, will always be inferior to one that combines manufactural 
 industry with agricultural wealth. In the first place, materials to a very large 
 amount, which might be worked up to advantage, but which will not bear the 
 cost of distant transportation, are wasted for want of neighbouring manufactures. 
 In the next, it is destitute of those towns and villages that grow up around such 
 establishments, affording home markets for the produce of the farmer, more 
 advantageous than those at a distance, and supplying him with necessary ar- 
 ticles at a cheaper rate, the price being diminished to the amount of the cost 
 of transportation. Again, manufactures greatly increase the productive re- 
 sources of a country ; the use of steam and water power, and the vast num- 
 ber of mechanical contrivances and labour-saving machines set in motion by 
 them, augment to an almost indefinite extent the productive industry of the 
 country ; while every discovery in science applicable to the useful arts which 
 manufactures give rise to, adds still further to its wealth. It is true that 
 the application of science to agriculture has increased its products, and that 
 we have some few labour-saving machines, but how few and insignificant are 
 they when compared with those that multiply a thousand-fold the industrial 
 capital of a manufacturing district ! Where manufactures exist, the indivi- 
 duals interested in their success and prosperity, from their proximity to each 
 other, easily unite their efforts for all purposes of common interest, and good 
 roads and canals result naturally from such combinations, and convenient lines 
 of communication are everywhere established, so as to give to each one his 
 fair share of the advantages of trade. We, on the contrary, live far apart, and 
 meet but rarely to take into consideration our common interests ; and when 
 we do meet, we remain together too short a time to originate or perfect any 
 great measure of general improvement. In purely agricultural districts, there- 
 fore, the products of industry find their way to market by miserable roads and 
 circuitous lines of communication, to the great loss and inconvenience of the 
 farmer." — PoinsctL's Jddrcss to the South Carolina State Agricultural Society. 
 
464 THE FUTURE. 
 
 The benefit to the man who plunders towns is small com- 
 pared with the injury inflicted upon those who are plundered. 
 So is it with taxation, direct or indirect. The amount produced 
 is small when compared with the loss that is caused by com- 
 pelling men to cultivate poor soils, when they might have rich 
 ones were they enabled to improve their machinery of cultiva- 
 tion. England gains nothing by this course of action. While 
 thus taxing all the world to an amount almost inconceivable, 
 she pays heavily herself. She drives capital from employment 
 that would be profitable to that which is unprofitable — from 
 the cultivation of her own soil to the fashioning of the pro- 
 ducts of other soils — and the consequence is that the profits 
 derived from its use are less by more than one-half than they 
 would otherwise be. She drives labour from the profitable 
 to the unprofitable, and wages are also less by one-half. 
 Capital is cheap and governments borrow readily for the 
 purposes of war ; and man is cheap while food is dear, and 
 therefore men are readily hired for the purpose of keeping in 
 subjection the people of England, Ireland, and India, while 
 undergoing the operation of having extracted from them a 
 large portion of the small wages they are permitted to earn. 
 The system is unnatural and unsteady, and therefore it is that 
 her workmen are often unemployed by tens of thousands, 
 while at other times they are overworked : and therefore too 
 it is that her neighbours are perpetually ruined by its unceas- 
 ing instability. 
 
 To the unsoundness of the system it is due that through- 
 out the world protective tariffs exist, having for their object 
 the exclusion of British manufactures. Nothing less could 
 have introduced the system of protection into these United 
 States. Everywhere, however, it has been attempted to cor- 
 rect error resulting from the effort by England at indirect 
 taxation, by other error in desiring to use tariffs as a means 
 of similar taxation at home. It has been the substitution 
 of plunder by a pickpocket for that of a highwayman. The 
 whole system of indirect taxation is mere petty larceny. It 
 
THE FUTURE. 465 
 
 is an attempt to filch that which cannot be openly demanded. 
 It is one of those "inventions" of man by which the few 
 are enabled to grow rich at the expense of the many, and is 
 therefore greatly favoured by that class of men who prefer living 
 by the labour of others to living by their own. The man who 
 plunders a city is of the same species with the highway rob- 
 ber. The one who imposes indirect taxes is of the same 
 species with the chevalier dHndustrie. All belong to the ge- 
 nus of great men. All are equally destitute of manly or 
 generous feeling. The plunderer of cities selects those which 
 are weak and defenceless, and the collector of indirect taxes 
 selects the commodities used by poor men who cannot de- 
 fend themselves, and where the system most prevails men 
 are most w^eak and cheap, and food most dear. 
 
 In India it is found in perfection. The Company taxes 
 princes and sovereigns by millions, and through them their 
 subjects. It then seizes on salt, and retails it at a profit 
 of from eight hundred to fifteen hundred per cent. Next, it 
 taxes commodities on their way to and from market, wher- 
 ever they can be found, and then hands over its poor subjects 
 to the tender mercies of judges, generals, captains and lieu- 
 tenants, zemindars, mundils, potails, and all others o^ihe. genus 
 Avhose/br^e lies in picking pockets with dexterity. 
 
 France has always been governed by financiers, stock- 
 jobbers, and other members of the same great family, and 
 there the system is carried to greater perfection than else- 
 where in Europe. The government takes all that can be 
 obtained by direct taxes, then seizes on salt, tobacco, and 
 all other of the commodities used by little men, and then 
 leaves them in charge of innumerable subordinates engaged 
 in abstracting from their pockets by taxes at the gates of 
 towns, monopolies, interest upon innumerable mortgages, 
 and endless fees to lawyers, most of the little that is left. 
 
 England exhibits the same system on a grand scale. The 
 nation taxes the world, and each portion of it that exercises 
 Dower is engaged in the same great work at home. That 
 3N 
 
466 THE FUTURE. 
 
 portion which calls itself «« The State" seizes on sugar, and 
 coffee, and tea, and all other of the commodities used by 
 little men, and thus levies contributions that could not other- 
 wise be obtained. The land-holder picks pockets by aid of 
 corn laws. Railroad kings plunder the unhappy traveller by 
 high fares, and hereditary legislators pick his pocket by 
 doubling the cost of making the road. Lawyers oppose 
 local courts lest they should diminish fees. The Bank makes 
 loans at two per cent., and renews them to the almost ruined 
 debtor at nine. The city of London taxes transportation by 
 seizing on the poor carter and taxing his cart, that he may 
 contribute to the Lord Mayor's dinner. The number en- 
 gaged in the work of indirect taxation — in that of picking 
 pockets by aid of monopolies and restrictions — is great, and 
 the business appears to be profitable ; but it is one that, 
 like all other of the modes of plunder, yields small return 
 to the capital and labour that are employed. 
 
 Where highwaymen are numerous, pickpockets will always 
 abound. Where wars are frequent, indirect taxes will be 
 numerous, and the people will be poor. The people of the 
 United States, happily, have preserved peace more steadily 
 than other nations ; the consequence of which is found in the 
 fact that indirect taxes are fewer, and the class that lives by 
 the labour of others is smaller than in other parts of the 
 world. In the south and west, where poor soils are cul- 
 tivated and land is held in large quantities, many modes of 
 indirect taxation may be found. Some States own banks, 
 and others make canals and railroads, by aid of all of which 
 taxes are collected from the many to be expended by the 
 few. Pennsylvania presents to view a considerable class 
 that lives by the labour of others, and various modes of pick- 
 ing pockets by aid of indirect taxation have been there in 
 use. With the gradual substitution of direct taxation, the 
 class is becoming less numerous, and soon we may hope to 
 see it disappear. In New Jersey, we find an ingenious 
 compound of highway robbery and petty larceny. The 
 
THE FUTURE. 467 
 
 State sells to a Company distinguished for its rapacity, the 
 exclusive privilege of transportnig passengers and merchan- 
 dise by railroad between the two principal cities of the 
 Union ; the consequence of which is thp.t they are worse 
 accommodated, at higher cost, than in any other part of 
 the country where the same amount of business is done. 
 The Company puts the pistol to the head of the traveller, 
 and the State picks his pocket of its fee. The nation is thus 
 taxed to the amount of millions by means of the money that 
 is thus extorted, and by vast interferences with trade and 
 travel. The State itself loses, because high freights pre- 
 vent the clearing of its land which remains in many places 
 a wilderness where it should be a garden : and thus at the 
 cost of millions it acquires a revenue equal to little more 
 than one cent per acre of its surface. 
 
 New York makes canals, and then, to avoid laying direct 
 taxes, imposes a tax on all merchandise carried on rail- 
 roads, with a view, apparently, to prevent the clearing and 
 drainage of its best lands, w^hich yet remain in a state of 
 nature. Here we find the practice of petty larceny on an 
 extensive scale. That the State may borrow money cheaply 
 by reason of its obligations commanding a high price in the 
 market, its creditors are invested with a monopoly of furnish- 
 ing that species of currency that men most desire to use, to 
 wit, bank notes ; and by aid of this grant they are enabled 
 to impose heavy taxes upon those who use them, by paying 
 them out at par and buying them in at a discount : whereas, 
 were the trade in money free, notes would be supplied that 
 would be always, and everywhere through the State, at par. 
 That trade has in all ages been found by legislators, whether 
 hereditary or elective, to afford a convenient mode of picking 
 pockets, and therefore it has been kept always under their 
 especial care, and where most cared for the robbery has in- 
 variably been greatest. Here, however, the system is likely 
 soon to see its close, for here the people have acquired an 
 increase of power. 
 
468 THE FUTURE. 
 
 New England is, more than any other part of the world, 
 free from this system of plunder. Massachusetts expends 
 two millions, all of which, with the exception of a very in- 
 jurious tax on bank stock, and another on sales by auction, 
 is honestly taken in the form of taxes demanded directly from 
 the owner of the property himself. The people there culti- 
 vate all their soils. They know what they pay for, and 
 they receive value for their money. The pickpocket collec- 
 tor of indirect taxes has little existence there. 
 
 In the government of the Union, on the contrary, the sys- 
 tem of indirect taxation is universal. The forms it assumes 
 are different at different times. Sometimes duties are speci- 
 fic, and the honest man then pays no more than his dishonest 
 neighbour. At other times they are ad valorem, and then the 
 pickpocket, by aid of a false invoice, collects his share of the 
 indirect taxation by paying less duty than his honest neigh- 
 bour. The few who employ themselves in managing the 
 affairs of the many : those who trade in politics : have availed 
 themselves of the necessity for protection against the per- 
 petual and enormous error of the English system to establish 
 revenue tariffs with incidental protection, and thus to swell 
 the amount of taxes to thirty millions of dollars, by aid of 
 which armies of officers, civil, military, and naval, are sup- 
 ported, and wars are made, and loans are effected : whereas, 
 were the system of direct taxation once adopted wars would 
 become impossible, for no chief magistrate would dare to re- 
 commend one for which the people w^ere to be required to 
 pay down in taxes upon their lands, their houses, and their 
 merchandise. 
 
 ' As we pass from the north and east, the land where popu- 
 lation is most numerous and land least abundant, to the 
 south and west, where land most abounds and men cultivate 
 the poorer soils, the love of war increases, and wars flow from 
 indirect taxation. If we desire to diminish the love of war 
 we must diminish the power of the few to impose such taxes. 
 That power is greatest where men are most scattered, and 
 
THE FUTURE. 469 
 
 every increase in the tendency to depopulation tends to in- 
 crease that power, while every increase in the tendency to 
 concentration tends to its diminution. If we wish, then, that 
 the whole people shall become as rich, and strong, and free 
 and peaceful, as the people of Massachusetts, we must place 
 the consumer by the side of the producer in Pennsylvania, 
 Virginia, South Carolina, and other States, and thus enable 
 the latter to cultivate rich soils, instead of compelling the for- 
 mer to fly to Oregon or Texas, there to become himself a pro- 
 ducer, cultivating poor ones. 
 
 Concentration, even to its present extent, cannot be main- 
 tained without protection. To repeal even the existing tariff 
 would be to drive to the west, there to raise food from poor 
 soils, the men who now cultivate rich ones, and with each 
 step the power of the few to obtain large revenues by indi- 
 rect taxation, and the power to make wars, would increase. 
 If we desire to preserve peace, we must arrest the progress 
 of depopulation and promote concentration upon rich soils, 
 and that can be done only by increased protection, by aid of 
 a tariff that is not for revenue — a tariff whose direct object 
 shall be that of establishing the right of every man to deter- 
 mine for himself where he will live, and how he will employ 
 his labour, or his capital, or both. What is needed is a dis- 
 tinct declaration of a determination on the part of the whole 
 nation, farmers and planters, to pursue the course necessary 
 for bringing the consumer of cotton, and wool, and food, to 
 the side of the producers of those commodities : for bringing 
 the lapstone to the hides and the food, instead of carrying the 
 hides and the food to the lapstone : and thus to terminate the 
 system of indirect taxation by both England and France, and 
 to annihilate, by means of measures of peaceful but vigorous 
 resistance, the power of those countries to disturb the world 
 by means of fleets and armies. Were such a measure once 
 deliberately adopted as the policy of the whole nation, eva- 
 sion of its provisions would be impossible, for all, males and 
 females, old and young, rich and poor, land-owner and la- 
 
 40 
 
470 THE FUTURE. 
 
 bourer, would feel that their own interests were directly con- 
 cerned in their enforcement. All would feel that the object 
 in view was the establishment of their own right to cultivate 
 rich soils instead of poor ones, and to receive large wages 
 and large rents instead of small ones. The example once 
 set and its object distinctly avowed by the United States, it 
 would be followed by every nation in Europe, and then capi- 
 tal, in the form of machinery, would be seen travelling to 
 place itself by the side of the food, the cotton, the wool, and 
 the iron ore, and mechanics and labourers would seek the 
 lands w^here food was cheap and man was dear. A brief 
 period of determined action would suffice to restore the equi- 
 librium, now disturbed, between the demand for, and the 
 supply of, both labour and capital in England and France. 
 Both w^ould cease to be superabundant, and landlords would 
 be found paying high interest for the one, and high wages 
 to secure the services of the other. The effort then would be 
 to retain both at home, and contrivances for expelling them 
 would pass out of use. Food would become cheap, while 
 man w-ould become dear, and the power to maintain large 
 armies would soon cease to exist. Labourers would then 
 vote, and then taxes would be laid on land : and then fleets, 
 and armies, and colonies would pass out of existence, while 
 custom-houses would be turned into factories. 
 
 In a natural state of things, the people of the United 
 States can manufacture more cheaply than any nation of the 
 world. The mechanic wants food, and lodging, and cloth- 
 ing. The first they have in vast abundance, and the mate- 
 rials for the others equally abound. All that is wanted is 
 that the shoemaker wdth his lapstone shall be permitted to 
 take his place by the side of the hides and the food, as he 
 would long since have done but for the existence of a dis- 
 turbing force of prodigious power, that needs now a decided, 
 and vigorous, and united, exertion for its correction. So long 
 as it shall be permitted to exist, depopulation and the sys- 
 tem of large revenues raised by means of indirect taxation, 
 
THE FUTURE. " 471 
 
 to be squandered by those who live by managing the affairs 
 of others, must continue. So long as it exists, the planter 
 and farmer must continue to cultivate poor soils instead of 
 rich ones, and to give a large portion of their small product 
 in exchange for a small quantity of clothing. So long as it 
 exists, every attempt at the establishment of freedom of trade 
 must be a failure. With its correction, every obstacle to the 
 establishment of perfect freedom will disappear, and the 
 tariff* will pass out of existence. Its enactment w^ould be a 
 declaration of war for the establishment of peace and free 
 trade, and when the object of the war should be attained a 
 continuance of hostilities would be found unnecessary. 
 
 The interest of every farmer and planter, and of every la- 
 bourer and mechanic, is directly concerned in the adoption of a 
 measure of this kind, and one that shall be calculated promptly 
 to produce the effect desired ; but it is not more his interest than 
 it is his duty. So long as the present system shall endure, 
 trade of every kind must continue subject to the violent fluc- 
 tuations which enable the few to enrich themselves at the ex- 
 pense of the many, and enable gambling speculators to live 
 in palaces and ride in coaches by aid of the indirect taxation 
 levied upon the hard-working mechanic and honest trader 
 ruined by changes in the value of their property. So long as 
 it shall continue to endure, usury laws must continue to exist, 
 whereas, when trade shall once be permitted to take its natu- 
 ral course, it wdll be found that of all commodities money is 
 the one that tends most to permanence of value. So long 
 as it shall endure, England will continue to maintain expen- 
 sive establishments on barren rocks that she may be enabled, 
 by aid of the smuggler, to set at defiance every effort at con- 
 centration on the part of the people of Spain, Italy, and Ger- 
 many, and so long must false invoices and perjury character- 
 ize the whole of her foreign trade. So long as it shall en- 
 dure, the people of the United States must continue to bar- 
 barize themselves by flying from friends, relatives, school- 
 houses, and churches : those of Ireland must continue to 
 
472 THE FUTURE. 
 
 shoot landlords and landlord's agents : and those of India to 
 play the part of assassins, under the name of thugs and 
 phansigars. It is therefore the bounden duty of every man 
 desirous to promote the great cause of morality, of justice, 
 and of truth, to unite his efforts with those of his neighbour 
 for the early accomplishment of the great object. 
 
 But, it may be asked, what will become of the revenue ? 
 Tariffs for revenue should have no existence. Interferences 
 with trade are to be tolerated only as measures of self-pro- 
 tection. Every man who enjoys security should contribute 
 directly for its maintenance, and then he would have cheap 
 government, and good government. With every step in the 
 progress towards placing the consumer by the side of the pro- 
 ducer there would be diminished necessity for the mainte- 
 nance of costly missions and expensive negotiations, and the 
 trader in politics would have diminished chances of profit or 
 distinction. Great men would become less, while the little 
 men : those who minded their own business : would become 
 greater. With the abolition of British and French fleets and 
 armies the necessity for maintaining American fleets and 
 armies would diminish and finally pass away, while the 
 power of self-defence would increase, by the concentration of 
 population and increase of means of intercourse. Men would 
 cease to disperse themselves so widely over the west. Colo- 
 nization would proceed naturally, and colonists would cease 
 to require forts or troops to defend them, because they would 
 be strong in union with each other, and because they w^ould 
 cease to press so heavily upon the poor natives of the forest. 
 Trade with the consumers of cotton, and of other of the com- 
 modities produced in the Union, would increase as those con- 
 sumers were more and more enabled to consume their own 
 food, and the power to maintain ships would increase as the 
 necessity for dependence upon them diminished. The ocean 
 would be covered with steam-ships capable of defending 
 themselves, and also capable of being converted into ships 
 of war should war occur in self-defence, but wars would 
 
THE FUTURE. 473 
 
 cease. The people everywhere love peace, as will be fully 
 shown when the system of indirect taxation at home, and 
 that of ships, colonies, and commerce abroad : the systems 
 which great men patronize : shall have seen their end, a 
 consummation devoutly to be wished. By degrees expor- 
 tations of food would cease, except in the form of cloth, 
 or yarn, or iron, or other manufactured commodities : and 
 importations would become limited to those commodities for 
 which the climate was unsuited, or those finer articles on 
 which small duties could alone, under any circumstances, 
 be levied, of which the consumption would be vastly in- 
 creased, to the improvement of both knowledge and taste. 
 Revenue and expenditure would fall together, and ultimately 
 it might, and we think would, prove that five millions of 
 dollars would more than suffice for all the necessary expenses 
 of a people of thirty millions, while the product of those 
 thirty millions would be more than double that of the pre- 
 sent twenty-one millions. That sum would be equal to one- 
 sixth of a dollar per head, and it might be raised without 
 the necessity for a single revenue officer of the general 
 government. With each step in the progress of diminu- 
 tion in the quantity of the machinery of exchange, its qua- 
 lity would improve, and men would travel by thousands 
 where now go hundreds ; their power of locomotion, and 
 their disposition to see the world increasing as the necessity 
 therefor diminished : and ultimately it would be seen that 
 in a natural state of things man and machinery move, and 
 food tends to stay at home : whereas, in Europe, where he is 
 kept poor, it is held that man is the most difficult of all 
 commodities to be moved. Man and machinery can afford 
 to pay high freights, while fuel and food must be carried 
 cheaply, or not at all. The increased transport of the former, 
 and more valuable, commodities, would tend to give perfect 
 roads and perfect ships, and both man and machinery would 
 travel at far less cost than now. 
 
 The first and great desire of man is that of maintaining and 
 
474 THE FUTURE. O^ 
 
 improving his condition. With each step in the progress of 
 concentration, his physical condition would improve, because 
 he would cultivate more fertile lands, and obtain increased 
 power over the treasures of the earth. His moral condition 
 would improve, because he would have greater inducements 
 to steady and regular labour ; and the reward of good con- 
 duct would steadily increase. His intellectual condition 
 w^ould improve, because he would have more leisure for 
 study, and more power to mix with his fellow men at home 
 or abroad ; to learn what they knew, and to see what they 
 possessed ; while the reward of talent would steadily increase, . 
 and that of mere brute wealth would steadily decline. His 
 political condition would improve, because he would acquire 
 an increased power over the application of his labour and 
 of its proceeds. He would be less governed, better go- 
 verned, and more cheaply governed : and all because more 
 perfectly self-governed. 
 
 Note. — We take the following from the last (October) number of the 
 Edinburgh Review: — "If we are unjust enough, and insane enough, to 
 allow a combination for retaliatory measures of this description to be once 
 formed, there is no knowing to what purposes it may not be afterwards ap- 
 plied. One of our greatest perils is the universal jealousy of our commercial 
 power. We would piously hope that our legislators may be just, and fear 
 not. But we must be just. Retaliation, once entered upon, will not be con- 
 fined to Europe. The United States of America are never backward in press- 
 ing their supposed interests, and in extorting privileges from others. We now^ 
 export to those states large quantities of the produce of every region. Our 
 trade with America involves a hundred interests, of which, if our cotton ma- 
 nufactures are the greatest, they are but one. Let the legislature of Washing- 
 ton pass a Navigation Law, in all respects the counterpart of our own ! We 
 need say no more. B ut we are shocked to think into what a condition the fol- 
 lowing out of our example would bring the world." 
 
 The time has come for the people of the United States to insist upon the 
 enjoyment by their ships of every right conceded to those of England, and the 
 people of the continent of Europe are fully prepared to second them. The 
 time has come for the abolition of the system of indirect taxation by whicTi the 
 nations of the world are compelled to contribute towards the maintenance of 
 fleets and armies employed in disturbing the repose of the world, and the 
 more vigorous the measures the sooner shall we see arrive the sera of universal 
 peace and universal freedom of trade. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 LE D '09 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 013 607 761 2