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ENGLISH PREACHING AND ENGLISH PRACTICE.-That the working of the system which I have undertaken to develope would in many ways shorten the apparent and direct, though not the unseen and collateral power, both of wealth, as the Lady of Pleasure, and of capital, as the Lord of Toil, I do not deny; on the contrary, I affirm it in all joyfulness, knowing that the attraction of riches is already too strong, as their authority is already too weighty, for the reason of mankind. I said in my last paper that nothing in history had ever been so disgraceful to human intellect, as the acceptance among us of the common doctrines of political economy as a science. I have many grounds for saying this; but one of the chief may be given in a few words. I know no previous instance in history of a nation's establishing a systematic disobedience to the first principles of its professed religion. The writings which we (verbally) esteem as divine, not only denounce the love of money as the source of all evil, and as an idolatry abhorred of the Deity, but declare mammon-service to be the accurate and irreconcileable opposite of God's service; and wherever they speak of riches absolute, and poverty absolute, declare woe to the rich, and blessing to the poor. Whereupon we forthwith investigate a science of becoming rich, as the shortest road to national prosperity.-Mr. JOHN RUSKIN, in Cornhill Magazine for October.

THE CURSE OF SLAVERY.

BY MONCKTON MILNES.

E never thought the jealous gods would store
For us ill deeds of time-forgotten graves;
Nor heeded that the "Mayflower" one day bore
A freight of pilgrims, and another slaves.

First on the bold upholders of the wrong,
And last on us, the heavy laden years
Avenged the cruel triumphs of the strong-
Trampled affection, and derided tears.

Labour, degraded from her high behest,

Cries-Ye shall know I am the living breath,
And not the curse of man. Ye shall have rest--
The rest of famine, and the rest of death."

Oh, happy distant hour! that shall restore

Honour to work, and pleasure to repose!
Hasten your steps, just heard above the roar
Of 'wildering passions and the crash of foes.

"WHAT MIGHT BE DONE.”

What might be done if men were wise!
What glorious deeds, my suffering brother,
Did we unite in love and right,

And cease our scorn of one another.
Oppression's love might be imbued
With kindling drops of loving kindness,
And knowledge pour, from shore to shore,
Light on the eyes of mental blindness.
All slavery, warfare, lies, and wrong,
All vice and crime, might die together;
And fruit and corn, to each man born,
Be free as warmth in summer weather.
The meanest wretch that ever trod,
The deepest sunk in guilt and sorrow,
Might stand erect in self-respect,
And share Gop's teeming world to-morrow,
What might be done?--This might be done,
And more than this, my suffering brother,
More than the tongue e'er said or sung,

If men were wise, and loved each other!

LIFE: its NATURE, VARIETIES, and PHE

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NOMENA. By LEO H. GRINDON. 3rd edition. extra, 6s. 6d. ; half morocco, 12s.; morocco, 15s. Free by Post. "Mr. Grindon is a thinker of great originality. We can commend the volume as a vigorous, stimulating book."-British Quarterly Review. "The work has great merit."-Eclectic.

"These very thoughtful and beautifully-written reflections will be a welcome boon."-Sun.

London: F. PITMAN, 20, Paternoster-row, E.C.

Vol. 8 of "The Popular Lecturer and Reader." Price 2s. 6d. cloth, lettered.

This Volume contains a large amount of information, and will be found very interesting reading. The Lectures are on a great variety of subjects.

"We commend Mr. Pitman's volume."-The Athenæum.

London: FRED. PITMAN, 20, Paternoster Row, E.C.

Printed by J. WARD, Dewsbury.

Popular Lecturer and Reader.

Edited by HENRY PITMAN, Manchester.

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[From the "Railway, Banking, Mining, &c. Almanack," for 1864.]

(N considering the operation of the law of supply and

and contingencies frequently prevents the formation of a sound judgment, and diverts from the attainment of a wise policy. Practical and sound economy promotes the attainment of satisfactory results, averts impending evils, and provides for wants affecting the comfort, happiness, and prosperity of multitudes of industrious people, whose existence may be chiefly depending upon the continuance of some adequate means of labour.

The calamity which has overwhelmed the cotton trade has long been foreseen, and an interruption in the supply of American cotton has been frequently predicted. Cotton spinners have, however, relied upon their wonted supplies of raw material arriving in constant abundance, regardless of their danger, of the degradation of the labour chiefly producing that material, and of those provident principles the exercise of which would have taught the trade to promote its own permanent interest by the extended growth of cotton in every available field of cultivation. By prudent forethought and provident arrangements, scarcity and the distress of the trade would have been avoided.

Relying upon the applicability of an abstract principle to every circumstance and condition of manufacturing and mercantile pursuits, the most costly and inconvenient

14.-FEB.

method of obtaining some object of commerce and industry is often adopted. Excess in price generally stimulates the production and supply of any commodity; but where dor mant and unattainable stocks are held of even some much needed article, the increased cultivation of it proceeds slowly, from the fear that the ruling high price may vanish at the moment of the liberation of the interrupted article. The cotton spinner has been disinclined to use any other growth of cotton than American, and indisposed to seek supplies from new fields of cultivation. Egyptian, Indian, and African cottons, have had tardy recognition from the trade. Even during the fratricidal struggles which have been, and are, destroying human life, and the accumulations of industry, to an extent without a precedent, almost the whole cotton trade has been exclaiming." No place but the States of America can grow and supply cotton for the English market." By depending upon merely the dearness of an article to reconcile supply to demand, an ordeal often has to be endured which inflicts alike deep distress and loss upon those who in apathy wait for plenty to arise from the high prices of scarcity. As in the existing suffering of the cotton trade, the supply of the raw material not being equal to a moiety of the power of consumption of a good quality of cotton, it is clear that the average working of the mills cannot exceed half time. The capital, skill, and resources of spinning and manufacturing concerns vary, and the weakest in means will often be the greatest sufferers: but the cost of the cotton famine is not solely represented by the excess of price consequent upon scarcity, for to this must be added the losses sustained in suspended works, and by the diminished earnings of those who have been deprived of the reward of their usual labour. In the restoration of harmony between supply and demand, high prices do not invariably lead to the maintenance of an industry in its full maximum extent, for dearness being the associate of scarcity, a considerable increase in the prices of consumable commodities in particular compels a diminution in their consumption. Cotton having attained a quintuple price, New Orleans having sprung from 6d. per lb. to 2s. 6d., and East Indian from 4 d. to 2s., it is evident that cotton manufactures cannot be afforded to the consumer except at a greatly enhanced cost; and the money means of purchasers generally not having increased, the re

sult can only be a great reduction in the power of consumption. Already good useful linen fabrics can be sold at a rate relatively cheaper than cotton cloths, calicoes, and shirtings, and a great increase in the flax trade is consequently visible. Woollen goods are also rivalling the manufactures of cotton,-New Orleans cotton being now worth 2s. 6d. per lb., whilst the finest fleeces of Australian wool will not, and do not, command so high a price. With, therefore, prices of cotton goods tending to diminish their consumption, besides the immensely inadequate supply of the raw material, the unwelcome fact appears that a contraction rather than an extension of the great cotton industry must continue to oppress the capital and labour hitherto invested in it. From the increased demand, however, for the textile productions of the rival trades, the workpeople of the cotton trade are becoming largely absorbed in other occupations, and the master manufacturer, with his scarce and dear raw material, is thus likely to be the chief victim of the unfortunate dilemma in which his industry is placed. To charge the wealthy men of the cotton trade with the neglect of a positive duty in not having encouraged the extended cultivation of cotton in British colonies and other countries, would be incorrect; but whether the trade, by neglecting to promote a diversion in the supplies of cotton by obtaining it from new sources, has not been lacking in economy, and in a prudential regard for its own permanent interest, scarcely admits of a doubt. Nothing could be more costly than the dependence of a great industry upon chiefly one source of supply for the very material of its existence, as the present condition of the cotton trade proves. Probably eighty million pounds sterling have been extracted from the trade from the excess in price of cotton; but the sufferings and deprivations of a faithful and industrious race of labourers are beyond any financial computation. Families have become houseless wanderers, and have sought new abodes and the means of subsistence in other trades, in their own country and abroad; but many who were deserving labourers have ceased to exist, and cannot now relate their woes, losses, and degradations. To have averted these calamities would have been a triumph, moral, physical, pecuniary, and economical. The capitalists in the cotton trade are imbued generally with prudence and an especial attention to their own

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