"there is, in habitual antagonism to the law of diminishing return from land; and to the consideration of this we shall now proceed. It is no other than the progress of civilization. I use," he adds, "this general and somewhat vague expression, because the things to be included are so various, that hardly any term of a more restricted signification would comprehend them all."'* The answer to this, would seem to be found in the same author's own words, elsewhere used, to wit: "In order to prove that our science, and our knowledge of the particular case, render us competent to predict the future, we must show that they would have enabled us to predict the present and the past."+ Such is the great object of science; but of what advantage can that science be, which finds itself compelled to explain the past, by means of imaginary suspensions of great natural laws? Is it not clear from this, that social science, as taught by Mr. Ricardo and his successors, is only in that stage which is designated by M. Comte as the metaphysical one? Could it be otherwise, with a system which takes no note of the qualities by which man is distinguished from the beasts of the field? § 13. The law of distribution above presented for the reader's consideration, was first announced, twenty years since, by the author of the present work. ‡ Re-appearing since, in the work of a distinguished French economist, § its harmony and beauty are recognised by him, in the following words, whose truth will be acknowledged, by all who study it with the care and attention. it so well deserves : "Such is the great, admirable, consoling, necessary, and inflexible law of capital. To demonstrate it is, as it appears to me, to strike with discredit the declamation, with which our ears have so long been dinned, against the avarice and the tyranny of the most powerful instrument of civilization and of equalization, that results from the exercise of human powers. Thus, the great law of capital and labor, as regards the distribution of the products of their joint labors, is settled. The * J. S. MILL: Principles of Political Economy, book 1, chap. xii. § 8. J. S. MILL: System of Logic. Principles of Political Economy, Part I: Phila, 1837. BASTIAT; Harmonies Economiques: Paris, 1850. absolute quantity of each is greater, but the proportional part of capital constantly diminishes, as compared with that of labor. "Cease, then, capitalists and laborers, to look upon each other with eyes of suspicion, and of envy. Close your ears to those absurd declaimers, of whom nothing equals their pride, if it be not their ignorance, who, under the promise of future harmony, begin by exciting present discord. Recollect that, say what they may, your interests are one and the same-that they cannot be separated-that they tend together towards the realization of the general good-that the labors of the present generation combine themselves with those of generations that have passed— that it is right, that each who has united in the work should have a portion of the remuneration—and, that the most ingenious as well as the most equitable division, takes place among you by virtue of providential laws, and by means of free and voluntary arrangements, without requiring the aid of a parasitic sentimentalism to impose upon you its decrees, at the expense of your well-being, your liberty, your security, and your dignity."* Widely different from this, are the tendencies of the doctrine which teaches, that "the landlord is doubly benefited by difficulty of production"-obtaining "a greater share," and being paid "in a commodity of higher value."+ Had such, really, been the case, Mr. Ricardo would have been fully warranted in asserting, as he did, that the interests of owners of land were constantly opposed to those of all other classes of society-all the gain in their transactions with the public, accruing to them, and all the loss falling to those with whom they dealt. The system being, thus, one of universal discord, it tends, necessarily, to disturbance of the right to property in land, as is shown by * Recognising the entire identity of the laws governing the profits of capital and the rent of land, Professor Ferrara, speaking of this law of distribution, says that it is, "to those who feel an interest in the condition of the poorer classes of society, a most consoling one." • Further," he adds, "we have shown that Providence, in thus providing by the increase of capital for an ultimate limit of its importance, has, by the same process, provided for its extension. The compensation of the capitalist finds itself, it is true, diminished in its ratio to the total product; but the smaller proportion of a larger product, in place of diminishing the reward of those possessing the accumulations of the past, causes its increase. In other words, proprietors, capitalists, and laborers, have one common interest→ that of increasing the productiveness of labor."-Biblioteca dell' Economista, vol. xiii. p. lxx. RICARDO: Chapter on Rent. the following passage from the work of one of its most distinguished advocates : "When the sacredness of property' is talked of, it should always be remembered, that this sacredness does not belong in the same degree to landed property. No man made the land. It is the original inheritance of the whole species. *** If the State is at liberty to treat the possessors of land as public functionaries, it is only going one step farther to say, it is at liberty to discard them. The claim of the land-owners is altogether subordinate to the general policy of the State. The principle of property gives them no right to the land, but only a right to compensation, for whatever portion of their interest in the land it may be the policy of the State to deprive them of."* Following up the idea thus presented, another distinguished teacher in the same school, has since assured his readers, that a repetition of the recent confiscation of Irish landed property, will soon be required for England.† We have here the natural result of a doctrine from the study of which we learn, that the rent of land is compensation for "no sacrifice whatever-being received by those who neither labor nor put by, but merely hold out their hands to accept the offerings of the community." It is, as we are further told by the author of this sentence, the "reward" of the landlord "for having permitted the gifts of nature to be accepted." Any policy tending to consolidation of the land is revolutionary in its tendencies the necessary result of its pursuance being an arrest of the societary circulation, causing an accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few, accompanied by a vast extension of the class having nothing, and likely to seek in revolution the means of improvement in their fortunes. That consolidation is the tendency in England, and in all the countries that follow in her lead, the reader has already seen. Its effects are visible in the total failure of respect for the rights of property, in Ireland, Scotland, and the Eastern and Western Indies- the landholder having been despoiled in the first-the tenant, in the * J. S. MILL: Principles, book 11, chap. ii. second-the small proprietor, in the third-and the planter, in the last.† "No man," says Mr. Mill, "made the land.” Neither did any man make the bricks of which the mill is composed, or the iron used in constructing its machinery. All of these existed in the days of the Heptarchy, and all were equally valueless. All have present value, the reward of human effort. The property in all, stands on the same basis-all being governed by the same laws. Property in land is, however, held to be less sacred than that in stocks of cotton, cloth, and corn; and for the plain reason, that the whole system tends towards the extension of trade at the cost of commerce- to the conversion of a whole people into traders, at the cost of that greatest of all human pursuits, a scientific agriculture. War among nations, and discord among individuals, grow with the growth of monopoly in land. The more perfect its consolidation, the greater must be the inequalities of society, and the more must those who labor be made to suffer, in the distribution effected between the people and the State. * Few facts recorded in history, are more instructive than those afforded by that of Scotland in the present century, placed side by side with those of Northern Europe. Throughout a large portion of Northern Britain, tenants have been ousted from their little holdings, and under circumstances of the greatest hardship. Throughout Germany, Denmark, and Russia, the little tenants have been converted into small proprietors. Examine the British system where we may, we find it tending towards the annihilation of the middle classes-creating everywhere a body of large proprietors, landed and moneyed, mining and manufacturing, side by side with a people that must become more servile from year to year. The act of emancipation was held by the British people to be an act of duty; and, being so, its cost should have been borne by all. As it was, the value of land was destroyed, and the proprietors were ruined - these results having been consequent upon violations of well-understood agreements: the first of which was contracted when the slaves were allowed to be imported, and the second, when they were emancipated. In all the recent transactions between the British people and their colonies, might has made right. CHAPTER XLIII. THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. III. The People and the State. § 1. FROM the moment when Crusoe discovered that he had neighbors, who were poorer, even, than himself, he lived in constant fear of his life. Friday, however, having joined him, he felt that his security was increased. the one being free to watch, while the other slept, or labored. So has it been, and so is it now, in all the early settlements of the world. Compelled to provide for their security, the early people of Greece and Italy placed all their towns on the tops of hills—a course of proceeding to which they would have thus been led, even had they possessed the power to cultivate the fertile soils of the valleys, capable of yielding thrice the return to labor. So was it, in Southern England- almost every hill-top there presenting, even now, the evidences of early occupation.-So was it, with the Puritans of Massachusetts, and with the Cavaliers of Virginia; so is it, now, with the settlers of Kansas and Oregon - every man being compelled to prepare himself for self-defence. The systematic and regular application of labor, to the work of obtaining command over the great natural forces, having, therefore, no existence, the potential energy of man remains latenthe, himself, continuing poor, because of the absence of power for combination with his fellow-men. Friday's arrival exercised upon Crusoe's condition, a double influence-greatly increasing its effectiveness, when applied, and enabling him more continuously to apply it. His wants and his powers being here, as everywhere, a constant quantity, every increase of the latter was attended with an enlargement of his proportions-the resistance of nature to his further efforts diminishing as his powers of attack increased. So is it, in all new settlements-security growing in a ratio far exceeding that of |