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 Ex Libris \ 
 
 C. K. OGDEN 
 
 c\ 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 PHILANTHROPIC ECONOMY; 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HAPPINESS, 
 
 PRACTICALLY APPLIED TO THE SOCIAL, POLITICAL, AND 
 COMMERCIAL RELATIONS OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
 
 BY Mrs. LOUDON, 
 
 AUTHOR OF " FIRST LOVE," " FORTUNE HUNTING," AND 
 " DILEMMAS OF PRIDE." 
 
 " A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another." — 
 
 ST. JOHN, CHAP. 13, v. 34. 
 
 " Taxes upon the necessaries of life, have nearly the same effect upon 
 the circumstances of the people, as a poor soil and a bad climate." — 
 
 ADAM SMITH. 
 
 LONDON : 
 EDWARD CHURTON, 26, HOLLES STREET. 
 
 CAVENDISH SQUARE. 
 1835.
 
 LONDON : 
 SCHULZE AND CO., 13, POLAND STREET.
 
 lU 
 
 P 
 
 TO 
 
 EVERY HUMAN BEING ON WHOM GOD HAS BESTOWED THE GIFT 
 OF REASON, THIS EARNEST APPEAL TO REASON, TO JUSTICE, 
 TO HONESTY, TO PURE MORALITY ENFORCED BY SACRED OB- 
 LIGATION, TO EVERY NOBLEST SYMPATHY OF HUMANITY, IS, 
 WITH ARDENT FEELINGS OF GOOD WILL TO ALL, INSCRIBED 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
 3, clarendon place, clarendon square, 
 leamington spa, 
 
 warwickshire. 
 May 16, 1835. 
 
 -^ tt^l-
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Preface and Introduction to the Preliminary View of the Philoso- 
 phy of Happiness i 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 Preliminary View of the Philosophy of Happiness 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Onthe Wealth-creating Attributes of Labour and the consequent 
 Rights of the Labouring or Wealth-creating Classes 63 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 On the Sources of National Wealth , fj
 
 VI CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 On the Cost to the Nation of MonopoUes, Protections, and forced 
 Production 94 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 On the Bread Monopoly 105 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 On the Unatural Co-operation of Corn Laws, with an Enhanced 
 Currency, by which the blessing of dear money, which ought to 
 have brought with it, as its natural companions, cheap neces- 
 saries, was changed into a doubling, and in some instances, 
 a four-fold deepening of the curse of dear food 133 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 The Legislating Landlords' Apology 142 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 Evils of Indirect Taxation 145 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 The Remedy 151 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 On the increased Value of Land under a system of Free Trade 165
 
 CONTENTS. VU 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 On the Advantages of the small Allotment system, as a means of 
 carrying the Nation safely through any temporary inconvenience 
 to Agriculturists, which might else attend the Abolition of the 
 Corn Laws 175 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A Property Tax considered — Objections replied to. Advantages 
 stated 197 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 On the Mischievous Tendencies of the Family Monopoly or Law 
 of Primogeniture, and the consequent expediency of its Aboli- 
 tion 216 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 On the Collateral Benefits of a Property Tax, or the Advantages 
 of Constituting the Tax Voting Class, the Tax Paying Class . . 239 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 Plan of a Property Tax 254 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 A Poll Tax suggested in aid of a Property Tax, if indispensable, 
 as being, though objectionable, less mischievous than the con- 
 tinuation of Indirect Taxation 20 1 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 Poor Laws for poor Ireland 266
 
 Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 Appropriation of Irish Church Property and Church Reform .... 270 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Where should Power be vested } In the hands of the few, or in 
 the hands of the many ? 278 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 On Pure Representation —Hereditary Legislation — The Hereditary 
 Peerage — Parliamentary Duration — The Ballot, and Municipal 
 Reform 287 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 On the Awful Responsibility of Voting in Parliament 308 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 John Bull Awake 311
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The mottoes of the title page have been selected, 
 because, from their consideration connectedly, the 
 unavoidable inference follows, that if we w^ould 
 obey the commandment to '* love one another," 
 we must not tax " the necessaries of life." 
 As, however, there are so many prejudices to be 
 contended with, and so many supposed clashing 
 interests to be reconciled, before all men, (even 
 on the high authorities here quoted), will consent 
 to be of one mind, it is a thing much to be 
 desired, that during the necessary discussion of the 
 many important subjects connected with the well 
 being of mankind, which, though thus morally 
 decided, are still politically pending, that all those 
 party appellations so long associated with feelings 
 of contention and ill-will, could be laid aside.
 
 11 PREFACE. 
 
 In consistency with this sentiment, no expres- 
 sion of the kind is once used in the course of this 
 little work ; for its subject being the organization 
 of the social and political systems on the plans the 
 most conducive to the happiness of all, it is written 
 in the spirit of " good-will to all." 
 
 Rather, then, let the real friends of justice and 
 moral order, and therefore of humanity, and 
 especially of the poor, and the helpless, how 
 numerous soever the motley designations they may 
 hitherto have borne, assume, henceforward, the 
 title which best expresses the objects they desire 
 to promote, and call themselves the philanthro- 
 pists ; — this, surely, is not flinging down the 
 gauntlet to any man ; while let those who are 
 pleased to oppose such views, choose a designation 
 for themselves, expressive of that opposition. 
 Far be it from the friends of human well being, 
 to fasten an ill name on any one. 
 
 The good-will proclaimed by the Universal 
 Sovereign was to men, that is to all men, and 
 therefore it necessarily includes equal justice ; 
 that good-will not being to all, which sanctions 
 injustice to any— such justice as necessarily 
 includes active benevolence ; for those who with- 
 hold from their fellow men, any good of which 
 God has made them the medium, abuse free-will ; 
 intercept the rays of God's love ; and thus do great 
 injustice. 
 
 Why is the very first commandment, " Thou
 
 PREFACE. Ill 
 
 shalt have none other God but me?" We cannot 
 suppose that the great God calls for our worship 
 in the spirit of a prince of this world, to swell the 
 triumphs of a pride like that of earth ! Was not, 
 then, this concentration of all worship, in the one 
 source of all good, almighty benevolence, de- 
 manded to teach mankind that every deviation 
 from that equal justice which flows from good-will 
 to all ; every bowing of the knee to that supposed 
 expediency which would deny a part of justice, is 
 idolatry ! 
 
 What were all the multiplied objects of infidel 
 devotion, but each the symbol of some partial 
 good: our God is universal good, therefore he is 
 one only — and the whole family of man, as his 
 children, brethren ! 
 
 Philanthropic economy then, or a disposition of 
 things based on the principle of good-will to all, 
 thus necessarily including equal justice, and 
 active benevolence, is surely a subject which 
 ought to possess a paramount interest for all those 
 who habitually reverence the will of God, and 
 sympathize with the sufferings of their fellow 
 creattires : yet how many are there who, while 
 willingly devoting their time, their thoughts, and 
 their alms, on conscientious motives too, to the 
 relief of individual distress, treat as a speculative 
 question, in which they have no part, the present 
 pressing wretchedness of millions : a wretchedness 
 
 a 2
 
 IV PREFACE. 
 
 which continues to exist only because the over- 
 whehiiing interest, the topic is calculated to inspire, 
 is not yet universally felt, nor the important practi- 
 cal facts borne in mind, first, that there are 
 comprehensive and effectual remedies which need 
 but to be applied ; and secondly, that were the 
 prejudices of the prejudiced subdued, the attention 
 of the thoughtless won, the sympathies of the 
 indifferent awakened, and those of the already kindly 
 disposed, rightly directed ; the wilfully blind, in 
 other words, the dishonest, would be out-numbered, 
 the principle of good- will to all w^ould prevail ; 
 and the remedies, equal justice, and universally- 
 spread education would be applied. To subdue 
 then the prejudices of the prejudiced, to win the 
 attention of the thoughtless, to awaken the sym- 
 pathies of the indifferent, and give a right 
 direction to those of the benevolent, — in short, to 
 dispose to the application of the said remedies, 
 equal justice, and universally-spread education, 
 every portion we can by any means reach of that 
 great aggregate of the nation's free will, public 
 opinion, to canvass, as it were the whole empire 
 for voices in favor of the application to all our 
 laws and institutions, of the good -will induced, 
 and good-will inducing principle of equal justice, 
 and the diffiision through all ranks and classes 
 of people ; of a reasoning, in other words, an equal 
 justice, and good-will producing education should
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 surely be the constant endeavour of all those 
 who feel an honest interest in the well-being 
 of their fellow creatures. 
 
 The efforts of the pious and the benevolent, 
 (and in Great Britain these constitute a great 
 majority of the educated classes) had, it is pro- 
 bable, been long since so directed, had not very 
 many amiably enough disposed persons been 
 deterred from approaching almost any subject 
 connected with the general weal, by the too com- 
 mon opinion among otherwise well, (or at least 
 elegantly educated people) that the science of 
 political economy is something quite distinct from 
 religion, morality or philanthropy, something too 
 speculative to be practical, too intricate to be 
 understood, or too dull to be endured. 
 
 How many, in short, of those who in their 
 hearts believe themselves to be the friends of 
 justice and the poor, carelessly dismiss topics on 
 which depend whether all those who have their 
 bread to earn by honest industry shall be prosper- 
 ous or miserable by merely declaring that they 
 " hate politics." 
 
 To obviate such unmeaning objections, yet spare 
 the reader, whose object is benevolence, the 
 arduous task of pursuing scientific deductions 
 through ponderous volumes, or collecting scattered 
 proofs from innumerable sources, in search of a 
 knowledge of what are the exertions which he is 
 called upon by benevolence to make, it has been
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 Iiere attempted to condense from the ample materials 
 now abroad, into as short a compass as possible, 
 and to couch in the plain, unscientific phrases of 
 common conversation, the following slight sketch 
 of the causes of that misery which now so exten- 
 sively prevails, and of the power possessed by 
 an enlightened public opinion, honestly, justly, 
 and constitutionally, to relieve that misery ; first, 
 by requiring of those to whom it has delegated, or 
 shall delegate its authority, the decided rejection 
 of every sophism of supposed expediency, and the 
 fearless application to all our laws, regulations, and 
 institutions, of the unerring principle of good- will 
 to all ; unerring because necessarily including equal 
 justice ; and, secondly, by demanding of all who 
 have power or influence, public or private, cordial 
 co-operation, for the purpose of diffusing univer- 
 sally a reasoning or justice-and-good-will-produc- 
 ing education, through all ranks and classes of 
 people. 
 
 The benevolent, being so frequently appealed to, 
 it may be objected that the perusal of many lady 
 readers is thus courted ; while political economy, 
 it will be urged, is not a subject suited either to 
 lady readers or lady writers. To this objection, 
 however, it is replied, that, no doubt, when politi- 
 cal economy is confounded with political intrigue, 
 and consequently identified with corruption, con- 
 tention, and party spirit, the less women interfere 
 with such unfeminine topics the better : but, that
 
 PREFACE. Vll 
 
 when political economy is made subservient to 
 philanthropic economy, or a " disposition of things" 
 based on the principle of good-will to all, therefore 
 calculated to alleviate want, enlighten ignorance, 
 and cause the provocations of injustice to cease, 
 and so give place to the growth of the kindly sym- 
 pathies, it acquires a legitimate interest for that 
 gentler portion of the human race, who have ever 
 been the pitiers of all sorrow ; the almsgivers of 
 society ;* the binders up, in short, as far as their 
 limited sphere might reach, of every wound which 
 the rougher hands, and more impetuous passions 
 of man have inflicted. 
 
 Having thus fully explained the object of the 
 following pages, their author hopes to escape the 
 imputation of obtruding upon the already learned 
 in political economy, in the shape of attempts to 
 give them information, the portions of the work 
 which are but unpretending gleanings from their 
 own wisdom. Yet should the well meant purpose, 
 together with the small compass of the volume, 
 compared with the number and importance of the 
 
 * While on that part of the subject which relates to supplying^ 
 the poor with bread, the ladies of Great Britain possess an especial 
 and most ancient claim : it is, as it were, their patent, if not of 
 nobility, of what is infinitely more valuable to the feminine cha- 
 racter, — amiability. Their very title of lady means, in old Saxon, 
 Bread Giver, and was acquired in Saxon times by the praiseworthy 
 practice, then in use among all women possessing the means, that 
 of appearing daily at their gates, and thence, with their own hands, 
 giving out bread to the poor.
 
 Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 subjects of which it possesses to treat, tempt some 
 Hght or general readers, or perhaps those benevo- 
 lently intentioned persons who yet '* hate politics," 
 to look into a hitherto avoided subject, an effort 
 so humble shall have attained to a destiny, high 
 compared with its own merits, in being thus per- 
 mitted to contribute its mite towards the spreading 
 of opinions which, if universal, would cause happiness 
 to become an habitual sojourner amongst us : yet 
 which are so simple in their truth, so capable of 
 recommending themselves by their own symmetry 
 and beauty, that they are independent of ability on 
 the part of those who advocate them, and need but 
 to be fairly represented, to be embraced with en- 
 thusiasm by every human being who possesses a 
 mind neither warped by self-interest nor devoid of 
 understanding.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 TO THE 
 
 PRELIMINARY VIEW 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HAPPINESS. 
 
 A SHORT preliminary view of that system of 
 morals traceable in the works of God, and to which 
 the writer has ventured to give the title of the 
 Philosophy of Happiness, is attempted in the first 
 chapter of this little work, for the purpose of 
 making it manifest to the understandings of all 
 who will but look calmly at existing facts, that 
 almost the whole of the evils under which mankind 
 suifer, are caused by that abuse of free-will, which 
 consists in neglecting to frame our artificial social 
 circumstances (that is those arrangements which 
 depend on exertions of free-will, such as the laws 
 and voluntary customs of men,) on the model of 
 our natural social circumstances, that is of those
 
 X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 states of being and mutual relations, which are ar- 
 ranged for us by that portion of the laws of God, 
 which we commonly call the laws of nature, and 
 over which neither individual nor collective free- 
 will has any controul : while those laws being prac- 
 tically revealed (in their very operation) directly 
 from God himself to each individual, in each indi- 
 vidual's own nature and natural circumstances, 
 the sacredness of their sanction cannot be con- 
 tested ; by which means, if we make agreement 
 with those laws, which we thus know to come 
 from God, the Test of Right, in framing laws and 
 customs to be instituted by man — a standard of 
 moral and legislative truth which cannot change, 
 and which is acceptable to the humblest christian, 
 because in perfect accordance with scriptural pre- 
 cepts, yet w^hich compels the assent of the boldest 
 sceptic, because the sources of its sacred authority 
 are perceptible to the senses, is obtained, to be 
 applied to the various laws and institutions, wdiich 
 it is intended in the body of this work to discuss 
 separately. 
 
 An effort to trace, and press the practical appli- 
 cation of such a standard, however insufficiently 
 executed in the present instance, is at least not an 
 uncalled for impertinence, nor as the writer might 
 else have feared, an insult to the common sense of 
 the civilized w^orld, as long as we have moral wri- 
 ters who, even wdiile they recommend pure morality 
 for the happiness it brings, would seem (perhaps
 
 INTRODUCTION. ** 
 
 unintentionally) to deprive it of its sacred sanction, 
 by declaring " right and wrong, ought and ought 
 not," mere " ipse dixit," to be refuted with a 
 " why."* And again, while we have authors of 
 the first respectability,! and best intentions, even 
 in pleading the cause of justice, using such ex- 
 pressions as : " But whether it can be proved or 
 not to the satisfaction of every one by the evidence 
 of natural or revealed religion, that the Creator 
 does will the greatest attainable happiness of man- 
 kind in this world," — and again — " putting aside 
 all notion of a moral sense, whose existence is yet 
 matter of dispute. "| 
 
 * The Utilitarians. f Scrope, on Political Economy, 
 
 X To doubt that God wills the greatest attainable happiness of 
 mankind in this world is to doubt that God wills moral order ; 
 for moral order perfected must produce the greatest attainable 
 happiness of mankind, both in this world and in the next. 
 Again, to doubt the existence of the moral sense, is to doubt 
 the justice and the goodness of God ; who, had he not given the 
 moral sense, had left all whom scriptural revelation has not reached 
 in total darkness. "While to doubt the divine authority of the 
 moral sense, is to doubt that God created the organization, and 
 oi-dained the natural circumstances of man ; for these produce the 
 moral sense, and are calculated to produce a just moral sense, 
 though artificial circumstances added by abuses of free-will often 
 warp that moral sense. 
 
 It is far from being meant by these observations to infer that 
 Mr. Poulet Scrope doubts of these matters ; on the contrary, that 
 liberal and amiable writer, distinctly asserts his individual belief 
 in the benevolent designs of Providence : he, therefore, is only 
 appealed to us good authority that such doubts do prevail.
 
 Xll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 And while again we have sincere christians, 
 deeming it piety to reject the important, visible 
 witness of natural religion ; and even solemnly 
 denying its very existence, and others, equally 
 well-meaning, speaking of morality (the fruit, to 
 produce which, God planted religion) with com- 
 parative scorn, as a mere code of ethics, and 
 pressing on their hearers with enthusiasm, as vital 
 religion, they know not what ! some vague ab- 
 straction which they designate " a saving faith," 
 while, in the wildness of their fanaticism, they 
 pronounce good works "filthy rags;" and the 
 use of God's sanctifying gift of reason, in the 
 discerning of moral and religious truth, (the holi- 
 ness and happiness producing purpose for which 
 that reason was given) presumption ! And while 
 on the other hand we have hosts of licentious 
 infidels scoffing at scriptures, at records, at do- 
 cuments, at miracles — in short, at every evidence 
 which comes to them through the medium of man, 
 and demanding demonstration, such as must 
 compel the assent of their own understandings, 
 through the medium of their own senses, be- 
 fore they will submit to any restraint — even con- 
 science and the moral sense being, in their esti- 
 mation, in consequence of their rejection of scrip- 
 tural revelation, and their neglect of natural 
 revelation, but results of the forced or artificial 
 associations of early education.
 
 INTRODUCTION. XIU 
 
 And yet again, while we have legislators not 
 ashamed to put supposed expediency before moral 
 right ; and others mad enough to found all social 
 rights on mere convention, surely a standard 
 of moral, social, and legislative right and wrong, 
 possessing the sacred sanction of bringing its 
 visible credentials with it, direct from God him- 
 self, home to the senses and reason of every 
 individual being, would appear to be, notwith- 
 standing its obvious foundation in the nature and 
 natural circumstances of man, still a desideratum 
 in morals and legislation. While the precepts 
 found in scriptural revelation, and the precepts 
 deduced from natural revelation, being in perfect 
 harmony throughout, instead of the one sacred 
 sanction being thus lost or endangered, a second 
 sacred sanction is added, which, even by those 
 who feel it to be unnecessary, must be allowed 
 to be at least not injurious to the cause of truth. 
 
 To conclude, the following preliminary chapter, 
 though consisting of but a few pages of the simple 
 manifest truths alluded to, shall, for order's sake, 
 be divided into three parts. 
 
 1 . The Statement of the Theory of the Philoso- 
 phy of Happiness. 
 
 2. The fundamental proposition of that theory 
 established. 
 
 3. Inferences drawn. 
 
 After which, the body of the work, entitled
 
 XIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 " Philanthropic Economy" shall consist of the 
 practical applications of the standard of right and 
 wrong thus obtained, to the abuses of existing 
 institutions, and the remedies which those abuses 
 demand. 
 
 EXPLANATION OF TERMS. 
 
 When it is intended to distinguish God's writ- 
 ten will, from God's manifested will, the expres- 
 sions, " Natural Revelation," and " Scriptural 
 Revelation" are used in preference to Natural 
 Religion, and Revealed Religion ; because the 
 latter phraseology, though usual, falsely infers, 
 that what God has been pleased to show us, is not 
 so much a revelation, as what God has been pleased 
 to tell us. The expression, " Natural Social 
 System," is used to imply all those laws of God, 
 determining our nature, mutual relations, natural 
 circumstances, and natural capabihties, which we 
 commonly call the laws of nature, and which the 
 Creator has not been pleased to give free-will, 
 whether individual or collective, any power of mo- 
 difying. 
 
 The expression, " Artificial Social System," is 
 used to imply all those arrangements, such as the
 
 INTRODUCTION. XV 
 
 laws, customs, and actions of men, with the 
 use or neglect of the natural powers, and of the 
 light of reason and revelation, which God has 
 been pleased to leave to the option of free-will, 
 either individual or collective.
 
 PRELIMINARY VIEW 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PHILOSOPHY OF HAPPINESS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Benevolence, Wisdom, and Power, willing, planning, and execut- 
 ing the extension of Felicity by means of Moral Order, traced 
 as visibly Omnipresent in all the phenomena of mind and matter 
 — the being, attributes, and will of God thence inferred. — 
 The abuse of free-will shown to be the only break in this har- 
 mony of nature. — The duty and interest of man thus made 
 manifest. 
 
 These views, confirmed by the coincidence of God's will, visibly 
 revealed in his works, with his will scripturally revealed in his 
 word. 
 
 These are thy glorious works. Parent of good, 
 
 Almighty ! Thine this universal frame. 
 
 Thus wondrous fair; Thyself how wondrous then ! — 
 
 STATEMENT OF THEORY. 
 
 • 
 
 We see all nature governed by laws, all those 
 laws tending to one end, — that one end the ex- 
 tension of felicity. Hence we infer a first cause, 
 powerful, intelligent, and benevolent. Powerful, 
 
 B 
 
 i
 
 2 THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 because we see all nature obeying these laws. In- 
 telligent, because all these laws act in concert, 
 tending to one end. Benevolent, because that one 
 end is good or happiness. 
 
 Having traced benevolence willing the extension 
 of felicity, as the great first cause, or originating 
 principle of all things, and thus recognized the 
 Almighty purpose of creation to be the extension 
 of felicity, we dwell especially on the nature and 
 natural circumstances of man ; and we perceive 
 them to be so arranged, that moral order is the 
 only means by which comfort or happiness in 
 this life, and the perfecting of those sympathies 
 and powers necessary to render the soul of man 
 susceptible of felicity in a future state, can be at- 
 tained. We see also freedom of will to be involved 
 in the extension of felicity, and yet to involve 
 the possibility of moral evil ; but that to incline 
 and all but compel free-will to choose moral order 
 and consequent happiness, God has not only 
 given man reason, or the power of judging be- 
 tween good and evil, but also arranged all things 
 within, as well as around man, (except still abuses 
 of free-will) to point uniformly to the production, 
 by natural causes of the moral order thus neces- 
 sary to haj^piness ; insomuch, that to depart from 
 this moral order, man must so abuse free-will 
 as to contend with every sympathy which can be 
 traced to a natural origin, distort his artificial 
 circumstances, so as to make them (in the forma- 
 tion of his sympathies) balance against, instead of
 
 OF HAPPINESS. d 
 
 weighing with, his natural circumstances, and re- 
 fuse to cultivate, or when cultivated, shut his eyes 
 against the light of reason, displaying to him his 
 own manifest interest, temporal and eternal. 
 
 From all this accumulation of visible evidence, 
 we perceive that it must be the will of God, and 
 that it certainly is the interest of man, that the 
 free-will of man should co-operate with the good 
 will of God, thus clearly manifested by this uni- 
 form tendency of all that God has retained under 
 the dominion of his own absolute laws. 
 
 We also perceive that this visible revelation, by 
 showing man the will of God, points out, not only 
 man's duty to God, but also his duty to his 
 fellow-creatures and to himself; for that as soon 
 as we perceive happiness to be the purpose of God's 
 creation, and moral order to be the appointed means 
 of spreading and perfecting that happiness, obedi- 
 ence to the laws of moral order becomes a debt, 
 strictly due not only by all to God, and by each 
 to himself, but also by each to all, in virtue of 
 their mutual dependence, as parts of one creation 
 having for its object, one purpose — the happiness 
 of all. 
 
 And that thus the perfection of moral order 
 necessary to happiness may be always tried by the 
 test of equal justice, for that whether it be from im- 
 piety, from short-sighted selfishness, from unkind- 
 liness or from indolence that a man is unwilling to 
 pay, or by wilful ignorance, by intemperance, by 
 
 B 2
 
 4 THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 extravagance, or by ill-regulated tempers and af- 
 fections, that he render himself unable to pay to 
 the uttermost farthing, the whole debt of relative 
 duties, which he thus owes to all his fellow men 
 and to himself, it is evident that by such abuse 
 of free-will he is guilty of injustice towards every 
 being who loses any portion of possible happiness 
 by his means, including himself, as well as of 
 rebellion against that God who wills the happi- 
 ness of all. 
 
 Thus, as we cannot doubt that what we see 
 God has done, he must have willed to do, we 
 find that we have, in the visible arrangements of 
 nature, especially man's own nature and natural 
 circumstances, thus pointing to the production 
 of felicity by means of moral order, an infallible 
 test of right and wrong, in all things, from the 
 functions of governments, down to the most 
 minute details of our private social duties, revealed 
 directly from the Creator to each creature on 
 whom he has bestowed the gift of reason ; and 
 that it is only by that abuse of free-will, which 
 consists in not cultivating reason, or when partly 
 cultivated, not applying it to the great purpose 
 for which it was given, the perfecting of the 
 moral sense, that we can err, and by erring fail 
 of attaining happiness.* 
 
 We go on to scriptural revelation, and we find 
 
 * See Natural, Mental, and Moral Philosophy.
 
 OF HAPPINESS. 5 
 
 its plain precepts :* — " Thou shalt not kill — Thou 
 shalt not steal — Love as brethren, be pitiful, be 
 courteous — Do unto others as you would that 
 they should do unto you," in exact conformity 
 to this natural revelation or manifested will ; and, 
 therefore, we perceive, (without waiting to go 
 into any other evidence), these precepts to ex- 
 press the will of that Creator, in whose works we 
 find the same will manifested. Nor is the sacred 
 respect due to those other evidences so ably set 
 forth in the writings of our pious divines, and so 
 authentically collected from inspired sources, 
 lessened, on the contrary, it must be, and is in- 
 finitely heightened, by our deriving this, still the 
 strongest assurance of our faith, from this visible 
 witness of the truth, ever present with us — this 
 universal covenant, thus ever being renewed, 
 directly from God to each new generation of men. 
 While, by having this unchanging standard to 
 refer to, in God's visible revelation of what is his 
 will, which speaking the language of facts, re- 
 quires neither translator nor commentator, the 
 consciences of thinking men are relieved from the 
 apprehension that they are called upon to take 
 any other fallible mortal's exposition of the written 
 revelation of God's will : on the contrary, they 
 feel assured, that where their own or any other 
 mortal's exposition of God's written will would 
 
 * See the Bible.
 
 6 THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 make scriptural revelation, to differ from visible 
 revelation, that exposition must be wrong : for, 
 *' God cannot lie" — practically in his works. Yet 
 this enlightened liberty of conscience, instead of 
 creating divisions in religion, must secure union : 
 for those who have but one written will of God, 
 had they also but one expositor of that written 
 will, that expositor the visible will of God, how 
 could they hold other than one faith ? Nay — thus 
 would the will of God be not only made the rule 
 of life — but, what that will is, be made manifest 
 to the boldest sceptic, by the witness of his own 
 senses ! 
 
 This theory of the philosophy of happiness will 
 be found, when explained, to ask no concession 
 on which to base its inductions, but to refer us to 
 eternal facts recorded in the book of nature, espe- 
 cially the nature and natural circumstances of man 
 himself, therefore open to the perusal of all who 
 will read. While, in the continuing course of na- 
 ture we behold — like the apparition of the hand on 
 the wall at Belshazzar's feast — not only the writing ; 
 but we see the writing being written. 
 
 FUNDAMENTAL PROPOSITION ESTABLISHED. 
 
 Prior to any effort, either to enter into the 
 details, or make the application of this simple and 
 noble theory, consisting of religion, morality, and 
 legislation, in their natural and indissoluble union.
 
 OF HAPPINESS. 7 
 
 which the writer has attempted to describe by the 
 comprehensive title of the Philosophy of Happi- 
 ness, it may be desirable to meet and dispose of 
 those false exceptions, sometimes thoughtlessly 
 urged by unreasoning ignorance against its fun- 
 damental proposition, namely : 
 
 That, in the whole order of nature, and espe- 
 cially the nature and natural circumstances of 
 man, the benevolence, wisdom and power of the 
 Deity, willing, planning and executing the exten- 
 sion of felicity, by means of moral order, is visi- 
 bly omnipresent. 
 
 The most prominent of the false exceptions al- 
 luded to are : 
 
 1st The permission of moral evil. 
 
 2nd The permission of physical evil. 
 
 3rd The formation of the moral sense being 
 traceable to natural causes. 
 
 4th That there are parts of the material universe 
 which do not convey any moral lesson. 
 
 5th The diversities of the moral sense. 
 
 FIRST EXCEPTION OBVIATED. 
 
 First then, the permission of moral evil does 
 not form a just exception against the truth of the 
 fundamental proposition, that in the whole order 
 of nature, benevolence willing the extension of 
 felicity, by means of moral order, is visibly omni-
 
 8 THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 present : but, on the contrary, the permission of 
 moral evil itself is to be accounted for on the 
 very ground of the originating principle of all 
 creation, being benevolence willing the extension 
 of felicity. — Thus, the extension of felicity neces- 
 sarily involves the creation of individual, intellec- 
 tual natures, susceptible of felicity, on whom to 
 bestow that felicity. 
 
 But individuality of intellectual being consist- 
 ing in, or being impossible without freedom of 
 will, had there been no freedom of will, the one 
 eternal spirit had still dwelt alone, though filling 
 the universe with his omnipresence ; for the spirits 
 of men and angels, moved involuntarily by the 
 impulse of God's will, had been still, whatever 
 frames they animated, portions of the Almighty 
 spirit ; and therefore, there had been no new 
 creation of individual, intellectual natures, on 
 whom to bestow felicity, — and, therefore, no ex- 
 tension of felicity. Now, the granting of free- 
 will, it is self-evident, must involve the possibihty 
 of choosing wrong— in other words, the permis- 
 sion of moral evil. Thus, the proof that God 
 wills the extension of felicity by means of moral 
 order, drawn from the tendency traceable in the 
 whole order of nature, to produce and perfect 
 creatures capable of receiving fehcity, and then to 
 promote their felicity, temporal and eternal, by 
 means of moral order, is not the less perfectly
 
 OF HAPPINESS. 9 
 
 made out, because the abuse of this, (thus neces- 
 sary) free-will can, where it takes place, turn 
 aside this tendency. 
 
 But though freedom of will, thus necessarily ren- 
 ders a wrong choice possible, God has made the choice 
 of good, rather than evil, all but such a necessity 
 as would take away free-will, by ordaining a train 
 of causes and effects, which, unless the aid both 
 of reason and visible revelation are rejected by 
 free-will, must end in producing both a moral 
 sense, making virtue delightful, and a coinciding 
 sense of interest, necessarily inclining, and, there- 
 fore, all but compelling free-will to choose good, 
 rather than evil. 
 
 SECOND EXCEPTION OBVIATED. 
 
 Neither is the permission of physical evil a just 
 exception against the proposition, that all God's 
 works tend to the extension of felicity by means 
 of moral order. On the contrary, the permission 
 of physical evil is also to be accounted for on the 
 ground of benevolence willing the extension of 
 felicity by means of moral order. Thus, without 
 the liability to suffer by bodily pain, and by wants 
 not satisfied, the whole class of simple ideas, or 
 perceptions through sense, which are the materials 
 that reason has to work up, and on the combina- 
 tions of which, by association, are founded respect 
 for moral rectitude, for industry, for benevolence,
 
 10 THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 for generous exertions, as well as all the gentler 
 sympathies constituting compassion, the joy of 
 giving relief, and that peculiar tenderness which 
 helplessness excites, the very capability of bringing 
 home to our hearts the all comprehensive precept, 
 " Do unto others as you would that they should 
 do unto you," would have been wanting : and 
 thus, the wondrous machinery by which power; 
 informed by wisdom, gifts intellectual nature with 
 susceptibilities, adds faculty to faculty, and at 
 length produces a being capable of receiving 
 present happiness and of enjoying eternal felicity, 
 would have been so imperfect, as to have been 
 totally inadequate to the end proposed by benevo- 
 lence : namely, tbe extension of felicity. So that 
 here again, as in the case of moral evil, Almighty 
 benevolence has ordained a beautiful provision, 
 maintaining the tendency of all things to the exten- 
 sion of felicity by means of moral order ; in the 
 use of reason, guided by experience on our own 
 behalf, and inclined by a sympathy derived from 
 experience and association, on that of our fellow 
 men to obviate, or to remedy much of physical 
 evil, out of which exercises of reason and sym- 
 pathy arise, sagacity in the one case, in the other 
 a purity of joy not derivable from any other 
 source, and which, more perhaps than any other 
 of all the means willed by benevolence, devised by 
 wisdom, and executed by power, lifts the soul 
 above all selfish and unjust desires, and gifts it
 
 OF HAPPINESS, II 
 
 with the faculties which are rendering it susceptible 
 of that promised bhss, Avhich " eye hath not seen, 
 nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the 
 heart of man to conceive." 
 
 THIRD EXCEPTION OBVIATED. 
 
 Nor is the third exception, namely the moral sense 
 being traceable to natural causes, more valid. 
 For surely the moral sense, God's great instrument 
 for the production of the happiness of his crea- 
 tures, is not less expressly the gift of God, because 
 traceable to natural means, therefore to means 
 ordained by the God of nature. On the contrary, 
 it is by tracing those means at work, that we are 
 especially enabled to perceive the whole universe, 
 material and intellectual, (except rebellious free-will) 
 co-operating with God in his one, eternal, universal, 
 purpose — the extension of felicity by means of 
 moral order. The proof, therefore, that God has 
 willed the extension of felicity, by means of 
 moral order, drawn from the tendency of the 
 moral sense to produce virtue or moral order, and 
 consequent happiness here and susceptibility of 
 felicity hereafter, is not in any wise weakened by 
 tracing the moral sense to be the result of the 
 elementary ideas we derive from the impressions 
 received through the senses, and their combina- 
 tions under the education of natural and artificial 
 circumstances, superintended by cultivated reason ;
 
 12 THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 for free-will being, as we have seen, necessary to 
 the extension of felicity, yet involving the possibi- 
 lity of choosing wrong, God, to preserve his 
 creatures from choosing misery, ordained the moral 
 sense to incline free-will to choose moral order. 
 But, as God does all things by adapting means to 
 ends, (for the evident purpose of suggesting to 
 us the adaptation of the means he has entrusted 
 to us, to the ends he has ordained), he gave man 
 such an organization as should convey to him, 
 first, the simple perceptions of pleasure and pain, 
 on which to found the elementary ideas of indivi- 
 dual happiness and suffering ; while, to lead him 
 on from selfish or elementary, to reflected or sym- 
 pathetic happiness or suffering, in spreading and 
 seeing spread that happiness and suffering, he 
 placed him in such natural circumstances of depen- 
 dence on his fellow men, and their performance of 
 the duties of moral order, from the moment of his 
 birth to the hour of his death : first, during the 
 helplessness of infancy and childhood, for his 
 commonest wants, and earliest or elementary joys, 
 and in after life for pleasures of a higher range, 
 and more complicated nature, but still demanding 
 fellowship and mutual aid ; that out of these ex- 
 periences, combined by association, and superin- 
 tended by reason, there could not fail to arise a 
 moral sense, or perception of the fitness, beauty, 
 and desirableness of moral order, which must 
 dictate reverence, love, and approbation of equal
 
 OF HAPPINESS. 13 
 
 justice, active benevolence, and patient forbear- 
 ance ; virtues out of the practice of which must 
 again as necessarily arise those feelings of good- 
 will to all which, in their turn, produce every 
 noblest sympathy of man's nature, and the ten- 
 dency of all which train of causes and effects, 
 therefore, if not broken by the abuse of free-will, 
 is clearly, not only to secure man's happiness 
 here, but to ensure the ultimate purpose of 
 creation, namely, the rendering the spiritual, or 
 intellectual part of man's being susceptible of eter- 
 nal felicity hereafter. For a moment's reflection 
 must suffice to convince every thinking mind that 
 heaven would have no joys for him whose in- 
 tellectual faculties and good-will-producing sym- 
 pathies had not been cultivated ; even under the 
 childish supposition that heaven had its locality 
 and its boundary, and that such a being could find 
 admission there : while, if we view heaven as con- 
 sisting in a state of intellectual perfection, consti- 
 tuting bliss, wherever located, it is needless to 
 add that the state of being must exist before the 
 bliss can be enjoyed. 
 
 Thus also, tracing the formation of the moral 
 sense proves, in the most satisfactory manner, that 
 the mere instinct of the sentient being, seeking 
 pleasure and avoiding pain, has no claim to be im- 
 piously erected into either the first mover, or the 
 guide, in the production of happiness ; by showing 
 clearly that this instinct requires, at every step, the
 
 14 THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 guidance of the reasoning or comparing powers, to 
 prevent its doing infinitely more harm than good, 
 not only to others, but also to the being moved by 
 its impulses ; and that it is thus, not only no guide 
 itself, but that it is liable to warp that reason ap- 
 pointed to be its guide, unless that reason has yet 
 another guide. Now, the " Good will to all" of God 
 himself, willing the happiness of Jiis creatures, 
 being the source of both the instinct, and of the 
 reason which guides the instinct, is thus the first 
 cause of the happiness, which is the product of 
 both ; while it is the will of that first cause, pointed 
 out by the course of his providence, and discerned 
 as its law by the reason he has given, which is the 
 guide to that happiness. 
 
 And thus it is that the wondrous processes traced 
 in the systems of mental philosophy, when viewed 
 in this their connexion with their necessary result, 
 the moral sense, instead of proving that moral sense 
 not to possess divine authority, furnish so many 
 sublime and beautiful evidences of the admirable 
 fitness with which perfect wisdom has adjusted 
 means, to the fulfilment of the end proposed by 
 perfect goodness, namely, the production of felicity 
 temporal and eternal. 
 
 Wliether, therefore, the Almighty had gifted his 
 creatures with a moral sense as a mere instinct, or 
 ordained that the fitness of justice, forbearance, and 
 good-will, to induce the happiness of themselves 
 and all around them, should produce in them, by
 
 OF HAPPINESS. 15 
 
 associations reasoned upon, such a sense of right 
 and wrong, is — as far as the fact of the moral sense 
 being the gift of God —virtually the same thing ; 
 the question is reduced to this : has God willed a 
 certain end directly, or as the consequence of cer- 
 tain means ? 
 
 Now, whether we read ' ' God said let there be 
 light, and there was light!" or whether we read, 
 " God created the greater light to rule the day, and 
 the lesser light to rule the night," we equally re- 
 cognise in God the author of light. That God, then, 
 who so organised man, that he must receive certain 
 impressions, and placed him in such circumstances 
 that the elementary ideas obtained through those 
 impressions, must, by means of association, com- 
 bine into certain sympathies, which, reasoned upon, 
 must again combine into certain trains of connected 
 thought, whispering to each heart the christian pre- 
 cept " Do unto others as youwould that they should 
 do unto you, "and thus ending in a strong moral sense 
 of a thus clearly defined right and wrong, is as un- 
 deniably the author and giver of that moral sense ; 
 as manifestly the great first cause, who wills felicity 
 by means of moral order ; as evidently the authority 
 which forbids injustice, and commands good-will, 
 as though his voice were heard in the clouds of 
 heaven proclaiming aloud, from day to day, to all 
 the nations of the earth, the ten commandments of 
 Mount Sinai ! 
 
 Thus, then, the more clearly we are enabled, by
 
 10 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 or 
 
 tracing the operations of mind, to perceive, as it 
 were, the vital spark or soul of man acquiring, 
 through its mysterious connexion with the ma- 
 chinery of the body, and by means of the trainin 
 circumstances of mortal life, its perceptions, affec- 
 tions, sympathies, and experiences, and erected on 
 these, the varied range of its intellectual powers and 
 faculties : in short, its sagacity to choose, and its 
 susceptibility to enjoy real and eternal felicity, the 
 more visibly do we recognise, in the whole order 
 of nature, benevolence willing the extension of 
 felicity by means of moral order ; and the more ob- 
 viously do we discern all things down to each mi- 
 nutest portion of inert matter, arranged by wis- 
 dom, and moved by Omnipotence, co-operating 
 with Omnipresent benevolence, in the same all- 
 gracious design, the limitless extension of life, im- 
 mortality, and felicity. 
 
 Whereas, were the soul of man endowed with 
 all its intellectual powers and susceptibilities, prior 
 to its being placed by its Creator in the present 
 life, and that it were clothed with humanity and 
 sent into this world as a state of probation only, 
 and that, thus, all the wondrous apparatus of crea- 
 tion were but subservient to its convenience, while 
 using the powers it brought with it into the world, 
 in adding to those powers the very imperfect de- 
 grees of virtue we see attained in this life ; the 
 success (that is the often small share of virtue at- 
 tained, distinct from the powers acquired), would
 
 OF HAPPINESS. 17 
 
 scarcely seem adequate to the mighty preparation. 
 But when we view the gift of individual life, as but 
 the embryo of the intellectual being, the varied 
 powers and susceptibilities of which are both to be 
 produced, and partly, at least, educated during 
 moral existence, and then look at the whole mate- 
 rial universe, and especially the organization of 
 man himself, as wondrous machinery for the gra- 
 dual production of those intellectual powers, and 
 consequent susceptibilities of future virtue and fe- 
 licity, with which the intellectual being is destined 
 by its Creator to be eventually furnished ; and that, 
 thus, not only every virtuous disposition, but every 
 capabilityof appreciating virtue, or judging between 
 right and wrong, every accession of sagacity, every 
 shade of thought or of feeling, acquired and added 
 to the immortal vital spark, or gift of existence is 
 a treasure amassed for eternity to be, in future 
 stages of being, adapted to purposes, and made the 
 foundation of degrees of virtue and felicity, which, 
 in this life, we are possibly as incapable of compre- 
 hending as of attaining to, and which constitute 
 " the joys which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, 
 neither hath it entered into the heart of man to 
 conceive." Thus viewed, the marvellous apparatus 
 of man himself, the wondrous world in which he 
 lives, the stupendous universe in which that world 
 is a speck, the elaborate application of Almighty 
 mind in the adaptation of means to ends, are all 
 worthily and sublimely accounted for. Thus
 
 18 THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 viewed, the commonest necessities of mortal life 
 are ennobled ; and the toiling multitude labouring 
 for their daily bread, with all things else that 
 maintain the course of nature or keep this material 
 machinery, thus required for so important a moral 
 and intellectual purpose, in repair, are visibly aid- 
 ing in the splendid design of benevolence, wisdom, 
 and power, willing, planning, and executing the 
 extension of felicity, by means of moral order. 
 
 This doctrine of the soul of man being not only 
 in a state of probation during mortal existence, 
 but being actually undergoing a gradual process of 
 creation, and the whole material universe having 
 been formed but to be machinery which, moved by 
 the Almighty fiat, is performing certain stages of 
 the process, is strictly analogous to the whole 
 course of God's visible providence. It is surely in 
 perfect harmony with all that we behold in our 
 original instructor, the book of nature, that God, 
 who has been pleased to ordain the production of 
 all things, from the blade of grass upwards, by the 
 adaptation of means to ends, should have been 
 further pleased to ordain that the ends of all other 
 means should be but means to this the ultimate 
 end, namely, intellectual nature perfected, or capa- 
 bility of the highest order of virtue, and suscepti- 
 bility of the highest order of felicity produced, 
 to be transplanted into an eternal future ! 
 
 If God has been pleased to work out physical 
 purposes by the adaptation of means to ends, that
 
 OF HAPPINESS, 19 
 
 man, while looking on at the operations of nature, 
 might learn to adapt the laws of physical nature to 
 useful physical sciences ; can it be doubted that 
 God has been pleased also to adapt means to ends, 
 in the production of intellectual powers, and good 
 will producing sympathies, for the far more impor- 
 tant purpose of suggesting to reason and free-will, 
 the means of performing that part of the modelling 
 of intellectual nature, which he has been pleased to 
 commit to them. 
 
 Out of such views can piety fail to arise ? 
 While the most effectual means are every where 
 thus visibly at work, co-operating to produce the 
 most benevolent of ends, is it possible not to feel a 
 reverencial consciousness of being in the actual 
 presence of an awful, incomprehensible, all-per- 
 vading influence ; an intelligent first cause ; a God 
 whose attributes are power, wisdom, and benevo- 
 lence ? Power, because nature is visibly under the 
 dominion of laws — wisdom, because all those laws 
 act in consort, tending to one great end — benevo- 
 lence, because that one great end is the happiness, 
 temporal and eternal, of all created beings. Com- 
 prehend thus, our God is no longer an invisible 
 God — we see him every where ! 
 
 With such views, shall we dare to deny to the 
 labouring classes the cultivation of their reasoning 
 powers ? With such views, shall we dare to reduce 
 the bulk of mankind, that wondrous apparatus, 
 thus designed by benevolence, wisdom, and power, 
 
 c 2
 
 20 THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 for this mighty and eternal purpose, into mere tem- 
 poral machinery, to minister to the passing purpose 
 of our wants or our luxuries ? 
 
 If this be not sacrilege, if this be not desecrating 
 the vessels of the altar, and placing the tables of 
 the money changers in the temple of the highest, 
 where shall we seek the modern crimes which these 
 offences typify ? For if nature at large has been 
 justly and beautifully styled the temple of God, 
 is not intellectual nature the very altar of that 
 temple ? 
 
 Again, our being able to trace the formation of 
 the moral sense to natural causes, therefore to 
 causes ordained by the God of nature, is not only 
 no objection to, but is the strongest possible proof 
 of the divine origin, and therefore divine authority 
 of the moral sense. For, had the moral sense been 
 purely an instinct, of which, though conscious, we 
 could not trace the rise or origin, we might have 
 said, how do we know that this or that opinion is 
 not a mere traditional precept, which, one time or 
 other, had its rise in artificial circumstances, and 
 which has been handed down from father to son, 
 and so transmitted to us ? But, when we see the 
 opinion growing out of the natural organization 
 and natural circumstances of man, which we know 
 to be the work of God, we must know the opinion 
 to be dictated by that God himself, who created 
 the natural organization and ordained the natural 
 circumstances !
 
 OF HAPPINESS. 21 
 
 FOURTH EXCEPTION OBVIATED. 
 
 If it be still objected that there are portions of 
 the material creation which, however beautiful or 
 excellent, or conducive to present enjoyment, yet 
 do not seem to convey any special moral lesson, 
 it is replied, that every part of the abundance 
 which nature is capable of yielding, even for the 
 supply of the commonest necessities of food, rai- 
 ment, and shelter, will be found, if duly consi- 
 dered, to be not only sources of temporary in- 
 dulgence, claiming feelings of gratitude, but also 
 portions of that natural revelation, which visibly 
 commands that moral order shall be the means by 
 which, not only temporal enjoyment, but that 
 state of man's intellectual nature which consti- 
 tutes susceptibility of eternal felicity shall be at- 
 tained. 
 
 The justness of this assertion will become ob- 
 vious on a simple reference to familiar facts. 
 Who is there, for instance, who is not aw^are of 
 the suffering and multiplied vices which invariably 
 follow the want of production, and consequent 
 scarcity of the necessaries of life, attendant upon 
 a want of industry, whether individual or national? 
 Again, when industry does exist, and has pro- 
 duced, who has not seen and lamented the wide
 
 22 THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 spread wretchedness induced by an unjust distribu- 
 tion of the products of industry? Again, common 
 daily experience teaches almost every human 
 being that no one of the necessaries, comforts, 
 or means of the pleasures of life, however abun- 
 dantly possessed, can be enjoyed without the 
 obser stance of temperance in their use. 
 
 The same experience teaches that the contempt 
 and hatred which men incur, as well as the vio- 
 lence they commit against the natural sympathies 
 God has implanted in them, when they neglec^ 
 the claims of helplessness, or yield to the unjust 
 desires of selfishness, is always a price much 
 higher than their unjust gains are worth. 
 
 Unfortunately, however, these views of the co- 
 incidence of virtue with self-interest, thus by 
 God's ordination, taught for an immortal pur- 
 pose, by the necessities of mortal life, are too 
 generally considered in the light of mere worldly 
 prudence, and fatally separated from religion ; so 
 that the too many who are unhappily wanting 
 in knowledge of, or reverence for scriptural re- 
 velation, fancy themselves at liberty, when they 
 please, to sacrifice prudent calculation to preca- 
 rious gratification, promising themselves to ba- 
 lance accounts with themselves at some future 
 period. But were all men taught from infancy to 
 recognize in every intimation of God's will, thus 
 given by natural revelation, that is, in every 
 consequence following its cause, a command from
 
 OF HAPPINESS. 23 
 
 God, as direct as though they heard his voice, 
 saying :. be just, be kind, be industrious, be 
 temperate, be forgiving, the sacredness of mo- 
 ral obUgation could not fail of being so effectually 
 felt as to be strictly acted upon. Every man, 
 however unlearned he might be, in the common ac- 
 ceptation of the phrase, if taught thus much, would 
 feel, whenever he infringed any law of moral order, 
 perfectly certain that the natural consequences of 
 his own act, which must follow, were the marks 
 of the disapprobation of that God, who had or- 
 dained the connexion between causes and effects. 
 In like manner, he would feel that the natural 
 good consequences following upon a strict observ- 
 ance of moral order, were visible marks of God's 
 approbation of moral order. And thus would 
 every action be avoided or performed under the 
 immediate sanction of sacred obligation ; that is 
 of the known will of God, rendered awfully as- 
 certained by the constant sense thus kept up of 
 the actual presence, in every thing around us, 
 of God's continually ruling, never to be resisted, 
 never to be evaded power, made visible without 
 special miracle, or partial judgment every time 
 that effect follows cause ; every time, in short, 
 that we trace nature obeying the commandments 
 which she received from God when he laid the 
 foundations of the universe. Thus, it is evident, 
 without going into details, that were even the very 
 lowest sources of common comfort neither neces-
 
 24 THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 sary to life, nor conducive to enjoyment, or that all 
 men could always procure them all in abundance, 
 without the exercise of any moral quality, whether 
 industry, honesty, temperance, or aid of helplessness, 
 practised either by themselves, or by any fellow 
 being, many pages of the book of natural reve- 
 lation would be wanting, in which we are now 
 taught the rudiments of respect and admiration for 
 moral qualities, without the exercise of which, it 
 is evident, that the enjoyment of so much of what 
 is necessary and agreeable to existence would be 
 lost, or impaired, and on the other hand so 
 much of suifering incurred. 
 
 Were these modes of practical instruction want- 
 ing, it is difficult to imagine on what foundation of 
 natural experience reason could have erected the 
 noble superstructure of the highest order of moral 
 rectitude ; or by what means man could have dis- 
 cerned the will of his Maker, except in scriptural 
 revelation ; so that all who had not that revelation, 
 would have been in total darkness : which, consider- 
 ing how many have been, and still are, without the 
 word, would assuredly not have been in accordance 
 with either the goodness or the justice of God, who, 
 had scripture revelation been the only revelation of 
 his will, would certainly have provided that scrip- 
 tural revelation, like natural revelation, should have 
 been distinctly offered to the inward feelings and 
 lutward perceptions, of every individual human 
 eing on wliom God has bestowed the gift of reason.
 
 OF HAPPINESS. 25 
 
 and this from the first hour of the world's creation 
 to the present day. Thus, then, it is true, in the 
 fullest sense of the proposition (unless we be of the 
 number of those who will not see with their eyes, 
 hear with their ears, neither understand with their 
 hearts), that we may trace in all the pheno- 
 mena of mind and matter, benevolence, wisdom, 
 and power, visibly omnipresent, willing, planning, 
 and executing the extension of felicity, temporal 
 and eternal, by means of moral order. For, again, 
 the whole of this series of arguments goes to prove, 
 in the most complete and satisfactory manner, that 
 the ulterior purpose of creation is the preparation 
 of the intellectual part of man's nature for some 
 future state of being, in which will be called into 
 use, not only every sympathy induced by the help- 
 lessness and wants of mortal life, but also all the 
 moral rectitude and philanthropic benevolence, first 
 awakened, and finally established into principles, 
 by the absolute necessity for practising the virtues 
 of moral order, which that helplessness, and the 
 common wants of our mortal nature, point out to 
 reason. 
 
 The truth of this proposition will appear by re- 
 flecting that, if the sympathies and the moral sense 
 which the natural helplessness and wants of mortal 
 life are calculated to induce, were only intended to 
 remedy that helplessness, and make provision for 
 those wants, that helplessness and those wants 
 would never have formed portions of the order of
 
 2G THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 God's providence ; for that power which formed this 
 admirable provision to aid that helplessness, and 
 supply those wants, could as easily have made 
 creatures independent of mutual aid, and having no 
 wants, or have rendered nature so prolific, that the 
 supply of every want should always be found be- 
 neath the hand of him who felt the want, without 
 the exercise of industry, honesty, generosity, tem- 
 perance, or any other virtue of moral order, either 
 on his own part, or on that of any fellow being. 
 The sympathies and the moral virtues, then, thus 
 evidently not having been ordained to remedy the 
 helplessness, and supply the wants, but the helpless- 
 ness and the wants having been ordained to create 
 the sympathies and the moral virtues, we have a 
 clear demonstration that those sympathies, and 
 those moral virtues are intended for an ulterior 
 purpose, independent of that of remedying the 
 temporary inconveniences, which we clearly per- 
 ceive were only ordained to produce the moral 
 virtues. Whatever, therefore, may be the ultimate 
 and eternal purpose for which the Almighty, in his 
 counsels, intends the moral sense of man, it is quite 
 self-evident, that to produce and perfect that moral 
 sense for some purpose ulterior to the necessities of 
 mortal life, was the purpose for which this world 
 was created, and the whole course of God's provi- 
 dence, in all the arrangements of mortal life or- 
 dained.
 
 OF HAPPINESS. 27 
 
 FIFTH EXCEPTION OBVIATED. 
 
 Neither is it any argument against the divine 
 authority of the moral sense, or the evidence, 
 thence drawn, that God has willed the extension 
 of felicity by means of moral order, to say that 
 different standards of a supposed right and wrong 
 have obtained, and do obtain, in different ages 
 and countries. After the view we have just taken 
 of the manner in which the moral sense is pro- 
 duced, and modified, and of the uniform character 
 of that moral sense which the nature and natural 
 circumstances of man, are calculated to induce, 
 these diversities only prove, that the means with 
 which God has furnished man, for perfecting the 
 moral sense, have been, in those different ages 
 and countries, (from various degrees of the abuse 
 of free-will) more or less neglected, or misused ; 
 and, also, that the artificial circumstances of such 
 ages and countries, have, by further abuses of 
 free-will, been so distorted, as to warp in its after 
 stages, that uniformity of the moral sense, of 
 which God has laid the foundation in the nature 
 and natural circumstances of man. Had the in- 
 stitutions which are under the control of free- 
 will, in other words, the artificial social relations 
 of all ages and countries, been framed after the 
 pattern which God has vouchsafed us in his orga- 
 nization of the natural social system, that is, with
 
 28 THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 a view to giving the same good-will and moral 
 order producing direction to the sympathies and 
 associations, which the natural social relations 
 arranged by God himself, are calculated to induce ; 
 and that the comparing power of reason had been 
 universally cultivated, and when cultivated uni- 
 versally applied to the purpose for which it was 
 given — that is, to superintending the formation of 
 those associations, and confirming them into prin- 
 cij^les, the uniformity of opinion on what consti- 
 tutes a just moral sense must have been absolute ! 
 The various approaches to a justice, good -will, 
 and moral order producing organization of the 
 artificial social system, and the various degrees 
 in which the reasoning powers are cultivated, and, 
 when cultivated applied to the great purpose for 
 which they were given, produce ihe various degrees 
 of approximation to truth which obtain. 
 
 But, let it be observed, (for the fact, itself un- 
 deniable, furnishes a triumphant proof of the divine 
 origin, and therefore divine authority of the moral 
 sense) , that the conclusions necessary to produce 
 the same moral sense in every human being on 
 whom God has bestowed the gift of reason, are 
 not only derivable from a train of reasoning on 
 man's own nature and natural circumstances, at 
 which, therefore, all who reason on that nature 
 and those circumstances, must arrive ; but are 
 founded on principles so simple, and deduced from 
 primary facts so demonstrable, that they are ca-
 
 OF HAPPINESS. 29 
 
 pable of being broken down into separate propo- 
 sitions, the truth of each of which, singly stated, 
 the simplest minds can comprehend ; and to the 
 truth of each of which, singly stated, even the 
 most obstinately prejudiced cannot refuse their 
 assent. It follows, therefore, that the conclusions 
 thus essential to the formation of that just moral 
 sense, which is God's great instrument for the 
 production of happiness temporal and eternal, are 
 such as all men, without requiring more than the 
 average rate of ability, can either form for them- 
 selves, or be led to form by the reasoning of 
 others. 
 
 And why are those conclusions thus necessary 
 and natural to reason ? Because the uniformity of 
 the moral sense has its foundation in that part 
 of the course of nature, which God has placed 
 under the dominion of his own absolute laws, 
 unchangeable by man's free-will ; its diversities, 
 in the after biases received from those artificial 
 circumstances which abuses of free-will can render 
 unfavourable. When, therefore, the organization 
 of the artificial social system is such as to coun- 
 teract, as much as possible, the sympathy and 
 moral order producing natural circumstances of 
 man, and that reason is not used to restore the 
 bent of nature — prejudices, especially if they be 
 national prejudices, assume the guise of opinions ; 
 and these mental deformities, produced by abuses 
 of free-will, are offered as proofs that the moral
 
 30 THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 sense has no natural stature. The branches 
 forcibly trained to the wall in opposite, parallel 
 directions, are absurdly displayed to show that 
 the tree, not so coerced, would not have grown 
 upright ! And, by way of argument, it is added 
 that it was as easy to bend the branches on the 
 one side, as on the other, while the simple fact 
 is over-looked, that it would have been still easier 
 to have assisted their natural tendency to shoot 
 upward ! But, whether a man be, by this forced 
 false training of unjust artificial circumstances, 
 a Turk, a cannibal, a conqueror, a heathen savage 
 who sacrifices his children at the shrine of Devils, 
 or a prejudiced, though nominal christian states- 
 man, pension-holder, land-owner, or monopolist, 
 who immolates the labouring classes of his fellow 
 men on the altars of pride or self-defeating self- 
 ishness ; a process of calm reasoning on his own 
 nature and natural circumstances, may any 
 moment irresistably open his eyes, and give him 
 that just moral sense, which God has ordained 
 shall be the product of such application of the 
 reasoning powers. This, however, being the 
 bourn from whence no mental traveller returns, 
 there is no process of false reasoning, no exposi- 
 tion of false theories, which could possibly lead 
 back into blind and monstrous superstitions, or 
 miserably short sighted selfishness, the mind 
 which had once beheld the broad line of eternal 
 separation, which God himself has drawn between
 
 OF HAPPINESS. 31 
 
 natural right, and unnatural wrong ! ! ! Is not this 
 then sufficient to prove the conclusions thus ob- 
 tained to be Eternal truth itself? What is truth? 
 
 In relation to man, at least, truth undoubtedly 
 is that system of moral opinions which, though it 
 may be missed by not reasoning, or by misapply- 
 ing reason, every reasoning being who follows out 
 the obvious train of deductions suggested by the 
 facts of his own nature and natural circumstances, 
 must be led to form ; but which, no reasoning 
 being who has once so formed, can ever again be 
 led to reject. 
 
 Thus, it may be safely asserted, that whatever 
 man can get at, by the cultivation of the reason 
 which God has given him, and its application to 
 a contemplation of the works of God, is a portion 
 of God's own declaration of his will, revealed di- 
 rectly from God himself, to each creature on whom 
 he has bestowed the gift of reason. While this, 
 so far from encouraging every man to set up a 
 separate standard of right and wrong for himself, 
 lays uniformity in at the very foundations of 
 opinion : for, the premises being the visible works 
 of God himself, and, therefore, always the same, 
 the conclusions at which they always point, must 
 also always be the same ; and thus all men, but 
 those who attempt to jump to their conclusions, 
 or who seek them through some other premises 
 but the works of God, must always arrive at the 
 same conclusion. Nay, this very uniformity of
 
 32 THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 opinion, is a part of Gods' visibly revealed will : 
 for God, by giving all men the same reason to 
 reason with, and the same premises to reason 
 from, has done every thing, but withdraw free- 
 will, to make all men reason alike ! 
 
 INFERENCES DRAWN. 
 
 Having traced, in the whole course of nature, 
 especially the nature and natural circumstances of 
 man, both God's purpose, the extension of felicity, 
 and his will that such felicity shall be attained by 
 means of moral order ; and seen that all nature, 
 except free-will abused, obeys the laws of God, 
 we necessarily infer, that whenever cultivated 
 reason shall clearly see, and seeing incline free- 
 will to co-operate with this visible revelation of 
 God's will, both in the conduct of private life, and 
 in the organization of the artificial social system, 
 the harmony of creation shall be completed, the 
 moral sense and good-will producing sympathies 
 perfected, and the happiness here, and suscepti- 
 bility for enjoying felicity hereafter, which God 
 has ordained shall result from the perfection of 
 moral order, shall become the portion of all God's 
 rational creatures. 
 
 Hence, again, we as necessarily infer, that to 
 organize the artificial social system, on the moral 
 order and good-will producing model of the natural 
 social system, is the duty of all communities to
 
 OF HAPPINESS. 33 
 
 themselves, and of all governments to the com- 
 mmiities they govern ; and that to promote the cul- 
 tivation of the reasoning powers of every human 
 being on whom God has bestowed the gift of 
 reason, and to direct the application of those 
 powers, to a clear comprehension of the laws of 
 moral order, or the social science in all its bran- 
 ches, as visibly revealed in the works of God, is 
 a duty of sacred obligation on all associated 
 beings. 
 
 The question then comes to be — What is a 
 moral order and good-will producing organization 
 of the artificial social system ? 
 
 Will all mankind, or can all mankind feel 
 good-will to all in direct obedience to God's com- 
 mandment of good-will to all ? Without the use 
 of those means which God has given for the spe- 
 cial purpose of training and perfecting the moral 
 sense ; in other words, of deciding the choice of 
 free-will in favour of the practice of those virtues 
 which generate good-will, and consequently pro- 
 duce happiness here, and susceptibility of felicity 
 hereafter. 
 
 But, as there are not a few well meaning 
 persons, who would dispute the use of reason as 
 a means of acquiring any virtue acceptable to their 
 Maker, and who, in their erroneous zeal, ex- 
 claim : " Humble human reason ; lay it in the 
 dust ; it is sufficient for man to obey ;" — it will 
 be necessary, before we proceed further, to meet 
 
 D
 
 34 THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 this objection by endeavouring to show, that the 
 madman, who in tiie conduct of the ordinary af- 
 fairs of Hfe, should shut out the rays of the sun, 
 and lay him down in darkness awaiting a super- 
 natural illumination, by the help of which to per- 
 form his daily avocations, w^ould not be more 
 mistaken than the man whose misjudging piety is 
 alarmed at the mention of reason, that sun of the 
 intellectual horizon, that emanation of God's own 
 spirit, that highest gift of God, as a guide to 
 truth, or to that moral order, generating good- 
 will, which that very reason recognises to be the 
 visibly revealed will of God : miscalling such 
 use of reason " presumption," or " self-trust;" 
 as though that self, they deem it humility to des- 
 pise, were not the w^ork of God ; as though the 
 gift of reason, they deem it presumption to use, 
 were not as much a gift from God, as the gift of 
 grace they deem it humility to implore ; as though 
 the gift of reason were not a gift of grace offered 
 to all ; as though the gift of reason, applied to 
 tracing the will of God, and inclining free-will 
 to co-operate with that will, were not the very 
 spirit of God himself, " working in us both to 
 will and to do of his good pleasure ;" as though 
 true humility of spirit were not rather shown in 
 diligently using the means which God has given, 
 for the end which God has ordained, than in re- 
 jecting, or despising such, and demanding, or 
 awaiting, in a species of, at least, passive resist-
 
 OP HAPPINESS. 35 
 
 ance of God's will, a further gift. Nay, do we 
 not blaspheme when we pronounce God's gift of 
 reason useless, and insolently call upon him, as 
 it were, to amend his own imperfect work, and 
 give us a further gift of grace ? Yet, such is the 
 desperate presumption of mistaken piety ! ! ! 
 
 That this unreasoning obedience, however, is 
 not the " reasonable service" called for in scrip- 
 tural revelation, is abundantly proved by the pro- 
 mises of reward, and denunciations of punishment 
 proclaimed in scripture ; for these must be al- 
 lowed by all who believe scripture to be the word 
 of God, to be appeals of God's word to the reason- 
 ing or comparing powers of man. 
 
 If then it be granted, that reason may be used 
 for the promotion of good-will to all ; that reason 
 will point out that the general prevalence of good- 
 will among men must be preceded by the esta- 
 blishment, enforced by law or general consent, of 
 equal justice as a means ; because, however neces- 
 sary our reason may acknowledge love or good- 
 will to be to happiness, love or good-will, in other 
 words, those amiable sympathies to which the 
 natural social system gives birth, and which a 
 favourable organization of the artificial social sys- 
 tem would perfect, not being within the power 
 of volition, we cannot by reasoning persuade, 
 nor yet by the most anxious desire to obey, con- 
 strain ourselves, and each other to feel love one 
 towards another ; but we may — nay, must by 
 
 D 2
 
 36 THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 reasoning arrive at the conclusion, and therefore 
 may by reasoning also lead others to the conclu- 
 sion, that our own nature and natural circum- 
 stances prove it to be the will of God, and for 
 the comfort and security of all associated beings, 
 to practice, and unite the common strength of all 
 to enforce equal justice ; and that while justice 
 is still imperfect, and that therefore offences still 
 exist, that it is equally the will of God, because 
 equally essential to the happiness of all associated 
 beings, that we should refrain from retaliating 
 wrong received, rather than by giving way to re- 
 sentment, perpetuate the reciprocation of injury. 
 When these peace and harmony producing prin- 
 ciples are established, and a cessation from the 
 perpetual provocations of injustice thus obtained, 
 the embers of ill-will, like lire without fuel, will 
 die out, whilst the kindling of the kindly affec- 
 tions must, as naturally and certainly as any 
 other effect follows its cause, arise towards beings 
 from whom we derive, and on whom we bestow, 
 by the ordination of our universal Father, for the 
 very purpose of originating mutual good-will, all 
 that is necessary, convenient, and desirable to life 
 and comfort ; as well as from whom we derive, 
 and on whom we bestow, by the same ordination, 
 and for the same purpose, all the more refined 
 pleasures flowing from the highest and noblest 
 sympathies of our nature :— sources of felicity, the 
 existence of which it is vain for the coarse and 
 selfish to deny, as long as the exalting and har-
 
 OF HAPPINESS. 37 
 
 monizing influence of such sympathies is felt, even 
 partially within the private sanctuary of the family 
 circle ; where, fostered by the endearing ties of 
 the natural social svstem, the sacred fire of social 
 love has been produced, and is being preserved, 
 that the soul of man, though confounded through 
 ages by those frightful abuses of free-will, wars, 
 superstitions, persecutions, and the ceaseless pro- 
 vocations of injustice ; might not be left without 
 a witness of what love is ; and whence, when 
 equal justice shall prevail, and the light of a 
 reasoning education founded on the visible, as 
 well as written will of God, has been extended to 
 all on whom God has bestowed the gift of reason, 
 its ameliorating influence shall expand, and be- 
 coming good- will to all, ensure the fulfilment of 
 the Almighty purpose : — namely, the limitless ex- 
 tension of felicity, temporal and eternal. 
 
 It will perhaps be objected, that though eternal fe- 
 licity may be secured by virtuous conduct, that tem- 
 poral happiness cannot. The objection, however, is 
 not valid ; for few, very few indeed, are the unavoid- 
 able ills of life, that is, those not occasioned, directly 
 or indirectly, by abuses of free-will, individual or 
 collective. While, were all mankind the reasoning, 
 sympathizing, practically religious beings that a 
 rational education, and a favourable organization 
 of the artificial social system would make them, 
 the few ills that were unavoidable, would be sur- 
 rounded by so many alleviations, and prove the
 
 38 THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 fruitful sources of so much good-will and so many 
 kindly and delightful feelings, both of benevolence 
 and of gratitude, that the question would come to 
 be, whether, taken in connexion with these ex- 
 panded views of all their consequences, immediate 
 and collateral, such seeming alloys to happiness 
 might not, with propriety, be ranked almost among 
 the blessings of existence ! 
 
 Tlie justness of the proposition that few would 
 be the ills of life, did the free-will of man, individual 
 and collective, co-operate with the good-will of God, 
 must fully appear, if it be but remembered, what 
 are the abuses of free-will ; if it be but remembered, 
 that without abuses of free-will there could be no 
 warfare, no want, no robbery, no murder, no 
 cheating, no lying, no indolence, no intemper- 
 ance, no penury, no extravagance, no assump- 
 tion of undelegated, no abuse of delegated power, 
 no obstructions in the path of industry, no exac- 
 tions on the fruits of labour, no taxes on first 
 necessaries, no taxes on knowledge, no monopo- 
 lies, no exclusions, no unjust or ill-will-producing 
 institutions of any kind, no luxury, no vice, no 
 ignorance, no crime, no insolent pride, no mor- 
 tified feeling, no injuries, no resentments, in 
 short, no ungoverned passions whatever. And 
 let not the habitually vicious or the habitually 
 thoughtless, with a cold sneer, or a careless laugh, 
 pronounce these the wild imaginings of a visionary! 
 It will not surely be asserted, that there never yet
 
 OF HAPPINESS. 39 
 
 was one human mind which, by reason and practical 
 rehgion, was Hfted out of selfishness, and exalted 
 above the possibility of finding in vice so much as 
 a temptation to become her votary. Nay, it will 
 rather be readily confessed, that there have been 
 many such ; and that, with the progress of know- 
 ledge and practical views of religious obligation, 
 their numbers (despite the baneful influence of 
 frightfully unjust artificial social systems) are 
 continually increasing. We have then the witness 
 of facts, that God has placed such attainments 
 within the reach of free-will ; and, if within the 
 reach of the free-will of one, within the reach of 
 the free-will of all. Whilst, as has been already 
 shown, a just or good-will-producing organization 
 of the artificial social system ; and the universal 
 diffusion of a reasoning, or practically religious 
 education, are the only human means of co-ope- 
 rating with the visible will of God, namely, the 
 extension of felicity, temporal and eternal, by 
 means of moral order. 
 
 Yet, the unjust few who have long revelled in 
 superfluous abundance, wrung from the less than 
 justly rewarded labour of the many; delighted with 
 their own position, call upon us to " respect," 
 merely because it is of long standing, that now, 
 it is to be devoutly hoped, mouldering fabric, 
 by means of the once formidable fortifications of 
 which they have, time immemorial, been enabled 
 to wrong the many in security, nay, with auda-
 
 40 THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 cious contidence in the yet remaining rampart of 
 partial ignorance ; and the, as yet, but partially 
 drained off moat of corruption, they dare to call 
 the perpetuity of that wrong " the safety of the 
 nation ! " You say, they plead, " you will only re- 
 move the injustice ; but, if you do, you must pull 
 down the building !" — Does the building then 
 stand upon injustice? — "Look back upon the 
 history of the world," they sagely continue, " there 
 always has been injustice, therefore, it is quite 
 clear that there always ought to be injustice !" 
 
 Again — when education for the many is pleaded 
 for by the friends of reason, religion, and humanity ; 
 the same selfish few, finding in the mass of their 
 fellow men an immense power of living machinery, 
 ministering daily, self-moved, to their luxurious 
 wants, will not perceive that even all this would 
 be better done by reasoning beings, but, dreading 
 all change, cry : " We did very well in the days of 
 our grandmothers, before educating the multitude 
 was so much as thought of !" Let us then leave the 
 bulk of the people (as we have always done) to 
 tread the roughest paths of life in darkness, and 
 hang those that stumble, as a warning to the rest 
 to step more carefully ! Besides, are they not 
 expressly told, from our pulpits every Sunday, 
 not to stumble ; what occasion then can they have 
 for light ? 
 
 And then we say : God gave no moral sense ; 
 look at the depravity of man ! As well might we
 
 OF HAPPINESS. 41 
 
 say : God gave no bread ; look at the sterility of 
 the earth, because our loaves fall not from the 
 clouds like the manna of the wilderness ! 
 
 If the earth must be cultivated before bread can 
 be eaten, so must that seed of the spirit of God in 
 man (the power of reasoning) before happiness can 
 be enjoyed. 
 
 If men have hitherto been depraved, what does 
 it prove ? That man, without a more universally 
 diffused cultivation, and a more practically moral 
 application of his reasoning powers, than has 
 ever yet obtained, is, by such abuse of free-will, 
 reduced to the most imperfect of God's works, 
 being, when thus wronged of reason, a portion 
 only of a compound creature, rendered, by this 
 wilful mutilation of its intended nature, at once the 
 most helpless and the most mischievous animal in 
 creation, necessarily furnished with insufficient 
 instincts, because destined to possess a better 
 guide. 
 
 Had God intended, as the blinded by selfishness, 
 uncorrected by reason, would have us mad enough 
 to believe, that certain classes of men, destined to 
 perform certain laborious avocations, should use 
 only their physical powers, and live and die without 
 calling the mental faculties into play, would it not 
 have been strictly analogous to the whole course of 
 God's providence, to have created orders of beings 
 without reason, but, from the hour of their birth, 
 perfect, by instinct, in agriculture, architecture,
 
 42 THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 and manufactures, as the bee in the preparation of 
 honey and construction of honey-comb, or the 
 spider in the weaving of its web ? But God has 
 evidently created one order only of men, by giving 
 reason, on the average, equally to all the artificially 
 distinguished ranks of men : he has even made the 
 use of a portion of that reason necessary to the 
 discovery of the common arts indispensable to sub- 
 sistence, evidently to suggest to man, that the 
 higher moral attainments must also be sought 
 through the instrumentality of reason. 
 
 The mere fact, however, of God's having bestow- 
 ed reason on all men,"* is in itself a sufficient re- 
 velation of his will that all men should cultivate 
 their reason. For, surely, it is impossible, for a sin- 
 gle moment, to suppose that God, who does nothing 
 in vain, has bestowed on millions, and tens of 
 millions of beings, that bright, that precious emana- 
 tion of his own spirit, that mysterious seed of in- 
 tellectual nature, which constitutes the power of 
 becoming a reasoning, sympathizing, benevolent, 
 immortal being, to be returned back to him on the 
 great day of judgment, like the talent of the unpro- 
 fitable servant, undeveloped. 
 
 But the will of God in this, as in all things else, 
 is not only revealed in his works, but that revela- 
 
 * It is not thought necessary here to notice the cases of mad- 
 men or idiots. No one ever thought of arguing that God did not 
 intend mankind to see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, 
 because there are unhappy instances of bhndness and of deafness.
 
 OF HAPPINESS. 43 
 
 tion confirmed by the continual course of his pro- 
 vidence : that is, by the obedience of all things, but 
 free-will, to his laws ; or, in other words, the order 
 in which effects follow their causes, as ordained by 
 the Creator when he laid the foundation of the uni- 
 verse ! Is not this revelation to be found in the 
 records of the past ? Are not the frightful features 
 of history painted in blood ? Is not their distorted 
 expression a display of human misery terrible to 
 look upon ? Yet, almost the whole of which, a little 
 reflection proves, might have been not only avoid- 
 ed, but its place supplied by much happiness, had 
 all mankind always reasoned on the nature and 
 natural circumstances of man, and thence inferring 
 the will of God, perceived what artificial circum- 
 stances their free-will was invited by his mercy and 
 loving kindness to choose. 
 
 Are not these momentous facts as visible a reve- 
 lation to the very commonest capacities, that it is 
 the will of God that man shall cultivate his reason, 
 and, guided by that reason, his moral sense and 
 good-will-producing sympathies, by means of good- 
 will-inducing institutions and habits, before he can 
 reap that happiness which is the rich harvest of 
 moral order, as the thistle-grown surface of the 
 earth, without culture, is of God's will that man 
 shall cultivate the ground before he can eat bread ? 
 This latter revelation we are unanimous in practi- 
 cally acknowledging the necessity for obeying : we 
 see nearly the whole world, with one accord,
 
 44 THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 ploughing, and sowing, and reaping, and gathering 
 into barns ! We never hear of famines produced 
 by faith without works on this vital point ! The 
 " early and the latter rain," 'tis true, and the fruc- 
 tifying dew, and the vivifying sun, are looked for 
 with undoubting faith, but not expected to ripen 
 the grain that was never sown. But, obedience to 
 the former, or moral, and surely not less important 
 revelation, we seem to consider optional, and to 
 cultivate the intellectual faculties (when we culti- 
 vate them at all), as matter of amusement, or of 
 ornament, rather than of a necessity founded in that 
 nature which God has given to us, and therefore of 
 sacred obligation : thus acting as though we were 
 unconscious that reason is that portion of the spirit, 
 or grace of God which is offered to all, for the pur- 
 pose of inclining free-will, on conviction, to choose 
 moral order : that neglect of this cultivation, and 
 this application of reason, is contempt and rejection 
 of the spirit of God, or, in scripture language, the 
 grace of God : and that the diUgent cultivation of 
 reason, and its apphcation to this great moral pur- 
 pose, when founded on a conviction that such is 
 the will of God, is obedient acceptance of that 
 series of gracious scripture invitations which says : 
 " Ask and it shall be given to you ; seek and ye 
 shall find ; knock and it shall be opened unto you." 
 Or, in other words, use the means which God has 
 given, in a full confidence that, inasmuch as God 
 is powerful, wise, and benevolent, the provisions of
 
 OF rtAPPINESS. 45 
 
 his providence, if all used, and honestly used, must 
 he all-sufficient. If it he argued that the lahouring 
 many have not time to render this " reasonahle 
 service" to their Maker, and that they therefore 
 must he told the sum total of their duty by the few 
 who study it for them, it is asked : Are the few 
 to he trusted with this office ? Will they not frame 
 what they choose to call the duty of the many 
 to suit their own purposes ? Will they not instruct 
 the many that the whole duty of men in their hum- 
 ble station is to pay rents, taxes, and tithes; to 
 work hard, though for the benefit of others ; to 
 suffer no extremity of want to tempt them to de- 
 mand higher wages, or cheaper food, or by any 
 other means, however legal or peaceable, seek to 
 recover any particle of the luxurious stores of 
 superabundant comforts, which, though created by 
 themselves, have, by the operation of mysterious 
 causes, into which they have no business to inquire, 
 been transferred to the few ; and though, in conse- 
 quence, they should be without food, shelter, or 
 raiment, to be perfectly contented with their lot, and 
 believe the glorious British Constitution faultless ? 
 If, however, the few were beings of incorrupt- 
 ible integrity, or that they had neither motive, nor 
 temptation to deceive the many ; still it must be 
 remembered that God gave reason to all men, 
 because he would have the cordial co-operation 
 with his will, of free-will inclined by convinced 
 reason, not the worthless obedience of constraint
 
 4G THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 or the conforming movements of mere puppets ; 
 else he had not given free-will ! Shall man assume 
 a power which God has spared to use ? Shall 
 man crush the undeveloped seed of reason in his 
 fellow men, that he may ensnare the freedom of 
 their will, and make them the unconscious puppets 
 of his purposes ? That he may be, as it were, the 
 one animating spirit to myriads of human forms, 
 thus made subservient to his will. 
 
 Nay, has not the impious, the unnatural experi- 
 ment, been tried for upwards of five thousand 
 years, and have not its constant results proved 
 that, while knowledge (which is power) is confined 
 to the few, and these few continue to be less per- 
 fect in wisdom, justice, and benevolence, than the 
 God who made them, the many must continue, 
 even in their temporal concerns, to be miserable. 
 For how imperfect soever that knowledge must 
 be, which lends itself to work evil, yet, over total 
 ignorance, even despicable cunning is absolute 
 power ! 
 
 Now, absolute power, perfect wisdom, and 
 boundless benevolence, are the inseparable, and 
 (because inseparable,) felicity-producing attributes 
 of the deity. 
 
 But when presumptuous man with his finite grasp, 
 ■which cannot reach the perfect wisdom, neither 
 compass the boundless benevolence, dares to seize 
 upon a fragment of the power, and wield it, maniac 
 like over the destinies of his fellow men, how wild
 
 OF HAPPINESS. 47 
 
 and terrible is the havoc he commits, how fearful 
 the responsibiUty he incurs ! 
 
 Did the many, however, know how to choose 
 happiness, in other words, did they reason on 
 their own nature and natural circumstances, and 
 thence inferring the will of God, and tracing the 
 coincidence between that will and their own hap- 
 piness ; perceive what artificial circumstances their 
 free-will was called upon to choose ; it is manifest 
 that they, having the physical force on their 
 side, the few could not compel them to choose 
 poverty, degradation, sin, and blood-shed; in pre- 
 ference to peace on earth and good-will among 
 men, with the enjoyment of the fruits of their own 
 labour, that labour lightened by the judicious 
 co-operation of the whole family of man, and of 
 every climate and soil upon earth, together with 
 the use of every discovery in machinery, and in 
 all the useful arts and sciences. It is, therefore, by 
 subtlety only, that the many could ever have been 
 induced to sacrifice themselves to the unjust 
 desires of the few. Yet, that they have so sacri- 
 ficed themselves, from the creation of the world to 
 the present hour, is a fact known to the whole 
 world. If it be clear then that they could not have 
 been compelled to do so, and have done so, there- 
 fore, only through ignorance, it must be equally 
 clear that the only way to prevent their doing so 
 in future, is to furnish them with knowledge. 
 
 On that frightful topic, war, for instance, how
 
 48 THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 have all the nations of the earth, from time to 
 time, drank deep of the maddening draughts admi- 
 nistered to their helpless ignorance by the subtlety 
 of the selfish few, seeking aggrandisement, extent 
 of territory, or fancied fame for cruel and wicked 
 exploits, at the expense of the peace and lives of 
 thousands. Or, when the frenzy of devastating con- 
 quest is not the motive, how inexpressibly more 
 abhorrent to human nature, are the cold-blooded 
 calculations of the demon- hearted statesman who 
 intrigues for war, and, sitting in his closet, moves 
 the fatal spring that sends forth peaceful nations 
 to massacre each other ; solely that the minds of 
 the many may be too much occupied to discern the 
 rights of man in the will of God, and that, there- 
 fore, oppressive taxes may be paid without a 
 murmur. 
 
 We review, with just horror, the privileged few 
 of ancient days, looking on while gladiators fought, 
 and finding amusement in the spectacle. We, 
 of the present day have, 'tis true, no gladiators, 
 but we have armies ; and they are maintained, 
 not always to fight in defence of the state — that 
 is of the people's rights — but too often in defence 
 of wrong, wherever right dares to lift her head, 
 and ask for her own. The privileged few of mo- 
 dern times, do not sit by, and for amusement, 
 look on, while these armies fight ; but do they 
 not send forth their tens of thousands of ignorant 
 and deluded human beings, born to be brethren.
 
 OF HAPPINESS. 49 
 
 and to love and aid each other ; armed and led on ; 
 drilled and disciplined to commit murders by hun- 
 dreds within the moment, at the word of com- 
 mand (good Heavens ! did God give the power of 
 speech for such a purpose ?) and then, with the 
 taxes collected on the pretext of consummating 
 this hideous purpose, (surely in itself sufficiently 
 diabolical,) do not they — the modern, the civi- 
 lized, the nominally christian few — purchase pomps, 
 splendours, titles, luxuries ; all, in short, which 
 they choose to consider in better taste, than look- 
 ing on while gladiators fight ? Thus the death- 
 sti'uggles of one or two fellow- creatures supplied 
 the savage sport of the ancient few ; but thou- 
 sands perish in an hour ; whole provinces are 
 laid waste, and nations groan for successive cen- 
 turies under industry, paralising, and starvation- 
 producing taxation, to provide the more refined 
 gratifications of the modern few ! ! ! 
 
 Could these things be, if all men reasoned ? 
 Could any of these things be, if all men reasoned 
 on their own nature and natural circumstances, 
 and so learned to perceive the will of God, and 
 the coincidence between their own best interests, 
 and that will ? 
 
 Yet, as what calls itself education is now con- 
 ducted, the few are diligently made worse than 
 ignorant ; being from their cradles imbued with 
 forced false associations, but too welcome to sel- 
 fishness ; and sent into life, blinded by deep 
 
 £
 
 50 THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 rooted prejudices, teaching them to heheve the 
 monstrous, and blasphemous falsehood, that for 
 them, the few, and their children, from generation 
 to generation, to prey upon the many, and their 
 children, from generation to generation, is a part 
 of the order of nature, as prescribed by its bene- 
 volent author. And, as though this were not 
 enough, a certain portion of this, thus judiciously 
 educated few, go forth, by virtue of the boasted 
 British constitution, the unchosen, hereditary 
 legislators of the land ; vested with the legal power 
 of fireing upon, or hanging, (backed by an enor- 
 mously expensive standing army, officered by 
 their own relatives, but paid out of the labour of 
 the many,) all who resist their exactions, to- 
 gether with the further power of annulling any 
 law, not pleasing to themselves, attempted to be 
 made by the other division of the legislature ; whilst 
 even that other division, though nominally chosen 
 by the many, the many are, by the law of property 
 qualification, compelled to choose from among 
 the remaining portion of the falsely educated few, 
 or property union ; the many, the while, (except 
 an attempt on the part of the highly paid relatives 
 of the few, the clergy, to teach them the one les- 
 son of submission to all this) being left totally un- 
 instructed, to the fatal influence of the ill-will- 
 producing circumstances of a miserably unjust 
 organization of the artificial social system ; by the 
 operation of which, the idle few, with their hosts
 
 OF HAPPINESS. 51 
 
 of non-productive, that is, merely ostentatious 
 or personal attendants ; and multitudes of equally 
 non-productive pampered animals, kept for show, 
 and domestic ones, maintained for amusement ; 
 all live, in the most wasteful luxury, unenjoyed 
 from its very excess, (for even the lap dogs of the 
 property union lack appetite) on the hard labour 
 of the industrious many, millions of whom are 
 themselves insufficiently fed, and scarcely clothed 
 or housed at all ; and all of whom are most irra- 
 tionally, and ungratefully despised by those whose 
 comforts, splendours, and luxuries, they live but 
 to create. 
 
 This again, is the glorious British constitu- 
 tion ! Yet it is better than any other, except that 
 of America. What wonder, then, that evil is 
 triumphant ! Nor will any remedy, or remedies 
 avail thoroughly, but in conjunction with the 
 practical application of real religion, freed from fa- 
 naticism, to its great moral and rational purpose, 
 namely, the production of a universal co-operation 
 with the good-will of God — of the free-will of man, 
 instructed and convinced by cultivated reason. 
 
 How much then have they to answer for, (the 
 self-styled learned) who, while contending with 
 unchristian fierceness for the interpretation of 
 tortured phrases, and the explanation of myste- 
 ries too high for man, which, not being necessary 
 to the conduct of life, God has not been pleased 
 to place within the reach of mortal ken, have left 
 
 E 2
 
 52 THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 the unlearned in all the helplessness of their 
 ignorance, to suppose that it is the truth itself 
 which is matter of doubt ; till pure morality, 
 thus fatally deprived of its sacred sanction, is 
 divorced from what calls itself religion ; and the 
 vesture of holiness, which was woven without a 
 seam throughout, being thus forcibly rent in twain ^ 
 the one part appears a vague abstraction without 
 an object ; the other, a system of restraints unen- 
 forced by any sufficient sanction ; and both, there- 
 fore, are by too many bold spirits flung aside, 
 and utterly forgotten. Whilst others, timid and 
 well-meaning, but unreasoning beings, choose, 
 what seems to them the better, because the easier 
 part ; and, from the cradle to the grave, lull their 
 every faculty, and paralyse their every energy, 
 by partaking copiously of that dangerous moral 
 opiate — faith without works. 
 
 If instead of either of these monstrous errors, 
 very babes and sucklings were instructed to repeat 
 the simple, practical, precepts of the word; and 
 as their understandings opened, given, for the only 
 expositors of that word, the works of God, and 
 his attributes and purposes, from his works in- 
 ferred, the contemplation of truths thus sublime 
 and unchangeable, yet made visible, must, ere 
 long, teach the whole world to know that " Faith 
 without Works is dead indeed:" and that, if there 
 be a blasphemy in faith, distinct from works, it 
 must consist, not in doubting, but in believing
 
 OF HAPPINESS. 53 
 
 any dogma which ascribes to the Great Author 
 of all, the beauty, order, and harmony of nature, 
 decrees or purposes, incompatible with his own 
 revelation of himself, visible in all his works ! 
 Remembering always, that what unreasoning, there- 
 fore irreligious men, call the prudence of expe- 
 rience, is entitled to a higher sanction, and a 
 better name — for, that effects necessarily following 
 their natural causes, as ordained by the Author 
 of Nature, is the language in which God, from 
 his throne in Heaven, addresses the dwellers upon 
 earth , and therefore, that the reverential noting of 
 these causes and effects with a view to the direc- 
 tion of conduct, is an essential part of reasonable, 
 practical religion. 
 
 Again, how much have they to answer for (the 
 self-styled holy) who by their love of worldly gain, 
 and worldly pomp, have brought all that is holy, just, 
 and true, with too many, into absolute disrepute, 
 changed the church of " good will," into the 
 church of Rathcormac ; and reduced all the " law 
 and the prophets" to two new commandments — 
 " pay the greater tithe," and " pay the lesser 
 tithe !" Of thus much, then, all men and nations 
 may rest assured, that, until the ministers of the 
 gospel of peace not only cease to be high priests 
 of Mammon and princes of this world, but until 
 they become, both in spirit and in letter, the 
 humble, lowly, brothers and companions of their 
 congregations, neither possessing, nor desiring
 
 54 , THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 riches, nor yet influence, save that which merited 
 respect should bestow, they will, like the Pharasees 
 of old, stand in the gate- way of heaven, neither 
 going in themselves, nor suffering those that would 
 go in to enter. 
 
 But, with a favourable organization of the arti- 
 ficial social system this right use of reason, namely, 
 its application to the discovery of real religious 
 obligation, founded on a faith as remote from 
 fanaticism, as from scepticism, and producing 
 manners as far removed from asceticism, as from 
 libertinism, would not be the arduous task it 
 now is. The Herculean labour of those who have 
 hitherto attempted to reason has consisted chiefly 
 in unriviting the links of forced false associations. 
 Whenever reason shall have but to confirm the 
 good-will-producing associations of a justly orga- 
 nized social system, and by its approbation give 
 them the stability of principles, men will not need 
 to be philosophers to recognize truth ! 
 
 " It may be all very well in the closet, but will 
 never do in real life:" is the common, irrational, 
 yet triumphantly urged argument, with which men 
 of the world meet all abstract truth, that thev 
 feel to be incontrovertible, and which, if applied 
 to practice would, in its straight forward course, 
 cross the path of their prejudices. Is not this a 
 miserable confession, that mankind, as artificial 
 social systems are at present organized, are ge- 
 nerally engaged in counteracting instead of co-
 
 OF HAPPINESS. 55 
 
 operating with the visibly revealed will of the 
 Creator, in the immutable laws of creation, and 
 that, therefore, though reflecting individuals find 
 in the sympathies, and the reason, which God 
 has given them, a measure for their speculations, 
 they can And no guide for their conduct, that 
 will not cause them to jostle against those with 
 whom they ought to be happily, and smoothly 
 journeying. Yet this too, is dishonestly made 
 a weapon against the truth, although involving 
 the absurdities, that dilFering from existing wrong, 
 is a proof of being wrong, and that immutable 
 truth, to prove herself practical truth, should mould 
 her form to, and become the obsequious imitator 
 of every Proteus shape assumed by folly, or 
 by chance. Thus, theorists are attempted to be 
 laughed down ; while theory, we are told, with 
 a ludicrous affectation of wisdom, is a very diffe- 
 rent thing from practice. Should practice then 
 have no guide ? It has the guide of experience, 
 say the opponents of theory. But we have already 
 seen that experience, rationally and religiously 
 understood, is the warning voice of Him, whose 
 decrees have flxed the indissoluble connexion 
 between causes and their effects. Yet, by those 
 who call themselves practical men, in opposition 
 to theorists, though experience prove the practice 
 wrong, it is persevered in; and our former errors, 
 under the title of precedents, gravely made our 
 future dictators ! This propensity, however, though
 
 56 THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 much abused, has its origin in truth, for the 
 standard of right and wrong, both ought to be, 
 and is immutable ; and man, therefore, notwith- 
 standing his progressive state of being, must look 
 back, to see his way into futurity ! But, let him 
 not look back, merely to a stage in that progress, 
 which himself has left behind — let him rather look 
 back to that utmost point which can be reached 
 by mental vision ; and tracing the originating prin- 
 ciple of all things, in the benevolence of God, 
 examine, with all his powers of reason, the orga- 
 nization of the natural social system ; and, in its 
 tendency to generate good-will-inducing sympa- 
 thies, and to produce felicity by means of moral 
 order, recognise that only unchanging precedent 
 by which, while the frame of nature holds, the 
 free-will of man, is invited by the good-will of 
 God, to model the theory of every law, regulation, 
 and institution, effecting the organization of the 
 artificial social system, and therefore, the happi- 
 ness, temporal and eternal, of all associated beings. 
 Not only, therefore, should the reasoning powers 
 of all men, in all ranks, be cultivated, but those 
 powers, so cultivated, applied to the study of the 
 social science in all its branches, public as well as 
 private ! The social duties of private life, none deny 
 to be the concern of all, while those who recognize 
 the happiness of man to be the will of God, and 
 discern conformity to that will, to be both the duty 
 and the interest of man, must perceive, that even
 
 OF HAPPINESS. 57 
 
 to withhold a kindly smile, or to infuse uncalled for 
 harshness into the tone of the voice, is a wanton in- 
 fringement of the social duties, and therefore, of the 
 will of God. But why, it may be asked, should 
 all men study those branches of the social science 
 connected with legislation? all men are not destined 
 to be legislators ! The reply is simply this — be- 
 cause all men must command, obey, or disobey. 
 Now, though God himself, in organizing our bo- 
 dily frames, and our natural relations, has given 
 us, independent of free-will, the foundations of our 
 sympathies, our reason, and our first associations, 
 he has committed to free-will the organization of 
 the artificial social system, on which depends our 
 after-associations, and, consequently, the perfecting 
 of those sympathies, and the cultivation, and appli- 
 cation of that reason. Those who command, there- 
 fore, having especially in their hands the organiza- 
 tion of the artificial social system, have to perform 
 functions in the modification of mind, second only 
 to those of the Almighty himself! While those 
 who obey, give force to the commands of those 
 who command ; and, again, those who disobey, 
 break the force of command : it is necessary, 
 therefore, for every member of the whole family of 
 man, to comprehend the tendency of every institu- 
 tion, which forms any portion of the artificial social 
 system under which he lives, as well as the funda- 
 mental distinction between bad and good govern- 
 ment ; that, neither by commanding nor obeying,
 
 58 THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 he may be guilty of enforcing injustice, nor yet by 
 disobeying, of depriving justice of due force ! 
 
 In a representative government, also like that of 
 Great Britain, where every individual on whom 
 God has bestowed the gift of reason, and who has 
 cultivated that gift, is, or ought to be, in spirit a 
 member of the government, in virtue of his vote, 
 freely given in the choice of his representative : 
 if he has no opinions on the subject of government, 
 how shall he be truly represented ? and, still worse, 
 what shall preserve him from being purchased ? 
 If he have selfish, party, or, in any way, biased 
 opinions, his being truly represented will be inju- 
 rious to the cause of truth. It is clear, therefore, 
 that the happiness of man will never be in safe 
 keeping till every human being (possessed of rea- 
 son) is taught to know in what good government 
 consists, and this done (though not till this be 
 done) that suffrage ought to be universal ! 
 
 The important suffrage of public opinion, also, 
 how is that to be rendered both just and uniform, 
 and therefore effectual, but by rendering a know- 
 ledge of all that regards the well-being of associated 
 man universal ? 
 
 Wherefore is it, that with a population of twenty- 
 five millions of people, we have hitherto had no 
 effectual public opinion ? Because, hitherto, each 
 particular class, order, trade, manufacture, etc. 
 has thought only, of what it has been artfully
 
 OF HAPPINESS. 59 
 
 taught to consider, its own particular interests. 
 Thus, in the wretched scramble of self-defeating 
 selfishness, absurdly denominated the nice balanc- 
 ing of interests, while the rights of all are being 
 trampled beneath the feet of the struggling com- 
 petitors for more than justice, and every portion 
 of the public, clamours for that which to grant 
 would be injustice to every other portion, their 
 conflicting claims can but resemble the confusion 
 of tongues at the Tower of Babel, and operate to 
 defeat the purposes of all ! 
 
 No wonder this nice balancing of every other 
 interest, which, during the triumphant reign of the 
 interest of dishonesty, so long enabled the enemies 
 of the people, and therefore of God, to turn, if not 
 with a feather, literally with a ribbon or a garter, 
 the great scales of truth and justice into a lie, no 
 wonder this convenient, this easily upset balance, 
 this paralysing of every influence in the nation but 
 that of corruption, constituted and constitutes, in 
 the eyes of both the corrupted and the corrupting, 
 a glorious constitution ! Let us hear no more 
 then, (from honest men at least) of nicely balanced 
 interests ; but let the standard of public morality 
 be raised to that of equal justice : in short, let all 
 unite with all, in requiring justice for all, and 
 no more than justice for themselves, and the 
 sovereignty of public opinion shall be established, 
 and the voice of the people become, without a
 
 60 THE PHILOSOPHY 
 
 paradox, the voice of God. For, be it remember- 
 ed, that it is only while public opinion is itself 
 misjudging, misinformed, or not informed at all^ 
 that misrule obtains. May legislators, then inno- 
 cently await the formation, and manifestation of a 
 uniform public opinion, before they have any duties 
 to perform ? Certainly not. If the question could 
 be answered in the affirmative, such answer would 
 pronounce legislators useless encumbrances, and 
 the machinery of legislation, a vast expenditure of 
 the public money without a legitimate object. 
 
 Also, for an enlightened and unanimous public 
 opinion to obtain unaided, in the first instance, by 
 a favourable organization of the artificial social 
 system, many precious years might yet be lost in 
 individual efforts to dispel the mists of ignorance : 
 and when those mists were at length dispelled, a 
 struggle, though ultimately a successful one, might 
 still await the cause of honesty. Let then, whoso- 
 ever may be in authority when these lines shall 
 meet their eye, if they would be the benefactors of 
 mankind ; if they w^ould accelerate, perhaps by 
 ages, the advent of virtue and felicity ; if they 
 would be the vice-gerents of Almighty benevo- 
 lence ; if they would not ignobly wait to follow in 
 the train of the glorious victory over pride, avarice, 
 ignorance, prejudice, selfishness, and misery, which, 
 they have been appointed to lead on ; let them cast 
 from them for ever, yet another of the boasted
 
 OF HAPPINESS, Gl 
 
 balances of the days of misrule : namely, the 
 morality-lowering, misery-deepening expedient of 
 balancing, not only influence against influence, but 
 wrong against wrong, monopoly against monopoly, 
 in short, unjust actual money gain, against unjust 
 actual money loss, and deal out to all men, parties, 
 and interests, equal justice fearlessly : that is to 
 say, sweep away at once every monopoly, restric- 
 tion on trade, interference with industry, or partial 
 privilege whatsoever, and commute every tax, 
 direct and indirect, for one direct tax on realized 
 property. At the same time lending the arm of 
 power, to the diftusion among all ranks and classes 
 of men, of an education* calculated to lead the 
 reasoning powers of every individual, to recognise 
 the Almighty purpose of creation, to be the exten- 
 sion of felicity, by means of moral order, and to 
 perceive the portion of that purpose, which it is 
 the duty, and for the happiness of each, to co-ope- 
 rate with all in fulfilling. 
 
 To conclude, then, the philosophy of happiness 
 may be defined : religion, morality, and legislation 
 made one, by that good will to all which necessarily 
 includes equal justice and active benevolence, and 
 which is found, visibly revealed, in all the works of 
 God. 
 
 * Among means to this end, the estabhshment of the National 
 Model School, recommended by Mr. Smith in his " Suggestions 
 on National Education," would be very beneficial.
 
 62 THE PHILOSOPHY OF HAPPINESS. 
 
 And, as well might we sunder the living frame 
 of man, and expect the several portions to perform 
 their functions apart, as break this unity of the 
 will of God, and hope the attainment of felicity, 
 either temporal or eternal, from any less connected 
 views of religious, moral, and social obligation.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ON THE WEALTH CREATING ATTRIBUTES OF LABOUR, 
 AND THE CONSEQUENT RIGHTS OF THE LABOUR- 
 ING OR WEALTH CREATING CLASSES. 
 
 " Labour was the first price, the original purchase money that 
 was paid for all things." — Adam Smith. 
 
 " No doubt the rights of property are sacred. Not less hal- 
 lowed, however, are the rights of industry, that most valuable of 
 all property." — Sir Peter Payne, Bart. 
 
 The earth, without labour, will not yield us her 
 increase ; that increase yielded to labour, without 
 further labour, is of little value, the gold of the 
 mine itself is not wealth, till labour has brought it 
 forth. Labour then, being the origin of all wealth, 
 while the strength to labour is a possession given 
 by the universal Father in nearly equal portions to 
 all his children, why should any but the idle know 
 the misery of want ? and more especially, why 
 should that misery, the misery of want, be the 
 peculiar portion of those whose daily occupation is 
 the creation of wealth ? Accumulation is not what
 
 64 ATTRIBUTES OF LABOUR. 
 
 is here spoken of, but creation. Every shilling 
 accumulated by the capitalist must be first created 
 by some pair of labouring hands ; all the capital 
 he employs, in putting labour in motion, must first 
 have been created somewhere by labour. If the 
 idle man's money be out at interest, and he save 
 that interest, we talk of fortunes made by the 
 accumulation of interest ; but hands must be at 
 actual labour somewhere creating that interest, or 
 there would be no increase to accumulate. In 
 short, wheresoever honey may be found, the 
 working bee alone can have produced that honey. 
 Wherefore, is it then that the creators of all wealth 
 are the poor ? That poor man, and labourer, which 
 is wealth creator, are synonimous terms ? That 
 those whose labour first causes the earth to yield 
 its produce, and then converts that produce into 
 every necessary, every comfort, every convenience, 
 every luxury, and every means of enjoyment, live 
 themselves without comfort, without luxury, with- 
 out enjoyment, and yet, though thus consuming 
 next to nothing of all the riches they create, and 
 still continuing to create riches, still continue to be, 
 proverbially, the poor ? Is it not manifest that such 
 " a disposition of things " could not possibly have 
 been produced, neither can it be maintained with- 
 out a fearful perversion of " equal justice " some 
 where. For, that if the principle of injustice were 
 not always in active operation, counteracting the 
 constant efforts of industry, that, whatever individual
 
 ATTRIBUTES OF LABOUR. GT) 
 
 poverty might at ciny time have been induced, \\he- 
 ther by misfortune, by idleness, or by vice, the pre- 
 valence of poverty, generally among the industrious, 
 must have been rendered impossible by the very 
 wealth-creating, and therefore self-renovating attri- 
 butes of labour. The distress of the labouring classes 
 is a phrase so commonly in use, that we hear it with- 
 out surprise ; yet, when translated into the language 
 of hteral truth, what a strange anomaly does it 
 convey — the poverty of the creators of riches ! 
 By what title then have we, the idle, the enjoying 
 few, thus converted the great mass of our fellow 
 creatures, for our own special convenience, into 
 one enormous non-consuming productive power, 
 resembling that of mere machinery ? Non-con- 
 suming of comfort or enjoyment is what is here 
 intended to be understood ; for, as to the miserable 
 portion of bare sustinance consumed by the gene- 
 rality of labourers, it may be considered as some- 
 what on a par with the common repairs of the 
 spinning jenny or the steam engine. Nor is it 
 always that even this bare subsistance can be 
 obtained by the labourer in quantities sufficient 
 to keep the human machine in tolerable repair ! 
 How did all this arise ? Knowledge, we are told, 
 is power. Did the few who first obtained this 
 power misuse it, and by the cunning it imparted 
 get possession of the whole surface of the inhabited 
 earth, and then envying the rest of mankind the 
 only possession they had left them, the strength of 
 
 F
 
 GG ATTRIBUTES OF LABOUR. 
 
 their own limbs, devise enactments, too intricate 
 for the unlearned to understand, tending to draw 
 to these, the subtle few, all that the strength of the 
 labouring many could produce, with the exception 
 of the smallest possible portion of the coursest 
 necessaries, by which the labouring many can be 
 kept alive, to labour on for the accommodation, 
 in every possible way, of the privileged few? 
 If the answer to this question be in the affirmative, 
 if it be indeed true that even mistaken and partially 
 imparted knowledge was power, and, in the hands 
 of the few, was used for evil and unequal purposes, 
 let enlightened and widely diffused knowledge be 
 still greater power, and, in the hands of the many, 
 who have a common interest in giving that they 
 may receive justice, rectify the evils which, in 
 the hands of the few, its spurious predecessor has 
 produced. 
 
 It will probably be said that the existence of 
 property seems to be forgotten, and that property 
 purchases labour. But what is property? With 
 the exception of little more than the briar and the 
 thistle, only another name for the accumulated 
 creations of labour. ' ' What is bought with money 
 or with goods," says Adam Smith, " is purchased 
 by labour as much as what we acquire by the toil 
 of our own body. It was not by gold or by silver, 
 but by labour that all the wealth of the world was 
 originally purchased." 
 
 By what acts of savage violence, perpetrated
 
 ATTRIBUTES OF LABOUR. 07 
 
 by the demon of war, or by what other means, 
 whether of subtlety, or of oppression, sanctioned 
 by barbarous ages, both the surface of the earth, 
 and all the hitherto accumulated creations of la- 
 bour, have passed into the hands of the few and 
 the idle, to the utter exclusion of the many and 
 laborious, may well be matter of wondering spe- 
 culation : it would, however, be at present a use- 
 less inquiry. For the sake of order, for the love 
 of peace, for the sake of the property hereafter 
 to be created, let the rights of property, as they 
 now stand, be held sacred. It is the future rights 
 of labour, the honest distribution of the wealth 
 henceforward to be created by labour, that must 
 be regulated on the unerring principle of good-will 
 to all ; unerring, because necessarily including 
 equal justice, that good-will not being to all, which 
 sanctions injustice to any: on thus regulating 
 the distribution of the future creations of labour, 
 the relief of all present misery, and the growth of 
 all future prosperity depend. How then this is 
 to be accomplished, is the most vitally important 
 of all practical questions. Let not the reply to it 
 be forgotten ! This end then, so desirable, can be 
 attained only, by establishing such relative pro- 
 portions between the price of raw produce, and 
 the price of labour, as shall secure to the labourer 
 all the necessaries, comforts, and decencies of life, 
 in exchange for a reasonable portion of his time, 
 
 F 2
 
 G8 ATTRIBUTES OF LABOUR. 
 
 and his strength, expended in labour.* It will 
 perhaps be objected, that what is here demanded 
 may not be always possible. To this objection 
 it is replied that, as long as infinite numbers of 
 idle lookers-on are enjoying, in the most wanton 
 profusion, the very necessaries, conveniences, and 
 luxuries, thus being produced before their eyes, 
 by the operation of labour on comparative valueless 
 portions of raw produce, equal justice will never 
 pronounce, that there is not a sufficiency of all 
 things so produced, for the use of the producers. 
 " It is but equity that they who feed, clothe, and 
 lodge, the whole body of the people, should have 
 such a share of the produce of their own labour, 
 as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and 
 lodged. f" If the raw produce is now the property 
 of the lookers-on, the labour, at least, is still 
 the property of the labourer. The labourer's in- 
 terest, therefore, in the article produced, his por- 
 tion of its value, must, on every principle which 
 includes equal justice, be, at least, as sacred as 
 any other rights of propertyj. His portion, it will 
 probably be said, is his wages, and that he re- 
 
 * See the political work of Colonel Torrens. 
 
 t Adam Smith. 
 
 ^ " Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the com," 
 says the word of God. Will that God, who thus vouchsafes 
 to establish the rights of the labouring oxen, take no account 
 of the labouring man ?
 
 ATTRIBUTES OF LABOUR. 69 
 
 ceives. But, by what rule is that portion regu- 
 lated ? By what standard, with relation to the 
 cost of raw produce, in which is meant to be 
 included the first necessaries which are the main- 
 tenance of the producer, is that portion measured? 
 This is the pivot on which the whole question 
 between legislation and oppression turns. 
 
 If the artificial or act of parliament price put 
 on protected raw produce is such, that the market 
 or competition price to be had, for not only un- 
 protected, but artificially depressed labour, will 
 not maintain the labourer while at work, whatever 
 may be the amount of his nominal wages, is he 
 not robbed of his real wages ? 
 
 The scripture denunciation against dishonest 
 weights, and false measures, seems to have been 
 pronounced, with a peculiar view to cases of sweep- 
 ing injustice, such as this : for, woe indeed must 
 be the portion of that nation which falsifies, or 
 suffers to be falsified, this, the standard measure 
 of all national weal ! 
 
 Why is a stranger, as described by the Author 
 of England and America, when travelling in Eng- 
 land, amazed at the inordinate luxuries, the fairy- 
 tale splendours, the masses of heaped up wealth, 
 among certain classes, and, side by side, the utter 
 destitution of the majority of those, by the spell 
 of whose industry, the scene of enchantment has 
 been produced ? Why, but because this false 
 measure, this undue price of the produce of land,
 
 70 ATTRIBUTES OF LABOUR. 
 
 with relation to the produce of labour, is daily 
 absorbing the wealth, which the hands of the whole 
 labouring multitude, are daily creating ; whilet he 
 multitude, unconscious of the causes of their pro- 
 longed penury, or hoping by prolonged toil to 
 surmount them, redouble their exertions, and for 
 sixteen hours out of the four and twenty, continue 
 to create wealth, and yet, continue to be poor ; 
 the very rich, enjoying, the while, an increased 
 command of luxuries, springing, like the verdure 
 of the grave, with unnatural luxuriance, out of the 
 very misery, which this false standard produces 
 and maintains. For the secondary, or remoter 
 consequences, of the existence of this false standard, 
 being, not only to lessen the ability of millions to 
 make purchases in the home market, but to render 
 fair competition with those who measure and are 
 measured to by an honest standard in foreign 
 markets, impossible, the markets both home and 
 foreign are thus contracted, and the labour market, 
 consequently, so over stocked, that the fruits of 
 strained ingenuity, and cruelly prolonged labour, 
 are hourly pressed (for prices next to nothing), 
 upon the said very rich, who alone have a surplus, 
 after the purchase of dear necessaries, wherewith 
 to buy such ; in short, in a country where neces- 
 saries are dear, and luxuries are cheap, misery 
 must dwell. How often are articles, little prized, 
 and not at all wanted, purchased, expressly, as a 
 charity, while the producer, has possibly sacrificed
 
 ATTRIBUTES OF LABOUR. 71 
 
 to their production, his natural rest, or the longed 
 for recreation of breathing the fresh air ? Yet, 
 this spurious sort of charity, this purchasing of 
 what we do not want, as long as the false mea- 
 sure is in use, is certainly better tlian suffering 
 the unemployed labourer to perish for want of 
 food. But would it not be better still, to give 
 the labourer a sufficiency of bread in exchange 
 for what we do want, and instead of giving our 
 surplus for what we do not want, yet which costs 
 him a painful degree of toil, give it in rectifying 
 the false measure, and establishing, at whatever 
 sacrifice of nominal rental might be necessary, if 
 any were necessary, such a relative proportion 
 between the price of raw produce, and the price 
 of labour, as should secure to the creators of all 
 wealth, an honest interest in the wealth they so 
 created? no juggle of nominal high sounding 
 wages, coupled with an obligation to throw those 
 wages away agam in markets for first necessaries, 
 made ruinously high by act of Parliament. 
 " Every man," says Adam Smith, " is rich or 
 poor according to the degree in which he can 
 afford to enjoy the necessaries, comforts, and con- 
 veniences of human life." 
 
 To secure these to industry, is the one thing 
 needful to national prosperity. The legislator who 
 has effected this, having, like the great Ruler of 
 the universe at the first creation of the world, 
 adapted causes to the production of good by their
 
 72 ATTRIBUTES OF LABOUR. 
 
 own unavoidable consequences, may rest from his 
 labours — his great work is done. 
 
 But how is this great work to be accomplished ? 
 
 By rectifying the false measure already men- 
 tioned ; that is, by suffering the produce of land, 
 and the produce of labour, to adjust themselves, 
 in markets free from all restrictions. This alone, 
 would ensure at once, not only abundance of 
 food, but such an extension of trade, as would 
 relieve the labour market from ruinous competi- 
 tion, and increase national wealth, till public bur- 
 dens should be no longer felt as such. Yet, we, 
 in the face of principles so simple, so self-evident, 
 with insane policy, frame deliberate acts of par- 
 liament, making all raw produce, by law arti- 
 ficially scarce, and therefore dear, and labour 
 therefore relatively cheap, and again, by the opera- 
 tion of a further consequence : namely, the con- 
 traction of trade, becoming in its turn a cause, 
 render even this cheap labour a drug in the labour 
 market, and so prevent its following the price of 
 food, and finding its own level, as would be the 
 case, if labour were also, relatively to the inten- 
 sity of demand scarce. These acts of parliament, 
 which operate as taxes upon, or additions to the 
 cost of bread, meat, butter, cheese, beer, cottage 
 rent, and the raw material of house building, ship 
 building, and all manufactured goods, these are 
 the true causes of that most unrighteous of all 
 anomalies — the poverty of tlie creators of riches ;
 
 ATTRIBUTES OF LABOUR. 73 
 
 in common parlance, " the distress of the la- 
 bouring classes." 
 
 Acts of parliament, should be acts of pubUc 
 opinion. The great object then of benevolence 
 ought to be, so to rectify public opinion on these 
 points, that acts of parliament such as these al- 
 luded to, should make way for acts of public 
 opinion, based on the principle of good will to 
 all, necessarily including equal justice. 
 
 We measure our horses' oats to them, in return 
 for their labour, by the feed, not by any money 
 price, which circumstances may put on their ser- 
 vices. Why are we thus just to them ? Because 
 they are our property ; if they die, we lose money. 
 But if we can cheat the poor operative with no- 
 minal wages, while we put such a price on corn, 
 and all other necessaries, that he can buy but 
 half a feed, when he should have had a whole 
 feed, we let him take his chance, put himself on 
 short allowance if he chooses, or work the harder; 
 should he die in the effort, we lose nothing, we 
 do not even suffer inconvenience ; there are other 
 labourers waiting in the market place, who will do 
 our work as well. 
 
 Let us suppose a couple, possessed of a small 
 garden, and having a family of children. Suppose 
 those children able to earn wages at various trades, 
 yet completely under the control of their parents ; 
 suppose these parents to forbid their children the 
 use of any other food, than the produce of the said
 
 74 ATTRIBUTES OF LABOUR. 
 
 small garden, and to make them pay out of their 
 wages for that produce, twice or three times the 
 price such food could he procured for in the com- 
 mon market, and that, in consequence of this cruel 
 restriction, the children were obliged to work 
 nearly night and day, and that still all the wages 
 they could earn, would not buy above half enough 
 of such dear food, and that therefore, they were 
 double worked, and but half fed, while their parents, 
 by obliging them to buy the vegetables of the said 
 garden, at the said exorbitant prices, got posses- 
 sion of all their wages, and with those wages, 
 without doing any work themselves, they were 
 enabled to purchase the most wanton superfluities, 
 in luxuries of food, and fineries of clothing, and 
 ostentation of equipage, for their own special use, 
 which they never shared with their children, 
 except, they perchance gave to one who fell sick 
 from hardships and w^ant of food, some remnant of 
 a meal; calling the action charity, and laying 
 claim to the character of benevolence for its per- 
 formance. Or, perhaps, permitted another to 
 spend the precious hour, due to rest or recreation, 
 in the creation of some superfluous toy, and then 
 bought it of them with a part of the money they 
 had wronged them of in the price of their food, 
 declaring they did not want the toy, and only 
 bought it for charity ! What should we think of 
 such parents? Yet, are not those who have 
 possession of the authority, and of the land, and
 
 ATTRIBUTES OF LABOUR. 75 
 
 who would keep up corn laws and other restric- 
 tions on the importation of food, that they may be 
 able to exact higher rents than could else be paid, 
 and live in a more splendid style than they could 
 else afford, just such parents to the industrious 
 classes, as have been here described ; except, 
 indeed, that there are a thousand collateral and 
 complicated hardships attendant upon the actual 
 national wrong, which the supposed family wrong 
 does not reach. 
 
 We ought to be independent of all foreign 
 countries for our supplies of food, say the land- 
 lords. But can we make this country also 
 independent of all foreign countries for markets for 
 all its manufactures ? If not, we cannot, without 
 crying dishonesty to the labourer, use means (effect- 
 ing the exchangeable value of labour) to make this 
 country independent of foreign countries for its 
 supplies of food. We have hitherto talked of 
 reciprocal protection, (that is reciprocal robbery,) 
 and " all the same thing to the labourer," etc. 
 and attempted to legislate, as though we had the 
 power of realizing an equal pressure in the artificial 
 scale of prices. 
 
 But we seem to have lost sight of one glaring fact, 
 w^hich, while our territory is limited, must upset 
 the balance of any restrictive system ; namely, that 
 while we have no surplus, over our own consump- 
 tion, of the produce of land, we have an immense 
 surplus, over our own consumption, of the produce
 
 76 ATTRIBUTES OF LABOUR. 
 
 of labour, that is of manufactures. Therefore, to 
 protect, nominally, every thing in the home market, 
 is in fact to protect, really, nothing but rents — for, 
 as to agricultural labour, and agricultural profits, 
 they must always suffer with, that is be brought to 
 a level by manufacturing labour, and manufacturing 
 profits.* The option, therefore, of establishing an 
 arbitrary scale of prices, can never rest with us, un- 
 til our Parliament has the same authority ove rthe 
 markets in which the surplus of our labour, that 
 is, of our manufacture must be sold, if sold at all, 
 that it has in the market in which it compels us to 
 buy our bread, at an artificial price. 
 
 But, though Parliament can control price, it 
 cannot control prices ! Though it can heap one 
 scale, it cannot put a feather into the other ! 
 Buying and selling, therefore, under such necessa- 
 rily one-sided restrictive laws, is a mere mockery. 
 
 As well might legislating landowners levy their 
 arbitrary demands at once, as our ministers of 
 peace and love do their tithes, by the point of the 
 sword, as, like Brennus of old, fling the sword of 
 power into the scale, to enhance the weight of the 
 gold demanded ! A majority of a house of land- 
 lords, throwing out a bill for the abolition of the 
 corn laws, is merely a modern repetition of the 
 insolent Gaul's " V(s victis.^'-f 
 
 * See Torrens, on Wages and Combination, 
 t " Woe to the conquered \"
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ON THE SOURCES OF NATIONAL WEALTH. 
 
 There is no country in which the whole annual produce is employed 
 in maintaining the industrious. The idle every where consume 
 a great part of it ; according to the proportions in which it is 
 divided between these two orders, its value must increase or di- 
 minish. — Adam Smith. 
 
 What are the sources of a nation's wealth ? 
 
 The most important are, first, the marketable 
 value, in the market of the world, of the natural 
 productions of its soil, over and above the cost of 
 production. Secondly, the value added by its la- 
 bour to raw material, home or foreign, over and 
 above the cost of the raw material, whether im- 
 ported or produced at home ; and the cost of pre- 
 paring the finished goods for, and bringing them to, 
 market. Thirdly, the amount of its profitably em- 
 ployed capital. Fourthly, the productiveness of the 
 field on which the capital is sown. 
 
 If a nation devote its soil to the production of an 
 article which, in the market of the world, would
 
 78 ON THE SOURCES ^1 .■ 
 
 •^3^3 
 
 not sell for the cost of production, does its land 
 continue to be a source of national wealth ? 
 
 Certainly not. On the contrary, it becomes a 
 cause of national loss, by inducing an outlay of 
 capital and of labour, which are never replaced. 
 
 Under such circumstances, what portion of the 
 produce of the soil, is justly due to the landlord as 
 rent ? 
 
 No portion ! he having rendered himself not only 
 a pauper, but a bankrupt debtor, by' a 'misuse of 
 his own property, in which misuse a portion of the 
 property of others is involved. 
 
 Wliat national wealth, or national property, re- 
 mains to a nation so circumstanced ? 
 
 The proportion of productive labour which its 
 population can furnish, which its capital can set in 
 motion, and for the productions of which a market 
 can be found. If, therefore, we would have such 
 a nation prosper, we must inquire what are the 
 best means of supplying, sustaining, and stimulating 
 its productive industry. 
 
 Do we supply productive industry while we en- 
 deavour to check population, or to encourage emi- 
 gration ? Certainly not.* Do we sustain pro- 
 ductive industry while we tax bread, meat, butter, 
 cheese, tea, sugar, and beer ? Certainly not. Do we 
 
 * While a free trade in corn is refused, emigration, like bleed- 
 ing in acute inflammation, may possibly be a necessary sacrifice to 
 urgent circumstances : but it is still a sacrifice.
 
 OF NATIONAL WEALTH. 79 
 
 stimulate productive industry, while we deny to the 
 labourer the hope of securing, by his utmost exer- 
 tions, even the necessaries, much less the comforts 
 and decencies, of life ? Most certainly not. 
 
 What wealth is lost to the whole nation ? 
 
 That accumulation of the creations of labour, 
 which goes in artificial prices to a foreign monopo- 
 list, whether in the shape of a greater quantity of 
 printed calico, Birmingham hardware, or gold pieces. 
 
 What wealth is utterly lost, not only to the 
 nation in which the error is committed, but to the 
 whole world ? 
 
 Whatever is the surplus cost of any forced 
 production, over and above what the same pro- 
 duction could be procured for, from any other 
 country. 
 
 Under what circumstances will the extreme folly, 
 and sinful waste of such forced production, be per- 
 sisted in, when found to be a loss ? 
 
 When protections are granted to monopolists ; 
 without which false support, forced production, if 
 tried once, would not be resorted to a second time, 
 for the best of reasons, because the whole of the 
 dead loss, would fall upon the projectors of the idle 
 scheme, of course, on those who held the power 
 in their own hands, of stopping the losing game. 
 
 When protection screens the unwise producer, 
 from the loss incurred by his imprudent production, 
 on whom does the loss fall ? 
 
 Most unjustly on the consumer, who, however
 
 80 ON THE SOURCES 
 
 wise or prudent he may be, has no means of escap- 
 ing the consequences of the folly of other people, 
 but by entering into a league with the smuggler. 
 
 Does the labourer lose the extra labour expended 
 in forced production ? 
 
 Not in the first instance, he being paid the mar- 
 ket price of labour, for this labour, as for any other. 
 It is when the master producer assumes ~ as in the 
 case of the landowner's monopoly — or is given by 
 unjust favour, as in the case of the West India 
 sugar monopolists, the power of putting the extra 
 cost of his misjudged forced production, together 
 with a profit for himself, in the shape of artificial 
 price, on the article produced, and of prohibiting 
 the rest of the community, from purchasing the 
 article where it has been produced cheaply, and 
 therefore can be sold at a lower price. Under 
 these circumstances it is that the labourer, if a con- 
 sumer of the protected article, is compelled to give 
 away to the master producer, as much of his labour 
 as went in earning the extra portion of his wages, 
 wdiich it takes to make up the artificial price of the 
 article in question, over and above w4iat that article 
 could have been obtained for in a free market. It 
 is thus that the infatuation of a forced production 
 in corn, supported by the injustice of protection, 
 robs the labourer in this country, in his capacity of 
 consumer, of half his earnings. 
 
 What is attainable national wealth not attained ? 
 
 The power to labour, or create wealth, misap-
 
 OF NATIONAL WEALTH. 81 
 
 plied or kept quiescent, by a forced limitation, or 
 arbitrary direction of trade ; and capital, or the 
 seed of wealth, kept unsown, or scattered unpro- 
 ductively, by a wilful limitation, or improper choice 
 of field. 
 
 What nation will the most rapidly, and most 
 surely become wealthy, not in the mere conven- 
 tional mediums of exchange, lying in motionless 
 masses ; but in true national wealth, that is, in 
 the ability of the greatest number of its inhabi- 
 tants, to enjoy the greatest quantity of necessaries, 
 comforts, and decencies? 
 
 That nation which is itself a skilful and adroit 
 manufacturing community, and which can obtain, 
 in exchange for the products of the skill and 
 labour of its inhabitants, the greatest quantities 
 of food to sustain them while at work, and of 
 raw material to which again to add a new value, 
 by new labour, and again exchange for a new 
 profit. 
 
 Does the artificial price, paid to the home mono- 
 polist,' take wealth out of the kingdom ? No ; 
 it only, like any other fraud, or breach of the 
 principle of good- will to all, transfers wealth un- 
 justly from one portion of the community to 
 another. In its immediate consequences, therefore, 
 it neither increases nor decreases the existing 
 national fund. But we must look at its remoter 
 consequences : if the artificial price, paid to the 
 monopolist, whether home or foreign, be on food, 
 
 G
 
 82 ON THE SOURCES 
 
 or raw material, and that the goods to be ma- 
 nufactured are intended for any foreign market 
 open to the competition of goods produced by 
 those who do not pay a monopoly price for food 
 or raw material, the labourer and capitalist must 
 abate a portion of that part of the price of the ar- 
 ticle, which they might else have divided between 
 them, as the wages of labour, and profit on capi- 
 tal ; or they must give up the market, and bring 
 their goods home again. But, if the wrought 
 goods thus rendered useless in the foreign market, 
 are sold much under their value in the home 
 market, will national wealth be thereby increased, 
 or decreased ? 
 
 Of existing wealth, itself, the transaction would 
 be but another unjust transfer; but of the end 
 of wealth, happiness, it would occasion consider- 
 able loss, by depriving many of subsistence, to 
 bestow^ needless luxuries upon others. Of future 
 wealth, it would also occasion incalculable loss, 
 by causing large portions of the seeds of wealth 
 to be consumed, without yielding the usual in- 
 crease, and thus hindering the growth of national 
 wealth, almost indefinitely. 
 
 If a nation, limited in surface, and therefore 
 hmited in the natural productions of food and 
 raw material, yet all but unlimited in skill and 
 industry, therefore all but unlimited in the power 
 of converting raw material into manufactured 
 goods, refuse to take in exchange for those goods, 
 the raw produce of which it stands so much in
 
 OF NATIONAL WEALTH. 83 
 
 need, from countries having no other exchanges 
 to offer but raw produce, and that consequently, 
 it is shut out from the markets of those countries, 
 what must be the unavoidable result? 
 
 The loss of all such additions to its national 
 wealth, as might have been obtained by selling 
 its unlimited possessions in skill and industry to 
 foreign nations. 
 
 Without discussing here the ultimate impossibi- 
 lity, under such circumstances, of feeding a rapidly 
 increasing population, on a very limited territory, 
 it is sufficient to remark, that though a resort to 
 one or other of the clumsy contrivances, namely, 
 emigration, or an interdict on increase ; might, 
 if either could be enforced, arrest the progress of 
 an absolute famine ; all hope of an increase of 
 national wealth, must, at the same time, be laid 
 aside, and the public burdens, of which we so 
 much complain, still press upon us with equal 
 weight ; because we refuse to suffer countless 
 shoulders to arise, and by assisting us to carry 
 them, render them relatively light. 
 
 The whole question, therefore, of whether or not 
 unlimited increase of population, with unrestricted 
 supply of cheap food, and cheap raw material, 
 imported from the alluvial soils of foreign coun- 
 tries, would or w^ould not ensure unlimited in- 
 crease of national wealth, just turns on this further 
 (juestion : Are there any means within our reach, 
 by which an unlimited market can be provided, for 
 
 G 2
 
 84 ON Tiir-: sources 
 
 tlic produce of" [he. I;i1)()ur of oui' rnanufactiirinj^ 
 populiilion, oil terms affording a sufficient surplus 
 over the cost ol production, to be tlic price of 
 l;»l)our, and profit on ca|)ital ? As long as such 
 market can he found, such |)rice of labour, and 
 profit on (capital is so nmch added to the fund of 
 national wealth. Tlu! greater the number of such 
 surpluses which arc imported, in whatever shaj)e, 
 tlie greater the aggregate of national wealth ; which 
 l)rings us round to the |)lain self-evident conclu- 
 sion, as true of a nianufacturing nation, as of a 
 single factory, Ihal, increase in the mnnber ol" 
 prolilably employed hands, i,s increase of wealth. 
 In as much therefore, as the master manufacturer 
 who so employs the greatest number of hands, 
 and recjuires the fewest idle overseers, or servants 
 for mere ostentation, can uffor^d to pay the highest 
 rent, and enjoy the greatest comforts, so can the 
 nation, that em])loys the greatest manufacturing 
 |)opulation, and maintains the few^est non-produc- 
 tive consumers, best afford to ])ay such piddic 
 burthens, as may be necessary to its security, 
 or to its greatness, without encroaching upon the 
 private comfoits of its inhabitants. 
 
 Always premising, therefore, what shall be fully 
 shown in a futuie chapter,* that an unlimited 
 market can be secured to the productions of in- 
 dustry, every birth prevented, is the possible 
 
 * Chapter IX.
 
 OF NATIONAL WEALTH. .85 
 
 growth of ci portion of national wealtli prevented. 
 Every productive labourer encouraged to emigrate 
 is a portion of wealth lost to the national fund, 
 unless he be sent expressly to plant in the desert 
 a new nation of customers ; in which case, he is a 
 portion of national wealth invested, with a view 
 to a greater distant return, to which a lesser im- 
 mediate return is sacrificed. 
 
 Test our whole system of monopolies, protec- 
 tions, indirect taxation, and all other interferences 
 with trade, in other words, hindrances to the 
 creation of wealth, by these simple principles, and 
 their evils will be self-evident, especially the corn 
 or bread monopoly, which, so tried, comes out in 
 its true light, as an all-pervading cause of mischief, 
 which, in the operation of its widely diffused con- 
 sequences, diminishes the productiveness of all the 
 elements of national wealth. First, by closing the 
 foreign, and contracting the home market, and 
 thus rendering capital, like so much seed, without 
 a field in which it may be sown, with a fair hope 
 of increase. Secondly, by lessening the actual 
 number of labourers, yet lessening the demand for 
 labour still more, so that the comparatively li- 
 mited quantity of labour in the labour market, is 
 lessened further in value, by being still sufficient 
 to glut an artificially contracted labour market. 
 Thirdly, by making raw material dear, and con- 
 secpiently lessening the surplus, or profit to be 
 divided between capitalist and labourer, on the
 
 86 ON THE SOURCES 
 
 limited quantity of finished goods which do find 
 a market. And lastly, by making food dear, and 
 thereby lessening again the exchangeable value of 
 the already depressed nominal profits of the capi- 
 talist, and nominal wages of the labourer. The 
 law, then, which raises the price of food and raw 
 material, while it cannot raise the price of labour, 
 or increase the strength of man, not only checks 
 the growth of national wealth, but oppresses, robs, 
 and starves the labourer ! 
 
 Of what class, among nations, may England be 
 said to be ? 
 
 Literally, an ojDerative and moneyed capitalist 
 united. Her limited territory being but a small 
 garden for the accommodation of her own family, 
 she has, as a nation, no claim, in the market of the 
 world, to the title of landowner, having nothing, 
 or next to nothing to sell, which is the produce of 
 land ; nothing, in short, to offer in exchange for 
 all she may wish to procure from other countries, 
 but labour, skill, and profit on capital. While 
 the produce of her said garden, being insufficient 
 even for the support and employment of her own 
 population, if she is to increase in numbers, and 
 in trade, she must, each year, import food and raw 
 material in greater and greater quantities ; and 
 having no other exchanges to offer, must pay for 
 them, with the value which her labour adds to them, 
 and the profits on her capital. 
 
 Is it not her interest, then, as much as that of
 
 OF NATIONAL WEALTH. 87 
 
 any individual manufacturer, or operative, that 
 food and raw material should be cheap, with rela- 
 tion to wrought goods ? 
 
 Certainly ; for her only, though, if properly 
 managed, inexhaustible mine of wealth, consisting 
 thus, in the value which her labour adds to the 
 raw produce she imports, and the profits which 
 the capital employed in setting that labour in mo- 
 tion yields, it is clear, that on the quantities of raw 
 material she in the year thus imports, and having 
 worked up again exports, and the relative prices of 
 such wrought and un wrought, exports and imports, 
 the amount of her yearly income depends. 
 
 But does not the land of Great Britain, 
 however limited, constitute her a landed pro- 
 prietor ? 
 
 At present, in name only : for, while corn laws 
 continue to foster the forced production of an 
 article, which, if sold at the market price, in the 
 market of the world, would not, on the plan on 
 which it is now cultivated, repay the costs of cul- 
 tivation. Great Britain not only derives no real 
 rental from her land, but a portion of her labour, 
 and of the prohts of her capital, are mortgaged 
 to her landowners for the payment of a nominal 
 rental ; and her land, thus rendered not national 
 property, but a tool of national oppression ; not 
 an addition to her national income, but an ad- 
 dition to her national debt. All that her land- 
 owners are justly entitled to receive as rent, and
 
 88 ON THE SOURCES 
 
 which, had it any existence, would thus constitute 
 a portion of the wealth of the nation : namely, the 
 surplus value of the produce of the land, after the 
 cost of production, being sunk by devoting the 
 land to a losing use ; all that her landowners do 
 receive as rent becomes nothing more, neither 
 less, than an unjust transfer to landowners, of the 
 creations of the labour, and the profits on the 
 capital of other classes ; so that, in fact, for agri- 
 cultural purposes, the whole of the land of Great 
 Britain is thus rendered, in the present state of 
 the European markets, worth, to the nation, less 
 than nothing. The grinding oppression, therefore, 
 to all other classes, of unjustly enhancing the price 
 of grain, is such, that the condition of every inha- 
 bitant of Great Britain, save only the landowner, 
 would be improved if every corn field in the em- 
 pire, if not devoted to some produce, other than 
 corn, or cultivated on some plan other than the pre- 
 sent, were flagged from hedge to hedge, for then, 
 Parliament could no longer forbid the importation 
 of cheap food, and while the labourer could pro- 
 cure a double share of food in exchange for his 
 labour, it matters not to him where that food was 
 grown. 
 
 But would not the labourer sutler from the loss 
 of the landowner's custom in the home market ? 
 
 On the contrary, the opening of trade, w^hich a 
 free trade in corn would occasion, would give him 
 ten customers for each one he had lost ; and each
 
 OF NATIONAL WEALTH. 89 
 
 one of the ten, would give him twice as much bread 
 for his day's work, as the one had used to give him. 
 
 By a free trade in corn, however, while the ten 
 customers were gained, the one, as shall in a 
 future chapter* be explained at length, would not 
 be lost ; as land, by being devoted to profitable, 
 instead of unprofitable purposes, would be in- 
 creased, instead of decreased in real value. But 
 does it not increase the yearly income of the 
 nation, when her landlords get a high price for 
 their corn ; or the same thing, their tenants a high 
 price to enable them to pay landlords a high rent ? 
 
 Certainly not, unless they could procure such 
 high price in a foreign market — a thing every way 
 impossible ; first, because, as already shown, Eng- 
 land has no corn to spare for the foreign market ; 
 and secondly, because, if she had, corn, as also 
 already shown, would not bring, in any foreign 
 market, the prime cost of having produced it in 
 England. Giving landlords, therefore, by law, a 
 high price for their corn in the home market, is but 
 a cruelly unjust transfer of the earnings of the poor, 
 to the pockets of the rich, without adding a fraction 
 to the sum total of national wealth ; the real value 
 to the nation of any given quantity of corn intended 
 for home consumption, depending, not on its money 
 price in the home market, but on the number of 
 mouths it can feed. So far, therefore, from the 
 
 * Chapter X.
 
 90 ON THE SOURCES 
 
 high price of corn in the home market, increasing 
 the national income, the contrary is the fact ; for, 
 when to purchase food in the home market, a dou- 
 ble share of home labour is obliged to be given, an 
 immense portion of labour — in other words, of the 
 power of creating wealth — is lost to the nation, and 
 much capital turned into unprofitable channels, 
 while greater famine and misery to the labouring 
 population is induced, than if the productive powers 
 of the soil were deteriorated one half; as, in such a 
 case, the labourer might not necessarily have an 
 equally depressed labour market to contend with, at 
 the same time with dear food, as the probable effect 
 of a deteriorated soil would be, to require more 
 labour to make it produce, which, though also a 
 national loss of so much labour, would afford some 
 temporary relief to the over-stocked labour market. 
 But when the same sum total of labour raises the 
 same sum total of corn, while yet each individual 
 labourer that can get work at all, must give a 
 double share of labour for his loaf of bread, the 
 hardship on the labourer is much greater, as many 
 will not be able to obtain the employment which 
 procures the loaf, even on these hard conditions. 
 
 Suppose a labouring man, who, from the want of 
 profitable employment, occasioned by the contrac- 
 tion of foreign trade consequent upon corn laws , spends 
 a day making a card-paper puzzle, or some other 
 " catch-penny," as the rich unfeelingly call those 
 practical evidences of a misery, the thus palpable
 
 OF NATIONAL WEALTH. 91 
 
 offspring of injustice : the sufferers, in such cases, 
 giving a proof that they are not only wilUng, hut 
 anxious to work for an honest Uvehhood. But our 
 poor man, having spent one day in completing the 
 said card-paper puzzle, spends a second day hawk- 
 ing it from door to door, and at last sells it to some 
 fine lady, for perhaps sixpence. The lady laughs 
 at the ingenuity of the toy, flings it on her table, 
 and forgets it ; while the poor man, having thus 
 got for his two days' labour sixpence, instead of 
 five, ten, or twenty shillings, goes home and buys 
 a sixpenny loaf of bread for his family, of half the 
 size it ought to be, even for the sixpence. But, sup- 
 pose the trade in corn and all things else free, and 
 consequent full employment to be had, by means 
 of our manufactures being taken in exchange for 
 corn, etc. the poor man spends his two days in 
 manufacturing some useful articles, on which he 
 gets, as wages, five, ten, or twenty shillings, besides 
 the accompanying advantages, of being able to pur- 
 chase first necessaries at reasonable prices. The 
 comforts of the poor man and his family are thus, 
 it is manifest, increased incalculably ; while the 
 only privation incurred by any one is, that the fine 
 lady must either do without card-paper puzzles, or, 
 if she still wishes for such sources of aristocratic 
 felicity, she must give a larger portion of her super- 
 fluous wealth in exchange for them. Multiply this 
 instance of the relief, which the opening of trade 
 would bestow, by millions, and what is become of
 
 92 ON THE SOURCES 
 
 the distress of the labouring, or wealth-creating 
 classes ? It no longer exists ; while the sole set-off 
 against so much good, would be that, like the lady 
 and the card-paper puzzle, the very rich would, in 
 general, be able to command fewer of the quite 
 unnecessary luxuries, they now buy, as they say 
 themselves, for charity. 
 
 Thus, full employment would be a much more 
 important benefit to the poor than cheap food, were 
 they separable, instead of being, as is the case in this 
 country, both dependent on the one cause — a free 
 trade in corn. But, were it possible to give full 
 employment while food was still dear, such persons 
 as our poor man whose case is cited above, would 
 have five, ten, or tw^enty shillings, instead of only 
 sixpence, wherewith to purchase the said dear food; 
 therefore, would their circumstances be infinitely 
 more improved by full profitable employment, even 
 without cheap food, than by cheap food, without full 
 profitable employment. Let us, however, abolish 
 the corn laws, and so give them both. 
 
 In fact, were the importation of food freely per- 
 mitted, in return for value added to raw material 
 by manufacturing labour^ not only each factory 
 workman, but each poor factory child, who could 
 thus by certain movements of its tiny fingers, 
 fill, as by enchantment, our granaries with the 
 rich harvests, wafted from the fertile vale of the 
 Mississippi, would become a sort of modern re- 
 presentative of the fabled old Aladin himself, with
 
 OF NATIONAL WEALTH. 93 
 
 his " Wonderful Lamp," who, by the simple 
 friction of his hand on the magic talisman, could 
 summon his attendant Genii around him, and cover 
 the festive board with supernatural abundance. 
 For, inasmuch as the movements of the child's 
 fingers, give to the raw cotton the surplus value 
 it acquires when wrought, whatever corn that sur- 
 plus value purchases, which did not grow on terri- 
 tory belonging to the nation, is, as far as the 
 nation is concerned, as much the absolute creation 
 of those movements, out of nothing ; that is, with- 
 out territory to be produced upon, as though the 
 sheaves of wheat came in obedience to a super- 
 natural summons, wafted on fairy wings, from a 
 world of enchantment !
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ON THE COST TO THE NATION OF MONOPOLIES, 
 PROTECTIONS AND FORCED PRODUCTION. 
 
 '' The cost of living in England is perhaps nearly doubled by our 
 suicidial policy." — Spectator. 
 
 " It seems of great importance that governments should be fully 
 convinced of the identity of public and private wealth, because 
 it is on this truth that the maintenance of social order, the 
 progress of public wealth, and the melioration of mankind, do 
 in a great measure depend." — Systematic Education. 
 
 Let us simplify the subject on which we are 
 about to enter, by looking at the whole resources 
 of the nation, whether public or private, as one 
 fund. The nation or common wealth furnishes 
 the revenue, independent of local taxation, with 
 about fifty millions per annum, including all taxes, 
 direct and indirect. We murmur at this, and talk 
 of saving a thousand here, and a million there ; 
 but we scarcely seem to remember that the nation, 
 or same common wealth, is out of pocket, over 
 and above this tifty milUons, paid to the revenue,
 
 COST OF MONOPOLIES. 95 
 
 a large indefinite sum, not less than, perhaps one 
 hundred and fifty milUons, possibly two hundred 
 millions per annum, paid by the consumer, that is 
 by us all, in artificial prices, exclusive of the share 
 of artificial price, caused by the indirect taxation 
 which produces revenue ; but additional artificial 
 prices, forming no part of the revenue, and the 
 greater portion of which is utterly lost, in merely 
 replacing the useless cost of forced production, 
 and the remainder, appropriated by monopolists 
 home and foreign, to some of whom it is an un- 
 necessary boon, granted at the expense of equal 
 justice or good-will to all, and to others of whom 
 it proves a curse, by changing the sure, though 
 moderate gainsi of regular trade, into a dangerous 
 species of gaming, while others again are only 
 repaid by their own monopoly, what they lose by 
 the monopolies of others, so that it is the pro- 
 perty which is not engaged in any trade,* and la- 
 bour, as long as the labour market is overstocked, 
 which actually bears all the loss, without any re- 
 munerating circumstance. Waving then, for the 
 present, the whole question of the practicability 
 of reducing our public expenditure, that is the 
 fifty millions per annum we pay to the revenue, 
 if we merely cease to encourage the wilful waste 
 of forced production, and to grant the needless 
 
 * Landowners, as long as they retain their bread monopoly, 
 must consent to be classed among the monopolizing traders.
 
 90 COST OF MONOPOLIES. 
 
 boon of unjust profits, by at once, on the principle 
 of good-will to all, or equal justice, sweeping 
 away all monopolies, protections, and interfer- 
 ences whatsoever with the operations of industry, 
 leaving all markets, whether for sale or purchase, 
 equally free. Monopoly prices, that is additional 
 artificial prices, over and above those occasioned 
 by customs and excise, being thus done away with, 
 it is manifest that the nation will save the whole 
 of the additional sum, of not less than, perhaps 
 one hundred and fifty millions, possibly two 
 hundred millions per annum, which she is now 
 out of pocket, over and above the fifty millions 
 per annum paid to the revenue, and that, there- 
 fore, she will be the better able to furnish the 
 revenue with the said fifty millions.* If, further, 
 the act of sweeping away protections, monopolies 
 and other injurious restrictions, be calculated to 
 clear away, at the same time, certain obstructions 
 which now choke the channels, by which new 
 capital would else flow into the national fund, the 
 removal of those obstructions, by admitting that 
 new capital, would, of course, increase that fund. 
 When that fund shall have doubled, when it shall 
 have trebled, when it shall have become ten fold, 
 
 * " In public as well as in private expenses, great wealth may 
 perhaps be admitted as an apology for great folly. But there 
 must surely be something more than ordinary absurdity in con- 
 tinuing such profusion in times of general difficulty and distress." 
 
 Adam Smith.
 
 COST OF MONOPOLIES. 97 
 
 will not the fifty millions per annum, witli which 
 that fund has to furnish the revenue, particularly 
 if raised, as hereafter to be proposed, by a per 
 centage on that fund, become, at each increase of 
 that fund, relatively, less and less ? 
 
 The grounds on which it may be considered fair 
 to calculate, that the artificial prices occasioned by 
 monopolies, protections, and forced production, 
 cost the nation, at least, somewhere about one 
 hundred and fifty millions, or possibly, two 
 hundred millions per annum, that does no one any 
 just good, over and above the fifty millions per 
 annum paid to the revenue, are as follows : — 
 
 It is a public fact, requiring no proof, that the 
 artificial prices occasioned by protections, monopo- 
 lies, forced production, and indirect taxation, 
 altogether, constitute much more, on an average, 
 than half the price of every article of consumption, 
 Mr, Kennedy, member for Tiverton, in a late 
 pamphlet of his, calculates two thirds; which, all 
 things considered, seems a very moderate calcula- 
 tion. The rates of duties, however, on most 
 articles of consumption, varying in general from 
 20 to 150 per cent, are open to all who choose to 
 glance at them. Some of the rates are very much 
 higher. Sir Robert Peel,* by way of defending the 
 Malt tax as being only 57 per cent, enumerated a 
 
 * Debate on the Malt Tax, March, 18th, 1835. 
 
 H
 
 98 COST OF MONOPOLIES. 
 
 list of articles taxed from 63 per cent, to 333 per 
 cent, 627 per cent, and even 930 per cent. 
 
 Allow, then, all over half for the artificial prices 
 occasioned by such duties or indirect taxes, as 
 form a part of the revenue, and leave half for the 
 additional artificial prices, occasioned by the enor- 
 mous waste of forced production, and the mischie- 
 vous effects of protections, monopolies, and all other 
 interferences with the operations of trade. The 
 " Spectator's Key to Political Kno\tledge," which 
 seems to have been prepared with great care and 
 precision, says, that at a " moderate computation, 
 nearly twenty-two millions are annually extracted 
 from the pockets of the people" in artificial prices, 
 
 " by the protection on a very few articles" 
 
 " not for the benefit of the revenue;" but " the 
 bulk of which is dribbled away, and is, in reality, 
 so much wasted." 
 
 According to calculations given at a public 
 meeting by Mr. Crawford, our yearly consumption 
 of corn costs us at the present* London prices, 
 eighty miUions. The same quantity might be 
 purchased at Antwerp, for fifty millions, at Paris 
 for forty-six milUons, at Amsterdam, for forty- two 
 milUons, at Hamburgh, for forty-one milhons ; so 
 that after balancing bonded and free corn, Mr. 
 Crawford calculates that, in consequence of corn 
 
 * February, 1834.
 
 COST OF MONOPOLIES. 99 
 
 laws, we pay, on an average, thirty millions a year 
 for our corn more than the same quantity could be 
 purchased for in the market of any other country. 
 Two millions a year, only, of this immense sum, 
 Mr. Crawford further calculates, goes into the pock- 
 ets of the landlords, half a million only, we know, 
 reaches the Exchequer, twenty-seven millions and 
 a half, therefore, are by this calculation lost, not 
 only to the nation, but to the world. How lost ? 
 Sunk in the useless expense of forcing inferior 
 soils, to produce what the alluvial soils of foreign 
 countries could produce for twenty-seven millions 
 and a half less ; which twenty-seven millions and 
 a half, the consumers are compelled to repay to the 
 farmers in the artificial price of corn.* Mr. Craw- 
 ford then goes on to calculate, that we pay twenty 
 millions per annum in the artificial prices of other 
 articles, protected in consequence of the protection 
 on corn ; so that the corn laws, he thus shows, 
 cost the nation altogether fifty millions a year. 
 If, therefore, this corn monopoly were the just pro- 
 perty of the landowners, would it not be cheaper 
 to pay them the two millions, and the Exchequer 
 
 * " The mean or average of the prices of wheat of the first 
 quahty at Hamburgh, Amsterdam, Antwerp, and Stettin, is 
 31s. 2d. the quarter, and the mean price of wheat of the first 
 quaUty in London being 5Gs. the quarter, it follows that the mean 
 price of wheat in London is 75| per cent higher than the mean 
 prices of the four above mentioned places." — London Times, 
 Tuesday, March 4 M, 1834. 
 
 H 2
 
 100 COST OF MONOPOLIES. 
 
 the half milhon, and save forty-seven miUions and 
 a half, than to continue giving them the two 
 millions, the Exchequer the half million, and throw- 
 ing away twenty-seven millions and a half in forced 
 production, and twenty millions besides in protect- 
 ing other articles requiring protection in conse- 
 quence of the corn monopoly. The corn monopoly, 
 however, as well as every other monopoly, being a 
 wrong instead of a right, we are clearly entitled to 
 save forty-nine millions and a half, allowing that 
 the half million paid to the Exchequer required to 
 be made up. 
 
 All these calculations, too, it must be remember- 
 ed, are made on the limited consumption occa- 
 sioned by high prices ; how much greater would 
 the sum be on the larger quantity that would be 
 consumed, could our labouring classes afford both 
 to pay high prices, and to eat enough. Nor is 
 this view of the subject founded on mere supposi- 
 tion : Colonel Stanhope states in the House of 
 Commons, as a known fact, that in consequence of 
 the artificial scarcity occasioned by the corn laws, 
 twenty-four millions of people are, each year, 
 obliged to subsist on food only sufficient for 
 eighteen millions. 
 
 There seems further to be very sufficient grounds 
 for believing, that the nation is out of pocket, on 
 additional artificial prices, a sum greatly exceeding 
 the fifty millions, spoken of by Mr. Crawford, as a 
 loss, especially consequent upon corn laws.
 
 COST OF MONOPOLIES. 101 
 
 The annual income of the reahzed property of 
 Great Britain is estimated at one hundred mil- 
 lions.* If this calculation be correct, and that, 
 on an average, half even of prices is artificial, 
 realized property alone, presuming that it spends 
 nearly its income, must be out of pocket nearly 
 fifty millions, by the artificial prices it pays on all 
 the principal articles of consumption. While who 
 shall calculate, the, from hand to mouth, expen- 
 diture of the numerous class of labourers, whose 
 wages are paid out of the daily created incomes 
 of their employers, together with the expenditure 
 of those same employers, out of their said daily 
 created incomes ; it being only, it must be remem- 
 bered, the wages of such labours as are employed 
 and paid directly by the realized property class, 
 which can be counted as a part of the hundred 
 millions, supposed to be the annual income of the 
 reahzed property of the nation. All other wages, 
 and all profits are, it is clear, a sort of newly and 
 daily created, floating, varying, national income, 
 forming an almost incalculable fund, the half of which 
 is no sooner created, than it is of necessity swamped, 
 in the additional artificial prices occasioned by mo- 
 nopolies, forced production protected, and all other 
 departures from equal justice. The annual income 
 of the whole community is rouglily estimated at 
 from three hundred millions, to four hundred 
 
 * Spectator's Key to Political Knowledge.
 
 102 COST OF MONOPOLIES. 
 
 millions :* if this estimate be correct, additional 
 artificial prices must cost the community from one 
 hundred and fifty millions, to two hundred millions 
 per annum. It is quite unnecessary, however, to 
 the present argument to decide the point : if we 
 lost but fifty millions by monopolies, and the pro- 
 tection of forced production, the argument is not 
 effected : nay, were the national loss but forty 
 millions, were it but thirty millions, were it but 
 twenty millions, no good reason can be shown, 
 why the nation should be impoverished to any of 
 these amounts, literally in the cause of injustice, 
 for the sake of making unjust transfers of the 
 remainder of the wealth already created, and 
 placing hindrances in the way of the creation of 
 new wealth, expressly that those who wilfully 
 persist in the infatuation of forced production, may 
 continue to be protected, at the expense of those 
 who have no share in the folly, from losses they 
 need not continue to incur, and further, that in- 
 dividual monopolists in trade, may, by the unjust 
 interference of unjust laws in their favour, be en- 
 abled, now and then, to realize fortunes monstrous 
 enough to make the Exchequer wonder ! 
 
 So far as trade is concerned, can such be a 
 healthful " disposition of things?" When any 
 one gains so much more than the wages of labour, 
 or the interest of capital, must not many who have 
 
 * Spectator's Key to Political Knowledge.
 
 COST OF MONOPOLIES. 103 
 
 righteously earned one or both, fail of obtaining ei- 
 ther? Could such a " disposition of things " have 
 obtained, if the principle of good-will to all or equal 
 justice were the compass of the legislator ? While, 
 if we look but at expediency, is that legislature wise, 
 which, by its enactments, changes the sober, cal- 
 culating merchant, looking forward with reasonable 
 hope to his yearly balance, into the miserable fran- 
 tic gambler, gazing with breathless suspense on the 
 throw of the dice, on which depends whether he 
 shall possess a mountain of gold, or put a pistol 
 to his head ? 
 
 We call our gambling houses hells, and w^e de- 
 signate them rightly ! Are we justified, then, in 
 rendering our counting-houses the same ? Should 
 it be possible for a man to devote the energies of 
 his life, to the honest endeavour to provide for his 
 family by his industry, and earn a broken heart, 
 instead of a fortune ? 
 
 With the perfectly fair competition, and gradual 
 self-accommodation of supply to demand, attbrded 
 by such freedom of trade as equal justice would 
 dictate, such a result would be impossible ! 
 Industry, though but an humble foot passenger, is 
 always sure to gain her journey's end, before her 
 setting sun goes down, if monopoly, driving his 
 car of Juggernaut, is not suffered to infest her path, 
 and crush her patient limbs beneath his destroying 
 chariot wheels. 
 
 If public statements, uncontradicted, are deserv
 
 104 COST OF MONOPOLIES. 
 
 ing of any credit, the merchants themselves are they 
 who declare, that the struggle of monopoly, with 
 monopoly, has changed commerce into a desperate 
 species of gambling, at which fortunes are made, 
 only by lucky hits, and at the expense of the ruin 
 of thousands. And that the countless obstructions, 
 along the force-directed course of every channel of 
 trade are such, that a man, without an overwhelm- 
 ing capital, might almost as well attempt to navi- 
 gate the falls of the Niagara, as embark in busi- 
 ness. 
 
 What language does all this speak ? Does it not 
 tell us, with all the force of truths borne out by 
 facts, that the interests, rightly understood, of the 
 capitalists, nay, even of the monopolists themselves, 
 calls as loudly as that of every other class of the 
 community, for the adoption (as the standard 
 measure of all our dealings) of the unerring 
 principle of good-will to all, unerring, because 
 necessarily including equal justice ; that good-will 
 not being to all, which sanctions injustice to any.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE BREAD MONOPOLY. 
 " All protection means robbing somebody else." — Coi'n Catechism. 
 
 The most ruinous of all our monopolies, and 
 therefore that which calls the first and the loudest 
 for abolition, is that unjust enhancement of the 
 price of grain, occasioned by the operation of the 
 corn laws. 
 
 This monopoly is defined by the Times' news- 
 paper : " An extension of the pension list, to the 
 whole of the landed aristocracy of Great Britain !'' 
 
 Many a proud cheek, of those accustomed to 
 believe themselves the independent nobles and 
 gentry of the land, will burn with indignant 
 blushes, on viewing the subject in this light. Yet, 
 the definition is, it is to be feared, but too just. 
 The sole difference is, that such pensions, instead 
 of being paid out of the Treasury, are advanced 
 to the landlord by the farmer, who is repaid again 
 by the consumer, and thus a tax is levied on the
 
 106 THE BREAD MONOPOLY. 
 
 whole community, not for the purposes of defray- 
 ing public expenditure, but for the private emolu- 
 ment of the landowners. 
 
 Let, however, a better feeling than pride arise in 
 the breasts of landlords and their families, on re- 
 flecting, that the pensions they are thus supposed 
 to be justly ashamed of receiving, are, the greater 
 portion of them, made up of deductions from the 
 justly earned comforts of many millions of hard 
 working day labourers, and their wives, and 
 children. And let no one deceive the uninformed, 
 by telling them, with a cold sneer, that the 
 labourer is compensated by receiving higher wages 
 than he would get were the corn laws abolished. 
 This is a dangerous, insidious falsehood, invented 
 to lull honesty and compassion to sleep, while 
 hard-hearted selfishness is abroad, robbing the 
 poor. 
 
 Lord Fitzwilliam's Tables furnish an indisputable 
 refutation of this popular fallacy. They show, on 
 the averages of half a century, that the surplus of 
 the labourer's wages, after providing himself with 
 bread, has always been least, when grain was 
 highest, and that, to use his Lordship's own words, 
 " the boasted period of agricultural prosperity, was 
 to the labourer, whether agricultural or manufac- 
 turing, a season of distress." 
 
 " The high price of provisions," says Adam 
 Smith, " during these ten years past, has not 
 been accompanied by any sensible rise in the
 
 THE BREAD MONOPOLY. 107 
 
 money price of labour." He goes on to show 
 that, on the contrary, the wages of labour gene- 
 rally fall in dear years, and rise in cheap years. 
 While, speaking of America, he says : " Labour is 
 there so well rewarded, that a numerous family of 
 children is a source of opulence to parents." 
 This is, of course, because in America labour is 
 scarce. But, if the price of food alone regulated 
 wages, how could money wages be much higher, 
 yet food much cheaper in America than in England, 
 as is the case, and real wages therefore higher still. 
 But the reward of labour is ample in America, 
 because, in America, the labour market is not 
 overstocked by want of employment. Cheap food, 
 it is true, from whatever cause it proceeds, puts 
 it in the labourer's power to accept lower wages, 
 down, if he please, to the new starving point ; 
 but, wall he do so, if the self same cause which 
 gives cheap food, gives full employment to labour, 
 and therefore enables the labourer to demand, and 
 obtain higher wages ? Were food, therefore, made 
 cheap by the abolition of corn laws and all other 
 monopolies, the opening of trade, which would be 
 the immediate consequence of such a measure, by 
 doubling and trebling the demand for our manu- 
 factured goods, would give full employment at the 
 same time with cheap food, to all our labouring 
 classes, so that labourers being no longer com- 
 pelled to underbid each other, in an overstocked 
 labour market, labour would, at all times, obtain
 
 108 THE BREAD MONOPOLY, 
 
 a fair proportion of the wealth it created, while 
 even without a rise of money wattes, the condition 
 of the labourer would be improved much more 
 than a hundred per cent, as he would have con- 
 stant, instead of casual employment, and therefore 
 constant, instead of casual wages, while the same 
 money wages per day, would be doubled in value 
 to him, as it would purchase a double quantity of 
 the necessaries, comforts, and decencies of life. 
 
 But, if wages are not to be reduced, what is 
 to relieve the capitalist, increase his profits, or 
 make him better able to compete with foreigners 
 in the foreign market ? 
 
 Cheaper raw material, cheaper subsistence for 
 himself and his own establishment, and markets 
 immensely extended, by obtaining the custom of 
 nations, who have no exchanges; to offer but corn, 
 and who, therefore, cannot take our goods, while 
 we will not take their corn, but who would culti- 
 vate still more corn, and therefore sell corn still 
 cheaper than even the rates of the present foreign 
 market, were they certain of our custom. 
 
 As to the pretext that it is the farmer whom the 
 defender of corn laws wishes to protect, it is 
 almost too flimsy to require refutation. Under a 
 system of free trade, dictated by equal justice, the 
 redress of farmers, not holding leases, rests with 
 themselves, the redress of farmers holding leases, 
 with the landlords, whose honest interest in the 
 soil, can never exceed what remains after the cost
 
 THE BREAD MONOPOLY. 109 
 
 of cultivation, and a fair profit to the farmer, he, 
 the farmer, selUng his produce in a free market. 
 The nation which cannot cultivate on these terms, 
 is forbid by equal justice to cultivate at all ; 
 except, indeed, at the private loss of such indivi- 
 duals as like the amusement of throwing away 
 their own money. " There is no delusion," says 
 Colonel Torrens, " more mischievous, than the 
 supposition that the high value of agricultural 
 produce is beneficial to the farmer ; it is expe- 
 dient, therefore, to demonstrate under every pos- 
 sible form, the great practical truth, that a perma- 
 nent rise in the value of agricultural produce, leads 
 to a reduction in the rate of agricultural profits." 
 And that therefore, '* in the long run, protecting 
 duties for raising the price of food, produce agri- 
 cultural distress, as certainly as they occasion 
 manufacturing distress." 
 
 Again, as to the unequal burdens, and local 
 burdens, said to press peculiarly on the landed 
 interest, (if indeed any such exist) equal justice 
 says : Make them equal, make them general, but 
 do not make them an excuse for robbing others. 
 That, however, the complete system of free trade, 
 dictated by the principle of good-will to all or 
 equal justice, will ultimately have the effect of 
 raising, rather than of depressing the value of land, 
 and that by means strictly just, shall, as already 
 promised, be shown in a future chapter.* Prior, 
 
 * Chapter X.
 
 110 THE BREAD MONOPOLY. 
 
 however, to proceeding, as this Uttle volume pro- 
 fesses to address many who, though charitable and 
 benevolent, have not hitherto connected public mat- 
 ters with their views of benevolence, and who, there- 
 fore, may possibly have neither studied pohtical 
 works, nor even read through parliamentary de- 
 bates, it may be useful to give, in a few condensed 
 sentences, the substance of the published or pub- 
 licly spoken sentiments, on the bread monopoly 
 in particular, of some of our able writers, distin- 
 guished statesmen, public characters, and learned and 
 scientific men, who have made this important topic 
 their study ; and the sanction of whose opinions, 
 cannot fail to give weight to the future arguments 
 contained in these pages : when such men declare 
 that the distresses of the poor are induced by the 
 dearness of food, and want of employment, occa- 
 sioned by restrictions in trade, particularly the 
 corn trade; an advocate of philanthropic economy, 
 is surely justified in calling upon the friends of the 
 poor, to exercise their benevolence, in strenuous 
 endeavours to remove these fruitful sources of 
 misery, and by applying to all our dealings, the 
 principle of equal justice, flowing out of good-will 
 to all, obtain for the poor the abundant blessings 
 of free trade, namely, cheap food, and full em- 
 ployment.
 
 THE BREAD MONOPOLY, 1 I I 
 
 QUOTATIONS AND CONDENSATIONS. 
 
 " The unlimited unrestrained freedom of the 
 corn trade, as it is the only effectual preventive 
 of the miseries of a famine, so it is the best pa- 
 liative of the inconveniences of a dearth. — " " Our 
 country gentlemen, when they imposed high du- 
 ties on the importation of corn, and established 
 the bounty on its exportation, meant to imitate 
 our manufacturers, and by making their commodity 
 artificially scarce, make it artificially dear." 
 " In so doing they loaded the public revenue with 
 expense, imposed a heavy tax on the people, 
 lowered the real value of money, discouraged ge- 
 neral industry, and so retarded the improvement 
 of their own lands, which necessarily depends on 
 the general industry of the country — " " Such 
 regulations also tend to make our manufactures 
 dearer in every market than those of the foreigner, 
 and consequently to give their industry an advan- 
 tage over ours." — Adam Smith. 
 
 " Your device has been to create an artificial 
 scarcity" — "You have no wish for a famine; no 
 one can imagine it." — " But the misfortune of the 
 question is, that in whatever way you deal with 
 it, the system resolves itself into one for creating 
 an artificial scarcity." — " The operation of the 
 corn laws has been to confer only the fraction of 
 a benefit upon one and that the wealthiest class
 
 112 THE BREAD MONOPOLY. 
 
 of the nation, and do unmixed evil to every other 
 class, their ultimate result will be a fall of rents, 
 occasioned, be it remembered, by an attempt to 
 raise them." — Lord Fitzwilliam* 
 
 " The first step towards improvement must be 
 the abolition of the corn laws." — " The mischievous 
 operation of the corn laws, so far as the operative 
 is concerned cuts both ways, limiting our market 
 abroad ; in other words lowering the wages of la- 
 bour, by lessening the demand for labour, and 
 at the same time raising the price of food, or 
 making the already lessened nominal wages, still 
 less in exchangeable value." — 
 
 " Has parliament, then, no power to relieve the 
 people from the distress which overwhelms them? 
 Yes: it has the power to go at once to the root 
 of the evil, and remove entirely the cause of the 
 disease. Parliament has the power to abolish the 
 corn laws, and to open a free trade with those 
 countries, which having vast regions of fertile 
 territory to reclaim, can, with the greatest advan- 
 tage to themselves, give us cheap raw produce in 
 exchange for our wrought goods. This is that 
 which would relieve the people, no other remedy 
 can eradicate the national disease." 
 
 " To tell the manufacturer that the home market 
 is better than the foreign, when in the home market 
 his goods exchange for a less quantity of food and 
 of raw material than in the foreign, is to assert a 
 
 * His Address to the Landowners of Great Britain.
 
 THE BREAD MONOPOLY. 113 
 
 gross absurdity, a palpable contradiction." — Colo- 
 nel Torrens* 
 
 " The healthful activity, which a free trade in 
 corn would impart to all the elements of wealth, 
 must spread to and through every class of society, 
 increasing the value of land, of capital, and of 
 labour." — Author of England and America. 
 
 " A total repeal of the corn laws would give land- 
 lords higher rents, labourers higher wages, and 
 capitalists higher profits." — " With respect to high 
 wages being the result of a free trade in corn it 
 is so palpable a tinith, that it is unnecessary forme 
 to go into any proof of it." — Colonel Thompson. 
 
 " The interest of agriculture, the situation of the 
 agriculturist, and the interest of the agricultural 
 tenant and labourer, as well as that of every other 
 individual or class, requires the abolition of the 
 corn laws." — " In short, an end to the whole 
 system of protection is not only just and expe- 
 dient, but necessary to the general interests of 
 society." — Mr. Osivald, member for Ayrshire. 
 
 Mr. Hume, during the discussion on his motion 
 of the 6th of March, 1834, speaks of landowners as 
 " The privileged few, who had obtained, by means 
 of their undue influence in the unreformed Parlia- 
 ment, an advantage over the rest of the community, 
 which, at no matter what expense of national pros- 
 perity, they were determined to maintain. " — 
 
 * His admirable work on Wages and Combination. 
 
 I
 
 114 THE BREAD MONOPOLY. 
 
 " Their claim was for power to tax the community 
 at large to pay ofFtheir own mortgages and charges." 
 — " Their protection was nothing but a law to 
 enforce high rents by high prices. " — " The 
 project of this bread monopoly had ruined the agri- 
 cultural interest, which it meant to assist, while it 
 had starved the rest of the community by the arti- 
 ficial want it had produced." — " It would be easy 
 to prove that the manufactures of the country 
 would be treble their present amount, but for the 
 baneful operation of the corn laws ; if they were 
 rejDealed, there would be no limit to manufactures 
 — therefore no limit to capital or to employment." 
 — " The steps now being taken in Germany to shut 
 us out from their markets, were retaliation for our 
 corn laws ; so was the American Tarif." — " The 
 corn laws could not be kept up much longer." — 
 " He would get rid of all restrictions," — " It would 
 be impossible else to feed the millions whom the 
 land's limited surface was unable to maintain, and 
 who must be maintained by manufactures, if at all." 
 — " The Cabinet were of his opinion, if they would 
 venture to speak as they thought." — Mr. Hume. 
 
 " He would say, with Lord Milton, that in spite of 
 any decision that house might come to, restrictions 
 on the food of the people could not endure." — 
 ** That if they waited for a bad crop, or high prices, 
 the repeal of the corn laws would be called for in 
 less respectful terms." — '* The present corn laws, 
 after a trial of eighteen years, had been proved, on
 
 THE BREAD MONOPOLY. 115 
 
 the evidence of the agricultural report, to have 
 brought ruin to the farmer, and injury to the soil. 
 They had injured, and now threatened to destroy, 
 our trade. They had brought distress on our manu- 
 facturing population." — "Their irregular opera- 
 tion deprived our shipping of the carrying trade in 
 corn ; for, in consequence of that irregularity, or- 
 ders were so sudden and uncertain that foreign 
 vessels, being on the spot, got the freights before 
 English ones could get out." — " These irregular 
 orders, too, were not the inducement to take our 
 manufactured goods in return that a regular trade 
 would be." — " The present system was also so 
 wasteful, that neither the revenue nor the growers 
 benefited by the high price paid by the consumer." 
 — " As to the fear of Europe shutting her ports 
 in time of war, in the middle of last war, when the 
 greatest efforts were made to keep us out, we im- 
 ported more corn than ever we had done before." 
 — Mr. Poulet Thomson. 
 
 Col. Torrens, in his very able work on the Exter- 
 nal Corn trade, says : " The experiment of exclud- 
 ing us from commerce has been tried, and has failed. 
 Though the continent of Europe received its im- 
 pulse from a single mind, and though America, 
 with a consentaneous movement, closed her ports, 
 yet Napoleon found it impracticable to give efficacy 
 to this system against the trade of England ; and 
 while his decrees were evaded or suspended, we re- 
 ceived supplies of corn even from France." 
 
 i2
 
 116 THE BREAD MONOPOLY. 
 
 Col. Torrens, during the discussion on Mr. 
 Hume's motion of the 6th of March, warned the 
 House of the danger of driving manufactures out of 
 the kingdom, and showed that national prosperity, 
 being based on commercial and manufacturing pros- 
 perity, all classes must share in the benefit which 
 would accrue to the nation from the removal of the 
 principalbarrier to extension of trade — thecornlaws. 
 Was it to be expected that the great manufacturing 
 communities would long submit to this monopoly ? 
 Would the great towns allow the landowners to 
 depress the wages of their population for the selfish 
 purpose of augmenting their own rents ? In vain 
 had we cheaper fuel, cheaper carriage, better work- 
 men, and better machinery, than other nations, all 
 these advantages were flung away in a cruel and 
 fruitless struggle against the overwhelming disad- 
 vantage of dear food. 
 
 *' No better mode of cheating a nation could 
 be devised than the present corn laws." — Lord 
 Morpeth. 
 
 Mr. Wallace attributed " the misery of the 
 weavers, trades' unions, and all the distress of the 
 country, to the corn laws." — " Till they were abo- 
 lished trades' unions ought to exist." — ** He would 
 support a motion for local boards of trade." — 
 ** What was the corn monopoly but a board of 
 trade ?" 
 
 ** No country can flourish unless the ftdlest scope 
 be given to its system of exchange." — " The only
 
 THE BREAD MONOPOLY. 117 
 
 limit to our trade, is the difficulty of procuring re- 
 turns." — " Corn, if the trade were free, would 
 be one of the most important returns for our manu- 
 factures." — " Every thing which interferes with 
 the natural prices of commodities is a great national 
 misfortune." — " The system hitherto pursued, 
 has created a pampered aristocracy, at the expense 
 of an oppressed people." — ** Heaven forbid that 
 the legislature, by refusing the people their rights 
 too long, should bring on an awful crisis." — 
 ** By knitting nations together in their commercial 
 interests, let us provide against, rather than for 
 war." — *• Our strongest bond of peace with 
 America is the trade in raw cotton. " — ** Let 
 noble Lords remember how Lord Chatham had 
 pointed out to them the increased value of their 
 land, caused by commerce with America." — Mr. 
 Ewart. 
 
 " The abolition of the corn laws, by extending 
 trade, would develope the vast resources of Great 
 Britain, increase the demand for all produce, reduce 
 taxation, and greatly benefit the agricultural, as 
 well as every other interest." — Mr. Whitmore. 
 
 " Corn laws are not consistent with justice, with 
 humanity, or with sound policy ; what, therefore, 
 is morally wrong cannot be politically right." — 
 " Landowners, who are also law-makers, had led 
 the people into a ruinous war, declaring that they 
 would maintain its cost with their last guinea, and 
 then departed from their pledge, and thrown the bur- 
 den on the labouring classes." — Mr Br other ton.
 
 118 THE BREAD MONOPOLY. 
 
 Such were some of the eloquent pleadings for 
 the abolition of the corn laws, during the discus- 
 sion on Mr. Hume's motion, on the 6th, 7th and 
 8th of March, 1834. On which occasion Sir 
 James Graham and Mr. Baring were amongst the 
 most conspicuous in their opposition to any altera- 
 tion of those iniquitous laws. It is not, however, 
 intended to cumber these pages by exhibiting the 
 flimsy-veiled sophisms and naked fallacies, which 
 both gentlemen were under the necessity of setting 
 forth, when they thought fit thus to undertake the 
 defence of laws, with the destructive tendency of 
 which their own previous expressed sentiments 
 prove them to be perfectly acquainted. Two some- 
 what remarkable quotations from the said pre- 
 viously expressed sentiments shall be given here, 
 which may serve as good samples, generally, of the 
 degree of sincerity to which the opposers of honest 
 measures can lay claim. 
 
 One is from a pamphlet published by Sir James 
 Graham, some years since, when he was not First 
 Lord of the Admiralty ; the other, from a speech of 
 Mr. Baring's, spoken in Parliament, some years 
 since, when he was not a landowner, but a mer- 
 chant. 
 
 From Sir James Graham's pamphlet, as quoted 
 in the House bv Mr. P. Thomson, and entitled : 
 " Free trade in Corn the real Interest of the 
 Landlord, and the true Policy of the State." 
 
 ** To propose to enrich a nation by forcing a 
 permanent scarcity of corn, and obstructing the
 
 THE BREAD MONOPOLY. 119 
 
 natural course of trade, is, indeed, at variance with 
 common sense. The consequences cannot be mis- 
 taken ; they are these : The embarrassment of our 
 shipping, and of our mercantile and manufacturing 
 interests ; want of employment and desperate 
 poverty among the labouring population ; an in- 
 crease of crime, and a tendency to emigration ; a 
 loss of our currency, and a fall in the prices of 
 labour and of corn ; a diminution of the public 
 revenue, and a derangement of the public finances ; 
 and, more than all, the certain, eventual ruin of 
 the agricultural interest itself. These are the bitter 
 fruits of a blind and selfish policy, rapaciously 
 grasping at undue gain, and losing hold of advan- 
 tages placed within its power." — " When England, 
 the land of marine aft'airs and of commerce, and 
 the best workshop of manufactures in the world, 
 attempted to sell corn in opposition to Poland, a 
 country in want of these advantages, she perverted 
 the natural order of trade, she sold that which it 
 was most profitable for her to buy, and by destroy- 
 ing the means of her natural customers to buy 
 what it was most profitable for her to sell, she 
 artificially lowered the prices of every description 
 of merchandize throughout the long period of sixty 
 four years. So much for the crusade against the 
 natm-al order of commerce." — " Till 1815 the corn 
 trade was free, and commerce prospered. In that 
 ill-fated year, the prohibitary system became ope- 
 rative ; mid, as in 1 766, trade and mariufactures
 
 120 THE BREAD MONOPOLY. 
 
 revived precisely at the moment when the restric- 
 tions on the importation of foreign corn were 
 removed ; so, in 1815, when these restrictions were 
 again imposed, commerce languished, manufactures 
 failed, and universal distress overspread the land." 
 Enough of Sir James Graham. 
 
 Now for a specimen of Mr. Baring in 1815, when 
 he was a merchant. 
 
 Mr. Baring. — " All that had been advanced 
 on this point was a mere excuse for keeping up 
 high rents. It was impossible for any evidence to 
 show more clearly, than the evidence before the 
 House had shown, that the artificial support of the 
 agriculture of the country which had been called for 
 would be improper." — " He doubted very much 
 if this country could ever be made to furnish a 
 permanent supply equal to the consumption of its 
 encreasing population. If lands could not produce 
 corn without greater sums being expended on them 
 than the corn was worth, they might be made to fur- 
 nish a supply which would make us purchase our 
 bread at Is. 6d. the loaf, when, if we exerted our 
 industry on that same land to raise that which was 
 congenial to its soil, by exchanging its produce 
 against that of the corn lands of other countries, 
 we might get our loaf for one shilling." — " As to 
 the danger of depending on foreign supply in case 
 of a war, during the reign of Bonaparte, in spite 
 of the greatest hostility, more corn, three times 
 over, had been imported, than ever had been
 
 THE BREAD MONOPOLY. 121 
 
 before." — " Experience has shown that a country 
 could never be starved — Holland was dependent 
 on foreign supply, and its price was, and almost 
 ever had been, the average price of Europe." How 
 the same Mr. Baring who had spoken these words 
 publicly in the House of Commons in 1815, could 
 in 1 834 stand up in the same house, and attempt 
 to advocate the continuance of corn laws, must 
 certainly surprise, not only every candid mind, but 
 every person of common modesty. 
 
 But to return to our present period and subject, 
 the following is an admirable condensation, by one 
 of the London journals, of Sir James Graham's 
 defence of corn laws, when acting the part of fore- 
 man to the special jury, who on the said 6th, 7th, 
 and 8th of March 1834, tried their own cause, and 
 gave a verdict in their own favour. 
 
 " We, the landed aristocracy must live, but, 
 were we to be just, we could not live!" — Sir James 
 Graham. 
 
 And will the landed aristocracy of Great Britain 
 persist in justifying, by their conduct, those who 
 speak for them thus? The argument, however, 
 seemed to be conclusive, for three hundred and 
 twelve, out of four hundred and sixty-seven, of the 
 said landed aristocracy, voted, though not in these 
 precise words, to this effect, that, as they could 
 not afford to live, as they liked to live, on the 
 fair market price of their land, the deficiency 
 must be made up to them, whatever it may cost
 
 122 THE BREAD MONOPOLY. 
 
 the rest of the nation, out of the wages of labourers, 
 the profits of farmers, tiie incomes of annuitants, 
 and the ruin of thirteen milhons of people dependent 
 on manufactures. And this, although in thus 
 compelhng the consumer to give them a boon of 
 two millions, they oblige him, at the same time 
 to cast away, as has been already shown, twenty- 
 seven millions and a half, which benefit no being 
 on the face of the earth ; — nay, which but partly 
 repay the farmer his loss on forced production, 
 a loss which, but for the interference of unjust 
 laws, had never been incurred. 
 
 Suppose, for a moment, the wine merchants of 
 England mad enough to form a project for making 
 wine sufficient for the consumption of the nation 
 from home-grown hot-house grapes. Suppose, fur- 
 ther, the result to be, that such wine as we im- 
 port at five shillings per bottle, should stand our 
 home producers in one pound per bottle, so that 
 to have a profit of even five per cent, they were 
 compelled to charge one guinea per bottle — Would 
 any one buy their wine ? If they, upon this, set 
 up a cry about their ruinous losses, would parlia- 
 ment give them a protection, amounting to a prohi- 
 bition on foreign wines ? and thus obliging all 
 Englishmen, who drank wine, to drink it at a 
 guinea per bottle ? 
 
 Not unless being a wine merchant, were the 
 qualification for being a member of parliament, in 
 which case, a majority is a majority, whether
 
 THE BREAD MONOPOLY. 123 
 
 of wine merchants or of landholders. And surely, 
 though the injustice might in both cases be the 
 same, it is a much greater cruelty to rob the 
 consumer, and check the consumption of bread, 
 than to rob the consumer, and check the con- 
 sumption of wine. 
 
 While, however, the jury-box is thus filled by 
 the defendants, in their own case, it is clearly in 
 their power, if not prevented by honourable prin- 
 ciples, to give a verdict for themselves, although 
 every man in the great court of the whole nation 
 should see that the property belongs to the plain- 
 tiffs. Every body knows that the labourer's limbs 
 are his own property, his estate, his bread, the 
 bread of his children; — but what of that? the 
 landowners have a majority in parliament, secured 
 to them by the possession of land being the qualifi- 
 cation for becoming a member of parliament. If 
 they will not make an honourable use of this sacred 
 trust, surely there ought to be some appeal, some 
 court of equity to deliver the nation out of such a 
 dilemma as this ! There is an appeal — an appeal 
 from the high court of parliament, to the higher 
 court of public opinion ! 
 
 Oh ! the time will come, some generations 
 hence perhaps, when an Englishman's greatest 
 anxiety will be to prove that he is not descended 
 from any one of those whose names will then 
 appear marked with obloquy on the pages of his- 
 tory, as having, in the great assembly of legislators
 
 124 THE BREAD MONOPOLY. 
 
 to whom the people of England had confided the 
 guardianship of their rights, lifted up their voices, 
 and in the presence of their Maker and the nation, 
 uttered sounding sophisms, with a view to gaining 
 over a majority of the unwary, the uninformed, 
 or the unprincipled, to join them in trampUng 
 upon those rights which they had one and all un- 
 dertaken to protect ! 
 
 When, however, we look back on the barbari- 
 ties of former ages, the burnings at the stake, the 
 beheadings on the block, the wholesale massacres, 
 the summary executions, the private assassina- 
 tions, the poisonings, the starvings to death in 
 prison, and all the inhuman and desperate cruel- 
 ties, which were in the times of our forefathers 
 matters of common occurrence, when we call to 
 mind that in those days of darkness, the then 
 most pohshed nobles of the land, instead of deem- 
 ing their triumph, as in our days, sufficient when 
 they have sent their opponents to the opposite 
 benches of the house, and cheered their speeches, 
 were not ashamed of laying murderous plots, to 
 bring their poUtical rivals to the scaffold ; nay, 
 were proud of the savage power which enabled 
 them to be thus the tyrant disposers of the lives 
 of their fellow-men ; and when, again, the loss of 
 that power was almost the certain signal for their 
 own destruction ; when we remember that all 
 this has been, and then reflect, that the salutary 
 rise, which has already taken place in the standard
 
 THE BREAD MONOPOLY. 125 
 
 of public opinion, has rendered the sanctioned 
 recurrence of such enormities impossible, may we 
 not indulge in a reasonable hope, that civilization, 
 if not staid in its onward progress, by the blinded 
 worshippers of ancient errors, will continue to 
 advance, that the ameliorating and enlightening 
 influences of religion and education which have 
 been sufficient to wash out the deeper die of blood, 
 will at length be able to eradicate the disgraceful 
 stain of corruption, which still disfigures more or 
 less every portion of our social system. That the 
 standard of public opinion, which has so risen, 
 will still rise, till honest measures, instead of being 
 stigmatized as Utopian schemes, shall be adopted 
 professedly because they are honest, till, in short, 
 the sacred principle of good-will to all neces- 
 sarily including equal justice, being universally 
 recognized by public opinion, it shall become 
 impossible for a man, with the slightest chance of 
 escaping public infamy, to vote against a law which 
 he knows to be just, because it would depress, or 
 for a law which he knows to be unjust, because it 
 would raise his own rent roll ; or to support by his 
 influence a monopoly, or any other abuse, because 
 himself or his friends derive unjust benefit from the 
 same. Nay, would not such conduct become im- 
 possible to-morrow, if such actions, instead of 
 being laughed at and called " human nature," 
 rendered a man, however high his rank, or great 
 his wealth, as despicable in the eye of public 
 opinion, as the detected swindler or common pick-
 
 126 THE BREAD MONOPOLY. 
 
 pocket. If the verdict of public opinion were thus 
 invariably regulated by that equal justice which 
 flows from good will to all, could the maintenance 
 of the pride of equipage, be any longer a temptation 
 to commit such actions ? Would any man, except 
 indeed such unhappy inhabitants of Bedlam, as weave 
 for themselves regal circlets of straw, deliberately 
 prefer riding in a gilded coach despised, to walking 
 on foot respected ? 
 
 What is the pride of equipage, of title, of a 
 crown itself, of all the baubles in pursuit of which 
 crime is committed, but the ignorant worship, 
 yielded in ignorance, to an ignorant and misjudging 
 public opinion. Let, then, a more enlightened pub- 
 lic opinion teach pride to centre henceforward in 
 virtue, and show men that honesty and disinterested- 
 ness, not wealth and power, are greatness ; talents 
 and learning, not title, and equipage splendor. 
 
 The advantages which truth ought to possess 
 over falsehood, were never more manifest than at 
 the present crisis : every publication circulated, 
 every speech delivered, every resolution framed, 
 on the side of equal justice, abounds with sound 
 unanswerable reasoning ; while, on the other hand, 
 among all the men, whether writers or speakers, 
 who have tarnished their reputation, either for 
 good sense, or for honesty, by attempting to main- 
 tain false positions, in defence of a system mani- 
 festly both unjust and injurious, not one has suc- 
 ceeded, in dressing up any one of the current fa- 
 lacies of his party, in the garb of an argument
 
 THE BREAD MONOPOLY. 127 
 
 that could for one moment deceive an honest 
 minded, intelligent school-boy of twelve years 
 old- 
 
 For instance, the Quarterly Review, for March 
 1834, defends the existing corn laws, by expatiating 
 upon the great convenience of being robbed to the 
 same amount for 15 years successively. — One knew 
 what one had to expect, being robbed in a varying 
 and uncertain amount, the acute writer assures us, 
 would be much more inconvenient. Granted ; but 
 how does this justify being robbed at all ? 
 
 Such being the advanced state of public opi- 
 nion, nay, the results of anxious research, the de- 
 ductions from close reasoning on these important 
 points, being, as they now are, reduced to self- 
 evident propositions, and dispersed throughout 
 the country in almost every journal of the day, 
 leaving to none the excuse of ignorance, it be- 
 comes matter for amazement that there should 
 yet be found a man so hardened in selfishness, so 
 steeled against shame, as to lift up his voice in de- 
 defence of that blight on every harvest which 
 grows for Englishmen! that Egyptian seven years 
 of scarcity, rendered by act of parliament per- 
 petual ; that doubling of the primeval curse by the 
 edict of men, the corn laws ! A scarcity of the 
 first necessary of life, established by act of par- 
 liament ; by the votes of the guardians of the 
 welfare of the community ! Is it not monstrous ? 
 Twenty-five millions of people consuming only
 
 128 THE BREAD MONOPOLY. 
 
 bread sufficient for eighteen millions ; the defi- 
 ciency, not equally divided, but faUing wholly on 
 one class, that class the creators of plenty, the 
 industrious poor. The class who voted for the 
 monopoly, who benefit by the monopoly, and who, 
 therefore, can afford to pay the monopoly price, 
 enjoying, in the midst of this dearth of their own 
 creating, " bread enough, and to spare." And not 
 for their personal sustinence only, but also for the 
 use, in the most wasteful profusion, of numerous 
 non-productive establishments, consisting of all 
 creatures or things, that can in any way contribute 
 to their luxury, or to their vanity. " The horses 
 will not be fit to be seen in the carriage, unless 
 they get their full complement of corn," says the 
 rich man's coachman. But who cares how wretched 
 the doubled worked, half fed operative looks ! And 
 yet, it is our boast that we are a christian nation ; 
 and those very animals whose sleek appearance, 
 ostentation renders more important in our eyes, 
 than the lives and comforts of our fellow men, 
 are employed to draw us to the house of God, the 
 God of equal justice, flowing from good will to all ! 
 
 Great Britain has been compared to a ship at sea, 
 short of provisions, and not allowed to touch at 
 any port where provisions may be had. But her 
 case is even worse than this, for though her crew 
 are kept on short allowance, her wardroom officers 
 are feasting sumptuously every day, while those very 
 officers, arethey who will not allow her to touch at any
 
 THE BREAD MONOPOLY. 129 
 
 port where plenty may be had, because the ma- 
 jority of them are pursers, and have themselves 
 the seUing of the short allowance to the crew — 
 all the dearer for being short ! 
 
 The Saviour of mankind, in setting us an example 
 that w^e should follow his steps, blessed a few 
 small loaves, and by his divine mandate made them 
 sufficient to feed five thousand people. The par- 
 liament of christian England follows this example — 
 How? 
 
 By cursing the bread of twenty-five millions of 
 people, and changing, by their word, each poor 
 labourer's portion, into half of that which his 
 Creator has furnished him with the natural means 
 of obtaining for himself. 
 
 Surely, as much food as a man can buy, with as 
 much wages as a man can get, for as much work 
 as a man can do, is not more than the natural, 
 unalienable birth-right of every man whom God 
 has created with strength to labour, and with hands 
 to work. Is- it, or is it not an infringement of this 
 right, to compel our labourers, by Act of Parliament 
 — by law — to give as much money for half a sack 
 of wheat, as they could purchase a w^hole sack of 
 wheat for, did no such Act of Parliament, no 
 such abuse of brief authority, no such breach of 
 the principle of equal justice flowing from good- 
 will to all, no such law exist? — That law, too, made 
 law by the votes of those who put the difterence 
 into their own pockets. As Lord Fitzwilliam justly, 
 
 K
 
 130 THE BREAD MONOPOLY. 
 
 yet in his own too temperate language, says : " Tlie 
 mere circumstance of our being the most extensive 
 proprietors, is no argument for bestowing upon us 
 any peculiar protection. It is probably the cause of 
 our having obtained it ; but, may it not have been 
 conceded to our influence, rather than to our argu- 
 ments ? " 
 
 We have, on the Christian grounds of humanity 
 and equal justice, emancipated the Negro Slave, 
 restored to him his natural right, a property in 
 his own labour. Speaking on this subject to 
 his constituents, Mr. Spring Rice said, truly : 
 " Justice is a question, not of degree, but of 
 principle. — If but a feather press on the brow of 
 a brother, unjustly, we are bound to remove the 
 weight."* 
 
 Shall we be less just to our brethren at home ? 
 When, then, and from whom, did the landowners 
 of England purchase a property in half the labour 
 of all our labouring classes, and to whom did they 
 pay the purchase money ? Did the labourer him- 
 self eflect the sale ? Did the labourer himself re- 
 ceive the price ? Certainly not ! Who else then 
 could sell or give away his, the labourer's title> 
 to that of which he holds his grant from God? 
 
 * It is hoped that Mr. Spring Rice, and all others who, on this 
 principle, voted for the restoration of the Negro to "his natural 
 rights, will give the labouring population of their own country 
 the benefit of the same principle, when next the question of the 
 Corn Laws comes before Parliament.
 
 THE BREAD MONOPOLY. 131 
 
 If landowners have pawned to themselves the 
 limbs of the labourer ; who is bound to redeem a 
 pledge made by themselves, to themselves ? Can 
 that have the force of an agreement to which there 
 never was but one party ? Is appropriation title ? 
 Can the idle man, without the consent of the 
 labouring man, without valuable consideration 
 given or received, take a property in the limbs the 
 labouring man was born with ? the only possession 
 we bring into the world with us, the only posses- 
 sion we carry back to the grave, as though it were 
 to proclaim to mankind, that man, made in the 
 image of his Maker, is sacred property, which 
 tyranny cannot appropriate ! 
 
 If landowners, then, in their buying and selling 
 among each other, have purchased from each other 
 property to which no title can be found, property 
 to which he who made the sale, having no title, 
 could give no title, they must be the losers. 
 If landowners in hoping to benefit themselves, 
 though, at the expense of the rest of the com- 
 munity, have unwittingly injured themselves also, 
 and further, during their period of self-delusion, 
 have incurred obligations among each other, cal- 
 culated to aggravate their se]f-incurred embarrass- 
 ments, we may, on the principle of good- will to 
 all, be sorry for them, but equal justice, flowing 
 from the same good-will to all, forbids that we 
 should rob labour of its reward to relieve them. 
 
 The sole, the sacred claim of industry, a pro- 
 
 K 2
 
 132 THE BREAD MONOPOLY. 
 
 perty in its own labour, is contained in a bond on 
 which God himself has given judgment — it must 
 be paid first, and in full, though the nation were 
 a bankrupt, and all its other creditors received a 
 dividend of one fraction in the pound.* 
 
 None, however, need be losers : grant to indus- 
 try, on the principle of equal justice flowing from 
 good-will to all, the blessings of free trade, free 
 markets in which to sell, and free markets in 
 which to buy, in other words, full employment 
 and cheap food ; and, as shall be shown more fully 
 in a future chapter, f industry will quickly become 
 property ; come up to the point at which it is pro- 
 posed that taxation should be laid on, and thence 
 carry forward, without difficulty, a much heavier 
 burden than that which now lays it prostrate in 
 the dust, and crashes out its vei'y existence. 
 
 * No allusion to funded property is intended : the debts and 
 credits spoken of are here figurative expressions, and mean the 
 privileges of the various contending interests. 
 
 t Chapter XII.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 <3N THE UNNx\TURAL CO-OPERATION OF CORN LAWS 
 WITH AN ENHANCED CURRENCY, BY WHICH THE 
 BLESSING OF DEAR MONEY, WHICH OUGHT 
 TO HAVE BROUGHT WITH IT AS ITS NATURAL 
 COMPANIONS, CHEAP NECESSARIES, WAS CHANGED 
 INTO A DOUBLING, AND, IN SOME INSTANCES, A 
 FOURFOLD DEEPENING OF THE CURSE OF DEAR 
 FOOD ! ! 
 
 But when, in addition to the oppressions on in- 
 dustry already enumerated, dear food, as is the case % 
 in Great Britain, is, by act of Parliament, forcibly 
 maintained in an unnatural co-existence in the 
 home market with dear money, the complication 
 of misery produced, by halving the price of the pro- 
 ducts of labour, and doubling the cost of maintain- 
 ance at one and the same time, is, beyond all cal- 
 culation, devastating in its effects, both on indivi- 
 dual, and on national prosperity. When it became 
 necessary to restrict an undue paper currency to a 
 level with which , however, rents had previously risen,
 
 134 UNNATURAL CO-OPERATION 
 
 and by so doing, double the value of money, had 
 landowners been guided by the principle of good- 
 will to all, or equal justice, they would have lower- 
 ed their rents, and required all creditors to lower 
 their demands in proportion, which they then could 
 have done without being losers. But landowners 
 did not so lower their rents ; consequently, rents, 
 the national debt, pensions, salaries, and taxes, for 
 paying them with, in short, every fixed charge 
 which therefore could not adjust itself in a free 
 market to the changed currency, became doubled, 
 while it was soon found that tenants could not pay 
 the same money rent, in money thus doubled in 
 value, on which landlords, having the law, as well 
 as the land, in their own hands, brought dormant 
 corn laws into operation, that their tenants, by 
 getting double price for their corn, might be able 
 to pay them double rent. They thus, not only in- 
 tercepted the blessing which dear money, accom- 
 panied by honest arrangements, might have brought 
 to the communitv, but turned it into an additional 
 hardship on the industrious classes, and, for a time, 
 an unjust accession of wealth to themselves. The 
 natural effect of making money dear, operating 
 singly in a free market, must of course have been 
 to have made all things else cheap, necessarily in- 
 cluding food and raw material. Dear money, there- 
 fore, operating singly, must have accelerated the 
 national prosperity of a country like Great Britain, 
 that, to prosper, must be enabled to compete in the
 
 OF CORN LAWS. 135 
 
 foreign market with nations in which money being- 
 dear, all things else, including food and raw material, 
 are cheap ; and who can, therefore, afford to bring 
 manufactured goods into the market, at a cheaper 
 rate than any nation whose scale of home prices is 
 high. But with us dear money was not permitted 
 to bring with it its natural companion, cheap food : 
 for the forced co-existence of laws to screen food 
 and raw material, in other words land, from the 
 natural operation of this rise in the value of money, 
 (an operation which, to be honest, any child might 
 see required to be general), prevented the labourer, 
 whether agricultural or manufacturing, from finding 
 compensation in the double worth of money, for 
 being obhged to give a double share of their labour 
 for money, though of a double value ; because that 
 money, though doubled in value, with relation to 
 wdiat they had to sell, namely, labour, and wrought 
 goods, the result of labour, of which a given sum 
 could command a double quantity, was not at all 
 increased in value with relation to what they had 
 to buy, namely, the produce of land, food, cottage 
 rent, and raw material, over which, in consequence 
 of the corn laws, a given sum had no increased 
 command, the produce of land being screened by 
 the particular operation of corn laws, from the 
 general operation of dear money : so that, while the 
 value of land, and all capital already created and 
 only lent out at interest, was doubled in its power 
 of commanding labour, the difficulty of living by
 
 136 UNNATURAL CO-OPERATION 
 
 labour, and of creating new capital by the employ- 
 ment of capital in putting labour in motion, was 
 also at least doubled — in many cases, much more 
 than doubled. It was as though the landed inte- 
 rest and the men of cash had said, in so many 
 words, to the manufacturing interest and the la- 
 bourer, " A sovereign in our hands, shall henceforth 
 be worth two sovereigns ; but in your hands ; it shall 
 still be worth but one sovereign ! so that, whether 
 you buy of us, or whether you sell to us, you shall 
 lose on both transactions. You are now, by our 
 double manoeuvre, become at least half bondsmen ; 
 for we are, by a law that we made ourselves, en- 
 titled to at least half your labour without purchase, 
 whenever we choose to purchase the other half, 
 which you must always choose to sell, or starve ; 
 for, whether you like our terms or not, we will not 
 allow you to buy food any where else on any better 
 terms. Suppose a man owns a field (farming is not 
 here alluded to, but the only difference would be, 
 that the advantage would find its way into the land- 
 lord's pocket, in an advance of rent, w^henever the 
 lease, if there were one, terminated), the supposed 
 field produces ten quarters of wheat. When money 
 was cheap, and corn laws were not in operation, 
 these ten quarters of wheat brought the owner of 
 the field, say, twenty shillings a quarter — in all, 
 ten pounds. But corn laws come into operation, 
 and the money price of corn doubles, that is, be- 
 comes forty shillings a (|uarter. The owner of the
 
 OF CORN LAWS. 137 
 
 field consequently sells his ten quarters of wheat to 
 a manufacturer for twenty pounds instead of ten 
 pounds. He now wishes to lay out his twenty 
 pounds in cloth ; but restricted, or enhanced cur- 
 rency, having produced dear money, the cloth, 
 which, in the time of paper currency, or cheap 
 money, was twenty shillings a yard, now that money 
 is doubled in value, sells at ten shillings a yard ; so 
 that the owner of the field carries home forty yards 
 of cloth in exchange for his ten quarters of wheat, 
 instead of only ten yards as formerly ; while the 
 manufacturer carries his twenty pounds that he got 
 instead of forty pounds for his forty yards of cloth, 
 to the corn market ; but corn laws having doubled 
 the price of corn, he brings home for his twenty 
 pounds, which he got instead of forty pounds, only 
 the same ten quarters of wheat he used to get for 
 the ten pounds that used to be the price of ten 
 yards of cloth. Yet each ten yards, of this forty 
 yards, cost him more to produce than the one ten 
 yards did before, the quantity of labour on each ten 
 yards being the same, and the food consumed, while 
 performing the labour double in price ; or, if this 
 portion of the loss is saved to the master manufacturer 
 by the cruel privations of the operative, so much 
 the worse ! Or, even allow that the corn laws, in- 
 stead of doubling, only upheld the price of the pro- 
 duce of land, at the same money price which it had 
 borne in the time of paper currency or cheap money, 
 while labou^;, and the produce of labour, nianu-
 
 138 UNNATURAL CO-OPERATION 
 
 factures, were reduced to half their former price by 
 the enhanced or restricted currency, or dear 
 money, the manufacturer would have to give, 
 even on this most favourable supposition, twenty 
 yards of cloth, instead of only ten yards, for the 
 same ten quarters of wheat which he used to buy 
 for ten yards of cloth, in the time of paper cur- 
 rency or cheap money. No wonder, therefore, 
 under either supposition, that both profits and real 
 wages should be ruinously low, and no wonder 
 that there should arise the miserable struggle, 
 which is even now at its height between master 
 and operative, contending about the division of 
 what, in too many instances, no longer exists ; 
 namely, the surplus after the cost of production, a 
 surplus, which the forced co- existence of dear food, 
 and dear money has nearly annihilated. 
 
 Nothing but our rapid and extraordinary im- 
 provements in machinery have kept us, as a ma- 
 nufacturing nation, alive so long, under so frightful 
 a complication of diseases. It is, however, a me- 
 lancholy reflection to think, that the almost miracu- 
 lous results of all these great improvements, 
 instead of being permitted to produce, as their 
 natural tendency must have been, unparalleled 
 prosperity, have been sunk in merely warding off, 
 for a time, national dissolution. In short, every 
 discovery in science, together with the superior 
 skill and industrious habits of our workmen, our 
 cheaper fuel, and our cheaper carriage, have all
 
 OF CORN LAWS. 139 
 
 been obliged to be flung into the scale, as mere 
 make- weight against the cheaper food of our " un- 
 bread taxed rivals." Whereas, had dear money, 
 when it lowered the money price of labour and 
 labour's produce, been permitted to lower, in the 
 same proportion, the money price of food and raw 
 material, the labourer would have been, from the 
 very first, compensated for what he might have 
 seemed to lose. But his advantages would not 
 have ended here, — tiie finished goods composed of 
 labour and raw produce, being by the reduced cost 
 of labour and raw produce, rendered saleable on 
 advantageous terms in foreign markets, trade would 
 have flourished, and labour consequently found full 
 employment, which would always have enabled 
 the labourer to have demanded and obtained, a re- 
 muneration proportioned to the price of first neces- 
 saries, instead of being compelled, by the contrac- 
 tion of foreign markets, and consequent want of 
 employment, to underbid each other in the labour 
 market, down to what Colonel Torrens* emphatically 
 calls the starving point; that is, rather than have 
 no work, and therefore no bread, to offer their la- 
 bour for the price of the smallest possible quantity of 
 food that would keep them alive ; and prolong their 
 toil to the greatest possible number of hours, that 
 exhausted nature could hold out under the double 
 infliction. 
 
 * On Wages and Combination.
 
 140 UNNATURAL CO-OPERATION 
 
 To relieve the labourer, then, it is clear, tliat 
 labour must get either more money wages, or more 
 food in exchange for the same money wages. But, 
 if we give labour more money wages, we increase 
 the difficulty of selling finished goods, at the market 
 price in the foreign market, and so, ultimately in- 
 crease the distress of the labourers, by throwing 
 more hands out of employment, as capitalists 
 cannot, of course, continue a trade on which they 
 get no profit. 
 
 Therefore, as the necessary relief to labour can- 
 not be obtained by raising money wages, it must be 
 sought by making food cheaper. In other words, 
 it is quite clear that, as Colonel Torrens justly 
 observes, " No measure for increasing the re- 
 ward of labour can be successful, until the corn 
 laws have been abolished."* It l^ equally true that, 
 as the unnatural co-existence, caused by corn laws, 
 of dear food in the same market with dear money, 
 must multiply incalculably the miseries of those 
 who sell labour, and the fruits of labour, and buy 
 food and raw material, that no device to make 
 money dear, and goods had in exchange for 
 money, relatively cheap, can have any salutary 
 effect on the comforts of the people, while the arbi- 
 trary interference of corn laws, is suffered to screen 
 food and raw material from the operation of such 
 device. Let it not be supposed that it is dear 
 
 * Tunens, on Wages and Combination.
 
 OF CORN LAWS. 141 
 
 money which is here argued against ; dear money 
 ought to give cheap every thing else, and therefore, 
 as already explained, he a blessing to this country ; 
 it being self-evidently necessary that we, Great 
 Britain, as a nation which from limited territory is 
 strictly an operative nation, that is, dependent on 
 manufactures for its prosperity, should assimilate all 
 its rates of value, as nearly as possible, to those of 
 the nations with whom it has to deal. It is dear 
 food, therefore, which is here condemned, and which 
 being itself a curse, has changed what ought to have 
 been a blessing, into a deepening of its own curse. 
 But we live in a blockaded country, and therefore 
 pay siege prices for first necessaries, and can get 
 next to nothing for wrought goods.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE LEGISLATING LANDLORD'S APOLOGY. 
 
 ^' But," say the landowners, " had we not 
 sheltered raw produce from the operation of dear 
 money, cheap food, and cheap raw material must 
 have made land cheap, and this is just what we 
 wished to avoid." 
 
 Grant, for ar2;ument sake, cheapness of land to 
 be a necessary ultimate consequence of cheapness 
 of food, which, however, shall hereafter be proved 
 not to be the case, yet, without suffering the pro- 
 duce of land as well as every thing else to find 
 its own level, and granting if necessary a propor- 
 tionate reduction of every obligation to pay rent 
 incurred prior to making money dear, the act of 
 making money dear, was, in landowners, a dis- 
 honest act. 
 
 Here the question naturally arises : these prin- 
 ciples being so simple, how came deliberate acts 
 of parliament, to be so framed by the " collective 
 wisdom of the nation," as to make first necessaries 
 scarce ; and, therefore, despite a restricted or en-
 
 THE LEGISLATING LANDLORD'S APOLOGY. 143 
 
 hancecl currency, dear, and labour and all wrought 
 goods, drugs in the market, and, therefore, des- 
 pite the dearness of food, cheap ? 
 
 Because, first necessaries are the produce of land, 
 and land is the property of members of parliament ; 
 and votes of members of parliament constitute acts 
 of parliament, and acts of parliament are laws. 
 While labour, and wrought goods, which derive 
 their principal value from the labour expended in 
 their production, are the property of those who 
 have neither seats nor votes in parliament, and 
 who have therefore, or at least then, had no share 
 in making laws. 
 
 This answer, though but a simple statement of 
 facts, conveys an inference more harsh, it is 
 hoped, than the unpalliated truth. Might not the 
 first framers of those enactments, which doubled 
 rents, and then bolstered doubled rents by corn 
 laws, from gross ignorance, have felt an agreeable 
 presentiment of being themselves gainers, without 
 any very clear perception of who were to be the 
 losers ? Perhaps it did not occur to them to re- 
 flect, that no one can find a lost purse, unless 
 some one else have lost one ; and that, accord- 
 ingly, they put the found purse, of rents doubled 
 in value by an enhanced currency, and upheld 
 against the just and natural effects of market 
 prices by corn-laws, in their pockets, and only 
 thought themselves fortunate. Now, however, 
 that the spirit of truth is abroad, and the voice of
 
 144 THE LEGISLATING LANDLORD'S APOLOGY. 
 
 ju&tice is crying aloud through the land, and pro- 
 claiming to whom the found purse belongs, and 
 where, and when, and how it was lost, let us 
 hope, that they who have found it, will no longer 
 refuse to restore it to its rightful owner. In other 
 words, that landowners will no longer refuse to 
 abolish the corn laws : and that with a good grace, 
 instead of waiting till they are compelled to do 
 so, after having forfeited the respect of the nation ; 
 while, for what is past, let us still endeavour to 
 apologise : let us hope, that when farmers pleaded 
 the impossibility of paying the same money rents 
 in money doubled in value, that landlords, in 
 shifting the burden from the shoulders of their 
 tenants, to those of the customer, fancied they had 
 discovered a happy device, by which they had 
 satisfied the demands of justic*^ ; and that every 
 body's money, being considered, by too many 
 people, something like every body's business — 
 nobody's ; they perceived not the remoter conse- 
 quences of these most pernicious enactments, some 
 short explanation of which has been attempted, 
 in the foregoing chapters on the cost, dead loss, 
 and various other evils to the nation, of protec- 
 tions, monopolies, restrictions, and hindrances to 
 trade of every kind ; and the peculiar misery at- 
 tendant on those effecting raw produce in par- 
 ticular.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 EVILS OF INDIRECT TAXATION. 
 
 '* A tax may either take out or keep out of the pockets of the 
 people, a great deal more than it brings into the public trea- 
 sury, in four ways : First, the levying of it may require a 
 great number of officers, whose salaries may eat up the greater 
 part of the produce of the tax, and whose perquisites may 
 impose another additional tax upon the people. Secondly, it 
 may obstruct the industry of the people. — While it obhges 
 people to pay, it may thus diminish the funds which might 
 enable them more easily to do so. Thirdly, by the penalties 
 which those incur, who attempt unsuccessfully to evade the 
 tax, it may ruin them, and thereby put an end to the benefits 
 which the community might have received from the employment 
 of their capitals." — Adam Smith. 
 
 The indirect taxes are additional sources of 
 national loss : they occasion, in the first place, 
 the greater part of the expenditure of between three 
 and four milhons, the cost of collection, and 
 the preventive service. They are at once the 
 cause and the support of the demoralizing and 
 waste-inducing system of smuggling. They are also
 
 14G EVILS OF INDIRECT TAXATION. 
 
 almost insurmountable bars to effectual measures 
 for the prevention of drunkenness and pauperism. 
 How revolting, for instance, is it to every good 
 feeling to read over the details of a debate in which 
 the legislative wisdom of the land, the privileged 
 and educated guardians of the welfare of the unedu- 
 cated multitude, are employed in weighing, and 
 nicely adjusting the tax on spirituous liquors, so 
 as not to endanger the revenue by checking con- 
 sumption. Were the revenue rendered indepen- 
 dent of indirect taxation, ardent spirits might be 
 taxed a guinea per drop ! could such a tax not 
 only check, but prevent consumption. As, how- 
 ever, inordinate taxation only acts as a bounty 
 on smuggling ; if we would rescue the labouring 
 classes from demoralisation and pauperism, the 
 use as well as the abuse of spirituous liquors, must 
 be utterly prohibited. It should be made equally 
 contrary to law to use, to sell, to possess, or to 
 give away spirits of any kind. There should be 
 no such thing as legal spirits ; nothing, in short, 
 that the smuggler could pass his spirits for. Nor 
 need this incur any expense for a preventive ser- 
 vice, for who w^ould import or distil, what they could 
 neither possess nor dispose of, without being in 
 the power, not only of all who respected the laws, 
 but of every petty enemy, or common informer. 
 
 Indirect taxes also, in conjunction with mono- 
 polies, check the increase of national wealth, by
 
 EVILS OF INDIRECT TAXATION. 147 
 
 injuring and hindering trade ; preventing improve- 
 ments, and contracting our markets, home and 
 foreign. In common with monopoUes, they raise 
 the price of necessaries ; and, by so doing, both 
 check consumption, and unequally tax the poor, 
 whose whole expenditure is in necessaries. They 
 open many doors to every species of fraud, minor 
 monopoly, peculation, petty malice, and corrupt 
 favour. The working of the cumbrous and com- 
 plicated machinery necessary for their collection, 
 requires an infinite number, and furnishes an ex- 
 cuse for keeping in supposed employment, a still 
 greater number of non-productive consumers, 
 whose services would not be required, if simple 
 machinery, manageable by a few hands, were 
 adopted ; and whose maintenance, therefore, is 
 another unnecessary cost to the nation. Every 
 successive trader, also, through whose hands a 
 taxed article passes, must, in the first instance, 
 advance the tax, and, for a longer or shorter time 
 lie out of his money, the interest of which he 
 must add to the price of the article ; so that the 
 complication of charges, which the consumer has 
 at last, to pay, are enormous.* It is plain, then, 
 that indirect taxes must both " take and keep" 
 infinitely more " out of the pockets of the people," 
 than they " bring into the public treasury of the 
 
 * As shown at length by Adam Smith. 
 
 L 2 
 
 1?
 
 148 EVILS OF INDIRECT TAXATION. 
 
 State."* While the difference is so much of the 
 nation's common fund, not only utterly lost, but 
 wilfully flung away, by neglecting to substitute 
 direct for indirect taxation. 
 
 Indirect taxes too, commonly operate as pro- 
 tections to some monopolists, to whom they give, 
 as all monopolies do, an unjust advantage over 
 the rest of the community ; so that the sum which 
 they, in this manner, take out of the pockets of 
 the consumer, is generally much greater than the 
 sum they bring to the revenue. Finally, their 
 tendency, in every stage of their consequences, is 
 to check both production, and consumption, and, 
 therefore, both to lessen the immediate comforts of 
 the people, and to prevent the creation of new wealth. 
 
 The hackneyed and only argument ever at- 
 tempted to be brought forward, in favour of 
 indirect taxes, namely, that people paid them 
 without considering that they were taxes, and 
 were not put so much out of humour by them, as 
 by direct payments to the tax gatherer, might 
 have had some weight in the days of total ignor- 
 ance ; but now that the world is getting too old 
 to play at blind man's buff, national prosperity, 
 and millions per annum of public revenue, are 
 considerations rather too valuable to be flung away, 
 in the vain attempt to get money out of people's 
 pockets, without ruffling their tempers. 
 
 * Adam Smith.
 
 EVILS OF INDIRECT TAXATION. 149 
 
 Nor is it because the customs yield eighteen 
 millions to the revenue, and the excise seventeen 
 milhons, that we are to be told we cannot do 
 without them. The money, or rather a part of 
 it, may be necessary ; but not the abuses which 
 attend these modes of collecting it. Raise the 
 sum then, or the share of it which may be re- 
 quired, in any other way, for it would be impos- 
 sible to devise one equally mischievous. 
 
 In a former chapter on the cost of monopolies, 
 protections, and forced production, we have seen 
 that by doing away with all such, we should save, 
 of the immense sums which the nation is there 
 calculated to be out of pocket, all but the fifty 
 millions which constitute our public revenue ; it 
 therefore only remains to add, that by simplifying 
 the machinery of taxation ; that is commuting all 
 indirect taxes, for one direct tax, the chief part 
 of the expenses of collection, and the whole of the 
 expense of the preventive service being saved, a 
 sum considerably less than the said fifty millions 
 would be rendered sufficient for our whole public 
 expenditure ; while artificial, as well as additional 
 artificial prices being thus done away with, we 
 should be enabled to purchase all the necessaries 
 of life, at, probably, about one-third of their present 
 cost ; — a remunerating circumstance which would 
 more than repay all consumers, whatever sum 
 might be their portion of the commutation, or one 
 direct tax to be proposed.
 
 150 
 
 EVILS OF INDIRECT TAXATION. 
 
 Indirect taxes, however, are so much part and 
 parcel of the ruinous system of monopoly, or 
 rather are so thoroughly interwoven with it, that 
 the whole of their complicated mischiefs must 
 stand or fall together ; which renders it unneces- 
 sary to dwell longer upon any of them under this 
 separate head. Let us, now, therefore, proceed to 
 the consideration of a better system.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE REMEDY. 
 
 " If bounties, monopolies, etc. are as improper as I have en- 
 deavoured to prove them to be, the sooner they cease the better.'' 
 
 Adam Smith. 
 
 " Beside a multitude of establishments, half job, half monopoly, 
 such as corporations enjoying exclusive privileges, holding lands, 
 levying taxes, administering charities, and bestowing offices.* * * 
 It works well ! George Canning used to exclaim ; countless plun- 
 derers respond, it works well !" — England and America. 
 
 " Every such regulation introduces some degree of real disorder 
 into the Constitution of the State." — Adam Smith. 
 
 That good-will, be it remembered, which neces- 
 sarily includes equal justice, is to all ! Reforms, 
 then, not only to be just, and therefore beneficial, 
 but not to be unjust, and therefore injurious, should 
 be universal in their operation, and simultaneous in 
 their application.
 
 152 THE REMEDY. 
 
 The only plausible arguments, ever urged against 
 any portion of reform, are founded on a portion 
 not being the whole, that is, on the supposed con- 
 tinuance of some evil, which the evil proposed to 
 be removed had served to bolster or prop. But re- 
 move, at once, all that isunsound, lay at once a new 
 foundation, on the solid ground of honesty, or equal 
 justice, and the clumsy and unsightly props 
 hitherto in use, will be no longer necessary. 
 At present, each monopolist is but repaid by the 
 unjust gains of his own monopoly, a part of what 
 he loses by the unjust gains of other monopolists ; 
 therefore, if an attempt be made to do away with 
 his own especial share of the general injustice, he 
 complains loudly of impending ruin. Whereas, 
 if the whole generation of evils were banished 
 together, each monopolist, by being no longer 
 robbed by others, would be rendered inde- 
 pendent of the compensation he had hitherto de- 
 rived from his own licence to rob others ; while 
 the redemption of the dead losses on forced pro- 
 duction, and wasteful collection, would thus be a 
 clear gain to the whole nation. 
 
 Let, then, all protections, restrictions, exclusions, 
 etc., in short, all and every of the A^arious parts 
 and limbs of that great trampler on natural 
 rights, that great destroyer of national prosperity, 
 the many headed monster, monopoly, perish at 
 one blow ! and, at the same time, the whole of the 
 present cumbrous, wasteful, and intricate machinery
 
 THE REMEDY. 153 
 
 of indirect taxation, so favourable to every species 
 of corrupt jobbing, fraud, peculation, and oppres- 
 sion, and requiring a host of non-productive con- 
 sumers for its mismanagement, be done away with, 
 and a legislative engine, of the simplest possible 
 construction, which a few hands can guide, be 
 substituted in its room. 
 
 Of course, we shall have just the same ignorant 
 outcry, which takes place in a factory, when im- 
 proved machinery is introduced. What is to be 
 done with all the people thrown out of employ- 
 ment ? What employment? But let us wave 
 this unpleasant question, and suppose the employ- 
 ment has been hitherto useful. Has not the nation 
 as good a right to increase the productiveness of 
 its capital, by the introduction of the non-con- 
 suming productive power of improved machinery, 
 as any master of a single factory ? The persons 
 whose dis-services are thus no longer required, 
 must even, like the poor operatives of the said 
 factory, seek employment wherever they can find 
 it ; and be thankful that it was not in the days of 
 dear food and restricted trade, when employment 
 was not to be had, that they were turned adrift. 
 
 Now, the system of universal free trade and free 
 institutions, demanded by that equal justice which 
 Hows from good-will to all includes, not only a 
 total and immediate repeal of the corn laws, and 
 of all restrictions on the importation of live cattle, 
 salt meat, butter, cheese, and all other first neces-
 
 154 THE REMEDY. 
 
 saries and raw materials ; and a commutation of 
 every other tax, direct and indirect, for one or 
 more well considered direct tax ; but, also the 
 discontinuance of every species of monopoly, pro- 
 tection, custom, duty, bounty, public or private 
 corporation privilege, or partial interference of any 
 kind, whether indulgence or restriction, having 
 any tendency whatsoever, to render the earning of 
 honest bread more difficult to any individual mem- 
 ber of the community, or to make any article of 
 consumption dearer to any consumer, than, without 
 such partial dealing, would have been the case ; 
 every such interference of artificial laws with natural 
 rights, acting as an unequal tax on some part of 
 the community, and every bar to the honest acqui- 
 sition of property being tantamount to the taking 
 away of property already acquired . 
 
 To enumerate all the beneficial effects of the 
 system proposed, would fill volumes ; the notice of 
 a few of them, however, may suffice to recommend 
 its adoption. 
 
 First : An unlimited extension of the foreign 
 market for our manufactured goods, which would 
 give immediate and full employment to our whole 
 manufacturing population, and also to such agri- 
 cultural labourers as, if not absorbed by an exten- 
 sive adoption of the small allotment system, might 
 be thrown idle by our ceasing to grow corn on 
 inferior soils. 
 
 Second : A reduction of the price of food and raw
 
 THE REMEDY. 155 
 
 materials, in relation to wrought goods, which would 
 enable us to make our exchanges in the foreign 
 market, on advantageous terms. 
 
 Third : A rise, if not in nominal, in real wages ; 
 for, instead of the cheapness of food producing, as 
 some few are still so ignorant as to imagine would 
 be the case, a corresponding fall in wages, the new 
 demand for manufactured goods, occasioned by the 
 very act of exchanging them for foreign corn, would, 
 by relieving the labour market from the glut which 
 now depresses the value of labour, relieve labourers 
 from the cruel necessity of under-bidding each 
 other for employment ; and therefore, raise real 
 wages, to the utmost that masters could afford to 
 give, retaining a fair profit on capital, without 
 which they could not continue to employ labour. 
 
 Fourth : Relief from the sad dilemma of sinking 
 our capital, or starving our operatives ; for, the 
 cheapness of raw material, and of food for the use 
 of masters themselves and their own families and 
 establishments, would render masters better able 
 to remunerate labour amply, and still retain fair 
 profits. 
 
 Fifth : Extension also of the home market ; and 
 that by means, in which every friend of humanity 
 must rejoice, namely, by the whole of the labour- 
 ing population, being exalted in their capacity of 
 consumers, into important benefactors of the in- 
 ternal trade of the country ; for whatever portion 
 of the labourer's wages might be spent in the
 
 156 THE REMEDY, 
 
 purchase of foreign grown wheat, that wheat 
 would, as has been shown, have been brought 
 to the country in exchange for home produced 
 manufactures, whilst the remainder of the la- 
 bourer's wages, a remainder which, (let it be 
 remembered by the friends of the poor) he would 
 not have had, had he paid double price for his 
 wheat, that remainder would be expended in 
 fresh meat, malt, milk, vegetables, fuel, better 
 clothing, better lodging, and better education ; 
 comforts and advantages to which, it is thus clearly 
 demonstrable, that he must have continued a stran- 
 ger, had not the abundance- giving blessings, flow- 
 ing from equal justice, namely free trade, and 
 consequent full employment and cheap first neces- 
 saries, thus happily been dispensed to all, on the 
 comprehensive principle of good-will to all. 
 
 Let us endeavour to calculate, or, if that be 
 impossible, to imagine what quantity of manufac- 
 tured goods it would require to clothe all the 
 labouring classes of Great Britain, up to that stand- 
 ard of comfort and decency, below which no fellow- 
 jreature should, if possible, be suffered to sink ; 
 .!:nd, whatever that quantity maybe supposed to be, 
 would find an almost immediate home market, as 
 soon as food became cheap ; for it is the first ne- 
 cessity for food, which compels people to neglect 
 the second necessity for clothing ; but let them 
 have a surplus after food, and they will desire 
 decent clothes ; after both, and thev will seek to
 
 THE REMEDY. 157 
 
 be comfortably lodged ; after all tbree, and amuse- 
 ment, and instruction, and the possession of a few 
 books will become objects of ambition. 
 
 And this, simple statement though it be, of the 
 mere natural consequences of not doing injustice, 
 answers, triumphantly, the question of those who 
 ask the author of England and America, how he 
 would raise the condition of the labouring classes. 
 Abolish the corn laws, and all other monopolies, 
 and establish free trade in every thing, on the un- 
 erring principle of equal justice, and the process 
 just described, must go on by the spontaneous oper- 
 ation of natural causes. In short, were fifty 
 volumes written on the subject, it must all end in 
 this ; cease to maintain, by Act of Parliament, an 
 artificial scarcity of food, and that natural principle, 
 universally acknowledged to be inherent in man- 
 kind, the desire of bettering their condition, will 
 do all the rest. Thus would the system of free 
 trade which equal justice demands, not only ex- 
 tend the home market for agricultural productions 
 other than corn, and for manufactured goods of 
 clothing, and of furniture, but when the countless 
 numbers of miserable beings, whom Gaskal, in 
 his history of the manufacturing classes describes, 
 as dragging out a wretched and loathsome exist- 
 ence, swarming amid disease, vice, and vermin, in 
 filthy cellars —were, by the blessings of equal 
 justice, namely, free trade, full employment, and 
 cheap food, enabled to provide themselves with
 
 158 THE REMEDY. 
 
 comfortable little tenements ; a wide market would 
 be opened for building ground, bricks, timber, tiles, 
 brick makers, bricklayers, builders, carpenters, 
 painters, etc. etc. and the good done, and the good 
 received by and to all parties concerned, be incalcu- 
 lable. Nor would the wealthy landholder be with- 
 out his share of the general prosperity. Let him 
 take a few acres of his land, adjoining to, or in the 
 vicinity of any great or growing town, and lay 
 them out on a well regulated plan of whole streets 
 devoted to small tenements ; and he will find 
 builders, and speculators ready to give him a price 
 or rent, such as no land devoted to agricultural 
 purposes could ever produce. While the builders 
 and speculators again, will find all such labourers 
 as are thus lifted above the immediate dread of 
 starvation, eager to avail themselves of the offered 
 accommodation, at rents affording a higher interest 
 on the capital so invested, than could be obtained 
 on any other outlay.* 
 
 In a short time also, numbers would rise from 
 the pauper and labour ranks, into a comfortable 
 sort of class, possessed of some small competency, 
 and able, without ceasing to be industrious them- 
 selves, to become, in their turn, good customers, 
 not only to the labourer and manufacturer, but to 
 
 * To add small allotments, if possible, would be an infinite 
 blessing to the labourer, and a great preventive of poor's rates.— 
 See Chap. XI.
 
 THE REMEDY. 159 
 
 many likewise of the " uneasy class" in their 
 various vocations. 
 
 Out of this part of the subject arises a consider- 
 ation of the utmost importance, namely, this : 
 When the population in general were thus raised 
 in their condition, that is, possessed of comfort, 
 character, education, and some little property, 
 there would be something to forfeit besides life, 
 and much of the sanguinary part of our penal code 
 might be dispensed with, and what remained be- 
 come, with the blessing of God, a dead letter. In 
 France, respect for the rights of property is said to 
 be, at the present moment, to a very remarkable 
 degree, a powerful and pervading national senti- 
 ment, in consequence of nearly two thirds of the 
 male adult population having become, since the 
 abolition of the law of primogeniture, possessed of 
 property. 
 
 Landlords do not deny, that a free trade in first 
 necessaries will give cheap food, for that W'Ould be 
 withdrawing their objection to the abolition of the 
 bread monopoly. But how, they ask, can you se- 
 cure the labourer against a proportionate fall of 
 wages ? The answer has been already given. By 
 so great an extension of the foreign market, as 
 shall provide full employment for all*, and oblige 
 
 * To which may be added, that an extensive adoption of the small 
 allotment system, would give profitable employment to all now 
 on the pauper list. — See Chapter XI.
 
 ]G0 THE REMEDY. 
 
 masters to bid against each other, to obtain la- 
 bourers, till labour, which is the poor man's only 
 property, shall become the most valuable of all 
 commodities. Nor should this be considered as a 
 hardship by the rich, for as long as there is no Act 
 of Parliament against their using their limbs in la- 
 bour, the monopoly of the labour market is given up 
 by themselves, of their own free will, for the ease 
 which they are pleased to prefer. 
 
 But how are we so greatly to extend our mar- 
 kets, as always to secure this monopoly price to 
 labour? " Show this," say the objectors, and all 
 the rest, we allow, must follow." Throw open 
 the flood gates, and the waters will flow unpropel- 
 led ! Abolish the corn laws, and no countries pos- 
 sessing, like both Russia and America, rich alluvial 
 soils, can manufacture for themselves, on terms as 
 advantageous to themselves, as those on which they 
 can exchange the produce of their soil with us, for 
 our manufactured goods. We have, therefore, a 
 security, a mortgage, as it were, on the self-inter- 
 est of those nations, that as long as they want 
 our goods, and have corn and other raw produce 
 to give in exchange for them, they will continue 
 to take them in exchange for that corn and other 
 raw produce. 
 
 But wdiat security have we that those nations 
 will continue to want our goods, and to have corn 
 to give in exchange for them ? The known fact of 
 their possessing interminable tracts of rich, alluvial
 
 THE REMEDY. 161 
 
 soil, which, while they continue to multiply, they 
 will, for their ow^n convenience, continue to spread 
 over, and to raise grain upon. 
 
 " Even without Russia," says Colonel Torrens, 
 " in America alone, throughout the vast regions of 
 Ohio, the Wabash, the Missouri, and Mississippi, 
 cultivation is spreading with marvellous rapidity, 
 and a market opening before us in which, for gene- 
 rations to come, the demand for wrought goods 
 must increase both in extent and in intensity. The 
 Valley of the Mississippi, 1400 miles in length, 
 and nearly the same in breadth, and intersected 
 throughout all its vast extent by navigable streams, 
 is itself capable of supplying food and raw material 
 for a population greater than that of the w^hole of 
 Europe." 
 
 It has been lately stated, in some of our public 
 journals, that the Poles, who are in miserable rag- 
 gedness for want of our manufactured goods, are 
 obliged to feed their swine with their best wheat, 
 because we refuse to take their wheat in exchange 
 for the manufactured goods for which we want a 
 market. Sir James Graham, during the debates 
 on the corn-laws,* admitted that half the land of 
 Poland, a corn-growing country, lay waste for want 
 of a market for the corn which it is well calculated 
 to produce. Yet w^e are supporting by poor-rates, 
 
 * February 6th and 7 th, 1834. 
 M
 
 \{j2 the remedy, 
 
 and complaining of the expense of so doing, thou- 
 sands who would support themselves by making 
 more goods, if the goods already made and waiting 
 for a market, were disposed of to those Poles who 
 are in so much need of them, and who have what 
 our unemployed poor are starving for want of, ready 
 to give in exchange for them. Our territory being 
 limited by our insular situation, as we multiply we 
 cannot spread and cultivate ; we must therefore 
 congregate and manufacture. But we cannot 
 manufacture the natural want of all living crea- 
 tures, food ; we must therefore manufacture some- 
 thing that we can exchange for food, and exchange 
 it with those who have food that they can afford 
 to give in exchange for it, on advantageous 
 terms. 
 
 If the extra cost, of cultivating inferior soils, has 
 already occasioned prices which the poor cannot af- 
 ford to pay, resorting to the still worse soils we have 
 in reserve, (except indeed for home colonization, on 
 the small allotment plan,*') can only increase the 
 evil. So that, unless trade be permitted to keep 
 pace with population, that trade manufactured 
 goods exchanged for corn, directly or indirectly ; 
 the thousand a day added to the population, which 
 is said to be the ratio of our increase, must prove, 
 instead of additional means of national wealth, 
 
 * See Home Colonization.
 
 THE REMEDY. 163 
 
 nearly a thousand a day added to the pauper 
 list. 
 
 Capital is not our want ; bankers Gurney and 
 Lloyd proved, before a Committee of the House 
 of Commons, that they could not employ capital 
 at two per cent. Does not this redundency of seed 
 call for an increase of field ? especially when there 
 are starving labourers, also, standing idle in the 
 market-place, waiting to be employed.* 
 
 Abolish then the corn-laws, and all other arbi- 
 trary and unjust restrictions on food and trade, 
 and while there is capital to set labour in motion, 
 and a market in which to sell the produce of that 
 labour, the population of the kingdom can never 
 exceed its resources. Nay, if a system of unre- 
 stricted exchanges were permitted to extend our 
 foreign markets without limit, and on fair terms, 
 every increase of population would be an increase 
 of those resources, an increase of national wealth 
 without limit : until, indeed, there was not ground 
 to stand upon, in which case landlords would have 
 nothing to complain of, for land, at least, would be 
 sufficiently valuable, even the wretched clay soils, 
 so much and so justly complained of for culti- 
 
 * It is also a melancholy fact, noticed in " Facts and lUus- 
 trations, published by the Labourer's Friend Society," that our 
 city merchants, in search of interest on capital, lend their money 
 to foreign despots, to work the work of carnage, strangle infant 
 liberty, and crush the hope of the oppressed. — See Chapter XI, 
 
 M 2
 
 164 • THE REMEDY. 
 
 vation, would do to build great manufacturing 
 towns upon, and if the clay, in such cases, 
 happened to be brick clay, so much the better. 
 This brings us to the consideration of the im- 
 mense value to which, under a system of free trade, 
 dictated by equal justice, land, in this country, 
 would be likely to attain.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ON THE INCREASED VALUE OF LAND UNDER A 
 SYSTEM OF FREE TRADE. 
 
 " A Free Trade in Corn, the real interest of the Landlord, and 
 the true policy of the State." — Title of Sir J. Graham's Pamphlet. 
 
 Whenever freedom, from every unjust restric- 
 tion, shall permit trade, wealth, and population, to 
 progress with a daily and rapid increase, the land 
 alone, under these favourable circumstances, con- 
 tinuing to be limited, must, as it becomes relatively 
 scarce, rise to an enormous value. 
 
 Yet, the first necessaries of life, and the raw 
 material for manufactures, being imported in abun- 
 dance, and at low prices, the new and honest, 
 because natural monopoly which landlords would 
 then possess, would cause neither serious priva- 
 tions to the labouring classes, nor limitations to 
 trade, and, therefore, would not produce that re- 
 action upon the land which has been occasioned by 
 the mistaken attempt to obtain an unjust advantage 
 over the rest of the community, by using the au-
 
 166 ON THE INCREASED 
 
 thority of a parliament of landowners, to starve the 
 population into the payment of rents, dispropor- 
 tioned to the existing state of the prosperity of the 
 country.* Nay, should it so happen that under a 
 system of free trade, the whole land not occupied 
 by buildings should, one time or other, come to be 
 required for purposes of luxury, so that the posses- 
 sion of a small portion of ornamental pleasure 
 ground should confer distinction, and fresh vege- 
 tables, fresh fruit, etc., become what hot-house 
 grapes and pines are now, the fare only of the very 
 rich, though such an excess of competition, even 
 for luxuries, would be very far from desirable, 
 still, while the labouring classes found the fruit of 
 their labour to be abundance of bread, on terms 
 that did not oblige them to labour beyond their 
 strength, it would be to them matter of compara- 
 tive indifference, whether that bread fell from the 
 heavens, like the manna of the Israelites ; rose 
 from the earth, responsive to their own labours ; or 
 crossed the sea in floating granaries, to supply the 
 deficiency from geographical position, of an island 
 empire which, from overgrown prosperity, had 
 become almost one town. 
 
 * In a future chapter it will appear, that an extensive adoption 
 of the small allotment system is not only calculated to carry the 
 nation safely and easily through the period of transition, but that 
 it would also be, in all probability, the best possible preparation for 
 a convenient supply of the new species of crops, for which a new 
 demand is anticipated.
 
 VALUE OF LAND. 
 
 167 
 
 Taking, however, a more moderate view of the 
 subject : should such freedom of trade, as equal 
 justice demands, be established in this country, 
 before our manufactures are driven abroad, the 
 future prospects of landlords will be splendid be- 
 yond conception ! It has been already shown, that, 
 with a free trade in corn, an unlimited market for 
 our manufactures would open before us, the natural 
 consequences of which, must be profitable employ- 
 ment for all the labour of a rapidly increasing 
 population, with a field for, and fair profit upon a 
 daily growing capital ; land alone, the while, as has 
 been already remarked, from the single circum- 
 stance of our being an island, standing still, while 
 all things else were thus rapidly changing their 
 relative proportions to land, not only must the 
 highest possible degree of competition for land yet 
 known arise, but probably a degree of competition, 
 and a consequent rise in value, as yet unheard of. 
 The enormous price which building land in and 
 near great towns already brings, may give some idea 
 of the state of things which might arise in this 
 country, were trade allowed to prosper unmolested. 
 
 Families change from towns to the country, or 
 from towns of more trade or fashion, to towns of 
 less trade or fashion, to obtain, on more moderate 
 terms, a house, with or without, according to their 
 plan of life, a garden, or a few acres of pleasure or 
 accommodation ground ; but the price of land 
 must be exorbitant indeed, before people who had
 
 168 ON THE INCREASED 
 
 realized comfortable competencies, would become 
 exiles to avoid paying a high rent for their house 
 and garden ; particularly in a country in which 
 they enjoyed the advantage of first necessaries, 
 and general prices being reasonable.* 
 
 It will probably be asked, in ironical triumph, if 
 it be meant that the whole of every estate in the 
 kingdom would be required for building land. 
 This is not exactly the meaning intended ; but it is 
 meant to be asserted that, at no very distant period, 
 old towns and villages w^ould stretch, and new 
 towns and villages arise, upon, or in the vicinity of 
 every, or almost every estate in the kingdom ; and 
 that thus, every, or almost every landowner, by ob- 
 taining building or accommodation price or rent for 
 a part of his property, would find the average value 
 of the whole much increased. This would be the 
 case, even though the actual rents of houses and 
 gardens should not exceed what they are at present, 
 the very lowest price of building or accommodation 
 land being already so much higher than the very 
 highest price of agricultural land. Indeed, so great 
 is the difference, that the landowner who could find 
 such a market for a very small part of an agricul- 
 tural estate, would be repaid, although he should 
 
 * But house rent would not probablv rise; for however high 
 ground rent might be, the proposed repeal of all taxes and 
 monopoly- creating restrictions on timber, bricks, and all building 
 materials, would very much lessen the prime cost of erecting 
 houses.
 
 VALUE OF LAND, 100 
 
 turn the remainder into beautiful parks and plea- 
 sure grounds for his own gratification. 
 
 And, further, it is especially worthy of remark, 
 that the immense value to which it is probable that 
 land may attain under a system of free trade, never 
 could arise in this or any other country, unless it 
 were a country limited in surface, densely inhabited, 
 skilful in manufactures, and importing its food and 
 raw material at low prices ; for, in a country itself 
 unlimited in territory, people would of course 
 spread over that territory, before they would pay 
 more than a certain amount of rent or price for any 
 convenience of vicinity to great towns ; while, on 
 the other hand, in a country limited in surface, and 
 not importing food and raw material, as soon as 
 rents, and consequent prices had attained to a 
 certain point, there they must stop, and the popu- 
 lation begin to emigrate, or cease to increase ; for 
 nature herself having fixed the standard of how 
 much work a man can do, and of how much food a 
 man should eat, it needs no prophet to teli us, that 
 it is physically impossible for any labouring popu- 
 lation to give a year's, a month's, or a week's 
 labour, for a day's food ; the utmost they can do is, 
 what our struggling population are in many in- 
 stances now doing : giving two days' labour for one 
 day's bread ; and thus maintaining a species of 
 existence, at, Colonel Torrens' said, starving point. 
 Nor can the inexperienced reader be too frequently 
 reminded, that the labourer can never be renin-
 
 170 ' ON THE INCREASED 
 
 nerated for paying an artificial price for food, by 
 obtaining an artificial price for labour, as long as 
 by restrictions on exchanges, the labour market is 
 over-stocked, and labour therefore exposed to a 
 ruinous intensity of competition. This is a most 
 essential point, and must not for a moment be lost 
 sight of. Were it possible to extend, very greatly, 
 the markets home and foreign, for our manufac- 
 tures, yet maintain the artificial price of food, the 
 labour market being no longer overstocked, the 
 labourer might demand, and for a time obtain, a 
 corresponding artificial price for his labour, and 
 thus cease to be the sufferer in the first instance ; 
 but the capitalist, to pay such wages, and sell his 
 goods at the market price of the foreign markets, 
 must sink his capital ; so that, ultimately, the 
 whole nation, labourers, capitalists, landowners, 
 and all must go to ruin together ! 
 
 On the advantage to landholders in particular, 
 of importing food and raw material, the author of 
 England and America gives a case in point, from 
 which, for the satisfaction of those who have 
 not read that clever work, it may be advisable 
 to quote the following passage : 
 
 " The soil of Genoa being unsuited to the 
 production of corn and meat, the Genoese turned 
 their industry into the channels of manufactures 
 and commerce, whereby to obtain corn and meat, 
 with an outlay of capital much less than would 
 have been required to raise the same produce on
 
 VALUE OF LAND. 171 
 
 their own territory. They created, by the increase 
 of wealth and population, a demand for produc- 
 tions which were easily raised on their own soil ; 
 such as garden vegetables, fruit, olive oil, silk, 
 and wine. Thus land, which, if it had been 
 used for growing corn, or feeding cattle, would 
 at best have returned a produce not more than 
 sufficient to replace capital with profit, and for 
 which, therefore, no rent could have been paid, 
 now yielded a rent equal to the difference between 
 the value of the produce and the cost of produc- 
 tion." " With the further increase of wealth 
 
 and population, the inhabitants of Genoa, the 
 magnificent (magnificent, because without corn 
 laws) required, besides, houses and warehouses, 
 country villas, pleasure gardens, and ornamental 
 grounds. For these, the staff of life being cheap, 
 they could well afford to pay, without regard to 
 
 profit. Thus, land of inferior quality yielded 
 
 a rent much higher than was ever paid for the 
 most fertile land used in producing commodities 
 for market. While the original cause of nearly 
 all the rent paid in the Genoese territory, was 
 the importation of corn and meat, which pro- 
 duced all the higher degrees of competition for 
 the use of land, on spots where, unless the staff 
 of life had been imported from foreign soils, 
 the lowest degree of competition could hardly 
 have existed :" 
 
 The pastoral poets, indeed, of our agricultural
 
 172 ON THE INCREASED 
 
 meetings, sometimes remind us, in sylvan strains, 
 that corn fields, agricultural labourers, and sheaves 
 of wheat, are much prettier, and more picturesque 
 objects than factories, steam-engines, and spin- 
 ning-jennies. — Granted freely ! But we have not 
 the choice. It was not the will of heaven to 
 cast our lot on a great continent, with tracts 
 of unappropriated territory in our rear, to fall 
 back upon, and cultivate, in proportion as we 
 nmltiply. It is only, therefore, by keeping ahead 
 of the rest of the world in manufacturing skill 
 and industry, and obtaining from foreign soils, 
 in exchange for our manufactured goods, unli- 
 mited supplies of cheap food, and cheap raw ma- 
 terial, that we can rise above our natural de- 
 ficiency of surface, and become, though but a 
 little island, the capital of great continents. Should 
 we choose to follow a contrary policy, we must 
 give up the vain and painful struggle, at the 
 crisis of which we have now arrived ; emigrate 
 as fast as we increase, and content ourselves 
 with being, what nature intended us for, a speck 
 among the great nations of the earth. 
 
 But we cannot eat gold, or silver, or printed 
 calicoes, or Birmingham hardware, say the land- 
 owners ; it is agricultural labour therefore, which 
 should be encouraged ; modes of making land 
 productive, which should be thought of. 
 
 The following, then, is a receipt for making one 
 acre of land, produce more quarters of wheat, than
 
 VALUE OF LAND. 173 
 
 ever grew on the greatest and best managed farm 
 in t'le world. 
 
 First, Abolish the Corn Laws. 
 
 Then, take an acre of ground, (let it be the 
 worst acre of ground in England,) and erect i pon 
 it an extensive factory. What, on an average, 
 will be the amount of the wages each year, of 
 all the hands employed within the walls of this 
 factory ? What, on an average, the amount of 
 the clear yearly profits of the master of the 
 factory ? 
 
 How many quarters of wheat will these im- 
 mense sums purchase in the Amsterdam or Havre 
 market ? or in Russia, America, or Poland ? 
 
 Let the money, then, or rather goods to that 
 amount, be sent to any of these places, and the 
 quarters of wheat brought back and laid down, 
 (if you will, to make conviction stronger) at the 
 very door of the factory. 
 
 Are not these quarters of wheat, then, the 
 harvest which, in one year, this one acre of the 
 worst land has produced ? Yes, as effectually, and 
 more beneficially produced, than had every wheat 
 ear found its way through the floor of the fac- 
 tory, and flourished among the wheels of the 
 machinery, and the feet of the workmen. What 
 prolific powers of nature could yield, what im- 
 provements of direct agriculture, or outlay of an 
 equally great capital, in fertilizing manures, could 
 draw from one acre of land a return of food for
 
 174 ON THE INCREASED VALUE OF LAND. 
 
 labour equal to that which, on the most mode- 
 rate computation, would be produced by the pro- 
 cess of indirect agriculture here described. Or 
 should our supposed factory be so extensive as to 
 require five or ten acres of ground on which to 
 stand, the profits, and consequently the indirect 
 harvest annually produced, would only be the 
 more amazingly immense. 
 
 The labour bestowed on the manufactured ar- 
 ticles, it may be said, is value for value. But under 
 a system of restricted exchanges, how much labour 
 is rendered of no value by being shut out, not 
 only from profitable employment, but even from 
 such employment as would provide subsistence for 
 the labourer while at work. 
 
 The objections of those who express fears, real 
 or affected, of foreign supply, whether in peace or 
 war, being denied, have been already fully re- 
 plied to.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 ON THE ADVANTAGES OF THE SMALL ALLOTMENT 
 SYSTEM, AS A MEANS OF CARRYING THE NATION 
 SAFELY THROUGH ANY TEMPORARY DIFFICULTIES, 
 WHICH MIGHT ELSE ATTEND THE ABOLITION OF 
 THE CORN LAWS. 
 
 " There is the uncultivated land ! * 
 
 Here are the people unemployed !" 
 Facts and Illustrations of Labourers' Friend Society . 
 
 " It has been conaputed that the waste lands of Britain and its 
 isles, might be made to yield to the nation the annual income of 
 twenty millions. "f — Home Colonization versus Emigration. 
 
 Should landlords apprehend a temporary fall of 
 rents, farmers fear some temporary inconvenience, 
 or agricultural labourers dread a temporary want 
 of employment, as consequent upon the abolition of 
 the corn laws, there is every reason to believe that 
 such evils might be prevented, by the extensive 
 adoption of the small allotment system. 
 
 * There are thirty millions of acres, fifteen millions improvable. 
 See third report of Emigration Committee. 
 
 t Were they not shamefully jobbed. This would be a hand- 
 some reduction of the fifty millions taxation.
 
 17G ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 Numerous well known experiments in cottage 
 husbandry, the satisfactory results of which are 
 already before the public,* prove that labourers, 
 with or without other avocations, holding a cot- 
 tage, and from a quarter of an acre, and half an 
 acre, to three or five acres each, obtain such crops 
 as warrant a belief, that they could afford to sell 
 their produce in an open market, that is, without 
 corn laws, yet live comfortably, and pay with ease 
 to landlords the same amount of rent which large 
 farmers, notwithstanding that ruinous and unjust 
 parliamentary interference, misnamed protection, 
 find it always difficult, in many instances impos- 
 sible, to pay. 
 
 It may, however, be desirable, before proceeding 
 further with this argument, to state here a few of 
 the many facts and instances which abound in the 
 authorities referred to, as well as some others 
 obtained directly from parties concerned, illustra- 
 tive of the advantages of the small allotment 
 system, it being on the reality and degree of those 
 advantages, that the conclusion aimed at must be 
 founded. 
 
 The Philanthropic Magazine for May, 1828, 
 gives a striking instance of a poor man in York- 
 
 * See " Facts and Illustrations," published monthly by La- 
 bourers' Friend Society; also, "The Golden Farmer," "Home 
 Colonization," " Communications to the Board of Agriculture," 
 " The Philanthropic Magazine," and the " Quarterly Review," 
 No. 8 1.
 
 THE SMALL ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 177 
 
 shire, with fourteen children, who lived comfort- 
 ably and did well on three and a half acres of 
 gravelly soil, so poor that, with an old cottage, he 
 paid at first but fifty shillings rent for the whole. 
 He improved the land to be worth ten pounds rent, 
 paid that advance of rent, bro .ght up his family 
 without knowing want, and, so far from ever be- 
 coming chargeable to the parish, realized funds 
 sufficient to rebuild his cottage, and purchase the 
 fee simple of his three and a half acres. He con- 
 tinually repeats, "It is my bit of land that has 
 done it all." 
 
 A remarkable instance is also given of a labourer, 
 who came to the village having a wife and six chil- 
 dren, and being so poor that there arose a demur 
 about allowing him to remain, lest he should be- 
 come chalrgeable to the parish. He began by 
 renting and cultivating one acre ; in time became 
 able to purchase nine acres ; and is now worth 
 fifteen hundred pounds or upwards. Another in- 
 stance is given of a labourer, who, from being a 
 poor boy in a farmer's service, and beginning 
 by paying eight guineas rent for four acres, is now 
 in independent circumstances. On one quarter of 
 an acre, he used to raise four tons of carrots, which 
 paid the rent of his whole four acres, while the tops 
 of the carrots were nearly as valuable, for the use 
 of his own pigs, as a crop of cabbages. In another 
 instance, a labourer refused thirteen guineas for the 
 year's produce of half an acre. 
 
 N
 
 178 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 The communications to the Board of Agriculture, 
 give an account of a cottager of Sir Henry Vava- 
 sour's, who rented three acres of land ; his stock 
 consisted of two cows, and two pigs ; he cultivated 
 his land with the assistance of his wife and a girl 
 of twelve years old, at their over hours. They 
 subsisted on their daily wages at other labour ; 
 paid their rent by the sale of their butter only ; 
 and were in the habit of saving thirty pounds a 
 year out of the produce of the sale of their crops. 
 The communications give also an account of a 
 cottager of Mr. Howard of Melbourn Farm, who 
 at his over hours, aided by his family, cultivated 
 one acre and a quarter, including the site of his 
 cottage and fences. The land was at first so poor, 
 that it was not considered worth five shillings per 
 acre rent ; in a few years, however, care and indus- 
 try had improved it so much, that it yielded a crop 
 worth ten pounds seventeen shillings. This poor 
 man, before he had any land, had the greatest 
 difficulty in maintaining his wife and three children. 
 His family now increased to seven children, and 
 even his health became indifferent, yet, with this 
 acre and a quarter of originally the poorest land, a 
 cow, and a pig, he maintained and brought up 
 his increased family in comfort, without requiring 
 parish relief. 
 
 Sir Arthur de Capell Brooke, by whom the 
 writer has been favoured with the following state- 
 ment, has tried the small allotment system very
 
 THE SMALL ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 179 
 
 extensively, and with such gratifying success, on 
 his own property in Northamptonshire, that his 
 tenants are, by its operation, removed as it were 
 from beneath the ban of our great national inflic- 
 tion — taxes on first necessaries. They all have 
 of their own producing, therefore, without encoun- 
 tering an artificially, or by act of Parliament en- 
 hanced market, bread, pork, milk, butter, potatoes, 
 and other vegetables in abundance. They pay 
 their rent with ease, and purchase decent clothing, 
 and necessary articles of furniture, with the wages 
 they earn at other labour — their allotments being, 
 in general, but one acre, half an acre, or a quarter 
 of an acre, according to what they have hands to 
 cultivate ; and thus are they enabled to rear and 
 educate their families, however numerous, without 
 so much as the apprehension of ever having to 
 apply for parish relief. For the additional mouths, 
 being thus accompanied by additional, profitably 
 employed hands, the balance is kept even, or 
 rather inclined in favour of the numerous families, 
 as where there is a garden, a cow, and pigs, chil- 
 dren who had else been burdensome to their 
 parents or the parish, can be made useful at a very 
 early age. Sir Arthur de Capell Brooke adds, that 
 in no one instance has he found the small allotment 
 system fail. 
 
 To poor handy crafts or manufacturing labourers, 
 half an acre, or even a rood is invaluable : it an- 
 swers the purpose of a sort of saving's bank in 
 
 N 2
 
 180 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 which to collect every spare moment into domestic 
 comforts for their families, by means of the produce 
 of their gardens. The possession of a garden is, to 
 such men, a perpetual lure to do right; an almost ir- 
 resistible temptation to seek, and cissuredly find the 
 most healthful and delightful, as well as profitable 
 recreation for their evenings, after the close confine- 
 ment, through the day, of the work-shop or factory- 
 room, in the lighter species of garden work, instead 
 of in the ale-house. 
 
 The Moor, near Malton,* furnishes numerous 
 striking instances of the countless blessings, mo- 
 ral and physical, showered on poor people of 
 this description by the small allotment system. 
 While, on the somewhat increased scale, suited to 
 making agriculture a sole occupation (as even the 
 few instances already cited are sufficient to prove), 
 such are the vigorous exertions of willing industry, 
 at once stimulated and cheered, by seeing comfort 
 and independence within the reach of effort, and 
 such the constant attention, and careful, unanimous 
 good management of families, whose hopes are 
 all centered in their four, five, or six acres, under 
 their own immediate eye and hand, (for this is a li- 
 mit within which the personal exertions of a family 
 can still tell) that the results of the small allotment 
 system, under all its modifications, have been, and 
 are likely to continue to be such, as to yield 
 the purest satisfaction to all friends of humanity. 
 
 * See Philanthropic Magazine.
 
 THE SMALL ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 181 
 
 As to the readiness of the poor themselves 
 to co-operate with those who would thus render 
 them independent of the misery and moral degra- 
 dation of pauperism, the writer ha« been earnestly 
 assured by gentlemen, who spoke from their per- 
 sonal knowledge, that, so far from their labourers 
 manifesting any want of good-will to avail them- 
 selves of the humble, the surely not more than 
 just privilege, of being permitted to labour for 
 the benefit of their own families, instead of for 
 the purpose of rendering a middleman, or large 
 farmer and his family independent of labour, 
 that the only danger which experience has sug- 
 gested, was that of the poor creatures being 
 tempted to work too hard. 
 
 Mr. Smith, of Southam, in Warwickshire, who 
 has himself obligingly furnished the writer with 
 the following particulars, has divided one acre into 
 fifteen lots among as many boys of about twelve 
 years of age. Their several payments amount to 
 a rent of five pounds per annum, for the said one 
 acre, which rent the boys pay with ease out of the 
 sale of their produce, besides supplying the fifteen 
 cottages of their parents amply with good vege- 
 tables. While so much has the cultivation of these 
 gardens improved the habits of the boys, that 
 though previously they were without any thing 
 better to do than loiter or play about the streets 
 of the village ; they are all now in full em- 
 ployment for daily hire, and perform the work of
 
 182 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 their own allotments at over hours ; while so great 
 is the pride and pleasure they each take in the 
 plot cultivated by their own hands, that they never 
 suffer the productiveness of their crops to be dete- 
 riorated by insects, drought, or weeds, as is so 
 often the case in larger and less carefully tended 
 gardens. 
 
 That labourers being without the recourse of 
 some portion of land, is one of the causes of pau- 
 perism, and that an extensive adoption of the 
 small allotment system would occasion the demand 
 for poor-rates to disappear, seem to be truths 
 placed beyond dispute, by the various facts, and 
 authenticated communications, given in the several 
 authorities already alluded to. The following is a 
 condensation of some remarkable statements taken 
 from the Quarterly Review, No. 81. 
 
 In the parish of Snettisham, in Norfolk, the 
 small allotments obtained, when the waste lands 
 were inclosed, have many of them, from time to 
 time, been taken away from the cottagers, and 
 absorbed in the large farms. All who have lost 
 their allotments have become regular pensioners 
 on the parish ; while in no one instance have those 
 who retained their allotments required relief. 
 
 The same is the case in Abringdon Pigots, in 
 Cambridgeshire ; where, while ever the poor re- 
 tained even right of common for a cow, there were 
 no poor-rates ; but where, since they have lost 
 both that privilege, and the allotments assigned in
 
 THE SMALL ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 183 
 
 lieu of the same, the poor-rates have become 
 enormous. 
 
 In the parish of Shottisbrook, Berks, the cottagers 
 had each a field, and an orchard, at the same rent 
 which a farmer would have paid. Each kept a 
 cow, a pig, and poultry, and not one farthing was 
 raised for poor-rates. The parish passed into the 
 hands of a new owner, who deprived the cottagers 
 of their land. Poor-rates commenced, and, in less 
 than one generation, became three shillings in the 
 pound. 
 
 At North Creek, near Burnham, Norfolk, ac- 
 cording as the cottagers, from being deprived of 
 the use of land, were obhged to give up their cows, 
 the poor-rate advanced ; first, from one and nine- 
 pence to three shillings in the pound, and, as the 
 number of cows diminished, to six shiUings in the 
 pound, till at length there were but two labourers 
 who managed to rent two acres of land at thirty 
 shillings per acre, and keep one cow between them. 
 One of these men brought up five, the other six 
 children, without parish relief, while all the la- 
 bourers who had no land, were obhged to be allowed 
 two shillings a week for each child. 
 
 In the parish of Clapham, Sussex, the farm called 
 Holt, of 160 acres, was once the property of twenty 
 landholders ; it then had resident upon it, and gave 
 subsistence to not less than one hundred persons ; 
 the number at present connected with its tillage
 
 184 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 is under fort}^ ; suppose ten of these to be the 
 family of the now sole farmer, the other thirty indi- 
 viduals derive from the land no advantage beyond 
 daily wages. It is, in short, matter of history, that 
 complaints of vagrancy, and the difficulty of pro- 
 viding for the poor, arose contemporaneously with 
 the system of consolidation of landed property ; 
 and that the increase of the misery and demorahza- 
 tion of pauperism, has kept regular pace with the 
 abstraction of his crofts, curtilages, and common 
 rights, from the English cottager. 
 
 The cottagers in Lincolnshire and Rutlandshire 
 generally hold their little tenements directly from 
 the landowners , The wives and children, aided by 
 the labourer himself at over hours, cultivate the 
 allotments. The effects are, that the peasantry are 
 moral and contented, and that the farmers can 
 always procure industrious labourers, and, in busy 
 seasons, extra hands. 
 
 Long experience has convinced the inhabitants 
 of Burley-on-the-Hill, Hambleton, Egleton, and 
 Greatham, that the only means of keeping a la- 
 bourer with a large family off the parish books, is 
 to let him rent land enough to keep a cow or two. 
 It has been frequently tried in cases when families 
 seemed likely to become burdensome ta the parish, 
 and has uniformly been successful in warding off 
 the evil. The averages of the rates in four parishes 
 where this plan was followed, did not exceed nine-
 
 THE SMALL ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 185 
 
 pence in the pound ; while in four in Sussex, taken 
 at random, where it was not adopted, the average 
 w^as ten shillings and three pence in the pound. 
 
 The late Lord Brownlow allotted between five and 
 six acres to each of his cottagers, about five hundred. 
 
 The cottagers pay with ease, the same rent that 
 farmers would offer, but would be unable to pay ; 
 while, as to parish relief, it is a thing unheard of 
 among them. The Bishop of Bath and Wells, the 
 Duke of Northumberland, the Marquis of Stafford, 
 the Earl Beverley, Lord Carrington, Lord Stan- 
 hope, Sir John Rushout, Sir John Swdnburne, Bur- 
 den of Castle Eden, Babington of Rothley Temple, 
 and many others have tried the small allotment 
 system among their tenantry with equal success. 
 
 The farmers of Dauntsey in Wiltshire have tried 
 allowing such of their labourers as have large fami- 
 lies to rent three acres each, at twopounds per acre. 
 The labourers immediately ceased to be burdensome 
 to the parish. 
 
 The Liendfield experiment affords additional 
 proofs, that the adoption of the small allotment 
 system in agricultural districts, would cause poor's 
 rates to disappear. 
 
 Extracts of communications corroborative of the 
 same opinion are given in the Philanthropic Maga- 
 zine, for October 1829, from Newark Trent, and 
 Thornton, and Thorn, Yorkshire.
 
 186 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 STRIKING EXTRACTS CONDENSED FROM FACTS AND 
 ILLUSTRATIONS PUBLISHED MONTHLY, BY THE 
 labourer's FRIEND SOCIETY. 
 
 *' If but a tenth of the money now spent in 
 workhouses, in what is usually called the relief of 
 the poor, were applied in assisting and encouraging 
 them to thrive and be happy in their cottages, the 
 poor's rates w^ould be lessened and a national saving 
 made in both labour and food. The labourer is 
 capable of more exertion, and is maintained at 
 less expense in his own cottage than in a work- 
 house ; in his cottage he has his family around 
 him ; he has something he can call his own ; has 
 objects to look forward to, and is the master of his 
 own actions. Domestic connexions, property, hope, 
 liberty, those springs of human action, exist not 
 in a workhouse." 
 
 " Sorry we are to witness capitalists leaguing 
 with despotic agencies abroad to inflict blows upon 
 liberty." — " How lamentable it is, that the wealth 
 accumulated by the industry of our subjects, should 
 be so prostituted, while the sighs of those who culti- 
 vate the ground which feeds us, remain unheard !" 
 
 " If capitalist's would devote this overflow of 
 capital (which rather than suffer to remain idle, 
 they are induced to lend for the criminal purposes 
 of spreading misery and massacre) to the found- 
 ing of colonies at liome, their philanthropy need 
 not be coupled with sacrifice ; for they would re-
 
 THE SMALL ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 187 
 
 ceive good interest for their money. Prisons are 
 erected, transport ships prepared, to dispose of cri- 
 minals, made criminal by want ; manufacturers 
 complain that their goods cannot be sold because 
 labourers are unable to purchase ; parishes com- 
 plain of the pressure of pauperism ; but the city is 
 too busy to inquire into these grievances, and we 
 are doomed to write on with a laborious pen, a few 
 philanthropic minds alone, being found to listen or 
 co-operate." 
 
 " Poverty makes men tumultuous. Where there 
 are many poor, the rich cannot long continue so 
 in safety." 
 
 " Home colonization would give to all that are 
 capable of labour, an opportunity of obtaining sub- 
 sistence for a family, honestly , by their own exertions. 
 Each poor colonist, whose capital is his labour, 
 would have a saving bank of his own, in which to 
 deposit such labour as he could not dispose of for 
 money, and all his family could assist to make 
 deposits. A money saving's bank, cannot receive 
 deposits in labour." 
 
 " Sherwood, Windson, Dean and New Forest, 
 Salisbury Plain, and the unproductive Crown lands, 
 might, by colonization, and a knowledge of what 
 constitutes fertile land, and of how it may be per- 
 manently made so, be caused to give sustenance 
 and comfort to millions who are perishing for want. 
 There are many millions of acres, with facilities of 
 water carriage, or with minerals under the surface,
 
 188 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 and capable of being fertilized in perpetuity, yet 
 the surface soil of which remains the same that 
 nature left it at the last retiring of the waters. 
 This is a disgrace to the age we live in." 
 
 " The Golden Farmer has shown us that land 
 may be made fertile on the top of a hill as well as 
 in a valley, and on all sorts of subsoils." 
 
 In short, all that has been said and quoted, goes 
 to prove, that though the great farmer, pressed by 
 over whelming poor's rates and taxes, and hiring 
 spiritless labour, loses by raising grain, even from 
 the richest soils, and bolstered by dishonest pro- 
 tection ; — yet, that on the small allotment system, 
 which absorbs the very population that had else 
 been chargeable on the parish, provides willing in- 
 dustry, and gives to every rood a master's care ; 
 the very poorest soils, without other aid than fair 
 play, will be found not only worth cultivation, but 
 capable of being made a great national resource to 
 every class, the landowners, the capitalist, the ma- 
 nufacturer, and the labourer, both agricultural and 
 manufacturing. 
 
 It will perhaps be objected, that the small culti- 
 vator would lose his present advantages, if obliged 
 to meet market prices in an honest, that is, an 
 open market. But this objection will have little 
 weight when it is remembered, that the small 
 cultivator's greatest advantage, that of not having 
 to purchase first necessaries in any market himself, 
 he must alwavs retain ;a nd also, that each small
 
 THE SMALL ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 189 
 
 cultivator, whether of five acres or half an acre, 
 has, for the purposes of rotation,* manure, and 
 domestic consumption, his four or five different 
 kinds of crops ; so that a fall in the price of wheat, 
 would effect only a fourth or fifth portion of his 
 profits ;t while, in the mean time, the growing 
 prosperity and population of the country would be 
 increasing the demand for his green crops. On 
 the contrary, the proportion that the domestic con- 
 sumption of the large farmer bears to his wheat 
 harvest, is a mere nothing ; while the garden busi- 
 ness is, in a great measure, a distinct trade. 
 
 Among the various causes which conduce to 
 occasion so wide a disparity between the profits of 
 the large farmer and the small cultivator, as to 
 warrant a belief that the latter could aftbrd to meet 
 an honest market, the most prominent is the fact 
 which the statements just referred to so fully 
 prove, namely, that in parishes where cottage 
 husbandry is extensively introduced, poor-rates 
 disappear : for the best of reasons, because, as 
 already noticed, the very persons whom the large 
 farmer, besides paying his rent, must, had they 
 not had allotments, or profitable employment of 
 
 * See " Home Colonization." 
 
 t Witness the cottager already noticed, who, from the produce 
 of a quarter of an acre under carrots, paid the rent of his four 
 acres ; also the family who, from three acres, paid their rent by 
 their butter only, and saved thirty pounds per annum from the 
 sale of their c/ops.
 
 190 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 some kind, have maintained, in comparative idle- 
 ness, by payments to the poor-rate are, by having 
 allotments, enabled both to maintain themselves, 
 and to pay each their proportion of the landlord's 
 rent. Thus the land in the hands of the small 
 cultivator is freed from the heaviest of all the taxes 
 with which the farmer has to struggle — the said 
 poor-rates. 
 
 Another equally powerful cause for this great 
 disparity between the profits of the large and small 
 cultivator, is the already noticed stimulus which 
 the hope of independence gives to the exertions of 
 small cultivators and their families, as long as the 
 portion of land held by each family is within limits 
 on which those exertions can tell ; while, on the 
 contrary, with the exception of the little, compara- 
 tively speaking, that one family can do on hun- 
 dreds of acres, the work on large farms must be 
 performed by those whose exertions can have little 
 if any more heart in them than slave labour.* The 
 
 * On the present system, no man in England is working for 
 himself (with the exception of members of the legislature, when 
 throwing out honest measures). The rest of the nation is labour- 
 ing hard, not only for the accommodation, but literally for the 
 pecuniary benefit of the aristocracy or property union : the farmer 
 is selling on commission for the landowners ; the labourer toiUng 
 to buy dear bread with low wages, that the farmer, by paying him 
 as little as possible, and getting as much as possible for his grain, 
 may be enabled to pay as high a rent as possible to the land- 
 owners. While the manufacturer is striving hard that he may 
 pay double for first necessaries, still for the benefit of the land-
 
 THE SMALL ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 191 
 
 other advantages possessed by the small cultivator, 
 are the careful appropriation of manure ; and, as 
 already noticed, of all fragments of time, by means 
 of each family having at their own door a " saving- 
 bank for their spare moments," * in garden avoca- 
 tions, both profitable and attractive, without being 
 too laborious, for else unemployed wives, children, 
 old people, or the labourer himself, when requiring 
 recreation after harder labour. 
 
 Another advantage possessed by the small culti- 
 vator, is the more than double return produced 
 by spade cultivation. 
 
 Experiments, with a view to ascertaining the 
 difference of return by various modes of tillage, 
 have been tried by W. Falla, of Gateshead, near 
 Newcastle-on Tyne. Mr. Falla obtained, by the 
 plough, thirty-eight bushels of wheat per acre ; by 
 the spade, sixty-eight bushels and a half per acre ; 
 while the average, for seven years, over the whole 
 island, by the plough, is but twenty bushels per 
 acre.f At Sherborne, in Warwickshire, within 
 four miles of Leamington Spa, Frederick Harris, 
 an agricultural jobbing labourer, obtained by spade 
 
 owner, and one and all are rowing against the stream to pay exor- 
 bitant taxes, for the purpose of making provisions for the younger 
 sons and brothers of the same landowners or property-union, and 
 discharging the interest of the debt incurred by their corrupt 
 practices. 
 
 * See Labourer's Friend Magazine, No. XIX. 
 
 t See Phiknthropic Magazine, May, 1828.
 
 192 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 cultivation, in the harvest of 1834, from a piece of 
 ground of rather more than a quarter of an acre, 
 sixteen and a quarter bushels of wheat.* 
 
 Now, were spade cultivation to be carried to any 
 extent by the large farmer, even though the greater 
 return should repay the additional hire of labour, 
 (and, taking into consideration the inferior quality 
 of hired labour, this might not always be certain,) 
 yet, the inconvenience would still be very great, for 
 a vast number of labourers would be required 
 for a certain season, who, for the rest of the year, 
 would be without employment, or any means of 
 subsistence except the poor-rate. On the small 
 allotment system, on the contrary, the cottager has 
 his various employments, and, with a little manage- 
 ment, his various resources for the whole year 
 round. 
 
 In many instances also, these extraordinary re- 
 turns have been obtained by spade cultivation, from 
 even miserably poor soils ; whereas, were the plan 
 of small allotments adopted, as is here spoken of, 
 for the special purpose of carrying the country 
 safely through the period of transition from a re- 
 strictive to a free trade system all such rich land, 
 as large farmers found they could not hold un- 
 aided by a license to wrong the consumer, would 
 thus be disposable for small allotments, and of 
 course, it is but reasonable to suppose, would pay 
 
 * Leamington Press, February, 1835.
 
 THE SMALL ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 193 
 
 Still better than the poor land. In addition to all 
 this, it must be remembered, that on the plan 
 of justice to all parties here proposed, it has been 
 all along urged, that the abolition of the bread 
 monopoly should be accompanied by a simulta- 
 neous abolition of every other monopoly, and the 
 commutation of every other tax, for one direct 
 tax on realized property ; so that thus the small 
 cultivator, having no taxes direct or indirect to 
 pay, (that is until he had realized property) would 
 surely be able to meet an open market, and 
 yet find his profits (great as they are now re- 
 presented to be) increased rather than diminished. 
 
 If it be asked what is to become of the large 
 farmers ? The reply is, that as the agricultural 
 interest themselves declare, that the large farmers 
 are already all ruined ; the change from ruined 
 large farmers, into prosperous small cultivators, 
 cannot be considered a change for the worse. 
 
 To conclude then, the subject of the small 
 allotment system, even those who still choose to 
 be sceptical as to ultimate results, cannot, it is 
 hoped, deny that common honesty ought to have 
 place. 
 
 If an epidemic were raging, and Parliament, by 
 a vote, could lay all the cases on one particular 
 class, it would certainly be unjust to exert that 
 power. If Parliament could not avert the evil 
 altogether, all classes would, at least, expect to be 
 allowed to take the best care they could of them- 
 
 o
 
 194 ADVANTAGES OF 
 
 selves. If then there must be pressure, if then 
 there must be distress which no legislative enact- 
 ments can ward off or remedy, on what plea can 
 Parliament demand a right to lay it all on the la- 
 bouring population, manufacturing and agricultural, 
 for the declared purpose of keeping it off of the 
 landowners ; for talking of the farmer, who is only 
 market man to the landlord, as an attempt to jus- 
 tify corn laws, is a mere farce. 
 
 If Parliament then can do no good, let it at least 
 undo the harm it has done, and do no more harm: 
 that is, let every restriction be removed, let every man 
 have a fair chance, and therefore have himself only 
 to blame if he cannot get on. As to taxation — let no 
 man in the kingdom be taxed ! ! ! But let property 
 alone, wherever it be found, pay its own assurance: 
 Who could then complain of partial dealing? While 
 it ought surely to be a great support and consolation 
 to those making the changes which honesty thus de- 
 mands should be made at all hazards, to know, as 
 the statements just given fully prove, that the small 
 allotment system offers, at least, a safety valve, 
 rendering any sudden explosion of the miseries of 
 want of profitable employment, and consequent 
 scarcity of food, in a manner impossible, at least 
 if rational steps be taken. 
 
 If we have (as officially stated*) in the United 
 Kingdom, thirty millions of acres of waste land, 
 
 * See third report of Emigration Committee.
 
 THE SMALL ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 195 
 
 fifteen millions capable of improvement, besides all 
 the great farms of farmers, who having already 
 told down all their capital to landlords, find they 
 can no longer pay their rent, surely neither agri- 
 cultural labourers nor farmers, nor any other oi 
 those, the breadth of whose fingers is so alarming 
 to the philanthropy of Sir James Graham,* need 
 lie down and die, rather than cut up those large 
 farms, and colonize j those waste lands ; and so, 
 even from the first, live comfortably ; while such 
 a system, superseding the present miserable one of 
 pauperism, induced by the crushing of hope be- 
 neath the united weight of corn laws, enhanced 
 currency, and consolidation of farms, must soon 
 create a new home market for home manufactures, 
 and so call into being new manufacturing towns ; 
 while these new towns must again afford new 
 markets to the cultivator, till the lengthening vista 
 of reciprocal benefits exceed the reach of human 
 foresight ! 
 
 While, had we ourselves, and could we by wise 
 diplomacy, induce in other nations the liberality 
 to extend this reciprocation of benefits to the 
 whole of the human family, all mankind would 
 surely find their banquet the more abundant, their 
 labours the lighter, if each locality, producing 
 that for which it possessed the greatest natural 
 facilities, perfect freedom of interchange, brought 
 
 * Debates on Corn Laws, 1834. 
 t See Home Colonization. 
 
 o 2
 
 196 THE SMALL ALLOTMENT SYSTEM. 
 
 a portion of the blessings of every clime and 
 soil, home to the door of each individual, how- 
 ever humble, on the easiest, that is on the cheapest 
 terms possible ; in other words, unenhanced by 
 taxation ; by monopoly ; by forced, therefore need- 
 lessly expensive production ; by burnings and de- 
 stroyings of forfeited goods ; by excise restric- 
 tions on improvement ; and by the locust-like 
 devouring of the multitudes employed in doing- 
 all this mischief; and who, if not so misemployed, 
 might have been occupied in producing, that is, 
 creating out of the raw material, some comfort, or 
 luxury, to be added to the general stock of the 
 meiuis of human well being.
 
 CHAPTER XU. 
 
 A PROPERTY TAX CONSIDERED, OBJECTIONS 
 
 REPLIED TO, ADVANTAGES STATED. 
 
 It has, it is presumed, been clearly shown, that, 
 independent of the public expenditure of fifty mil- 
 lions annually, or thereabouts, there are immense 
 sums of from one hundred and fifty to two hundred 
 millions, annually, literally thrown away in the mo- 
 nopoly or artificial prices, occasioned by protections 
 and forced production, home and colonial. And 
 that there are^ also, considerable sums wasted in 
 the working of the cumbrous, complicated, and 
 mischievous machinery of indirect taxation. Now, 
 viewing the wealth of the nation as one fund, it is 
 manifest, that the aggregate of these losses must 
 fall on that fund, and that it would therefore be 
 highly advantageous for the nation, not only to 
 abolish the whole system of dead losses and hin- 
 drances to the creation of wealth, connected with
 
 198 A PROPERTY TAX CONSIDERED. 
 
 monopoly, protection, and forced production, and 
 to confine its whole out -lay to the fifty millions, 
 or thereabouts, now paid into the Exchequer ; but 
 that there would be a further manifest advantage, 
 in raising the sum necessary for the public expen- 
 diture, by a direct tax ; as, by so doing, a consi- 
 derably less sum than fifty millions would suffice. 
 
 So far, there seems to be no difficulty in decid- 
 ing on the measures most conducive to the pecu- 
 niary well-being of the whole nation : it is when 
 we separate the nation into classes, and come to 
 inquire what class can or will ensure the payment 
 of this direct tax to the Exchequer, that whatever 
 difficidty there is, or seems to be, arises, could an 
 inexpensively collected direct tax amounting to what 
 might still be found necessary of the fifty millions be 
 invented, which should spread itself over the whole 
 community, it would surely be for the interest of 
 the whole community, to pay altogether a sum con- 
 siderably under fifty millions annually, rather than 
 continue a system under which the whole commu- 
 nity are out of pocket, altogether, at least, two 
 hundred millions annually. The principle, how- 
 ever, of leaving labour, or that industry which as 
 yet possesses nothing but the power of creating 
 wealth ; — free to travel forward unencumbered, and 
 laying the whole of the necessary burdens of the 
 state on the already realized property, and the 
 future creations of labour, as fast as they become 
 realized property, has manifold advantages which
 
 A PROPERTY TAX CONSIDERED. 199 
 
 shall be enumerated in their proper place. The 
 main objection, however, to a property tax, and 
 that which has been as triumphantly brought for- 
 ward as though it wTre unanswerable, namely, 
 that such a tax would require fifty per cent, on all 
 the realized property of Great Britain, must be re- 
 plied to ere we proceed further. First, then, such 
 an objection could not stand for one moment, 
 against the sacred claims of equal justice, could 
 those claims not be satisfied at any less sacrifice. 
 
 The prima facie hardship, however, on property, 
 vanishes, at once, before the consideration, that 
 under the system of free trade and freedom from 
 monopoly, demanded by equal justice, a man 
 'would be much richer with five thousand a year, 
 than he is under the present wasteful system 
 of protections, monopolies, and indirect taxation, 
 and consequent enhanced prices, with ten. This 
 would be the case were the articles of consump- 
 tion, upon an average, lowered in price only one 
 half by the introduction of free trade ; but much 
 more than half the price of most articles is artili- 
 cial, if we include the enhancement occasioned by 
 indirect taxes. 
 
 It has been computed, as already stated, that 
 the prices of necessaries, freed from taxation and 
 monopoly charges, would be about one-third their 
 present cost. By a reduction in price of only half, 
 however, property would, even after paying fifty 
 per cent, as a property tax, be ultimately a gainer,
 
 200 A PROPERTY TAX CONSIDERED. 
 
 for the fifty per cent, being paid in lieu, both of 
 direct and indirect taxes, and being repaid by the 
 savings on monopoly prices, and the remission of 
 the indirect taxes only, property must clearly save 
 the proportion it now pays in direct taxes. While, 
 the merely desisting from wanton waste, would be 
 sufficient, without thus taking any thing from the 
 rich, nay, with even some advantage to the rich, 
 to relieve all the industrious classes from all bur- 
 dens, and furnish them, besides, with all the neces- 
 saries of life below half price. 
 
 In short, the income of all property which is 
 expended in England, pays, on the present system, 
 beside the direct taxes, from fifty to sixty-six per 
 cent, between the artificial prices caused by mono- 
 polies, protections, etc., and the enhancement 
 caused by indirect taxation ; so that it must cer- 
 tainly be easier for property to pay fifty per cent, 
 only, as a direct tax, than to pay our present direct 
 taxes, and sixty-six per cent, besides in monopoly 
 or artificial prices, and indirect taxes. 
 
 But, under the free trade and freedom from 
 monopoly system recommended, property would 
 not have anything like the fifty per cent, to pay ; 
 because, a much less sum than the fifty millions of 
 public expenditure, which is squandered under the 
 present complicated, wasteful, jobbing, robbing, 
 pensioning, churching, and dragooning system? 
 would, under the purified and simplified system 
 proposed, be all-sufficient.
 
 A PROPERTY TAX CONSIDERED, 201 
 
 In the first place, the £3,491,275 the cost of 
 collection and of the preventive service,*' may be 
 fairly deducted. 
 
 Secondly, not to touch now on over paid places, 
 whatever sum may be decided on as the just remu- 
 nerating salaries for public services of every kind 
 at the present prices of all articles of consumption, 
 half of that sum would, on the simplest principles 
 of justice suffice, when those articles were half 
 price, or one third, were they lowered in price 
 two thirds. 
 
 Then the estimates for victualling and allow- 
 ancing army, navy, and all other public depart- 
 ments, must, in common honesty, fall to one half, 
 or one third, when the food and allowances can be 
 purchased for one half or one third of their present 
 cost. To say nothing of there being no longer any 
 occasion for so immense a standing army, when 
 there was no longer any injustice to enforce. 
 
 The tithes also, (waving the whole subject of 
 church reform), being originally payable in kind, 
 should, m fair dealing, when the very articles 
 which were their original measure became half 
 price, or two thirds less, be com mutable for half or 
 one third of the sum now paid, which shews the 
 madness of legislating about the commutation of 
 tithes, before corn laws are abolished. 
 
 Next, on the subject of poor's rates, it is not too 
 much to hope, that, with the blessings flowing from 
 * Spectator's Key to Political Knowledge.
 
 202 A PROPERTY TAX CONSIDERED, 
 
 good-will to all, manifested in the fruits of equal 
 justice, namely, free trade, full employment, and 
 cheap food, pauperism would entirely disappear ; 
 and under anything like judicious parish regula- 
 tions, such would, no doubt, be the result, espe- 
 cially with the aid of the small allotment system,* 
 
 * It would also, under the complete system of free trade pro- 
 posed, be much less difficult than at present, both to devise, and to 
 enforce judicious regulations respecting the poor. («) A legislature 
 which had provided its labouring population with full employment 
 and cheap food, and removed all obstacles to earning honest bread, 
 and colonized its waste lands, (J) might then without subjecting 
 itself to the accusation of harshness, limit all gratis relief to the 
 helpless from age, sickness, or casualty, and afford relief to the 
 able-bodied only in exchange for profitable labour ; the means of 
 supplying which, however, it should be the duty of the legislature 
 to provide. And if factories and other great works, employing 
 hundreds of thousands of hands, make immense fortunes for 
 private owners, it can require but strict honesty in the manage- 
 ment of such, to make them sources of profit to parishes or dis- 
 tricts, (c) If not every parish, therefore, every certain district should 
 be furnished with some profitable concern, having a parish farm an- 
 nexed, in which, not only persons out of work, but duly regulated, 
 properly classed, and strictly separated ; all sorts of disposable hands 
 could be employed. Such district works being provided, almost all 
 punishments, especially the mischievous one of idle imprisonment, 
 might with advantage be changed to profitable labour, the degree 
 of punishment measured by the amount to be worked out, at task 
 work, subject to valuation ; which would obviate the danger both of 
 
 (a) Written before the Poor Law Amendment Bill had passed. 
 (h) See Home Colonization. 
 
 (c) Unless indeed the small allotment system supersede the 
 necessity for other aid.
 
 A PROPERTY TAX CONSIDERED. 203 
 
 while the use of spirits, that fruitful source of 
 pauperism, might, as already stated, when the 
 health and morals of the people as well as their 
 
 idleness and of slovenly execution of work. Insolvent debtors too, 
 instead of being whitewashed by a certain term of idle imprison- 
 ment should be made to work out their debt, or, where the sum 
 was hopelessly large, the working out of a certain portion of the 
 amount, such portion to be fixed by a jury or a reference, might, 
 with infinite advantage to all parties, be made the liberating 
 medium. 
 
 The property already possessed by parishes and counties, in 
 money, lands, and buildings, such as poor-houses, tread-mills, 
 houses of correction, county prisons, etc., would in all probability 
 be found a sufficient fund for the first establishment of parish or 
 district works, in which the labour, whether of paupers or delin- 
 quents, could be henceforth profitably employed, with care, of 
 course, to keep the bad and good characters from having any con- 
 taminating degree of intercourse. The profits over and above the 
 subsistence of the persons employed, to be appropriated to the 
 relief of the helpless from age, sickness, or casualty, thus reversing 
 the present just complaint, that the sober and industrious of a 
 parish are compelled to maintain the profligate and the idle, by 
 Compelling the profligate and the idle, not only to maintain them- 
 selves, but to contribute largely to the maintenance of the sick and 
 helpless. The only argument against thus providing employment 
 for idle characters, namely, that it was giving them an undue pre- 
 ference, and throwing the industriously disposed out of work, 
 would manifestly lose all its weight when, by the opening of 
 trade, the labour market was no longer overstocked. None but 
 the profligate and the idly inclined would, under such circum- 
 stances, be out of employment, and, to such, the obligation to 
 labour, would be an appropriate as well as useful chastisement. 
 And by giving, even to those taken into the establishment merely 
 because out of work, subsistence only, but no surplus money
 
 204 A PROPERTY TAX CONSIDERED. 
 
 limbs, shall be no longer pawned to the revenue, 
 be utterly put down by law. 
 
 Thus would the blessings of equal justice, namely, 
 free trade and cheap food, in all probability remove 
 the curse of pauperism, by removing its three most 
 fruitful sources : want of employment, dear food, and 
 drunkenness, induced by want of comfort at home. 
 But, allow, for argument sake, that the actual 
 number of paupers could continue to be the same ; 
 half the sum which affords maintenance to a given 
 number of people, at the present prices of provi- 
 sions, must, when prices were lowered one half, 
 
 wages, the incentive to seek independent labour would not be 
 destroyed ; while the constant going out of such persons as fast 
 as they could find employment elsewhere, would always keep 
 room in the district works for the special objects of their insti- 
 tution. And though the parish or district works would thus 
 have always the worst hands, as their funds would only have to 
 subsist their labourers instead of paying the wages given in 
 private factories, their profits might, notwithstanding the thus 
 necessary inferiority of their hands, be often immense. While, 
 again, if the funds of any of them should, at any time prove 
 insufficient, (a contingency under proper management almost im- 
 possible), they have still the old resources, namely, the rates, 
 county and parochial ; as the claims on these should always con- 
 tinue to exist, although wholesome regulations might reduce 
 them to almost a dead letter. 
 
 If, however, the small allotment system were extensively 
 adopted, there is every reason to believe that no other means of 
 reheving the poor would be found necessary ; and that both crime 
 and pauperism would almost, if not altogether, disappear. — See 
 Chap. XI. on Small Allotment System, where facts corroborative 
 of this opinion are stated, and authorities given.
 
 A PROPERTY TAX CONSIDERED. 20r> 
 
 afford an equally comfortable maintenance to an 
 equal number, while, if the most probable com- 
 putations be correct, one-third would suffice. 
 Thus, it is clear, that if realized property were not 
 relieved by the operation of the proposed system, 
 from its proportion of the whole burden of the 
 present poor rates, it must, at least, be relieved 
 from one-half or two-thirds. 
 
 The Edinburgh Review, in defence of the land- 
 owners' bread monopoly, pleads the peculiar bur- 
 dens on land of eight millions poor's rates, and 
 three millions tithes ; though it was the bread mo- 
 nopoly which created poor's rates, and although 
 the tithes were never the property of the land- 
 owners. But, were the bread monopoly a right 
 instead of a robbery ; and had the tithes originally 
 belonged to the landlords ; still landlords would, 
 on their own showing (allowing that those burdens 
 did fall on them in particular) , be greatly overpayed 
 for parting with the said bread monopoly, by the 
 effects which cheap bread must have on those very 
 local burdens. If Mr. Crawford's calculation be 
 correct, that landowners gain but two millions by 
 the bread monopoly, as they, the landowners, 
 would save, on poor's rates, were bread half-price, 
 at least, four millions, perhaps all the eight mil- 
 lions, and on tithes rated by the price of corn, one 
 million five hundred thousand ; thus, would land- 
 owners, after deducting the two millions they are 
 said to gain by corn laws, be clear gainers of, at
 
 20G A PROPERTY TAX CONSIDERED. 
 
 least, three millions and a half, if not seven mil- 
 lions and a half, by abolishing corn laws. The 
 fifty or sixty-six per cent, which landowners must 
 save on their own private outlay, by relief from 
 artificial prices would, of course, as in the case of 
 all other persons of property, balance against the 
 property tax. So, that the abolition of the bread 
 monopoly, by which it has been shown that land- 
 lords would be gainers rather than loosers, can- 
 not, in fairness, be urged as any objection to their 
 paying the moderate property tax, which, under 
 the improved disposition of things proposed, would 
 be all that the real exigencies of the state would 
 require. 
 
 Again, having done the labouring classes com- 
 mon justice, by relieving them from the pressure 
 of taxation and monopoly prices, even voluntary 
 charities might be found almost uncalled for. Self- 
 supporting dispensaries, self-supporting schools, and 
 self-supporting old age and infirmity societies, might, 
 if judiciously encouraged, be brought to supersede 
 the necessity for those munificent donations, now 
 too often so grievously required by the poor, and so 
 often, to do them justice, so frankly bestowed by 
 the rich. Many of whom little think, that by their 
 support of a false system, they are creating among 
 thousands, the miseries they are endeavouring to 
 relieve among individuals. If this should prove to 
 be the case, it would be yet another and a very 
 considerable saving to property. When, therefore.
 
 A PROPERTY TAX CONSIDERED. 207 
 
 all the remunerating circumstances, which it is 
 thus proposed should accompany the laying on of 
 a property tax, are taken into account, and full 
 credit given for them : it is presumed, that the 
 fifty per cent, objection will be deemed to have 
 been fairly disposed of. 
 
 The other objections usually brought against 
 this most just of taxes, will require but few words 
 in reply, being far from formidable 
 
 First, as to the utter childishness of pleading, 
 that a tax on property is a disagreeable, inquisitorial 
 sort of a tax ; the argument, or rather assertion, is 
 totally unworthy of reply ! Is common sense, to 
 say nothing of humanity, to be insulted, by erecting 
 puling absurdities like these, into barriers against 
 taking the steps most likely to rescue millions of 
 our fellow creatures from misery and want ? Let 
 the thoughtless beings, whom a falsely organized 
 artificial social system has filled with happiness 
 destroying prejudices, and deprived of the use of 
 reason, rather be thankful, if honest dealings, ren- 
 dering candid statements necessary, should dis- 
 courage in them the petty vanity of pretending to 
 have double their real incomes, till the sudden ris- 
 ing of the curtain, discovering a gaol, or, perhaps, 
 a scene of suicide, undeceives the friends who dined 
 with them on every luxury, which money, or rather 
 credit could procure, but the day before. 
 
 Those who apprehend that a property tax w^ould 
 induce persons to conceal property, should consider
 
 208 A PROPERTY TAX CONSIDERED. 
 
 that property to return any profits to its owner, 
 must take some palpable form other than mo- 
 ney, or, if money be lent on mortgage, or in 
 the funds, or to a private speculator, on 
 bond or note bearing interest. Mortgages and 
 funds are sufficiently ascertainable. Bonds and 
 notes, to make them security,, might require 
 stamps, paying a yearly duty equivalent to what 
 the sum would pay as tax, if in the funds. Re- 
 turns being given in of the issue of such stamps, to 
 whom issued, and for what amounts and periods. 
 If the period be extended, the stamp to require 
 renewal. Thus would the idle lender out of money, 
 as ought to be the case, pay the tax, not the un- 
 happy speculator on borrowed capital, till he has, 
 himself, realized property by the transaction. As 
 to the risk, the capitalist need not then, no more 
 than now lend his money without tangible security, 
 once the temptation to evade the tax, by so doing, 
 was thus removed. Nor would there be much 
 danger of the money being lent out, and yet 
 the stamp omitted altogether ; for, men desirous 
 of evading so just a tax, would scarcely have 
 honesty enough themselves, to place much faith in 
 the honesty of others. 
 
 As to those who dread that a property-tax would 
 check accumulation, let them ask their common 
 sense whether the necessity of insuring buildings, 
 ships, goods, etc., ever prevents merchants endea- 
 vouring to be rich enough to have houses, ships, or
 
 A PROPERTY TAX CONSIDERED. 209 
 
 goods. Next, let such objectors consider that 
 accumulation, like every thing else, must have a 
 beginning, and then take into account the great 
 facility given to the early eiForts of industry by the 
 remission of taxes, both on first necessaries and 
 on raw materials ; and further, let them recollect 
 the acknowledged fact, that the great difficulty is 
 to get together a little capital to commence with, 
 after which, according to the proverb, money makes 
 money. The affected or ignorant fear expressed 
 by another class of objectors, that a property-tax 
 would drive capital out of the kingdom, is equally 
 unfounded. Where trade is permitted to flourish, 
 there will capital seek investment, and when in- 
 vested, increase with rapidity. What at present 
 drives capital out of the kingdom ? The manicles 
 with which indirect taxation loads the limbs of 
 industry. What at present also drives the income 
 of immoveable capital out of the kingdom ? in 
 other words, enables so many of our luxurious 
 noblemen, our men of wealth and splendour, our 
 men of land and corn-laws, the men whose votes 
 have enhanced the price of bread fifty per cent, for 
 the purpose of doubling their own rents : what 
 enables such men, with perfect impunity, to spend 
 those thus doubled rents abroad, in countries where 
 bread is cheap, because rents are low ? What, in 
 short, enables our hereditary law-makers to estab- 
 lish a parhamentary famine in their native land, 
 and with perfect impunity retire themselves to
 
 210 A PROPERTY TAX CONSIDERED. 
 
 enjoy smiling plenty on a foreign shore ? — Our 
 taxes being laid on the necessaries of life, and not 
 on property ! * 
 
 It has been objected lastly, and with as much 
 authority as though the objection were conclusive, 
 that, as property has the making of the laws, pro- 
 perty will never consent to tax itself. Let it be 
 remembered, however, that public opinion, even 
 in the days of corruption, forced the Reform Bill 
 through both houses of parliament. Public opinion 
 is surely not less powerful now that it is furnished 
 with legitimate means of obtaining its just de- 
 mands. If then public opinion shall decide that a 
 property-tax on realized property ought to be sub- 
 stituted for every tax, direct or indirect which now 
 exists, such will ultimately be the law of the land. 
 If, however, it should be found (as some have been 
 illiberal enough to hint,) that let a man be ever so 
 staunch a reformer in all things else, it is not in 
 "human nature" to stand the test of pounds, shil- 
 lings, and pence, and that, therefore, as members of 
 parliament are always, by their very quaUfication, 
 
 * "The Earl of Pembroke is making preparations for his de- 
 paiture for Paris, where his Lordship intends permanently to 
 reside and support an extensive establishment. No fewer than 
 seven carriages are nearly completed by Adams, of the Haymarket 
 
 for his Lordship. His Lordship, like so many others of his 
 
 caste, prefers living in a countiy where there are no corn-laws, 
 and deriving his rents from a country where bread is taxed fifty 
 per cent for his benefit." — Spectator,
 
 A PROPERTY TAX CONSIDERED. 211 
 
 men of some property, and generally men of con- 
 siderable property, they will, whatever their 
 politics, be members of the property-union, and 
 will not be got to vote (willingly) the loosing of 
 their own purse-strings. Why then, the people 
 must only be decided, and allow no man to repre- 
 sent them in parliament who will not pledge him- 
 self to vote for the repeal of the whole of the 
 present complicated and wasteful system of tax- 
 ation, direct and indirect, and the substitution of a 
 property-tax on realized property ; while the pres- 
 sure from without must press the redemption of 
 such pledges with a force which no property-union 
 shall dare to resist ! 
 
 Should there still be found, among the worshij)- 
 pers of the mammon of unrighteousness, a despe- 
 rate few, not ashamed to cling to the last to the 
 ancient standard of injustice, let such be placed by 
 public opinion in a moral pillory, and the finger of 
 scorn pointed at them unceasingly, till their posi- 
 tion becoming intolerable to themselves, their very 
 selfishness shall at length compel them to yield, 
 that which the very same selfishness had so long 
 induced them to hold. 
 
 ADVANTAGES OF A PROPERTY TAX, 
 
 First, a property tax would have this great ad- 
 vantage, that its direct operation would effectually 
 
 p2
 
 212 A PROPERTY TAX CONSIDERED. 
 
 prevent such instances as the one just cited, of 
 the unjust evasion of all taxes, by those whose 
 more than just privileges cost the nation between 
 seven and eight millions per annum in the mainte- 
 nance of a standing army, maintained in a great 
 measure to maintain those privileges ; and for whose 
 especial benefit, the most cruel of all taxes, the 
 50 per cent on bread is levied ; and who further, 
 to preserve their hereditary properties entire in 
 the elder branch, charge the public, in one way or 
 other, with the maintenance of all the younger 
 branches of their families ; whether in Army, 
 Navy, Church, Public Department, sinecure, or 
 pension list : for, " to dig they know not how ;" 
 though "to beg" of a minister they are not 
 " ashamed." 
 
 The most comprehensive, however, of all the 
 recommendations of a property tax, is that it is 
 a direct tax, and therefore exempt from the thou- 
 sand complicated mischiefs, miseries, waste of 
 wealth already created, and hindrances to the 
 creation of new wealth, and to improvements in 
 trade, already shown to be inseparable from in- 
 direct taxation ; which is again so intimately 
 interwoven with monopolies and monopoly prices, 
 that justice itself demands a simultaneous re- 
 moval of all these wrongs, lest by a partial in- 
 terference, the present cruel pressure be rendered 
 still more unequal, and therefore, still more un- 
 just.
 
 ^*i 
 
 A PROPERTY TAX CONSIDERED. 213 
 
 A property tax is likewise the most humane 
 of taxes, being levied on those, who to pay it 
 need, at the worst, only resign some article of 
 luxury, or of ostentation ; but who need suffer 
 no privation of life's first necessaries. Neither 
 need the revenue derived from a property tax 
 be subject to deficiencies ; as the property tax 
 can never (as other taxes often are) be due by 
 parties who do not possess the means of pay- 
 ing the demand. Wherever there is property 
 on which to charge the per centage, there must 
 be property from which to subtract the tax. 
 In short, let no man, woman, or child be taxed. 
 But instead, let every pound pay its own as- 
 surance ! 
 
 A property tax is also the most just of taxes. 
 Waving therefore all the arguments and calcu- 
 lations which have been brought forward to prove 
 that property, under a system of free trade and 
 economical government, would not suffer by pay- 
 ing a property tax ; nay, that property must 
 ultimately benefit, through the national prosperity 
 which cannot fail of arising out of the beneficial 
 changes, taken altogether, which it is proposed 
 should accompany the laying on of a property tax ; 
 and assuming the higher ground of equal justice flow- 
 ing from good-will to all, such justice pronounces, 
 that even if property had no part in the re- 
 munerating circumstance of reduced prices ; that 
 even if public burdens could not be lightened :
 
 214 A PROPERTY TAX CONSIDERED. 
 
 that, in short, if property could not be assured 
 at a less expense than paying the one half to 
 assure the other, it would still be but equal 
 justice to commute every tax direct and indirect 
 which now exists, for one direct tax on realized 
 property. It is, in other words, but requiring 
 every man to pay his own said assurance. And 
 what, but the wantonness of irresponsible power 
 could have suggested, what but the helplessness 
 of ignorance and poverty combined, could have 
 submitted to a system of injustice so glaring as 
 that of laying any part of such a burden on those 
 who have no property to assure, and who must 
 find it hard enough to pay, by the sweat of their 
 brow, nature's daily tax for daily food. 
 
 Should property, however, plead that industry 
 ought at least to contribute something towards 
 personal protection ; it is asked in reply — Do not 
 the industrious classes contribute towards the pro- 
 tection of their country and its laws, those fearful 
 war and insurrection taxes, their blood, and their 
 lives ? Are they not our soldiers and our sailors 
 in the day of battle ? their bodies the floating 
 walls of our island empire, the living bulwarks of 
 our modern cities ? nay, the very targets against 
 which, ignorance, in the hour of riot, flings the 
 missile which the wantonness of power has pro- 
 voked ? 
 
 A property tax, again, may be collected with 
 less expense than any other tax. But the collateral
 
 A PROPERTY TAX CONSIDERED. 215 
 
 advantages of a property tax, in constituting the 
 tax-voting class, the tax-paying class, are yet 
 greater than any or all that have been enumerated. 
 These, however, open so wide a field, that a 
 separate chapter must be devoted to their dis- 
 cussion.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 ON THE MISCHIEVOUS TENDENCIES OF THE FAMILY 
 MONOPOLY, OR LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE ; AND 
 THE CONSEQUENT EXPEDIENCY OF ITS ABOLITION, 
 
 " The standard of splendor might be lowered; but that of com- 
 fort would be raised !" — Dilemmas of Pride. 
 
 Prior to discussing the collateral benefits of the 
 substitution of a property tax for every other tax, 
 it will be necessary to devote a short chapter to an 
 exposition of the evil tendencies of the law of pri- 
 mogeniture ; the subject being, though too impor- 
 tant for mere incidental mention, so intimately 
 connected with that oppressive taxation of the in- 
 dustrious classes, which the substitution of a pro- 
 perty tax for every other tax is calculated to ob- 
 viate, that to enumerate the evil tendencies of the 
 law of primogeniture, is but to complete the array 
 of arguments in favour of the adoption of a pro- 
 perty tax.
 
 THE LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. 217 
 
 The law of primogeniture is, in short, at once 
 the source both of the temptations to commit, 
 and of the power to perpetrate pubhc depre- 
 dation. 
 
 Nay, as long as the family monopoly of primo- 
 geniture exists, the whole amount of national wealth 
 which can be got to flow into that great reservoir, 
 the public purse, may be said, on so doing, to be- 
 come exclusively the private property of the pro- 
 perty class : for, while ever the more than just 
 influence which preserving properties entire in the 
 heads of families gives to those heads of families, 
 enables them to secure to their younger branches 
 a preference, amounting to a monopoly, of, not 
 only sinecures, places, and pensions, but also, of 
 all that is worth having in army, navy, church, and 
 even law, the taxes, and other funds, which sup- 
 port all these establishments, are strictly speaking, 
 one great general subscription, or rather compul- 
 sory rate, for the maintenance of the ^^ounger 
 branches of the property or influential class. 
 
 It is here well worthy of remark, that all but the 
 elder sons of that class commonly considered the 
 independent class, become, when the subject is 
 thus viewed, in the eye of reason and common 
 honesty, the most utterly dependent class in the 
 whole community ; the false pride of their own 
 order, not only depriving them of their claim on 
 the parent fund, and thus casting them, like the 
 blue school boys, or charity school girls of a found-
 
 218 THE LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. 
 
 ling hospital, on the subscriptions of the public ; 
 but, by forbidding them, as they become adults, 
 the use of their natural powers, for earning (in any 
 honest way) their own subsistence, reducing them 
 still further, to a continued, and hopeless species 
 of dependence, resembling rather that of the muti- 
 lated pensioners of some hospital for the maimed, 
 the halt, and the blind ; without, however, the re- 
 spectable claims, whether for past services, or un- 
 avoidable misfortunes, possessed by such persons. 
 
 But poverty, or independence obtained by any 
 useful species of activity would, according to the 
 absurd verdict of that court fool in cap and bells, 
 called Fashion, have equally excluded them from 
 exclusive society ; the only remaining resource, 
 therefore, was to get them billeted upon the indus- 
 try of other classes of the community, and thus 
 keep those other classes poor, despite their diligent 
 exertions, and frugal habits, that they might be 
 rich, notwithstanding their utter idleness, and lavish 
 expenditure. 
 
 It is, however, but justice to believe, that few 
 of the thoughtless beings, thus " provided for," 
 (as it is called) have ever seriously reflected 
 that their idle pursuit of pleasure, inflicts sufferings 
 incalculable on thousands of the industrious, who 
 are, while they ought not to be the poor. It was 
 " a Government appointment:" it is " Govern- 
 ment money," — and " Government money," that 
 is, the people's money, the idle, pampered few,.
 
 THE LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. 219 
 
 have too long been in the habit of considering a 
 Fortunatus's purse, which no extravagance could 
 exhaust; a lottery fund, legally the pro^^erty of who- 
 ever was happy enough to draw a prize, without a 
 thought of where it all could possibly come from ! 
 Had these careless recipients of '* Government 
 money" been enabled, by a reasoning education, 
 to discern the financial statements for each year 
 truly made out, not in pounds, shillmgs, and pence ; 
 but in oppressive taxation's original coin ; hunger, 
 cold, and wretchedness ; broken spirits, and broken 
 hearts ; rooflessness, and hopelessness ; reckless- 
 ness and crime ; they could not, they would not 
 have sought to draw enjoyments from sources such 
 as these. 
 
 In short, a pampered aristocracy, in a nation, 
 which from natural limitation of surface, and con- 
 sequently of raw material, is, as may be said of 
 Great Britain, strictly an operative nation, is ex- 
 actly the species of drawback to the real prosperity 
 of that nation, (that is, the comfort of the bulk of 
 its population ;) which an idle, prodigal son would 
 be to both the growing rich, and the enjoyments 
 of an industrious father, who had no means of 
 supplying the extravagancies of his son, but the 
 profits of his, the father's labour : he, the father, 
 the more extravagant the son became, must, it is 
 manifest, work the harder, and fare the worse him- 
 self, and yet still continue poor. 
 
 Such a nation, therefore, should surely maintain
 
 220 THE LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. 
 
 as small a proportion of its population in expen- 
 sive idleness as possible. While, however, the 
 idle few not only lay on, but are permitted to ap- 
 propriate the greater portion of the taxes ; and that 
 thus they receive a bounty, as it were, on laying 
 them on, which repays the share they have paid, 
 and leaves an enormous balance in their own favour, 
 and that thus the labouring many, virtually pay 
 the whole amount levied, both for tax and bounty — 
 who is there to protect the cause, whether of the 
 individual operative, or of that great aggregate 
 operative, the nation ? 
 
 These more than just privileges, however, are 
 chiefly secured to the property class, by the undue 
 influence, which the maintenance of the law of 
 primogeniture, gives to the heads of families. 
 With a more equal distribution, therefore, of pro- 
 perty, though still among the several members of 
 the same families who now possess overgrown 
 fortunes ; this undue influence, with all its baneful 
 consequences, would gradually die out ; and talent, 
 diligence, necessary information, and, before all 
 things honesty, become the titles for obtaining such 
 offices of trust and emolument, as were really ne- 
 cessary to the service of the state ; while both the 
 temptation to devise, and the power to pay need- 
 less situations, would be taken away. 
 
 The law of primogeniture is also destructive of 
 happiness, inasmuch as it tends to erect and main- 
 tain a false standard of expenditure, pomp^ and
 
 THE LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. 221 
 
 ideal consequence ; which, without securing the 
 happiness of the few, produces in the minds of 
 the many, a sense of privation inconsistent with 
 contentment.* 
 
 The law of primogeniture also tends, through the 
 false pride it fosters, to demoralize and degrade the 
 younger sons of the privileged classes, by con- 
 demning all such (who fail to obtain a government 
 order on industrv for their maintenance) to sink 
 into a sort of supernumerary members of society 
 subject to every species of temptation to become 
 all that is worthless and contemptible ; fortune 
 hunters, hangers on, gamblers,! etc. etc. ; with 
 every thing to gain, and nothing to lose, whether 
 at the dining or the gaming tables of the " provided 
 for;" and, strange infatuation! less ashamed of any 
 meanness, or of any vice, than they would be of 
 doing anything honest, by means of which they 
 might obtain independent bread for themselves. 
 What ! a man whose elder brother has ten, twenty, 
 or forty thousand a year, and perhaps five thousand 
 starving tenantry, | demean himself by rendering 
 society any useful service in return for his con- 
 sumption of a large portion of its luxuries ! While 
 the same mischievous law equally demoralizes 
 (though after another fashion) the elder sons of the 
 
 * See " Dilemmas of Pride." /*' 
 
 t See " Fortune Hunting." 
 
 \ See the Account of the Town of Calen, in Inglis's Travels in 
 Ireland, in 1834.
 
 222 THE LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. 
 
 same classes ; teaching them to shut their eyes 
 against natural justice, and their hearts against 
 natural affection, by the knowledge (in their very 
 nurseries) that all their brothers and sisters are to 
 be despoiled of their natural inheritance, to aggran- 
 dize them ! While, as they grow older, they are 
 taught that their fraternal regard is, notwithstand- 
 ing, to be exhibited, by committing a breach of the 
 sacred trust reposed in them by a nation, and pro- 
 viding for their brothers, and, if possible, their 
 sisters also, at the expense of the pubUc ; that is, 
 of the labouring population, on any pretext, how- 
 ever frivolous or false ! Nay, they are to support, 
 with all their might and influence, ponderous 
 estabhshments of every kind, which they know to 
 be destructive of the nation at large ; merely to 
 preserve entire, whatever allotment of the booty 
 derived from taxation their own family may happen 
 to possess ; and, moreover, they are to use dili- 
 gently all the sophistries of which the advantages 
 of a college education may have given them the 
 command, to deceive the unlearned, and make 
 them believe this miserable disposition of things, 
 to be the invaluable British constitution, without 
 which the very grass would not grow in the 
 fields. 
 
 The false pride fostered by the law of primogeni- 
 ture, also tends to lessen infinitely the sum of 
 domestic happiness among the very class that law 
 is intended to favour ; by rendering none but elder
 
 THE LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. 223 
 
 sons " eligible matches" * in the eyes of parents, 
 and, consequently, condemning a great portion of 
 the property class to celibacy ; and obliging those 
 who do marry (generally speaking) to contract 
 marriages of mere convenience. 
 
 The law of primogeniture, also, from the mo- 
 nopoly of property it gives to the male line, tends 
 to degrade women, by making them dependent for 
 happiness in private life and consideration in public 
 life, on the caprices and interested views of men, 
 who, had but the artificial arrangements of pro- 
 perty been more equal, had been the ardent suitors, 
 and willing admirers of the beauty and accomplish- 
 ments, they now eschew as snares ! In short, 
 almost all the ten thousand prejudices of society 
 detrimental to peace ; almost all the thousand 
 artificial, yet but too real miseries of our bar- 
 barously civilized, our darkly enlightened, our 
 Ignorant] y educated age, may, on a strict examina- 
 tion of the subject in all its bearings, be traced to 
 derive their origin, or their aliment ; either directly 
 from the provisions of the law of primogeniture 
 itself; or indirectly, but quite as certainly, from 
 the peace and sympathy destroying pride which 
 that law fosters, the honour and honesty-subverting 
 avarice which that pride again engenders ; or the 
 excessive competitions, and unnatural hatreds, to 
 which that avarice yet again gives birth. 
 
 * See " Dilemmas of Pride."
 
 224 ■ THE LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. 
 
 The law of primogeniture, combined with that 
 of entail, forms also an instrument which, though 
 not deliberately constructed for the purpose, is too 
 often adapted to the misuse of defrauding creditors, 
 by preserving to children property righteously due 
 by parents to those who have given labour, profit, 
 on capital, and advances of capital itself in the 
 material of their goods and wages of their workman, 
 possibly for the maintenance, education, and ad- 
 vancement in life, of those very children ! Nay, 
 there have been awful instances of fathers, who, 
 urged by the thought of those justice-perverting 
 laws, mingling perhaps with incipient insanity, 
 have desperately closed their mortal career by com- 
 mitting suicide to set the seal to fraud, and leave 
 their children (by the laws of man) in possession 
 of property, which (by the lawb of God) belonged 
 to their creditors. 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO THE ABOLITION OF THE LAW OF 
 PRIMOGENITURE ANSWERED. 
 
 It has been absurdly objected against the aboli- 
 tion of the law of primogeniture, that, without 
 maintaining this law, the hereditary peerage could 
 not be maintained. If this objection, or rather 
 assertion, be founded in fact, it becomes an objec- 
 tion to the maintenance of the hereditary peerage, 
 not an objection to the abolition of the law of pri- 
 mogeniture ; for, it would surely be a gratuitous
 
 THE LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. 225 
 
 insult to the enlightenment of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury to add any argument to prove, that what can- 
 not be maintained without injustice, ought not to 
 be maintained at all. 
 
 It has been also objected, that, were the law of 
 primogeniture abolished, the actual subdivisions of 
 land would become inconveniently small ; but this 
 the parties concerned may surely arrange among 
 themselves, by the payment of rent or purchase 
 money, whenever further division ceases to be de- 
 sirable, without perpetuating injustice, heartburn- 
 ings, immorality, and actual misery, to avoid the 
 distant possibility of too many hedge-rows ! It 
 has also been said, that farming is best conducted 
 on a large scale : the contrary has been shown, in 
 a former chapter,* to be, in an eminent degree, the 
 fact. If this objection, however, w^ere valid, it 
 could be obviated by the same means as the objec- 
 tion just answered — arrangement among the parties. 
 Late experiments, however, have fully proved f 
 that every species of produce can be raised with 
 greater advantage by the small cultivator than by 
 the great farmer ; while it is quite obvious, that the 
 fresh crops, for which it has been anticipated! that, 
 
 * See Chap. XI. on the Small Allotment System, where autho- 
 rities are given for every fact. 
 
 t See Reports published by Labourer's Friend Society, 1834 
 and 1835. 
 
 X See Chap. X. on Increased Value of Land under a Free-trade 
 System. , 
 
 Q
 
 226 THE LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. 
 
 under the blessings of free trade, a new and most 
 extensive demand must arise, would be most pro- 
 ductive, at the least cost, under the careful ma- 
 nagement, spade cultivation,* constant manuring, 
 and extra weeding and watering, by otherwise un- 
 employed wives and children, bestowed by separate 
 small owners or cultivators and their families, on 
 very small portions of land. It has even been 
 shown, that there are many kinds of produce 
 which, with only the present demand, richly repay 
 the small allotment cultivator the time and cost of 
 spade cultivation. f 
 
 Such a system, then, increasing with the in- 
 creasing demands of growing prosperity, would 
 probably employ profitably, on a given portion ot 
 ground, so subdivided, an infinitely greater num- 
 ber of agricultural labourers, and during a much 
 greater portion of the year, than could be employed 
 in raising corn on a large farm containing the same 
 quantity of ground consolidated. Nor can the 
 misery of the Irish cottager be fairly adduced as 
 an objection to the possible prosperity of the 
 English small allotment cultivator ; the very dif- 
 ferent circumstances of the two countries forbid- 
 ding the inference. In Ireland there are scarcely 
 any manufactures, because, from the ill-governed 
 state of the country, no speculator will invest his 
 
 * See Chapter XI. on Small Allotment System, 
 t See Chapter XI.
 
 THE LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. 227 
 
 capital there ; the people, therefore, have no 
 choice of means for obtaining the barest possible 
 subsistence. The owner of the soil may thus be 
 said to hold a monopoly of life itself, in holding 
 the only possible means of procuring any species 
 of food, even to the road-side weed, and the stick 
 from the hedge to boil it with ! * In fact, the 
 whole population are thus driven, by the writhings 
 of hunger, around the owner of land, and com- 
 pelled to outbid each other incessantly, to get 
 possession of any scrap of land at any rent, such 
 merciful lords of the soil as Lord Clifdenf may 
 choose to demand, merely to have an opportunity 
 of eating a potatoe or two, while scraping together 
 the rest of the produce wherewith to pay this exor- 
 bitant rent, together with the tithes to the church 
 of peace, collected at the point of the bayonet ; 
 while there being no manufacturing population, 
 there is no home market in which to sell that pro- 
 duce at any thing like a remunerating price. Yet 
 the poor man cannot benefit by the low price of 
 provisions, he not being able to be a purchaser at 
 any market, but, as above stated, subsisting on 
 the said potatoe or two of his own raising, which, 
 at the risk of being turned out of his mud hovel by 
 a Lord Clifden, or shot by an Archdeacon Ryder, 
 he has ventured to reserve for his own, surely not 
 too luxurious, consumption. 
 
 * See Inglis's Travels in Ireland in 1834. 
 t See Inglis's Travels in Ireland in 1834. 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 THE LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. 
 
 The relative circumstances of the parties would 
 be very different indeed, if manufactures supplied 
 two-thirds of the population with wages where- 
 with to become purchasers of food, and the other 
 third, in consequence, with a home market in 
 which to sell their produce ; while land being no 
 longer the sole resource of all, no one would any- 
 longer bid a rent for land, which did not leave 
 them a surplus profit, equal to what was to be had 
 by manufactures ; nor labour upon land, either on 
 their own account, or under an employer, without 
 profit, or wages, equal to the wages of the manufac- 
 turer.* Had England then, since the commence- 
 ment of her connexion with Ireland, spent in that 
 countiy, in the establishment of manufactures, the 
 same sums f only which she has expended there 
 in the maintenance of military stations, etc. and 
 the purchase of ammunition for the destruction of 
 the naked and defenceless natives^ that beautiful 
 but unhappy island, had now been " a land of 
 promise, flowing with milk and honey," instead of 
 a den of strife, deluged with blood and tears ! But 
 to return to the subject under discussion, namely, 
 the subdivision of land, to be apprehended from 
 
 * Were these troublesome consequences apprehended by Lord 
 Waterford when he threw every obstacle in the way of the suc- 
 cessful cotton factory of the enlightened Mr, MalceJm ? — See 
 Inglis's Travels in Ireland in 1834. 
 
 t Calculated in Tait's Magazine, March 1835, at not much 
 short of four millions per annum.
 
 THE LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. 229 
 
 the abolition of the law of primogeniture ; we have 
 high authority,* (did a proposition so self-evident 
 require the support of any authority) to show that 
 great properties being in the hands of ostentatious 
 proprietors, must occasion much land to be devoted 
 to less profitable purposes, such as parks, pre- 
 serves, etc. and to be less carefully cultivated, than 
 would be the case were such properties divided 
 among several owners. It surely stands to reason 
 that the man who owns a few acres is more impe- 
 ratively called upon to make the most of them, 
 than the man who owns many thousand acres. 
 
 As to the ignorant cry, that, one time or other, 
 the subdivisions, not of land only, but also of pro- 
 perty must come down to absolute beggary, it may 
 be answered thus : were it not for the thousand 
 casualties of death, marriages, and acquisitions by 
 industry, etc. which are continually uniting various 
 portions of property, the apprehended minute divi- 
 sion of the value, at least, of estates, if not of the 
 land itself, would take place even under the present 
 system ; only it would require a longer time to 
 bring it about ; for it is not pretended, even now, 
 that younger children are not to have any portion 
 whatever assigned them ; however small, therefore, 
 the portions might be, were they always going 
 forth, and never returning, all must go at last. 
 
 * Adam Smith.
 
 230 THE LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. 
 
 Now, though the law of primogeniture were abo- 
 lished to-morrow, the casualties which unite por- 
 tions of property would most of them be still in 
 operation ; while some of them, especially acquisi- 
 tions by industry, would be much more active ; 
 the necessity of doing something for children, or of 
 enabling them to do something for themselves, 
 being kept more continually before the eyes of 
 parents ; while the perpetual recurrence of the sa- 
 lutary subdivisions, would keep up a healthy circu- 
 lation of capital, and effectually prevent those dis- 
 eased, and worse than useless accumulations of 
 Avealth which now obtain, and in addition to the 
 more serious derangements of the artificial social 
 system already noticed, put bitter for sweet, into the 
 cup of the great majority of the (so called) civilized 
 world ; making restless those whose portion might 
 be peace ; causing many blessed with competency, 
 to believe themselves poor ; many worthy of re- 
 spect, to be despised ; — nay, such is the tyranny of 
 prejudice, almost to despise themselves : at least 
 to be wanting in that true self-respect which is 
 founded on qualities truly respectable, and, there- 
 fore, to cringe to gilded, or titled vice. In a word, 
 causing the organization of the artificial social sys- 
 tem, both in estimation and in fact, to counteract 
 as much as possible that of the natural social sys- 
 tem ; and thus falsifying the standard of opinion, 
 or rather of the aggregate of those forced associa-
 
 THE LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. 231 
 
 tions which pass for opinions, on almost every sub- 
 ject on which opinion has a tendency to affect con- 
 tentment. 
 
 But a family must have a head, say the advo- 
 cates of primogeniture. As long as it is the will of 
 Heaven to spare the parent life, each actual family, 
 speaking the language of common sense, has a 
 natural head, claiming the reverence and love, and 
 having duties to perform essential to the well-being 
 of its members. In legal phraseology, however, 
 fifty such famihes, heads and allj may be but 
 branches to an infant head, still in its nurse's arms : 
 with Masters in Chancery, and numberless harpy 
 underlings of the law, appointed to protect its 
 rights, and pocket its revenues for the next twenty 
 years. The family house and place, the while, 
 going to decay, with agents, housekeepers, park- 
 keepers, and game-keepers, etc. receiving incomes 
 for keeping them in repair ; while the immediate 
 children of the last possessor, the aunts and uncles 
 of the present head, robbed and cast out by the 
 law of primogeniture, are living in hired houses or 
 lodgings, and are most probably pensioners, great 
 or small, in one way or other, on the industry 
 of the wealth-creating public ; and thus deriving 
 their subsistence from burdensome taxes, which, in 
 such instances, may be said to be levied on actual 
 hard labour for the maintenance, in worse than idle- 
 ness, through the round about channels described.
 
 232 THE LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. 
 
 of all the already enumerated host of mischievously 
 employed non-productive consumers, from the said 
 masters in chancery, down to the said house- 
 keepers, gamekeepers, etc. who form what may be 
 termed the staff of a minor's establishment, and who 
 are wasting or appropriating the rents, which might 
 have maintained the said pensioned aunts and 
 uncles. While, if under a more wholesome orga- 
 nization of the artificial social system, such per- 
 sons as the said masters in chancery, underlings 
 of the law, gamekeepers, housekeepers, etc. found 
 it necessary to apply themselves to productive in- 
 dustry, their efforts might have added something to 
 national wealth ; while the properties, on the plun- 
 der of which they now live, would then have suf- 
 ficed to have maintained, not only the heads of 
 families, but the branches also, without burdening 
 the labouring population, with those cruel taxes on 
 first necessaries, and on industry, in every shape, 
 which, under the present system, halve their every 
 meal, while they double their hours of toil. For, 
 among those persons, who may be considered 
 burdensome to the labouring population, must in 
 strict justice, be included, as already stated, not 
 only literal pensioners, but by far the greater 
 number of those " provided for" in army, navy, 
 church, and government appointments ; these esta- 
 bhshments neither being proportioned to, nor in- 
 tended to supply merely the real necessities of
 
 THE LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. 233 
 
 the state ; but, on the contrary, being both at- 
 tempted to be proportioned to, and certainly in- 
 tended to supply the pride-created necessities of 
 the aristocracy. 
 
 But the case of our baby minor, it will be 
 said, is an extreme one: be it so. — Would it, 
 however, mend the matter much, if this great 
 head of a great family were turned of one and 
 twenty, and consequently engaged in giving prac- 
 tical proofs that he had not arrived at years of 
 discretion, by a liberal expenditure of twenty, 
 or thirty thousand per annum, on the mainte- 
 nance of gamblers, race-horses, and opera-dancers, 
 while his brothers were living on government orders 
 on the industry of others ; and his sisters, if 
 plain, pining in hopeless poverty ; if beautiful, 
 marrying for establishments any one, however 
 unsuitable in years, or dissolute in habits, who 
 could afford to marry them, and "live like other 
 people." 
 
 But this, it may be urged, is another extreme 
 case. There are too many such, however. — But 
 let us now take one quite in the other extreme. 
 Let our head of a family be a rare example of 
 prudence and amiability ; in short, a young man 
 who eschews gaming tables, pays his tailor's bills, 
 and even marries for love without regard to pelf. 
 Still his sisters are robbed, and his brothers are 
 obliged to rob the public ; and for what ? merely 
 that himself, his wife, and his children (till his
 
 234 THE LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. 
 
 death) may live in a style of splendour quite un- 
 necessary to their own happiness ; and most pro- 
 bably, that he may be enabled to expend forty or 
 fifty thousand pounds, from time to time, in brib- 
 ing and intoxicating the electors of his county to 
 induce them to return him to parliament, however 
 contrary his known political opinions may be to 
 those of the majority of the constituency, or to 
 the principles of good government. 
 
 " But," say the advocates of the olden preju- 
 dices in behalf of pride and pageantry ; if the 
 law of primogeniture were abolished, we should 
 see no more of the fine ancient seats and splendid 
 domains which now adorn this country." 
 
 This apprehension may be well founded ; but 
 if the standard of splendour were lowered, that 
 of comfort would be raised.* If the eye of 
 the county historian, or faithful chronicler of the 
 deaths and marriages of ancient families, (that is 
 of families, which for centuries had been both 
 useless and burdensome to the pubhc) discovered 
 little to tempt his ingenious researches, that of 
 the philanthropist would see much to excite his 
 gratified sympathies, when, instead of here and 
 there a stately mansion, deserted by its haughty or 
 dissipated owner, and standing in the midst of 
 solitary preserves, the haunt by day of the hired 
 keeper, the resort by night of the desperate 
 
 * Dilemmas of Pride.
 
 THE LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE, 235 
 
 poacher, the whole face of the country had become 
 one cheerful scene of villas, villages, cottages, 
 allotments, gardens, and pleasure grounds ; giving 
 every where practical evidence, if of the decline of 
 pride, of the growth of prosperity ; if of the gra- 
 dual decrease of aristocratic influence ; of the infi- 
 nite increase of private happiness ; and that, not 
 only among the now oppressed classes, but also 
 among the aristocracy themselves. 
 
 Finally, let us refer the question of this so 
 much dreaded minute division of property to the 
 decision of that equal justice, w^hich, flowing from 
 good-will to all, has been shown to be the visibly 
 revealed will of God : let us ask the reason which 
 God has given us, what must be the verdict of 
 that sacred tribunal. Let us suppose the privi- 
 leged orders to bring forward proof incontestable 
 that, without the law of primogeniture, and the 
 auxiliary power of taxing the labouring classes for 
 the maintenance of the younger children of the 
 aristocracy, the subdivision of property among 
 their own children, and grandchildren, and great 
 grandchildren must, at last, reduce the descend- 
 ants of the present privileged classes, to the ul- 
 timate necessity of losing caste, by earning their 
 own subsistence. Would eternal justice, sitting 
 in the judgment seat, pronounce such arguments 
 unanswerable, and issue a decree, that the la- 
 bouring classes must forego every cherished hope 
 of amelioration,, and continue to labour sixteen
 
 236 THE LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. 
 
 hours out of the four and twenty, be poorly fed, 
 insufficiently clothed, and without education ; 
 that, by means of their hard earnings, and sore 
 privations, they might be enabled to keep up a 
 sufficient fund to maintain in idleness, luxury, 
 and often splendour, all but one child, of each 
 family, of each generation, of the now privileged 
 class ; for the great and important purpose of 
 preserving one pure specimen of each such fa- 
 mily, as long as the world lasts, not only safe from 
 the very apprehension of want, but from the con- 
 taminations of industry, either in their own per- 
 sons, or those of their collateral branches, and, 
 therefore entitled to despise, mortify, laugh at, 
 and avoid, as they would contagion, everyone who 
 is, or whose forefathers ever were, of the slightest 
 use to society. Alas ! how often has this wicked, 
 this heartless, this thoroughly contemptible as- 
 sumption of false superiority by injustice, and idle- 
 ness, (absurd, and worse than baseless as its pre- 
 tensions are) being vested by forced false associa- 
 tions, with power to render the latter days — days 
 set apart for days of rest— days of absolute bitter- 
 ness to the venerable gray-haired man, (venerable 
 from his years, though wanting in moral courage 
 to brave prejudice,) who had spent the vigour of 
 his youth, in active, honest, honorable usefulness ; 
 and looked forward, through many a weary strug- 
 gle, to those very days in which he now feels him- 
 self rejected, as the goal of all his hopes! If,
 
 THE LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE.. 237 
 
 however, all such persons would hut ask them- 
 selves the question, hy whom are they rejected ? 
 and not, in their turn, fall into the worthless 
 weakness of neglecting those they think they 
 have left behind, they might yet awake from 
 folly's influence, and be happy. Shall it then 
 be judged a recommendation of the law of primo- 
 geniture, or an argument for its abolition, that 
 the general tendency of maintaining that law is 
 to preserve, in all its fruitfulness of evil, this, 
 among so many sources of artificial suffering? 
 Surely then, more need not be said to convince 
 every honest mind, not only that the laws of en- 
 tail and primogeniture, which now make injustice 
 compulsory, ought to be abolished ; but that, in 
 their room, there should be laws established, 
 making justice compulsory : such as, or at least, 
 on the principle of the following : 
 
 First, that no settlement or legal trick of any 
 kind should be permitted to screen any portion 
 of a man's property, under any circumstances, 
 from creditors to whom it is in common honesty 
 due. And, secondly, that on the death of a father, 
 whatever property remains, after the payment of 
 every just debt, and a comfortable provision (for 
 life only) for his widow, should belong (of right, 
 without will or process) equally to all his chil- 
 dren, male or female. 
 
 Such a return to the simplicity of natural justice 
 would be E»ltended by yet another distinct advan-
 
 238 THE LAW OF PRIMOGENITURE. 
 
 tage, as it could not fail, by annihilating the prin- 
 cipal pretexts for litigation, to prove a colossal 
 stride towards the effectual reform of those pur- 
 posely created intricacies, and ruinously excessive 
 expenses, which at present render the law, instead 
 of the friend of the widow and the orphan, and the 
 protector of the rights of the poor, a mere instru- 
 ment of oppression in the hands of the rich, of 
 robbery in the hands of the unprincipled, or of 
 malice in the hands of any man who, being by 
 some quibble of the said law entitled to throw the 
 costs on the disputed estate, determines (with his 
 eyes wide open) to give the lawyers on both sides, 
 time and opportunity (inclination they always have) 
 to divide the property among themselves, before 
 he will admit the (always well-known to be) just 
 claim of his opponent.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 ON THE COLLATERAL BENEFITS OF A PROPERTY 
 TAX, OR THE ADVANTAGES OF CONSTITUTING THE 
 TAX-VOTING CLASS THE TAX-PAYING CLASS. 
 
 " The advance of civilization has already put a stop to plunder 
 by force ; it remains for the march of intellect to devise a check 
 for plunder by stratagem." — Dilemmas of Pride. 
 
 This check is our great national want. Pro- 
 perty, as distinct from industry, ever has been, 
 and, even under a reformed parHament, still 
 is the maker of laws, the deviser of budgets, the 
 voter of subsidies, — in short, the tier-up of public 
 burdens ; property, therefore, must be charged with 
 the carrying of those burdens : nothing less can 
 ever inspire it with a sufficiently feeling and careful 
 appreciation of their weight. 
 
 In our reformed parliament we have, no doubt, 
 many honest individuals, and we shall in time, it 
 may be fairly presumed, have many more. But, 
 speaking of property as a body, all its prejudices, 
 as well as all its misconceived notions of its own
 
 240 THE COLLATERAL BENEFITS OF 
 
 interest, are opposed to the just claims of industry. 
 Take, for instance, the obstinate bhndness of land- 
 lords on the subject of corn-laws. While ever, there- 
 fore, property, as a body, can fling: the greater 
 proportion of the burdens of the state on the 
 shoulders of industry, property, as a body, will 
 never be brought to reflect with sufficient serious- 
 ness on the devastating effects of oppression on 
 national prosperity. 
 
 But lay the burdens of the state exclusively, or 
 chiefly, on already realized property — that is, make 
 the tax- voting order the tax -paying order — and the 
 representatives of property, whether reformers or 
 non- reformers, would immediately feel, and there- 
 fore understand, the necessity of rendering those 
 burdens as light as circumstances would permit. 
 Sinecures and unnecessary offices would be abo- 
 lished, and the indispensable ones remunerated 
 moderately ; or, if the property class thought fit, 
 instead of each dividing his own possessions among 
 his own children, to keep up, at the expense of the 
 order, establishments in which their younger sons 
 might still be placed to scramble for the prizes, it 
 would become a sort of club affair, and, whether 
 wise or not, would at least cease to be unjust to 
 other classes. Another most essential advantage 
 attendant upon laying the burdens of the state 
 exclusively on already realized property, calling in 
 always the aid of new property as fast as realized, 
 is, that such an arrangement would not only teach
 
 A PROPERTY TAX. 241 
 
 the representatives of already realized property, 
 now the law-making order, economy, but also, 
 which is of infinitely more importance, give them 
 an immediate personal interest in the increase of 
 national wealth, and therefore set them upon 
 devices to bring about and secure general pros- 
 perity. Industry — that is to say, the immediate 
 interest of industry — would thus, at length, be vir- 
 tually represented : a privilege it has never yet 
 possessed, and which no reform in the freedom of 
 election, not even universal suffrage and vote by 
 ballot, could bestow upon it. For the man who has 
 his daily bread to earn has seldom education, never 
 leisure, still less a legal qualification to take himself 
 a seat in parliament, and so become the actual 
 representative of industry ; and it is in vain that 
 by his vote, however fairly given, he sends thither 
 a delegate who has made his fortune in the same 
 occupation at which he is himself still a labourer ; 
 by the very fact of having acquired a fortune that 
 delegate has ceased to be the representative of 
 industry, and become in fact, and, what is still more 
 important in feeling, the representative of pro- 
 perty; it has become his supposed personal interest 
 to devise laws for the more than just protection of 
 already realized property generally, and special 
 enactments securing to the property portion, or 
 great capitalist of his own peculiar trade or calling, 
 some unfair monopoly, calculated to oppress at 
 once the public and the operative ; and such, 
 
 R
 
 242 THE COLLATERAL BENEFITS OF 
 
 therefore, has been in general the conduct pursued 
 by what is called the great mercantile interest in 
 the house — men who, though risen from the 
 people, are no longer of the people. In fact, our 
 boasted three estates have long had absolutely no 
 existence. Whether the maintenance of such a 
 fancied harmony, arising out of discord, is either 
 desirable or possible, is another question. Again, 
 the real identity of interest of the whole commu- 
 nity is a truth which is little understood, and less 
 acted upon. What we have at present to deal 
 with, therefore, is the supposed separate interests 
 of the various parties in the state ; and these con- 
 sist, in name only, of King, Lords, and Commons, 
 — in reality, of King, Property, and Industry. 
 Lords and Commons thus, instead of being two 
 such supposed interests or estates, are united, by 
 the possession of property, into one such supposed 
 interest or estate ; and industry, while ground into 
 the very dust to pay whatever this united interest 
 chooses to demand, is shut out from all particle of 
 share in the virtual representation. And yet the 
 national importance of already realized property, 
 compared with industry, or the power of creating 
 wealth, is but as that of the income of an estate 
 for a short period compared with that of the value 
 of the estate itself. What rents would lands pay 
 without labour ? What interest would money yield 
 unless the principal were employed to set labour in 
 motion ? Now there is no question that what bplh
 
 A PROPERTY TAX, 243 
 
 houses of parliament vote, constitutes law ; yet 
 already realized property, this comparatively unim- 
 portant interest, is represented in both houses : 
 industry, or the power of creating wealth, that 
 stupendously important interest, not in either. 
 Thus the great stability giving majority of the 
 nation, whose property consists in this power of 
 creating wealth by labour, though they send 
 nominal representatives to parliament, have no 
 one, with an interest felt to be identical with their 
 own, to plead their cause in any constitutional 
 form, except indeed the drawing up of humble 
 petitions for that which they have a right to de- 
 mand. If, therefore, neglecting the prayers of 
 those petitions, the property-holding, corn-growing 
 union, — being also the law-framing, place-holding, 
 subsidy-voting, and subsidy-appropriating union — 
 choose to make industry or labour, which it is their 
 supposed interest to buy cheap, unprofitable, and 
 bread, or the produce of the soil, which it is their 
 supposed interest to sell dear, unpurchasable, and 
 yet to take (for so doing) large salaries levied on 
 industry, — what has industry left ? 
 
 The terrible remedy of turning the ploughshare 
 into the sword ! ! ! 
 
 This remedy, however, (though in reserve) gives 
 to the rights of industry a guarantee in nature 
 which is indestructible, the ultimate security 
 against the wanton invasion of those rights being 
 
 R 2
 
 244 THE COLLATERAL BENEFITS OF 
 
 vested in the physical force inseparable from 
 numbers. 
 
 Let those then, who by education have, or ought 
 to have wisdom, remember that such a power 
 exists, though dormant ! Let them listen to the 
 lowest breathings of its whispers ; beware of its 
 murmurs ; and never provoke it to speak out ; but 
 yield in time to the moral force of justice, ere by 
 vain resistance they awake the slumbering giant, 
 who, once aroused, will not lay him down again till 
 he has fatigued himself with the work of destruc- 
 tion, and drank himself drunk with blood ! 
 
 But repeal every tax, direct and indirect, which 
 now exists, and substitute a tax on already realized 
 property, and all such dangerous collision would 
 become impossible : for, not only would property 
 have thus no means of oppressing industry ; but 
 property, wath the leisure, and, generally speaking, 
 education which independence bestows, would ac- 
 quire an interest, an immediate, apparent, easily 
 understood, personal interest, in common with 
 industry, an interest in enabling industry to create 
 wealth and become property, that it might assist 
 the property already in existence in bearing the 
 burdens of the state. 
 
 There being but one condition, however, on 
 which the governing, and already wealthy few, 
 could obtain the assistance of the labouring and 
 wealth-creating many, namely, that of spreading 
 wealth and prosperity over the whole land, they
 
 A PROPERTY TAX. 245 
 
 would set about so doing with all the ability, know- 
 ledge, and research, they could muster ; and, in- 
 stead of the unreal, unmeaning jargon, of three 
 estates, or the real evil of two contending, and 
 supposed to be opposing interests, we should have 
 the reality of identity of interests made apparent, 
 and therefore felt, understood, and acted upon. 
 Thus would the " collective wisdom" of the nation 
 be, at length, in good earnest : there would be no 
 more " crowing like cocks," or " braying like 
 asses," or " yelling like savages," or settling to 
 sleep on the benches of the house, or peals of 
 laughter during the descriptions of the distress of 
 the labouring classes, or while propositions for 
 amending the morals and means of the people, by 
 putting down drunkenness, were being made, under 
 the respectable sanction of a committee appointed 
 for the purpose. Nor would official documents be 
 signed without reading them, nor the house con- 
 vulsed with laughter daring the discussion of the 
 pension list. When honourable members had to 
 muster the money among themselves, they would 
 be apt to look grave, and say to the receivers of thg 
 pensions : ' ' those may laugh who win ! ' ' 
 
 As for the convenient jargon of affecting to 
 reverence egregious error, and glaring injustice, 
 merely because remnants of the olden time, and 
 which all the world knows onlv means, " I have 
 seven trumps and don't want a new deal !" such 
 idle stumbling blocks in the path of improvement.
 
 246 THE COLLATERAL BENEFITS OF 
 
 (when those felt the pressure who held themselves 
 the power of redress,) would very soon be laid on 
 the shelf of the antiquary with the idols of the 
 ancient heathen ; and every home regulation, every 
 foreign relation, which justice and common sense 
 were agreed required amendment, be remodelled 
 forthwith. 
 
 All monopolies and restrictions on trade, in other 
 words, hindrances to the creation of wealth, would 
 of course be abolished immediately by a parliament 
 whose own private interest it had become to make 
 every man in the nation (if possible) able to pay 
 some portion of a property tax. 
 
 The early beginnings of industry would be en- 
 couraged and cherished by the state, even as a 
 mother nourisheth her infant offspring. Protection 
 would no longer be the portion of the strong ; 
 oppression of the weak. But even selfishness 
 w^ould at length discover that the only way to 
 secure its own best interests was to cease from 
 falsifying the balance which might again be used in 
 weighing to itself, and, henceforth, place in the 
 steady hand of equal justice, standard scales, for 
 the use and benefit of all ! ! 
 
 If any public departments, now sources of ex- 
 pense, can, by judicious arrangements, be changed 
 into sources of revenue, such arrangements would 
 be made without delay. 
 
 If self-supporting prisons, for instance, on the 
 plan of the great one at Auburn, could be intro-
 
 A PROPERTY TAX. 247 
 
 duced, so as at least to save expense, if not produce 
 profit, such would be adopted. 
 
 If a national bank could be made a source of 
 profit to the nation, it would be established. 
 
 If the charitable and educational funds already 
 in existence, require but to be duly administered, 
 to prove abundant for their respective purposes, 
 the guardians of the welfare of the nation, and of 
 their own property, would see that they were so 
 administered. The inquiries even now being made 
 into corporation abuses, would be vigorously fol- 
 lowed up, and caused to produce the best possible 
 practical results. If the labour of the able-bodied 
 pauper, as already suggested, as well as that of the 
 species of delinquents now sent to tread-mills or 
 houses of correction, or caused to pass away pre- 
 cious months in idleness in profligate prisons, could 
 be so beneficially employed as to afford, over and 
 above their own maintenance, a surplus for the 
 support of the sick and the aged, such labour would 
 be so employed, and the funds thence derived not 
 allowed to cling to the fingers of those entrusted 
 either with their collection or with their distribu- 
 tion. Crown lands and waste land would be neither 
 jobbed nor left waste. If, as many intelligent per- 
 sons think, we ought not to incur any expense in 
 defence of colonies which do not replace the outlay 
 with a profit, we should no longer continue to do 
 so, either from mistaken judgment, or the desire of
 
 248 THE COLLATERAL BENEFITS OF 
 
 supporting patronage or corrupt jobbing.* Those 
 whose own business it had become to economise 
 would take care neither to make mistakes, nor 
 show unnecessary favours. Obhging friends, or 
 even the nearest relations at one's own expense, 
 would be discovered to require a very different 
 intensity of complaisance from doing the same 
 thing at the expense of the nation. f 
 
 Ceylon offers a melancholy example of cruel and 
 ruinous oppression to the unhappy natives and yet 
 loss to the oppressing country, merely to enrich 
 private monopolists, and furnish situations for offi- 
 cials and tax-gatherers ; almost every article whe- 
 ther of living or of commerce being taxed to the 
 consumer, some as high as from three hundred 
 to six hundred per cent, yet the balance on the 
 expenses of the colony being greatly against the 
 mother country. | All can see the folly as well as 
 
 * " It is quite monstrous," says Stuart, " that we the over- 
 taxed inhabitants of Great Britain, should allow part of the sums 
 annually drawn from us to be expended for the support of esta- 
 blishments in Canada, a country which not only makes us no re- 
 turn, but has the address to impose on us a bad article at a greatly 
 increased price." — Stuart's America. 
 
 t " For statistical facts proving at a glance the madness of crip- 
 ling our trade with the rest of the world, to bolster that of the 
 Canadas and the West Indies, and the mischievous effect on our 
 home prosperity of every part of the protective system." — See 
 The Statistical Annual of the Board of Trade, or a Budget of Facts. 
 Among the civil charges, seem not to be included those of 
 
 +
 
 A PROPERTY TAX. 249 
 
 cruelty of such misrule, and mismanagement com- 
 bined : yet the grievances continue, and why ? 
 Because those who feel them to be grievances have 
 not the remedy in their own hands. But, if pro- 
 perty had to pay the balances itself, self-interest 
 so sharpens wit, that the few, who could more than 
 repay themselves by colonial offices, would find it 
 impossible to mystify the understandings, and gain 
 the votes of all the rest. 
 
 In short, whatever might be for the advantage of 
 the public would quickly be discovered by a body 
 of intelligent, well educated men, whose own im- 
 mediate interest w^as at stake, who were, in fact, 
 administering their own funds, settling their own 
 
 the agent in England, for pensions and stores, £26,735. Among 
 the mihtary charges are not included arms, accoutrements, clothing, 
 ammunition, transport of troops, and the half-pay and pensions of 
 the force serving in Ceylon. So much for Colonial accounts. 
 But even according to the Colonial mode of making up accounts, 
 which like Colonial currency, must always he taken at a heavy 
 discount, the expenditure for twelve years ending 1832 — all years 
 of profound peace — exceeds the revenue by no less a sum than 
 £412,64 1: which it is needless to say falls on the people of 
 England." 
 
 " The Civil Establishment is enormous, six and twenty appoint- 
 ments from one to three thousand each ; the governor £8000; ex- 
 clusive of pensions to retired judges and other civil functionaries 
 amounting to £16,000 per annum. 
 
 "The Revenue Establishment costs £63,000 per annum; a 
 charge of collection of near nineteen per cent. The staff, includ- 
 ing the Engineer Department, costs nearly £25,000 per annum." — 
 Spectator, Qth of August, 1834.
 
 250 THE COLLATERAL BENEFITS OF 
 
 accounts, to sum up all, taking care of their own 
 purses. An office, the duties of which chancellors, 
 in general, pronounce marvellously few men incapa- 
 ble of performing, considering that poets and phi- 
 losophers assert that all men are more or less de- 
 ranged. 
 
 But the misfortune has been, that the real busi- 
 ness for which, till very lately, at least, all parlia- 
 ments have met, has been to distribute among 
 themselves and their connexions, places and pen- 
 sions, and to devise and lay on taxes for the keep- 
 ing up of the fund, out of which the emoluments of 
 such places and pensions were paid, taking care 
 that the burden of those taxes should fall as exclu- 
 sively as was likely to be endured on industry, the 
 ranks of which they thought fit to pronounce " the 
 lower," and, therefore, never intended that either 
 themselves or their children should join. 
 
 Any other acts of the legislature have generally 
 been points yielded, at last, yet in haste, to clamour 
 from without, or to the wily arguments of an in- 
 terested faction within, but neither considered nor 
 understood by members in general, who had, as 
 already remarked, their own all-absorbing arrange- 
 ments to attend to, and who, therefore, when they 
 interfered with the welfare of the country in ge- 
 neral, as by the permission of monopolies, or the 
 sanction of restrictions injurious to trade, etc. 
 resembled the directors of a joint stock company
 
 A PROPERTY TAX. 251 
 
 exercising power over concerns in which its mem- 
 bers have not a sufficiently strong individual inte- 
 rest, and, therefore, doing mischief : the difference 
 on their own single share of the legal dividend of 
 national prosperity, not being, under the " dispo- 
 sition of things " which has hitherto obtained, 
 worth near so much to each individual director, as 
 the privilege of permitting their own families, con- 
 nexions, and followers, to plunder with impunity 
 from the whole. But, if the burdens of the state 
 were laid on property only, and that the aid of 
 industry could not be obtained in bearing those 
 burdens, but by causing the trade of the nation to 
 flourish, and industry to become property, the ge- 
 neral weal would become to each individual of the 
 property class, a subject too important to be trifled 
 with. 
 
 Men of property, therefore, would not merely 
 take care how they voted away their own money, 
 but they would no longer go into parliament with- 
 out having learned so much as the A. B. C. of 
 political economy. The social science, on the con- 
 trary, would become the study, the business of the 
 hitherto idle classes, while a little honesty of inten- 
 tion, aided by keen scented self-interest, would, in 
 a short time, unravel all the reputed difficulties of 
 a subject which, like the simple precepts of pure 
 practical religion, has been mystified by those who 
 would not see a path they did not choose to tread.
 
 252 THE COLLATERAL BENEFITS OF 
 
 The industrious classes, the while, instead of 
 wasting precious time, and inducing dangerous 
 excitement, by assembling in thousands to petition 
 for justice, might follow their own peculiar calling 
 (the creation of wealth by labour) with thorough 
 singleness of purpose, certain, that without their 
 interference, their best interests were being con- 
 sidered by persons fitted by education to under- 
 stand the most difficult questions in all their bear- 
 ings, and, w^iat is a still better security, who could 
 not benefit themselves, but by first benefiting 
 them. 
 
 This is the centre jewel, the very vital spark of 
 the principle of a property tax. This, it is, which 
 must not be lost sight of, and this it is which, in 
 any mixed system of taxation, would be endan- 
 gered. 
 
 By pressing this consideration, as invaluable, no 
 offence to individuals, or even to any individual 
 class, is contemplated. The average of every class, 
 as a body, follows, to the best of its knowledge and 
 ability, what it conceives to be its own immediate 
 interests. To identify, therefore, the interests of 
 every other class of the community, with that of 
 the class whose peculiar province it is to legislate, 
 or rather to render that identity of interest which 
 always must exist, so practically obvious that all 
 must perceive it, is assuredly one of the most effec- 
 tual securities for good government. In short, it
 
 A PROPERTY TAX. 253 
 
 converts, at ouce, the intricate machinery of legisla- 
 tion, hitherto so difficult to manage, into one great 
 self-acting engine, which needs but to have this, 
 its main spring kept in constant repair, to work 
 well as long as the world lasts.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 PLAN OF A PROPERTY TAX. 
 
 " Every tax ought to be so contrived as both to take and to keep 
 out of the pockets of the people as Uttle as possible, over and 
 above what it brings into the public treasury of the state." 
 
 Adam Smith. 
 
 By a property tax on realized property is meant 
 a yearly per centage on the rents of all lands and 
 buildings, and on the interest of all sums of money, 
 whether placed on mortgage, in the funds, or lent 
 out on any other security. And also that all other 
 realized property, being valued at its market price, 
 the interest of the capital sum that such property 
 would bring, if sold, should also pay a per centage, 
 the interest chargeable with such per centage, to 
 be calculated at what such capital sum would 
 bring, if placed in the funds. All per centages 
 on rents and interests to vary according to the 
 nature of the property. 
 
 The interest of money on mortgage, or in the 
 funds, being the property least expensive to its
 
 PLAN OF A PROPERTY TAX. 255 
 
 owner, and least serviceable (at least at its owner's 
 risk) to the state, should pay the highest per 
 centage. Rents the next. 
 
 The man, again, who has a capital embarked in 
 business, should pay per centage only on the 
 amount of interest which that capital would have 
 borne if lodged safely in the funds. The profits of 
 his trade or business should balance against the 
 risks, and be all his own, till by accumulation 
 they become capital or realized property. The 
 per centage, too, should be somewdiat lower than 
 that on the interest of the capital, the owner of 
 which runs no risk, that every encouragement be 
 given to those at whose risk capital is employed in 
 putting productive industry in motion. Indeed, 
 whenever the wealth of the nation shall become so 
 great as to admit of such a further improvement, it 
 would be desirable that capital embarked in busi- 
 ness should be exempt from the tax. 
 
 A man engaged in a profession, to which no 
 fixed salary is attached, should pay a per centage 
 only on the rent or interest of whatever realized 
 property he possesses, independent of his profession, 
 but nothing on the casual wages of his anxious daily 
 labour, whether of brain or limb, and if his pro- 
 fession be the medical profession, what with hasty 
 journeyings, weary watchings, uncertain hours, 
 and infected atmospheres, too often accompanied 
 by the risk both of life and health. 
 
 If his professional income be large, it will speed-
 
 256 PLAN OF A PROPERTY TAX. 
 
 ily accumulate into the species of property which 
 it is proposed should be liable to taxation. If 
 it be no more than he deems it expedient to 
 spend in living and bringing up his family, and 
 ensuring his life for their future support, such of the 
 idle, as may have smaller incomes, and who there- 
 fore enjoy fewer luxuries, yet pay a property tax on 
 that smaller income, would have no right to look 
 on the immunity of the professional income 
 with an envious eye ; they too are at liberty to 
 exert themselves, and add, if they please, the in- 
 come of industry to the income of property, pay- 
 ing tax on the one, and not on the other, yet en- 
 joying both ; if they prefer idleness and one 
 income, they have no right to complain, and 
 should be thankful that they have the option 
 which the man without realized property has 
 not. 
 
 Fixed salaries, again, as they ought to be 
 the w^ages of labour, ought, in this sense, to be 
 entitled to some indulgence, though they must, 
 in justice, be distinguished from the uncertain 
 emoluments of casually rewarded professions, re- 
 membering always that the so-situated professional 
 man has no superannuation or retiring pension to 
 hope for,* and that, though he may, at the sacrifice 
 of a portion of the wages of his labour, ensure his 
 life for the benefit of his family, he cannot insure 
 
 * No £6000 per annum, with a reversion to a son.
 
 PLAN OF A PROPERTY TAX. 257 
 
 his health, and may live to suffer want on a bed of 
 sickness. 
 
 But as there are many kinds of fixed salaries, 
 they must all be brought down to the reasonable 
 wages of indispensable services, and also pro- 
 portioned to free trade or natural prices, before 
 they can claim even partial immunity. The 
 reason why they must be proportioned to free 
 trade prices, is, because they are fixed ; whereas 
 casual remuneration of every kind, professional or 
 otherwise, is in the market, and, therefore, may 
 and ought to be left to find its own level. 
 
 Fixed salaries, thus regulated, might (if the 
 produce should prove worth the levying) be taxed 
 without injustice, a small per centage on the in- 
 terest of the capital sum for which, was their sale 
 permitted, and the holder preferred idleness, they 
 would sell ; the interest calculated at what that 
 capital sura would bring, if lodged in the funds, 
 for to that extent only, they may be considered 
 realized property. 
 
 In like manner every business, the good-will 
 of which would sell for a certain sum, were its 
 owner to prefer idleness and dispose of the same, 
 might (if such minute following out of the system 
 should prove indispensable to the exigencies of the 
 state) be taxed a small per centage on the interest 
 which that sura, if placed in the funds would pro- 
 duce, for to that amount it is a species of realized 
 property, nnd a species enjoying in a peculiar
 
 258 PLAN OF A PROPERTY TAX. 
 
 degree, the protection of the state. The freedom 
 from indirect taxes, and all other direct taxes, 
 except this property tax, would still, it is rea- 
 sonable to hope, be an ample relief to this portion 
 of the industrious community. A man's own 
 peculiar skill or ability, which he could not 
 transfer, therefore could not sell, is not to be taken 
 into the account as property. Time enough for 
 such advantages to become profitable to the 
 state when they have enabled their possessor to 
 realize tangible property. 
 
 It would, however, be far better, because simpler, 
 and because a still greater relief to industry in 
 every stage, that nothing but independent realized 
 property should, even from the first, pay the pro- 
 perty tax. But this is a point which must depend 
 on the amount of revenue it would be practicable 
 so to raise. Or, possibly, when the subject shall 
 have received the deep consideration from prac- 
 tical men, which its importance challenges, it may 
 be found advisable, even though sufficient funds 
 could not be raised by the limited property tax, 
 rather to call in the aid of some second simple 
 direct tax, than by a strained definition of realized 
 property, to give to the property tax a compli- 
 cated character. 
 
 A graduated property tax, though proposed 
 elsewhere* seems, on a closer investigation, to 
 
 * Dilemmas of Pride.
 
 PLAN OF A PROPERTY TAX. 259 
 
 be attended with so many inconveniences, that 
 probably it might be best, and most in accordance 
 with vested rights, to vary the per centage only 
 on the kind of property, the same kind paying the 
 same rate of per centage whatever be the amount 
 of the property. The greater incomes would 
 still pay their due proportion more than the 
 smaller ones ; and property itself, without regard 
 to whose hands it might be in, be the direct 
 object of taxation. The whole of the per cent- 
 ages, of course, to be computed on a scale or 
 scales, calculated to cover the necessary public 
 expenditure, and all, in proportionate degrees, 
 rising or falling at the closing of the financial 
 accounts for each year, something on the present 
 plan of most local rates, and, consequently, as the 
 wealth of the nation, fostered by free trade and 
 free institutions, increased, becoming lighter and 
 lighter still, till the trifling per centage, which on 
 the whole immense mass, would still make up the 
 sum required, would be, to each individual pos- 
 sessor of property, but a mere fractional charge, or 
 peppercorn quit rent. 
 
 The first general valuation, with ratings accord- 
 ingly, once regulated, increase or decrease of rate- 
 able property, might be ascertained by returns sent 
 to be filled up, resembling those now in use re- 
 specting assess taxes, and the parties in like man- 
 ner subject to surcharge for false returns ; and as a 
 further security, no transfer or investment of pro - 
 
 s 2
 
 260 PLAN OF A PROPERTY TAX. 
 
 perty to be valid till such return be made, nor any 
 amount above such return (till made in a fresh 
 return) to be recoverable at law, from the party 
 in possession or use thereof. 
 
 All, or much of this however, would probably 
 be found unnecessary, as in general the property 
 would be the mark, whoever was its owner, pri- 
 vate agreements being sufficient to regulate the 
 ultimate incidence of the tax. But as to the mode 
 of collection, be it arranged how it may, it can 
 hardly be attended with difficulties amounting to 
 any thing like an objection. For the collection of 
 one direct tax can scarcely be made as intricate 
 and expensive as the machinery required for the re- 
 gulation, and collection of the customs, and excise, 
 with the preventive service, and the assess taxes to 
 boot : so that something in the way of simplicity 
 and economy must be gained.
 
 CHAPTER XVT. 
 
 a poll tax suggested in aid of a property tax, 
 (if necessary,) as less mischievous than the 
 continuation of indirect taxation. 
 
 On fairly weighing the facts and calculations 
 which have been brought forward in the foregoing 
 pages, drawn as they are from the most respectable 
 authorities., it seems but reasonable to hope, that 
 low or natural prices, considered together with the 
 remission of all other taxes, the majority of the 
 property class would not, even at first, find their 
 burdens much, if at all increased by taking upon 
 themselves, in the shape of a property tax, the 
 whole sum, which, with strict economy and freedom 
 from the cost of collection, would still continue to 
 be the necessary public expenditure ; while the 
 entire relief thus afforded to the industrious classes 
 would enable multitudes of them to become wealthy 
 enough to be liable to, and therefore assist in pay- 
 ing the said property tax.
 
 2G2 POLL AND PROPERTY TAX. 
 
 If, however, before the rich fruits of this hoped 
 for prosperity have time to ripen, and rates and 
 prices to find their level, the burden on the pro- 
 perty class should be found oppressive, it would 
 surely be better to draw assistance from almost any 
 other more general but equally direct tax ; such as, 
 perhaps, a poll tax, than to keep up any part of the 
 present wasteful and destructive system of indirect 
 taxation. Or should it even prove advisable to 
 keep up a poll tax in constant aid of a property 
 tax rather than render the property tax complex, 
 neither of these direct taxes would be open to the 
 principal objections against all indirect taxes. And 
 when we consider that the population of Great 
 Britain is already twenty-live millions, it would 
 appear that a poll tax might be made very produc- 
 tive, without being very oppressive. With the 
 blessings of free trade, full employment, ne- 
 cessaries below half price, and no other tax, one 
 pound a year could be no great object to even 
 the mere operative or labourer who was at all 
 industrious. 
 
 Parishes might possibly be rated to make up for 
 their defaulters, such as their poor and the children 
 of their labouring classes ; or wealthier classes, 
 such perhaps as persons in prosperous business, but 
 not liable to the simplified property tax, might pay 
 double or treble to keep up the average. Or it 
 might be no bad plan in country parishes, to make 
 absentee landlords pay for all the defaulters through
 
 POLL AND PROPERTY TAX. 263 
 
 poverty of their parishes, the poverty being, in all 
 probabiUty, caused by their absence. Witness Irish 
 landlords spending every shilling of their rents in 
 London, and at English watering places, and allow- 
 ing middle men to oppress their more than half- 
 starved tenantry. And English nobles scattering 
 their princely revenues over France, Germany, 
 and Italy. 
 
 In London, and other great towns, it might be 
 well to marry each parish consisting chiefly of the 
 dwellings of the poor, to one of those consisting 
 entirely of the houses of the very rich, it being 
 obvious that the entirely poor parishes could not, 
 without oppression, pay for their own defaulters, 
 and that, without some such regulation as this 
 amalgamation of parishes, the very wealth which 
 makes the duty of assisting the poor doubly im- 
 perative, would furnish the title of exemption from 
 its performance.* 
 
 If the averages of the pound per head were thus 
 kept up, it would of course, at the present popula- 
 tion, be twenty-five millions at once.f As the 
 population, which always keeps pace with pros- 
 
 * Gentlemen and noblemen with great retinues should, of course, 
 pay the tax on all their servants male and female. 
 
 t So that, if the fifteen millions of improvable waste land, 
 already alluded to, were made to yield a rent of even one pound 
 per acre to the state, we should have forty millions of revenue, 
 without oppression to the poor, or any interference with, or hin- 
 drance to trade.
 
 264 rOLL AND PROPERTY TAX. 
 
 perity, increased, it might be found sufficient to 
 charge adults only with the poll tax ; and, surely, 
 any man or woman who can earn a livelihood 
 could, with a very trifling additional exertion, earn 
 one pound a year more, particularly when they 
 could procure full employment, and purchase first 
 necessaries at half-price. In short, as not only 
 population, and the comparatively useless wealth 
 which collects in masses rapidly progressed, but 
 that every labouring man thus found his re- 
 sources doubled, the whole fifty millions, while 
 raised by any means unattended with collateral 
 mischiefs, would very soon cease to be felt at 
 all, much less looked upon as a burden of na- 
 tional importance. A considerable portion, how- 
 ever, of the fifty millions, as has been already 
 shown, would, under the new arrangement, cease 
 to be required. 
 
 Lastly, it is necessary to remark before quitting 
 this part of the subject, that, if a property tax is 
 not to be the sole tax, it becomes important that 
 the sum to be raised by the poll tax, or any other 
 assistant tax or taxes, should be a definite sum, and 
 that the property tax should be the one to vary 
 with the exigencies of government ; so that, on 
 the grounds already explained at full length in 
 the chapter on the collateral benefits of making 
 the tax voting class the tax paying class,* the 
 
 * Chap. XIV.
 
 POLL AND PROPERTY TAX. 265 
 
 whole difference between a prudent and an im- 
 prudent management of the public expenditure, 
 should fall on the class who both vote the public 
 money into the Exchequer, and afterwards direct 
 its disbursement. 
 
 In a country so miserably circumstanced as 
 Ireland, it is very evident that almost the whole 
 of such a tax would fall on landlords. It would 
 also fall the heaviest on absentee landlords : which 
 would be just, as the operation of such a tax would 
 be to aid the operation of poor laws, in compelling 
 landlords, whose sympathies have unhappily stopped 
 short in the first stage of production, to care for 
 the well-being of their tenants ; — which leads to the 
 subject of the next chapter.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 POOR LAWS FOR POOR IRELAND. 
 
 " And God said, behold I have given you every herb bearing 
 seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, 
 in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed ; to you it shall 
 be for meat." 
 
 Shall Ireland have Poor Laws ? See Inglis' 
 Travels in Ireland in 1 834 ; see his account of 
 a " town in the county of Kilkenny called Callen," 
 and the question, shall Ireland have poor laws, 
 will have had its reply. 
 
 The sooner, no doubt, that just legislation can 
 cause the necessity for parish rehef to disappear 
 every where the better ; but the starving man, 
 the while, must not, any where, be without some 
 resource ! 
 
 Is it not a cruel mockery ! Nay, an awful blas- 
 phemy ! an insult to the God of justice, and of 
 truth, to talk of " rights"—" vested rights"—
 
 POOR LAWS FOR POOR IRELAND. 267 
 
 " rights of property," and under the cloak of these 
 prostituted terms dare to legalize an artificial so- 
 cial system, by the sanction of which five thousand 
 human beings, without one claim (allowed by man) 
 upon the soil on which they were born, in a 
 country where there is no market for their only 
 commodity, their labour ; unfed, unhoused, un- 
 clothed, uninstructed, (for life or for eternity) from 
 year to year, and from generation to generation ; 
 scarcely alive, literally crawl through a miserable, 
 degraded existence, on that portion of the county 
 of Kilkenny, which such laws have set apart for 
 the sole maintenance of an individual called Lord 
 Clifden ; the occupation, the while, of these five 
 thousand of God's rational creatures being to 
 scrape from the earth, by incessant, nerveless toil, 
 on terms which do not always afford them even a 
 bare subsistence on dry potatoes — twenty thou- 
 sand pounds per year, to be sent to England to 
 this Lord Clifden and by him expended in the 
 pomp and glitter of ostentatious absenteeism. 
 While, in addition to this rack-rent of twenty 
 thousand pounds a year, this christian landlord is 
 said (it scarcely seems credible) to have the callous- 
 ness of heart, to wring two hundred and fifty 
 pounds per annum more, from these his famishing 
 fellow creatures, in the shape of a toll on all the 
 potatoes and buttermilk, which enter among the 
 ranges of mud hovels, in many instances only 
 holes in a bank of mud, without one wooden stool 
 for furniture, called the town of Callen, and not
 
 268 POOR LAWS FOR POOR IRELAND. 
 
 one shilling of which toll money is spent on, or 
 in the town.* 
 
 Are these then the " vested rights" — the " sacred 
 (sacred indeed ! ! !) rights of property"— this the 
 " happy and prosperous state of things preserved 
 to us by our invaluable constitution," which the 
 susceptible consciences of members of Parliament 
 tremble at the mention of interference with ? Ye 
 timid of heart, be reassured ! For, until a new pro- 
 phet shall descend from on high, and shall inform 
 us, that the Eternal One has abdicated the Throne of 
 Heaven, and that henceforth the laws of men shall 
 supersede the laws of God, Injustice can never be 
 a Right ! ! ! 
 
 When indeed, there shall have been fixed a fair 
 rate of rent, established under ameliorated national 
 circumstances ; not wrung from the imperious 
 necessities of a people, who being without manu- 
 facturing employment have no varied means of 
 obtaining a livelihood, and are therefore obliged 
 to promise as rent whatever terms the extortioner f 
 requires, that they may, as already noticed in a for- 
 mer chapter,! have the opportunity afforded them, 
 while tilling the ground, of eating a few of the 
 
 * See Inglis* Travels in Jreland, in 1834. 
 
 t Generally middlemen, who renting the land themselves from 
 landlords, underlet it to labourers. In an instance on the pro- 
 perty of a member of the writer's own family, land in the county 
 of Limerick, not in the vicinity of any town, was let by the land- 
 lord at the moderate rent of two pounds per acre, and under-let 
 by the middleman at the exorbitant rent of ten guineas per acre, 
 to poor creatures to grow potatoes. + Chapter XIII.
 
 POOR LAWS FOR POOR IRELAND. 269 
 
 potatoes it yields to their labour, though at the 
 risk of being driven out of their wretched huts 
 to die on the road side, if the remainder of the 
 crop will not pay the said promised rent. 
 
 And when the establishment of poor rates for 
 Ireland shall have compelled landlords to live at 
 home, and Jook to the welfare of their tenants, or 
 have no surplus coming to themselves as rent, and 
 that, in consequence, the five thousand inhabitants 
 of Callen have comfortable houses, commodious 
 furniture, decent clothing, wholesome food, and 
 rational education, let the residue of the above 
 named twenty thousand, two hundred and fifty 
 pounds a year, be the '* vested right" of Lord 
 Clifden, or whoever may then be his representative. 
 
 Three things, in short, Ireland must have ! 
 
 Extensive manufactures, to put an end to the 
 ruinous competition for land just described.* 
 
 Poor laws to compel landlords to act, if not to 
 feel like christians. 
 
 And relief from the oppressions of the Church 
 of Rathcormac, with its widows' houses steeped 
 in blood for altars ; its widows' sons, slain on their 
 mother's hearths, for human sacrifices ; its dra- 
 goons for ministering high priests, and the eternal 
 fast it imposes on the poor, to furnish forth an ever- 
 lasting feast of pomps and vanities for the rich. 
 
 * Why then, does Lord Waterford throw every obstacle in the 
 way of the successful Cotton Factory of the enterprising Mr. 
 Malcomson, — See Inglis' Travels in Ireland, in 18S4.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 ON CHURCH TEMPORALITIES AND CHURCH REFORM, 
 
 " Beware of the Scribes, which desire to walk in long robes, 
 and love greetings in the markets, and the highest seats in the 
 synagogues, and the chief rooms at feasts ; which devour widows' 
 houses, and for a show make long prayers ; the same shall receive 
 greater damnation." — Luke xx. 46, 47. 
 
 " Shy lock — An oath, an oath, I have an oath in heaven; 
 Shall I lay purgery on my soul ? 
 No, not for Venice !" 
 
 On the subject of the appropriation of the sur- 
 plus Irish church temporaUties, it is difficult to 
 understand why there should be scruples. 
 
 The original tithe was chargeable with the 
 repairs of churches, the maintenance of the clergy, 
 and the maintenance of the poor. All other 
 property, either willed or granted to the church, 
 equity would pronounce to be intended for the 
 usual, that is, for the same purposes. 
 
 The clergy taking to themselves the whole has 
 always been a misappropriation. This abuse, there- 
 fore, calls loudly for correction ; and the clergy
 
 ON CHURCH TEMPORALITIES. 271 
 
 and the repairs of the churches being moderately 
 and modestly provided for, the poor should be, in 
 equity, heirs or residuary legatees to the remainder 
 in every parish, as well as to the national surplus 
 occasioned by there being many places having no 
 protestants and no churches, and therefore requiring 
 no church of England clergy. While those persons, 
 whose scruples on this important subject are really 
 conscientious, should call to mind, that he in whose 
 name they deem it piety to devote the revenues of 
 the church to what they consider strictly ecclesi- 
 astical purposes, has himself distinctly established 
 the principle, that whatsoever is devoted to the 
 relief of the poor is devoted to the service of the 
 church. In that remarkable picture of the last 
 judgment, where the Saviour represents himself 
 saying to the righteous on his right hand, who had 
 fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and visited the 
 sick, " Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the 
 kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of 
 the world : for I was hungered, and ye gave me 
 meat ; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink ; I was 
 a stranger, and ye took me in ; naked, and ye 
 clothed me ; I was sick, and ye visited me ; I was 
 in prison, and ye came unto me." And then, that 
 there should be no room for misapprehension, 
 closes the striking lesson by adding expressly, " In 
 as much as ye have done it unto one of the least 
 of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me,"
 
 272 ON CHURCH TEMPORALITIES 
 
 he surely identifies, throughout all ages since and 
 to come, the wants of the poor with the holiest 
 offices of the church : a principle which some of 
 the most sacred rites of the present church of 
 England would seem to recognize, when that 
 church proves, by its ordinances, that it deems it 
 no sacrilege to bestow on the poor, whatever, after 
 the administration of the holy sacrament, may 
 remain of the sacramental bread and wine which 
 have been sanctified to purposes of the church. 
 Can any church property be more sacred to pur- 
 poses purely religious than these holy symbols on 
 which a renewal of the original blessing has been 
 solemnly invoked by the kneeling priest, in pre- 
 sence of the silently praying congregation, and 
 which have been actually laid upon the altar of 
 God? 
 
 Had these holy relics been heaps of the Mammon 
 of unrighteousness, there is surely no uncharitable 
 inference, not justified by the circumstances of the 
 case, in suspecting that having been once the 
 property of the church, they would have been 
 deemed too holy for the unsacerdotal poor, and 
 that, consequently, churchmen would have felt 
 themselves compelled, by the dictates of their con- 
 sciences, to have appropriated them to their own 
 use ; and that, in this pious resolve, they would 
 have been supported by the conscientious votes 
 and speeches of too many of such of their noble or
 
 AND CHURCH REFORM. 273 
 
 influential relatives as might chance to have posi- 
 tions in the cabinet, or seats in either house of 
 Parliament.* 
 
 But to return : where there is neither church 
 nor protestant, there are still the poor ; and if 
 there be a christian who would pause ere he ex- 
 tended relief derived from the church to the poor, 
 without the pale of the church, let him reperuse 
 the parable of the good Samaritan. 
 
 As, however, it would not be expedient to offer 
 to particular districts a premium for deserting the 
 protestant Church, by giving any greater portion 
 of relief to parishes having no protestants than to 
 those with protestant congregations, the surplus 
 Church revenues and Church property derived 
 from parishes requiring few or no protestant 
 churches, should form a general, national fund 
 for the relief of the destitute all over Ireland. 
 The claim to relief to be founded on necessity, 
 not on local situation. 
 
 * As though those zealous advocates of the Church had never 
 read the nineteenth article of their own faith, which would have 
 informed them, that " The visible Church of Christ is a congrega- 
 tion of faithful men." The congregation, therefore, not the 
 clergy, constitute the Church; while, who are the "faithful," God 
 must decide — for the commandment, ' ' Judge not that ye be not 
 judged," forbids us the use of that judgment in condemning the 
 faith of others, which we are yet bound to use for the purifying 
 of our own individual belief, on all such points as God has been 
 pleased to place within the reach of human reason. 
 
 T
 
 274 ON CHURCH TEMPORALITIES 
 
 This fund might be employed with infinite ad- 
 vantage in fomiding great public works, calculated 
 to bring about the permanent relief of the poor, 
 through the effectual medium of permanent, profit- 
 able employment ; such as extensive home colo- 
 nization,* with some great and w^eli ordered 
 manufacture, to be established in the very heart of 
 each colony, that thus, the agricultural and manu- 
 facturing population might become a mutual market 
 to each other, and reciprocally supply each other 
 with necessaries and decencies : till at length the 
 unfurnished mud hovels of Callen should disap- 
 pear and make way for commodious, cleanly, 
 thriving towns and villages, with orderly, indus- 
 trious, well fed, and well clothed inhabitants; 
 great care being at the same time taken, that these 
 towns and villages should be amply supplied with 
 schools, in which the rising generation might 
 receive a wholesome, practically religious, and 
 moral education, carefully cleansed from all the 
 unchristian fanaticism of party spirit. 
 
 One more precaution is quite necessary, namely, 
 that in all those arrangements, there be no jobbing! 
 That is, that no rich, therefore influential man, or 
 influential man's minion, should, on any pretext 
 of inefficient services, or for want of proper su- 
 pervision, be allowed to perpetrate the sacrilege, 
 of misappropriating any portion of this sacred 
 fund. 
 
 * See Home Colonization.
 
 AND CHURCH REFORM. 275 
 
 The profits on all manufacturing concerns 
 founded with the money of the Christian church 
 fund, should, of course, be carefully applied to 
 keeping up that fund, and extending its usefulness, 
 if possible, into every corner of a now miserable, 
 starving, dragoon trampled island. 
 
 Can any man living lay his hand on his heart 
 and truly declare, that he thinks it would be more 
 holy, more just, and more acceptable in the sight 
 of God, that the whole revenue of the Irish church, 
 however disproportionate, should continue to be, 
 as a point of conscience, heaped upon, and ex- 
 pended in idle pomps and excessive luxuries by 
 a few highly connected church men, than that it 
 should be devoted to pressing purposes of Christian 
 charity, and the supply of human wants, such as 
 those just enumerated. 
 
 The remaining question (one which applies as 
 much to the English church as to the Irish) 
 seems to be, what proportion of the church pro- 
 perty is, in the sight of God, the property of the 
 poor ? or, by what rule of right, in harmony with 
 the laws of God, should the joint property be, at 
 all times, distributed ? The spirit of primitive 
 Christianity would certainly reply : let each flock 
 have one modest, unpretending shepherd, whose 
 treasure shall be in heaven, and who would deem 
 it a sacrilegious robbery of the altar, to appropriate 
 to his own individual use, any more of a fund 
 sacred to the service of God, and, therefore, to the 
 
 T 2
 
 276 ON CHURCH TEMPORALITIES 
 
 necessities of the poor, than was really necessary 
 to the supply of his simplest wants. Every flock 
 should also be furnished with a commodious, but 
 plain and not unnecessarily expensive church, and 
 all that remains of church property after this, in- 
 stead of being impiously considered the personal 
 property, even for life, of church men, should be 
 held sacred, a holy thing, once offered to God, 
 and, therefore, unalienable from his children the 
 poor. 
 
 What is, in fact, the legitimate object of the 
 connexion of the Church with the State ? What, 
 but to furnish these rights of the widow and the 
 orphan with a sufficiently powerful temporal 
 guardian, to do justice between the poor, and 
 therefore helpless, and their ecclesiastical pastors, 
 whose human frailty might else subject them to 
 the temptation of appropriating more than their 
 just share of this joint property. 
 
 When, therefore, the Church is thus connected 
 with the State, the Church property is, by that 
 connexion, vested in the state, as in a trustee for 
 certain sacred purposes, namely, the spiritual wants 
 of all the subjects of the State, and the physical 
 wants of all who are, or shall, at any time, become 
 the destitute. That State, then, is guilty of a 
 most culpable breach of trust, and inexcusable 
 neglect of stewardship, which permits any portion 
 of that sacred fund to be appropriated to any 
 secular purpose, such as the secular luxuries, and
 
 AND CHURCH REFORM. 277 
 
 secular pomps of church men, or, in short, any 
 expenditure by them, not necessary to their 
 efficiency as preachers of God's truth. 
 
 A perfect equahty of clerical provision would 
 also have a most salutary effect on church men 
 themselves, as it would put an end to that politi- 
 cal intrigue and unchristian scramble on the one 
 hand, and to . those over anxious worldly cares 
 on the other, which now unsanctify the ministers 
 of the church : when, neither worldly baubles could 
 be attained by any, nor worldly wants apprehended 
 by any, all would be more likely to devote them- 
 selves, with singleness of heart, to the holy and 
 peaceful duties of their sacred calling.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 WHERE SHOULD POWER BE VESTED, IN THE HANDS 
 OF THE FEW ? OR, IN THE HANDS OF THE MANY ? 
 
 To answer this question correctly, the prior 
 very simple questions must first be put and replied 
 to. — What is the origin, and what the use of vested 
 power ? 
 
 The origin of vested power is to be traced in the 
 impossibility of man, without association, defend- 
 ing himself, or the acquisitions of his labour, from 
 the aggressions of selfishness ; the use of vested 
 power, is to secure to all men, and the acquisitions 
 of their labour, protection from the agressions of 
 selfishness. 
 
 But this necessity for association being visibly of 
 God's ordination, evidently that the meeting of 
 this necessity might effect certain moral purposes,* 
 the conventional laws intended to meet this neces- 
 sity, are thus both commanded and defined by 
 God, and have a standard of fitness, referable to 
 the visible laws of God, by which they may be 
 
 * See Preliminary view of the Philosophy of Happiness.
 
 IN^VESTMKNT OK POWER. 279 
 
 tried.* If conventional laws do not meet this ne- 
 cessity, neither effect the moral purpose intended, 
 or still worse, if they aggravate this necessity, and 
 produce an immoral effect, they are evidently 
 wrong. Try the question, where should power be 
 vested by this test ? 
 
 The object then of association, is to constitute 
 some representative or representatives of the inte- 
 rests of all, and vest in that representative or those 
 representatives, a power to enforce the equal jus- 
 tice, which, through the abuse of free-will, indi- 
 viduals might be tempted -to warp in their own 
 favour. 
 
 But do the few constitute a fitting representative 
 of the interests of all ? On the contary, is not the 
 aggregate free-will of the few, hable to all the same 
 temptations to commit injustice, to which indi- 
 vidual free-will is subject ; while the few possess, 
 from union, more both of physical and of influen- 
 tial power to execute the wrong ; enabling them 
 to commit greater wrong, and rendering struggles 
 with them to prevent the wrong, or restore the 
 right productive of greater mischiefs. Tiie free- 
 will of the few, is also less subject to the moral 
 check of opinion, than that of any individual, as 
 by union they keep each other in countenance, and 
 by convention, not only affix palliative terms to the 
 
 * For any provision for which there is a visible necessity in 
 nature, is thus both commanded and defined by the God of 
 nature.
 
 280 INVESTMENT OF POWER. 
 
 wrongs they commit, but constitute disapproba- 
 tion of their conduct a crime.* Thus too their 
 own consciences, or that moral sense which the 
 natural social circumstances of man were ordained 
 by God to produce, for the prevention of the 
 abuses of free-will, and perfecting, by that preven- 
 tion, of intellectual natures for eternity, is, in their 
 case, more strongly warped by unfavourable arti- 
 ficial circumstances, than it could be in that of 
 unassociated individuals. 
 
 In short, the few are rendered, by union, both 
 more able, and more disposed than any unasso- 
 ciated individuals could be, to commit that abuse 
 of free-will, which consists in seeking to gratify 
 the unjust desires of shortsighted selfishness ; and, 
 to prevent which, association was entered into, 
 and power constituted. Power then, vested in the 
 hands of the few, is an aggravation of all the evils, 
 moral and physical, attendant upon the necessity 
 for free-will, but intended by the Creator to be 
 made instruments of good, by the moral influences 
 of association. Nor does the evil, as the unhap- 
 pily both ignorant and poor are prone to imagine, 
 consist in vesting power in this, or that particular 
 class or order ; but, in confiding the virtue under- 
 mining trust to any few. In England, 'tis true, 
 legislators are landowners, therefore the English 
 
 * Or, at least an inordinate development of the organ of dis- 
 tinctiveness.
 
 INVESTMENT OF POWER. 281 
 
 are cursed with corn-laws : but in France, legisla- 
 tors are trading monopolists, therefore the French 
 are cursed with restrictions on the importation of 
 manufactured goods ; thus clearly proving that the 
 cry against aristocratic oppression is more than 
 just. — If any few must rule, in other words, if the 
 people must have tyrants and despoilers, let them 
 have well-bred ones by all means : in the days of 
 high- way robbery, the polite and gallant prototype 
 of Paul Clifford must have been a much less into- 
 lerable nuisance than the common road side ruf- 
 fian.* To vest power, how^ever, in the hands of any 
 few, is actually to create, and locate in the midst 
 of the community, a gigantic, insatiate monster, 
 with human desires, but super- human powers, 
 which, to avoid battle with, the people are obliged 
 to feed with immense contributions, deducted from 
 the sum of common prosperity ! ! ! Nay, power 
 vested in the hands of any few, less perfect in wis- 
 dom and benevolence than the Almighty himself, 
 is a sort of frightful realization of the vague and 
 contradictory combination of attributes, ascribed 
 by the demon worshipper to his terrific idol, whom 
 he believes to be a being, with all the evil propen- 
 sities to which the abuse of free-will renders 
 mortals liable, yet immortal, and gifted with an 
 impious mockery of that power which belongs only 
 to the Deity ; but using that power for evil, and 
 
 * No argument this, surely, for keeping up the ancient institu- 
 tion of highway robbery.
 
 282 INVESTMENT OF POWER. 
 
 demanding, as propitiatory sacrifices, offerings of 
 outraged justice, and of liuman blood.* 
 
 But let power be vested in the safe keeping of 
 an intelligent many, and though they should all 
 combine to use their united power, as the few 
 have hitherto done, for their own benefit, and 
 that of each other, though their motives should 
 be no purer than those of the few, and though 
 their desires should be as unjust — the very com- 
 bination of the many involves the yielding up 
 of the unjust portion of each individual desire, 
 for how else is the very essence of combination, 
 general consent, to be obtained. Thus, power 
 vested in the hands of the intelligent many, is 
 (what association was intended to produce) power 
 to prevent, without power to commit wrong. 
 
 While the habit of recognizing and yielding to 
 this rational and moral necessity of pruning off 
 the unjust portion of each individual desire before 
 general consent can be obtained, must necessarily 
 raise the standard both of moral feeling, and of 
 public opinion, till the averages of both would 
 
 * Witness Rathcormac? Manchester, and Bristol. Witness the 
 Bastile, the Inquisition, the Auto da Fe, and the fires of Smith- 
 field. Witness all warfare, civil and political ; and every unjust 
 institution, whether protection, restriction, or monopoly ; all of 
 which are, at once, the fruitful sources both of misery and of 
 crime ; and all of which have emanated from power vested in the 
 hands of the few.
 
 INVESTMENT OF POWER. 283 
 
 be found, always ready to fling themselves into the 
 scale which wanted weight, to render justice equal. 
 And thus would that moral sense, to generate 
 which for eternity* the world was created, and 
 the whole course of God's providence ordained, 
 be finally perfected. While in the mean time, 
 the benefit of the many, being the general good, 
 and the general good, being national prosperity, 
 it follows, that national prosperity w^ould be secured 
 by the many, if tolerably intelligent, agreeing 
 together, even on mere temporal views, to benefit 
 themselves and each other. And, that the result 
 of such a combination, instead of being, as that 
 of the combination of the few now is, universal 
 misery, would necessarily be universal prosperity. 
 For, though an individual may enrich himself un- 
 justly at the expense of others, and so may, still 
 more easily, the associated few by agreement, en- 
 rich themselves and each other, at the expense 
 of the many, and continue to do so in perpetuity, 
 while ever the many (who are the creators of 
 wealth) submit through ignorance, and the less 
 they find it impossible to retain of the wealth they 
 have created, increase the more their efforts to create 
 new wealth, which again melts from their grasp, 
 and glides away into that perpetually running 
 stream, the level of wdiich, the associated few have, 
 by complicated subtleties, contrived to incline 
 towards the mighty reservoir, of the golden floods 
 
 * See Preliminary View.
 
 284 INVESTMENT OF POWER. 
 
 of which, to the very droppings, they possess ex- 
 clusively the disposal, and, with scarcely, if indeed 
 any exception, exclusively the use. 
 
 But the associated many, on the contrary, never 
 could, by any possible abuse of vested power, 
 make themselves and each other rich at the ex- 
 pense of the few ; for, the whole existing property 
 of the few would be but a drop to the ocean, 
 amid the wants of the many, and if once, through 
 ignorance appropriated, there never could be any 
 more to appropriate, the few not being creators 
 of wealth, and continuing to be the rich, only 
 because the many continue to create wealth, 
 which, on conditions dictated by the subtlety 
 of the few, to the ignorance of the many, is, 
 as fast as created, transferred to the few. The 
 many, therefore, it cannot be too often repeated, 
 could not associate, with one accord, to make 
 themselves and each other rich, by any but the 
 legitimate means of general national prosperity ; 
 for the obvious reason, that they have no one to 
 prey upon but each other, and the moment they 
 begin to prey upon each other, association and 
 combination would be at an end, and they would 
 cease to be the many, and this has hitherto been 
 the case whenever the many have obtained a 
 power of authority, disproportioned to their power 
 of knowledge. But the partial, occasional out- 
 breaks of ignorance and excited passions, driven 
 wild by oppression, are not, as the whole tenor 
 of the argument must show, the species of exer-
 
 INVESTMENT OF POWER. 285 
 
 tions of power by the many here contemplated ; 
 but the systematic operation of a principle, set in 
 motion by an enlightened nation, after deliberately 
 deciding what principle it was safest to sanction 
 and set in motion ; and, at the same time, so 
 carefully guard, by the two great bulwarks of 
 liberty, perfect freedom of representation, and the 
 universal diffusion of knowledge, that no few could 
 ever again seize upon, much less be permitted 
 to abuse any portion of power. 
 
 From all that has been said, it is self-evident, 
 that the many, of a community thus intelligently 
 acquainted with its own best interests, would be 
 subject to no adequate temptation to wrong the few, 
 or, in fact, to offer them any source of dissatisfac- 
 tion, save only the refusal of all demands, more 
 than just, upon the creations of industry. For, 
 let but the rights of industry be placed on an 
 honest basis, and the rights of property become 
 the common cause of all, none, under such happy 
 circumstances, being without a reasonable hope of 
 one day realizing property, which, after having 
 earned honestly, they must naturally wish to enjoy 
 peaceably. Power then, vested in the hands of 
 the many, strengthens every incentive to prevent, 
 yet takes away every motive to commit wrong ; 
 and thus becomes, at length, the willing instru- 
 ment of that visible will of God, which is good- will 
 to all. But liberty, in the keeping of ignorance, 
 is like a purse of gold in the hands of a child ;
 
 286 INVESTMENT OF POWER. 
 
 if force do not rend it from him, subtlety will 
 induce him to exchange it for a rattle. The power 
 of knowledge, therefore, as well as of vested au- 
 thority, must be placed in the hands of the many, 
 ere that covenant of the good of all, their liberty, 
 can be secure. 
 
 The final question then comes to be, is the 
 present state of knowledge in Great Britain, such 
 as to render it prudent to entrust the many with 
 the keeping of a jewel so precious as their own 
 liberty ? 
 
 It may be replied, that, though knowledge is 
 not, as it ought to be, universal ; yet that a very 
 large body of the people, (well entitled to the 
 appellation of the many) have become intelligent : 
 That the light which is abroad, is, at the present 
 crisis, peculiarly directed to guard the very foun- 
 dations of liberty ; and that there is, withal, 
 a growing thirst for knowledge, rendering it cer- 
 tain that one of the first uses that would be made 
 by the many, of any power entrusted to them, would 
 be the removal of every obstacle to that extension, 
 of knowledge which must, eventually, place their 
 rights and liberties on a rock never to be shaken. 
 While, were this duty, (the removal of the obsta- 
 cles to knowledge) entrusted to the few, with a 
 clause in their lease of power, that that lease 
 should continue, until the many were fully en- 
 lightened, when, alas, would the hindrances to 
 knowledge begin to be removed ?
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 ON PURE REPRESENTATION, HEREDITARY LEGISLA- 
 TION, THE HEREDITARY PEERAGE, PARLIAMENT- 
 ARY DURATION, THE BALLOT, AND MUNICIPAL 
 REFORM. 
 
 " When property opposes measures for the purity of the House 
 of Commons, it lifts the liand of suicide against itself, by ren- 
 dering its possessors objects of hatred and suspicion." 
 
 Sir Peter Payne, Bart. 
 
 The expression, " government of the many," 
 may probably alarm some timid minds with visions 
 of tumult, civil war, breach of faith with the public 
 creditor, and an agrarian law ; but by the government 
 of the many here spoken of, nothing more is meant 
 than representation without corruption, or entire 
 freedom of election to both houses of Parliament, 
 and immediate responsibility of members of both 
 houses to their constituents. That is a power 
 vested in constituents, not only to call upon, but to 
 compel members to quit their seats, though in the 
 midst of a session, the moment, by ceasing to
 
 288 ON PURE REPRESENTATION. 
 
 express the oj)imons of the majority of their con- 
 stituents, they cease to be their representatives. 
 For though each individual, before he becomes a 
 representative, is no doubt entitled to his indi- 
 vidual opinion, in common with the rest of the 
 constituency of his county or borough, he resigns 
 his title to such individual opinion when he as- 
 sumes the character of the representative, delegate, 
 or messenger of other men, and undertakes to con- 
 vey to the assembled representatives of all the con- 
 stituencies of the kingdom, in the condensed and 
 convenient form of one voice, the opinions of the 
 majority of the constituency of his own county or 
 borough. If his private opinions be those of the 
 minority of his constituents, he must, on under- 
 taking to represent the majority, consent to have 
 his private opinions swamped among those of the 
 rest of the discomforted minority. 
 
 Did any majority ever seriously intend, instead 
 of electing a representative, to appoint a dictator? 
 
 That members of the house of Lords should 
 equally be chosen by, and be equally responsible 
 to the community to be legislated for, it would be 
 an insult to the common sense of the age to treat 
 as a questionable point. 
 
 The inconvenience to the public of attempting to 
 blend the anomalies of barbarous ages with the 
 improving institutions of the present time, must 
 have been rendered sufficiently obvious by the tran- 
 sactions of the last session.
 
 ON PURE REPRESENTATION. 289 
 
 The House of Commons — a committee of the 
 nation, delegated by the nation to manage the 
 affairs of the nation, meet, deliberate, and make 
 enactments, to forward the wishes of the nation. 
 The House of Lords — a few individuals not chosen 
 by the nation, consequently deriving no authority 
 from the nation, and therefore possessed of none 
 over the affairs of the nation, meet, and are per- 
 mitted, (out of pure courtesy, no doubt, to ancient 
 institutions,) to render null and void the enact- 
 ments made by the nation through their chosen 
 representatives. 
 
 Yet we have left off ploughing by the horses' 
 tails, and burning witches, both exceedingly ancient 
 institutions ! In fact, the preservation of this 
 relic of barbarism converted nearly the whole pro- 
 ceedings of the last session into mere child's play : 
 — a naughty brother showing off, as an incipient 
 lord of the creation, by tumbling down, as fast as 
 erected, each card house his little sister built. 
 John Bull is proverbially fond of sight seeing, and 
 of infant prodigies of every description, from infant 
 Rosciuses and infant Lyras, to calculating and 
 double- sighted boys ; but fifty millions per annum 
 is rather too much for honest John to pay for 
 looking on at sports so idle as those thus enacted 
 in our Upper House by the spoiled-through-life 
 babies of a second childhood ! 
 
 Nay, what do the injudicious advocates of an 
 unchosen House of Peers mean to infer ? Would 
 
 u
 
 290 ON PURE REPRESENTATION. 
 
 they have the people of England to believe that 
 the peerage has an interest apart from, and even 
 at variance with, the well-being of the nation at 
 large ? and that its functions, as a part of the so 
 much boasted constitution, is to maintain that 
 separate interest at the expense of the well-being 
 of the nation at large ? For, if not at the expense 
 of the well-being of the nation at large, why dread, 
 or refuse responsibility to the nation at large ? 
 Surely the sense of the nation at large, acting 
 through a necessarily friendly House of Commons, 
 would be very unlikely to sanction an interference 
 with any privilege that did not seriously interfere 
 with the nation's vital well-being ; and if privileges 
 which might be used for the perpetration of wrong, 
 are not intended to be so used, why retain them 
 merely to prove sources of jealous apprehension, 
 and therefore of ill-will ? 
 
 If, on the other hand, the peerage would indig- 
 nantly repel the supposition of having any unjust 
 or selfish separate interests, and would be, con- 
 sidered a part of the nation, desiring nothing but 
 the prosperity of that whole of which it is a part, 
 why should it object to a certain number of its 
 body being chosen by the nation, to assist the 
 nation's other representatives to promote the in- 
 terests of the nation, instead of requiring that its 
 whole body should legislate unchosen, for the pro- 
 fessed purpose of representing itself separately ? 
 
 If separate interests are to be acknowledged in
 
 ON PURE REPRESENTATION. 291 
 
 the state, and represented by separate houses of 
 parhament appropriated to themselves, with each 
 a veto on whatever has been decided in any other 
 house, there would be no end to the absurdi- 
 ties in which a principle, itself so absurd, would 
 involve us. Every separate trade, choosing to call 
 itself a separate interest might, with much greater 
 show of fairness, complain that the few members 
 of Parliament who may happen to be connected in 
 their private affairs with its said supposed separate 
 interests, are swamped among the landed aris- 
 tocracy and sons and brothers of peers'*^ in the 
 House of Commons, and therefore claim to have 
 its house of parliament in which its members 
 should be unchosen, hereditary legislators ; their 
 function, the maintenance of their own supposed 
 separate interests, with a veto for that purj^ose on 
 all bills passed in any of the other thus numerous 
 houses of Parliament, however necessary the pass- 
 ing of such bills might be to the interests of the 
 rest of the community. This would be a beautiful 
 following out of the principle of that paralizing of 
 influences, called the balancing of interests, which 
 has been so ignorantly lauded ; while its only 
 operation has been to retard the progress of all 
 that is useful, honest, and wise. Yet would this 
 ridiculous supposition be not a whit more absurd, 
 
 * On two late divisions, March 1835, sixty sons of peers voted 
 in the Hmise of Commons with the minister against the people. — 
 Boast of the Morning Post. 
 
 U 2
 
 292 ON PURE REPRESENTATION. 
 
 nor yet so absurd, as is a House of Peers repre- 
 senting only itself, and nullifying the acts of a 
 nation : for the trades are of some use ; the peers 
 of none ! 
 
 An infinite number, indeed, of distinct assem- 
 blies, deliberating on their own special affairs, with 
 the veto on all vested in one general assembly, 
 truly representing all the other assemblies, would 
 be a very natural and rational order of things. 
 But, a veto vested in any one of those assemblies, 
 not chosen by the rest, therefore not even profess- 
 ing to represent the rest, reduces all the represent- 
 ation, by which the other bodies were chosen, to a 
 shadow without a substance ; the whole mummery 
 of a mixed government, to a farce ; and constitutes 
 the unchosen assembly which has the veto, an 
 absolute monarch : of how many men this monarch 
 may chance be composed, is quite immaterial to 
 the fact of such an assembly being an absolute 
 monarch. Such an absolute monarch, too, is a 
 much more dangerous and mischievous being to 
 the nation at large, than any individual absolute 
 monarch ; for the simple reason, that it must 
 require much larger contributions of the labour or 
 wealth-creating energies of the nation to supply 
 the unjust desires of numerous t^^^rants and their 
 families, than to supply all the desires, however 
 exorbitant or unjust, of any one tyrant and his 
 family. But, the individual despot, though less 
 injurious to the mass of the people, is more danger-
 
 ON PURE REPRESENTATION. 293 
 
 ous to the few whom property and education bring 
 the nearest to capricious exercises of his individual 
 will ; the few, therefore, early discover the evils of 
 suffering an individual to be absolute : instead, 
 however, of abolishing absolute monarchy, their 
 object is to reduce the individual monarch to a 
 puppet in their own hands, and transfer the abso- 
 lute monarchy to themselves. When, however, as 
 at present, the spread of education has begun to 
 enlighten the masses of the people, it becomes their 
 business, by that light to detect every species of 
 sleight of hand, and take care that the veto, which 
 is the power, shall not be vested in any few ; but, 
 by the perfect operation of the representative sys- 
 tem, be rendered a pure condensation of the soberly 
 and deliberately weighed views of the whole com- 
 munity. 
 
 On the subject, then, of the share which the 
 peerage ought to take in the legislation ; the only 
 rational question seems to be, shall a convenient 
 number be, from time to time, chosen by the 
 nation from among the peers, to form a second 
 deliberative assembly ; or shall any number that 
 can obtain the confidence of the electors join the 
 commons, and taking seats in their assembly, 
 mingle votes with theirs, without distinction. 
 
 The latter appears to be the least complicated, 
 and much the most rational arrangement ; for what 
 interest or privilege can a man of landed property, 
 merely because a title happens to be added to his
 
 294 ON PURE REPRESENTATION. 
 
 name, have to defend, in defence of which he could 
 not stand up in a House of Commons, filled with 
 other men of landed property, a very considerable 
 number of whom are, besides, the sons and 
 brothers of his brother peers and himself. 
 
 In the feudal times, indeed, when the lords or 
 barons represented the country or landed interest, 
 and the commons, the towns or mercantile in- 
 terests, there might have been, (though always on 
 short-sighted grounds,) some shadow of two in- 
 terests ; but now that lords and commons form 
 one aristocracy, almost one family, all representing 
 and guarding, alas ! but too selfishly, the wealth 
 already created, and all having a personal interest 
 in taxing the wealth to be created or power or act 
 of creating wealth ; such taxes constituting the 
 perquisites of themselves and their relations ; what 
 need of a peculiar strong-hold for a section, or 
 portion of this, (without such strong-hold) but too 
 strong ; and, for the frailty of human free-will, but 
 too severely tempted family party, merely to ham- 
 per legislation. Except, indeed, with the ulterior, 
 and unconstitutional view of making (on the pretext 
 of veneration for the constitution) one close corpo- 
 ration business of the whole affairs of the nation, and 
 thus evading even the small portion of constitutional 
 influence which industry might else possess, despite 
 what may be termed the property union, by ren- 
 dering the only peaceable safeguard of the liberties 
 of the people, representation, a mere mockery.
 
 ON PURE REPRESENTATION. 295 
 
 So far, therefore, from the Peerage being insuffi- 
 ciently represented, if legislatively it were amalga- 
 mated with the Commons, its influence, together 
 with that of the property biases of the Commons, 
 would still be much too great, and therefore still 
 require the additional corrective of a property tax : 
 for, whether property be represented by titled men 
 of property, or by untitled men of property ; in one 
 assembly, or in two assembles ; it is still property 
 only, as already urged, that is virtually represented. 
 Industry may have a free choice of its nominal 
 representatives, and a few of these may be philan- 
 thropists, and to their eternal honour plead its 
 cause nobly, though in vain ; but, without a pro- 
 perty tax, industry, or the wealth-creating power 
 of the nation, must always be dependent for its full 
 measure of justice, on how many members of the 
 legislative assembly or assemblies, are thus philan- 
 thropists, or honest men, in the widest and noblest 
 sense of the appellation ; that is, men lifted by 
 philosophical views of that good-will to all which 
 includes equal justice, enforced by sacred obliga- 
 tion, above all temptation to yield to the unjust 
 desires of selfishness. Taking into account, how- 
 ever, the as yet imperfectly cultivated state of 
 human reason, and the consequently, as yet, selfish 
 leanings of human free-will ; if we would have 
 industry cordially represented by the fellow feelings 
 of men of property in general, w^e must commute 
 every other tax for one on already created property ;
 
 296 ON PURE REPRESENTATION. 
 
 that thus the property class may have a selfish 
 interest in making every industrious individual in 
 England rich enough to pay a portion of the pro- 
 perty tax ; or, in other words, to assist the already 
 rich in carrying the burdens of the state. 
 
 HEREDITARY PEERAGE. 
 
 It will here be said, that the hereditary peerage 
 is attacked. No such thing! Hereditary legisla- 
 tion alone is objected to. Distinct from this, here- 
 ditary titles are quite as harmless as hereditary 
 surnames ; as long, at least, as the hard-working 
 public are not called upon for contributions to 
 maintain, in either the titled or untitled aristocracy, 
 the dignity of idleness, whether by the direct ope- 
 ration of a pension list, or the already explained 
 indirect co-operation of patronage with primogeni- 
 ture. 
 
 Nay, an hereditary peerage might be rendered 
 not only harmless but beneficial to the public : for 
 those who fill high stations, live in the eye of the 
 public, and by the example they set, must exercise 
 a good or evil influence on the morals of the public. 
 Therefore, if in the general march of improvement, 
 a more than ordinary share of virtue in the ex- 
 alted should become an hereditary honour ! ex- 
 alted rank may become the bright sanctuary of 
 a purifying example, to which, those with less
 
 ON PURE REPRESENTATION. 297 
 
 leisure for high entertainments in wisdom, and 
 consequent virtue, may, with advantage to them- 
 selves, yield the true homage of heartfelt respect.* 
 
 PARLIAMENTARY DURATION. 
 
 The defiance, at which we too often see members 
 of parliament set the wishes of their constituents, 
 as soon as they succeed in getting elected, calls 
 imperatively, if not for the utmost possible 
 shortening of the duration of parliaments, for 
 what would be a much more effectual check on 
 each individual member^ without incurring the 
 confusion of general elections, namely, that each 
 member should hold his seat at the will of his 
 constituents. 
 
 With this safeguard to liberty, there seems no 
 reasonable reason why parliament, as a body, 
 should not last as long as the nation lasts. If it 
 be deemed necessary that the sovereignty of the 
 executive sJiould never die, it appears to be full 
 as reasonable and quite as necessary, that the 
 sovereignty of the parliament, which is, or rather 
 ought to be the sovereignty of the people, should 
 never die, yet, that parliament, while thus as a 
 body immortal, should always truly represent the 
 
 ''^ The Peers are particularly requested not to turn this honour- 
 able appointment into a sinecure.
 
 298 ON PURE REPRESENTATION. 
 
 existing state of public opinion. Each individual 
 member should always be removable at the plea- 
 sure of his constituents, whenever he ceases to 
 give them entire satisfaction, that is, whenever he 
 ventures to falsify the message he has been sent to 
 deliver, by misrepresenting instead of representing, 
 the sentiments of his constituents, or when he dares 
 to overturn, with his single hand, the most valuable 
 of the few valuable institutions of the country, and 
 disfranchise, at his individual pleasure, a whole 
 county or borough by giving no vote, or, in other 
 words, by refusing to deliver the message, or con- 
 densation of the votes of his constituents, which 
 had been entrusted to him ; and thus, on the false 
 pretext implied by the very act of becoming their 
 representative, absolutely swindle some hundreds 
 of honest and confiding men out of the only legi- 
 timate means they possessed of exercising their 
 portion of constitutional influence, in that great 
 national assembly, in which their affairs are being 
 conducted, and their money being voted away. 
 
 The member who so acts, is surely chargeable 
 with treason against the tranquillity of the state, 
 for he wilfully closes the safety valve which is the 
 best security against explosion. He wilfully runs 
 the risk, for some private purpose of his own, of 
 driving previously sober-minded and peaceably- 
 intentioned men, into tumult, and possibly blood- 
 shed, in pursuit of that common justice, which he 
 has shut them out from the lawful mode of attain-
 
 OF PURE REPRESENTATION. 299 
 
 ing. While, an honest representative, on the con- 
 trary would have calmed every anxious feeling 
 before it became an angry one, by making it clear 
 to his constituents, that their legitimate portion of 
 influence had been placed in the scale they desired; 
 and that, therefore, if the majority of the nation 
 were with them, the question or questions at issue 
 would be decided according to their wishes. Thus, 
 honestly dealt with constituencies, accustomed to 
 yield to rational majorities in their own local as- 
 semblies, would, in general, be found ready to bow 
 without a murmur to the great majority of the 
 nation. Provided always, it were well ascertained, 
 that no undue influencies having been used by any 
 faction, either with electors or with members, the 
 nation was indeed truly represented. 
 
 The plan here proposed would also have the ad- 
 vantage of rendering future appeals to the '* sense 
 of the people," by means of sudden dissolutions, 
 unnecessary ; for the " sense of the people " would 
 be thus in perpetual, visible operation, adjusting 
 and rectifying itself daily, and its actual state, 
 therefore, always palpable on the face of the then 
 actual representation. Thus, dreamed of reactions 
 of opinion could never again agitate the land by 
 their supposed or alleged existence, while supposed 
 to have no constitutional means of exhibiting them- 
 selves ; for every opinion which germinated would, 
 on the plan proposed, have an immediate and legi- 
 timate opportunity of blossoming and bearing fruit
 
 300 ON PURE REPRESENTATION. 
 
 on the spot which gave it birth, without deranging 
 the general business, or disturbing the general 
 tranquiUity of the country. 
 
 While another, and a very serious advantage, 
 attendant on the proposed arrangement, would 
 be, that members and candidates would find it 
 necessary to substitute, for the present demo- 
 ralizing system of bribery, loud profession, and 
 intemperate treating by periodical fits ; with sym- 
 pathy destroying intervals between, of seven years 
 of haughty neglect ; a steady perseverance in res- 
 pectable, amiable, and consistent conduct, in all 
 their social relations ; whether as neighbours, as 
 landlords, or as legislators. In short, to get 
 electors into riotous, tipsy good humour, once in 
 seven years, and to obtain and preserve their sober 
 good opinion through life, would be very soon 
 found to require, and, therefore, call into opera- 
 tion, processes as different as the ends in view ! 
 
 For the purpose of a perfect understanding 
 between members and their constituents, it would 
 be desirable that constituencies should hold fre- 
 quent meetings during each recess, their member 
 or members presiding ; and that at those meetings, 
 every important measure likely to be discussed 
 during the ensuing session should be considered, 
 and every separate question, on Vv^hich there ex- 
 isted a difference of opinion, be put to the vote : 
 while members should be bound by the sacred 
 trust they undertake in becoming representatives,
 
 ON PURE REPRESENTATION. 301 
 
 (that being in itself a pledge) to vote in Parliament 
 on each question, as the majority of their consti- 
 tuents voted. During the sitting of Parliament 
 also, the constituencies should hold similar meet- 
 ings, only of course without the assistance of their 
 necessarily absent members. At those meetings 
 they should discuss any new questions which 
 might arise in Parliament. Those questions also 
 should be put to the vote, and authenticated lists 
 of the votes of the majorities sent to the members 
 for their guidance, remembering always, that the 
 constitutional weight of a constituency in making 
 laws, is trust property, which no representative 
 can appropriate to his own use, without dishonesty 
 as absolute as that of the money trustee who 
 pockets trust money. But possibly legislative wis- 
 dom has discovered two species of dishonesties — 
 the gentlemanlike, and the vulgar ; so essentially 
 different that they have appointed garters and titles, 
 as the wages of the one, ropes and the gallows of the 
 other! Unhappily, however, the simple-minded 
 public can discern only the dissimilarity of the 
 wages, while the crimes to them appear the same. 
 By these means, a man of honesty and ability 
 might represent the same constituency in Par- 
 liament during the whole of a long and honored 
 life, without the expense or trouble of ever being 
 elected but the once. During each recess, such 
 a man would have, at the meetings already named,
 
 302 ON PURE REPRESENTATION. 
 
 fair and open opportunities of using the honorable 
 influences of character, learning, and ability, in 
 instructing and convincing his constituents, on 
 any points on which they might be less well 
 informed than himself. This indeed ought to be 
 considered among the most important of his du- 
 ties. On the other hand, whenever the honesty, 
 learning, and ability, for the supposed possession 
 of which a member had been chosen, were found 
 wanting, constituencies would thus always have 
 the power, without the mischievous and unjust 
 necessity of awaiting the expiration of any Parlia- 
 ment, whether septennial, triennial, or annual, 
 of calling to the poll any candidate, or candidates, 
 from whom they hoped better things. 
 
 Members of Parliament accustomed to the old 
 corrupt system, will, of course, exclaim loudly 
 against the idea of being reduced (as they would 
 say) to mere puppets ! 
 
 But one moment's reflection will suffice to show 
 such persons, that in so exclaiming, it is the 
 principle of representation to which they are ob- 
 jecting. It would be a childish mistake, indeed, 
 were constituencies to confound the power of 
 paying this man, or that man, the compliment 
 of sending him to ParUament ; with the power 
 of influencing the laws to be framed for their own 
 and their children's future welfare. This, surely, 
 is the principle of representation : — any system,
 
 ON PURE REPRESENTATION. 303 
 
 therefore, called representation, which does not 
 contain this principle, is a practical lie ! 
 
 Of what avail was it to give the called for fran- 
 chise to great towns, and northern, and southern 
 diAasions of populous counties, if an individual 
 member of Parliament, after being chosen to re- 
 present one of such, has the power of virtually 
 disfranchising the whole constituency, and vesting 
 the concentrated franchise in his own person ? Of 
 what avail our long fought battle, and at length 
 achieved victory over rotten boroughs, if rotten 
 members can effect their own, or a dishonest minis- 
 ter's purposes as certainly ? Nay, the mouldering 
 wall w^as, of the two, the least mischievous instru- 
 ment of mischief ; for the price of every member 
 who chooses to sell himself to a minister, must 
 of course be paid by the people, w^hose rights 
 he sells with his own honour, to make the latter 
 a marketable commodity. 
 
 If, then, real representation be the spirit of the 
 British constitution, let not those w^ho kneel down 
 and worship the grossest abuses, on pretence 
 of veneration for every part of the constitution, 
 be the foremost to deprive that constitution of 
 the soul which would have enabled it to defy 
 corruption, and then spice the mummy for the 
 adoration of future ages ! ! ! 
 
 Indeed, members of Parhament are the very last 
 persons who are entitled to complain of the nu- 
 merous precautions here suggested being found
 
 304 ON PURE REPRESENTATION. 
 
 necessary ; for it is a melancholy truth, that it 
 is they who have made them so ! If the nation 
 could find honest servants, she would need no 
 locks to the treasury of her liberties — But, 
 
 Who, alas, is honest ? 
 The echo answers who ?* 
 
 THE BALLOT. 
 
 Every argument, which has been used in favour of 
 pure representation, is also an argument in favour 
 of vote by ballot : for, while the rich are corrupt, 
 and the poor helpless, representation, without the 
 ballot, cannot be pure ! That is to say, bribes and 
 threats will influence votes ; and those, therefore, 
 who are rich enough and dishonest enough, to use 
 such means of obtaining power, will be our rulers ; 
 nor can we expect that the power which has been 
 obtained dishonestly will be used honestly ! 
 
 The ballot then, whether good or bad in itself, 
 will be necessary as long as mankind shall continue 
 to be divided into the rich and the poor, and selfish- 
 ness to have unjust desires. 
 
 Let us even suppose for a moment, that the 
 spread of a reasoning education had rendered the 
 whole body of electors, to a man, too intelligent 
 
 * Where is my child ? 
 The echo answers where ? 
 Byrop.
 
 ON PURE REPRESENTATION. 305 
 
 as to their real ultimate interests, and too honest 
 in feehng to accept a bribe ; still, intimidation, in 
 the hands of those unprincipled enough to use such 
 means, is an engine of irresistible power : who that 
 has his bread, and the bread of his children to 
 earn, although his sturdy spirit might have spurned 
 a bribe, can nerve his imagination to view un- 
 daunted the long perspective of indefinite ills, and 
 gradual decay, with which he is threatened by in- 
 solent power, rendered malignant by the mockery 
 of law which forbids it to crush at once, the rebel 
 against its imperious will. 
 
 How unsparingly, how unblushingly, and, un- 
 happily, how effectually this engine of intimidation 
 has been used, and is used at all elections, the almost 
 personal experience of every individual in Great 
 Britain can testify. 
 
 It may be attempted to be retorted, that the evil 
 influences of bribery and intimidation are used on 
 both sides ; but even granting that the avowed ad- 
 vocates of honest measures were likely, in general , 
 to be found as active in the use of dishonest means, 
 as the avowed supporters of old abuses ; still, 
 those who have long profited by corruption, must 
 necessarily have more wealth both to give as 
 canvassers, and to withhold as customers, or 
 landlords, than those whose sense of justice has, 
 possibly, been sharpened by the very fact of their 
 being, on the score of wealth, the victims of 
 injustice. 
 
 X
 
 306 ON PURE REPRESENTATION. 
 
 Nay, the abettors of corruption are not ashamed 
 to boast openly, that they can stand the expenses 
 of repeated elections longer than their opponents 
 can. In other words, that they consider it a good 
 speculation, to purchase the power of perpetuating 
 wrong, with a part of the wealth they have accu- 
 mulated by perpetrating wrong ! 
 
 Are the liberties of the nation then put up to 
 auction, and are they to be knocked down to the 
 highest bidder ? Poor John Bull ! Must he first 
 have his pockets picked ; and when, in conse- 
 quence, he is short of cash, his estate bought up 
 with his own money, by the self same knights of 
 the nimble fingered trade who had extracted it from 
 his pockets ? 
 
 As to the objection, that there is something un- 
 generous, and " unenglish," in the concealment 
 of the ballot it is quite absurd coming from a 
 class of Englishmen, who use the prudent mystery 
 of the said unenglish mask, in all their own club 
 and pleasure arrangements. If men of hberal edu- 
 cation, and independent circumstances, think there 
 is no dishonour in screening themselves, while per- 
 forming a fancied duty to exclusive society, fjom 
 soreness of feeling, and possibly hostile encounters 
 beneath the convenient shelter of the ballot, why 
 should the self-same cloak be considered too shabby, 
 or too unenglish a costume, to be worn by the 
 shopkeeper, or the tenant, in cases of serious ne- 
 cessity, to preserve himself, his wife, and his chil-
 
 ON PUKE REPRESENTATION. 307 
 
 dren, from the utter ruin held in terrorem over 
 him, by some wealthy but unprincipled customer 
 or landlord, for his honest performance of a real 
 duty to his country. 
 
 MUNICIPAL REFORM. 
 
 One thing more is indispensable to honest repre- 
 sentation : that is the completion of a thorough 
 municipal reform, having for its basis the princi- 
 ple, that corporation privileges are a trust for the 
 benefit of the people at large ; and that those pri- 
 vileges, therefore, must be placed on a system of 
 real representation, subject to the control of their 
 constituencies. Until this be effected, corpora- 
 tions will not only retain their own gross local 
 abuses, which in the aggregate constitute a great 
 national abuse, but they will also be the strong 
 holds of remaining corruption in Parhament ; they 
 being, from the undue and unconstitutional influ- 
 ence, which the abuse of the said privileges enables 
 them to use at elections, a mischievous remnant of 
 the close borough system. 
 
 X
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 ON THE AWFUL RESPONSIBILITY OF VOTING IN 
 
 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 The awful responsibility, in addition to the dis- 
 honesty, of giving a vote in Parliament on indi- 
 vidual authority, is, unhappily seldom, if ever 
 appreciated as it ought to be. Were the remo- 
 dellers of our penal code, to place murders, 
 robberies, and careless, or interested votes in 
 Parliament on the same catalogue of guilty deeds, 
 the justness of the classification would doubtless 
 be questioned ; yet few, in modern times, have 
 been the victims of direct crime, compared with 
 the many who have died of broken hearts, broken 
 constitutions, and lack of food, shelter, and 
 raiment; or pined, through a lingering existence, 
 in hopeless poverty, in consequence of unwise 
 regulations, made laws by insufficiently considered 
 votes, given with a view to enhance the wealth of 
 the already rich of this country ; few, if any one 
 of whom, it is to be presumed, would have directly
 
 RESPONSIBILITY OF VOTING. 309 
 
 deprived of life or of property a single fellow crea- 
 ture, to have been possessed of the wealth of 
 worlds ! But this is not sufficient : beings gifted 
 with reasoning and reflecting powers are surely- 
 bound to examine into the most remote tendencies, 
 as well as the more immediate consequences of 
 their actions ; and must not hope that, having 
 been instrumental in producing circumstances out 
 of which have arisen deaths or unjust transfers of 
 property, they can continue innocent of the fright- 
 ful and disgraceful crimes of murder or of robbery, 
 merely because the operation of the causes which 
 brought these inflictions on their fellow men, was 
 indirect. If a vote carelessly given in merely 
 following the lead of party, tend, at any distance 
 of time, to enrich one class, or one individual, 
 unjustly, at the expense of another class or indi- 
 vidual, or to shorten, through misery, or unneces- 
 sary (that is to say, not strictly defensive) warfare, 
 or any other cause, the life of a fellow creature, 
 if the tendency be one that was within the reach 
 of human foresight to have perceived on the most 
 strict and severe examination of the subject, he 
 who gives his vote without this strict and severe 
 examination is guilty of murder, or of robbery, or 
 of both, as the case may be. To plead hasty or 
 mistaken views is no apology ; the neglect of that 
 study which would have mastered the science of 
 legislation, and brought within the scope of his 
 mental vision the ultimate consequences of mea-
 
 310 RESPONSIBILITY OF VOTING. 
 
 sures, was a wilful, and, in a man willingly taking 
 upon himself the functions of a legislator, an un- 
 justifiable act. 
 
 The law punishes harbour pilots, in some cases, 
 even with death, if convicted of ignorance of the 
 duty they have undertaken. Is the great vessel of 
 the state of less importance than any one of our 
 gallant hearts of oak, valuable though they be ? 
 Is its mighty helm to be grasped without a thought 
 above individual ambition, and no responsibility 
 incurred ? If such be the wreckless will of man in 
 power, God, on that great day when he shall judge 
 the earth, will reverse the unrighteous sentence! 
 
 Let, then, that pilot of the state, who would 
 have a conscience void of offence, take for the 
 compass of his legislation the unerring principle of 
 good-will to all, necessarily including equal justice, 
 — that good-will not being to all, which sanctions 
 injustice to any. 
 
 Thus only can he stand discharged in full of his 
 awful responsibility. For good-will to all being the 
 visibly revealed will of God, the great Ruler of the 
 universe himself will dispose of the consequences 
 of all actions, thoughts, and words, deriving their 
 impulse from obedience to, and co-operation with 
 his own Almighty purpose, thus visibly revealed.
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 JOHN BULL AWAKE. 
 
 " Now observe, if the whole of what was stolen from the public, 
 by means of all these jobs, had been spent honestly in the public 
 service, the constitution would have wanted the zealous su])port 
 of a great band of robbers delighted with the present, and fearful 
 of change. ' It works well,' George Canning used to exclaim : 
 countless plunderers respond, ' It works well !' " 
 
 England and America. 
 
 The spread of education is, in fact, rendering the 
 peaceable continuance of abuses impossible. 
 
 During the long night of total ignorance, nume- 
 rous plunderers, great and small, walked abroad, 
 and, favoured by the sheltering darkness, forfeited 
 not even their respectability. Suddenly the light of 
 day has broken in upon them ; each devious way 
 and crooked path lies revealed ; yet, absorbed in 
 the headlong pursuit of gain, they seem as though 
 they perceived it not, and continue, with scarcely 
 abated zeal, their unhallowed calling, while the 
 newly awakened public stand looking on, as yet 
 scarcely crediting that they see aright.
 
 312 JOHN BULL AWAKE. 
 
 John Bull rubs his eyes, and looks again ! 
 
 In his most ignorant days he had been told to 
 keep his hands from picking and stealing : this 
 much the greatest enemies to enlightening the 
 multitude had thought it safe to teach him. 
 
 Tlie fine clothes and ghttering equipages of some 
 of the employes dazzle honest John's powers of 
 vision not a little ; but, notwithstanding, he thinks 
 he sees every man's hand in his neighbour's pocket, 
 which he opines cannot be right. How long this 
 problem might have puzzled our friend John, there 
 is no saying, had not comdction, just at the mo- 
 ment been rather unpleasantly brought home to 
 him by perceiving, that while he flattered himself 
 he was but a spectator of the scene, his own pockets 
 had been turned inside out ! Now, John is not the 
 man to put up with this ; he will call the police 
 first, 'tis true, but if they do not come, he will, ere 
 long, take his own part. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 LONDON : 
 SCHULZE AND CO., 13, POLAND STREET.
 
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