people can only be obtained by teaching them how to help themselves, by giving them correct principles to guide their lives by, and demonstrating to their common sense the value of labour, steadiness, thought, and thrift. The masses are becoming a great power, it is necessary they should understand how to use it; inspire within them the desire to acquire; let them have a stake in the country, an interest in the maintenance of our Constitution. We owe much to Liberal reformers; they removed by their skill, energy, self-sacrifice, the encumbrances that weakened the building, and thereby strengthened it. But the Liberals of our day have yielded to Radicalism, and unless this power is checked, they will destroy the fine old institutions that have been so carefully built up. We must hope that the good sense of the people will awaken in time to see that Radicalism means spoliation, ruin. Any scheme that tends to equalize property must tend to paralyze civilization in the very act of diffusing it, and to debase the coin in the very act of distributing it. Let the ideal state it aims at have ever so many things to recommend it, it contains in itself the elements of its own dissolution; for not only is the constant struggle and ambition of the individual needed to advance civilization,—it is needed also if we would keep civilization from retrograding. "To preserve our material civilization even in its present state, there is a vast amount of skill and knowledge requisite, which men will only take the trouble to master for the sake of some adequate reward, and which, in the absence of any incentive to master it, might readily become lost to mankind altogether. But this is not all. If it is thus evident that there must be a minority to direct labour, it is still more evident that there must be labour to direct. There must be the delicate labour of the skilled operative; there must be the brute labour of the born and bred toiler. It is only through such agencies that railways, telegraphs, steamers, the diffusion of knowledge through printing, and the acquirement of knowledge through travel, can be still preserved among us; and all these agencies are extinguished by equality. Equality, then, can mean nothing more than ruin. It can mean no process of levelling up -no levelling up to the higher conditions, no levelling up even to the middle ones, but a general levelling down to a level below the lowest. Presently, too, it would be seen to mean something beyond this. It is conceivable that, through the appliances of civilization, the people might unite so as to destroy civilization; but they would be parting with their strength in the very act of using it. The appliances through which they could unite, either physically or in sentiment, are appliances that would go to ruin if they ceased to labour to maintain them; and with the falling to pieces of this vast material tissue, the proletariat would be once more disunited, once more broken into fragments, torn asunder by local ignorance and by local interest, and would consequently once more fall under the dominion of the stronger few. Inequality would be seen to be a phoenix, which not only, if it died, would die amidst flames and ashes, but which out of those very ashes would be sure to redevelop itself” (W. H. MALLOCK). Man's destiny is "progressive civilization." It is the duty of every man to labour, and to use thriftily the result thereof. "Acquisitiveness is God's law." Nature has sown bountifully the seeds of saving. Thrift, by which we satisfy the principle within us that prompts us to acquire, arises from the desire to better our condition; but, as more fully explained under "Capital," this principle of accumulation is for the benefit of others as well as ourselves; so it comes with us from the womb, and never leaves us till we go into the grave. In the whole interval which separates those two moments there is scarcely, perhaps, a single instance in which any man is so perfectly satisfied with the situation as to be without any wish for alteration or improvement. An augmentation of fortune is the means by which the greater part of men propose and wish to better their condition. Increased means do not always bring greater happiness; but the desire to increase your capital, the doing so by abstaining from present indulgences, is, even if done with selfish notions, likely to do good to others; at least, it is putting aside a present enjoyment within your reach, and treasuring up the means that may enable another to gratify. It is a duty we owe to society to save and accumulate, to reserve and put by from the present for future use. And that Nature wishes and intended us to save is proved by the fact, that though the principle of indulgence and expense, prevails in almost all men upon some occasions, and in some men upon all occasions, yet in the greater proportion of men, taking the whole course of their life as an average, the principle of frugality secms not only to predominate, but to predominate very greatly. Hence the strong accumulation of the national wealth. It is the same with bankrupts we hear a great deal of unsuccessful projects, but the number of prudent and successful undertakings is everywhere much greater, or the nation could not exist. But, although not initiated by us, this progress, this very existence, depends upon our obeying the instinct of acquisitiveness implanted in our brain. There can be no consumption unless something is produced to consume; the busy bees. must outnumber the drones; they must produce, not only for their own, but for that large class that are maintained and live by the produce of other men's labour. Fortunately, the instinct to acquire is a very strong one; and, also, that this instinct makes men having much want more; so they seek for means to use it so as to increase it, and by employing or lending their money to others who employ productive labour, they gradually add not only to their own wealth, but the nation's. But if, by any unfortunate mishap, property became so insecure, or so unremunerative, that men were not disposed to save, but the reverse, and the "unproductive labour" increased out of proportion to the productive, they would consume so as not to leave enough to reproduce for the next year. Not saving, briefly, would be like leaving us without seed for the next year's crop, and society must collapse. The nation will decay so soon as the frugality and good conduct of its members is not able to compensate for the waste of its unproductive members. The Divine Economist, the infallible Ruler that guides us, has done His part to prevent this by implanting in man that strong instinct of self-preservation, that causes in every age the uniform, constant, and uninterrupted effort of the majority of men to better their condition-the principle from which public and national, as well as private opulence, is originally derived, and which has been, and, let us hope, ever will be, powerful enough to maintain the natural progress of things towards improvement, in spite of the extravagance of government, the errors of administration, the misconduct and prodigality of individuals. Like the unknown principle of animal life, it has the power to restore health and vigour to the constitution, in spite not only of the disease, but of the incorrect prescription of the physician. My prescription for the nation to satisfy its acquisitiveness -and the annual produce of the land and labour of any nation can be increased by no other means-is" economy." Labour, but be thrifty; resolve to SAVE, to acquire. The national wealth depends on the increase of the wealth of the individuals it is composed of. You must, therefore, to increase the wealth, increase the number of your productive labourers, or increase the productive power of the same number of labourers. There is only one way of doing either: increase your capital. You cannot increase the "number of labourers" unless you increase the fund that maintains them; you cannot increase the productive power of the labourers you have already except by machinery or superior tools. To buy them, you must increase your capital; increase it to that extent, that you can afford to transfer it from your circulating capital to your fixed capital. I am assuming that you have been compelled to make the most of the labour you have by the wisest arrangements experience can supply for the proper division of employment, so as to make the most of the labour at your command. But even here the essential requisite is "more capital," as division of labour means a larger staff of labourers; and to keep men engaged in one way, and dividing the work into a number of parts, requires a much larger capital than if the same men could be employed on every different part of the work. To test the value of acquisitiveness, compare the state of our nation at two different periods, and if you find that the annual produce of its land and labour is greater than at the former, that its lands are better cultivated, its manufactories more numerous and more flourishing, and its trade more extensive, then I say, without fear of contradiction, that it is because of this instinct of acquisition, that the result is due to the members of the nation who have "saved," and that the improvement is due, wholly and solely, to an "increase of capital" wisely used in the employment of productive labour; and the progress of a nation depends upon the increase of the "thrifty" class-depends upon the gradually increasing proportion of "pro-luctive" over "unproductive" labourers in the community. Acquisition has a higher mission. All are bound by humanity to help the starving and the homeless; and although many pass by and take no heed, those who wish to help must acquire, to enable them to do so. "Pity without relief is like mustard without beef." You must not only grasp the wants of others, realize the misery of the large mass of people who, in pelting rain, cutting sleet, and bitter cold, have not bread to eat, nor a roof to shelter them; but to feed them and to house them, you must have acquired the means, you must have saved out of what you had to spend. God foresaw that there would be men thoughtless and improvident, and wisely counteracted the tendency to waste and be thriftless by giving to mankind the still stronger instinct to acquire, to save, and to feel an irresistible impulse to help those in need, and to have a greater pleasure in giving to others than in spending upon indulgences for oneself. There is no greater pleasure than in giving bread to the hungry, lodging through the bleak nights to the homeless, help in any way that will mitigate the wretchedness of the most miserable of human beings; or a step higher, and with the helping hand befriending respectable families when the bread-winner is struck down with illness, and stopping their homes from being broken up, or enabling men to make a fresh start in life by a new suit of clothes, or other help; or, better still, lending the money to enable men to take to the business of their employers if they retire, or to buy a business and get a start in life. In asking you to keep active within you the desire" to acquire," believe me, it is not my intention that you should be more selfish, but that it may enable you to help those of your fellow-men who have not been blessed so bountifully by nature with this faculty-so important to the progress of humanity. FREE LABOUR. "Sons of labour, keep ye moving Burst, and break, and cast away, Custom-bound to feudal laws; Barring up the road to right." J. M. PEACOCK. We have got rid of corporations with their exclusive privileges, which necessarily restrained the competition in the towns where any was established to those who were free of the trade. In the olden times every one had to serve an apprenticeship under a master duly qualified before he could obtain this freedom. The bye-laws of some of these incorporated trades regulated the number of apprentices which any master was to have, and the number of years each apprentice was obliged to serve-both clauses intended to restrain the competition to a smaller number than might otherwise be disposed to enter the trade. Limiting the number of apprentices each master could take, restrained it directly; increasing the expense of the education by a long apprenticeship, restrained it indirectly. By the 5th of Elizabeth, commonly called the "Statute of Apprenticeship," it was enacted that no person should for the future exercise any trade, craft, or mystery at that time exercised in England unless he had previously served to it an apprenticeship of seven years at least; and then what had before been but the bye-law of certain trade corporations became in England the general and public law of all trades carried on in market towns. This statute was repealed in 1814; but the impolicy of all human legislation in this direction was painfully manifest whilst the statute was in operation. Being limited to market towns, country |