little holdings, and sent to Canada-arriving there in the depth of winter, and wholly destitute of means to enable them to obtain either food or clothing. Cottages and sheds, by tens of thousands, have been levelled in Ireland, with a view to compel the exportation of the wretched people who had occupied them.* Under such circumstances it was, that 2,144,802 persons left the United Kingdom in the short period of seven years, ending in 1854. Of these, it is probable that more than 100,000 perished on the road to their new homes, victims to the system which finds in buying in the cheapest market, and selling in the dearest one, the chief incentive to action, and sees in man a mere instrument to be used by trade.†

§ 6. Man seeks to obtain power over nature. That he may obtain it, he must learn to utilize the various faculties by which he is distinguished from the lower animals. The more they are utilized, the more perfect becomes his power of combination with his fellow man; the more are the various utilities of the earth developed; the more rapid is the societary circulation; the greater is the power of accumulation; the more equitable becomes the distribution; the greater is the competition for his services among the near and the distant soils, and the greater his power to make his election between them; the closer becomes the approximation of the prices of raw materials and finished commodities; and the greater is the tendency towards increase in the value of land and men, and strength in the state, as here is shown:

The whole population of a district many miles in extent are simply turned into the roads, to live or die, as they can." This brief sentence, from the London Times, contains a history of Ireland at large, during a large portion of the past ten years.

The destruction of life in the passage across the Atlantic is fearful-at times almost rivalling that of African slave ships. Ships that are no longer

In that direction - passing from left to right-travel now all the countries that follow in the lead of Colbert and of France, and France herself. So, too, have sometimes travelled the United States, with rapid appreciation in the value of both land and man. As a rule, however, they have walked with Ireland, Turkey, Portugal, Jamaica, and other countries, under the lead of England-moving thus from right to left-and like them, have then been troubled with the disease of over-population *

The British policy is selfish and repulsive; its essential object being the separation of the consumers and the producers of the world. In that direction lie poverty and slavery; and therefore it is, that while England seeks to expel her people, no country of the world that follows in her lead even where abounding in land that is unoccupied- offers any inducement to settlement, by any but those who are driven to it by poverty, if not even by actual want.t

The harmony of the world is maintained, as we have seen, by means of the perfect balance of the opposing attractive and counter-attractive forces. The more perfect the balance, the more rapid is the societary motion, and the greater the tendency towards augmentation in the quantity of food obtained in return to any given quantity of labor. Throughout the realm now chiefly,

fit for carrying merchandize that can be insured, are employed in transporting men, women, and children, who cannot.

* Free trade periods, terminating in 1824, 1842, and 1858.

"One can scarcely open a newspaper from any part of the world just now in which we do not light upon a paragraph about the transfer of laborers from one country to another. The movement is so universal, in regard to intertropical colonies, and countries in near relation with them, that the question which naturally occurs to all simple-minded people, is, why do not all these laborers stay where they are, and work at home? What is the use of their turning one another out, and running after or running away from each other, when each country has work to do, and people living there to do it? These simple questions appear to us perfectly rational; and no answer, we are confident, can be made which will satisfy any reasonable and honest mind. This wasteful and laborious shifting of the labor-supplythis costly effort to counteract the great natural laws of society is a consequence of the prior violation of Nature's laws, which we call slavery, and which slaveholders describe as the beneficiary servitude of an inferior to a superior race."-London Spectator.

Why, however, is it that men remain enslaved? Because they are denied the power of diversifying their pursuits. As a consequence, the powers of the soil diminish, and they must fly the land, if they would not perish on it. Hence the extraordinary and wasteful transfer of labor, in all the countries that do not protect themselves against the British system.

even where not wholly, controlled by England, repulsion is universal; as a consequence of which the societary motion tends towards diminution, with growing tendency in all its parts, to furnish, and on a larger scale, the facts required for establishing the doctrines of the Ricardo-Malthusian school.

CHAPTER XLIX.

THE MALTHUSIAN THEORY.

§ 1. THE one great cause," that has "hitherto impeded the progress of mankind towards happiness"- the one to which are due the "vice and misery" so generally prevailing-that one which has caused the existing inequality in the "distribution of the bounties of nature"-is, as Mr. Malthus has told us, "the constant tendency in all animated life to increase beyond the nourishment prepared for it."* Before inquiring into the truth or falsehood of the idea thus propounded, it may be well to determine for ourselves, and that, too, accurately, the meaning of the word "prepared," as here submitted for our consideration.Were a parent to place at the command of his family the whole contents of a well-filled granary, would he, or would he not, have "prepared" for them a supply of food? Having given them, in the greatest superabundance, all the materials of fuel and clothing, and having endowed them with all the knowledge required for their conversion, could he be justly charged with not having "prepared" for them what was needed for the preservation of vital heat; that, too, for no other reason, than that he had refused to grind the corn, bake the bread, cut and transport the wood, weave the cotton, and then form the cloth into shirts and pantaloons? Having placed it in their own power to feed and clothe themselves if they would, could he be blamed if they then suffered from cold or hunger? Would the fault lie with him, or them? Assuredly, not with him.

Looking now to the great family of mankind, we may inquire what is the real meaning of the word thus used, as connected with the provision made by the great Father of all, for supplying its members with the food and clothing they require. Are we to conceive it as having reference only to the limited

*Principles of Population, Book 1, chap. i.

number of already organized forms, vegetable and animal, thinly scattered over the earth's surface, or as referring, far more properly, to the great stock of raw material, capable of being made to assume those forms, deposited in the great treasury of nature, and waiting only man's call to do him service? Have not the coal and ore now lying in the earth, and the corn and wool whose elements so much abound, been as much " prepared" for his uses, as the grass that grows upon the prairie? Has not the electricity, every where existing, been as much "prepared" for him, as that trivial quantity which manifests itself in the lightning's flash? Have not all the vast powers of earth and atmosphere, whensoever and wheresoever found, been "prepared" for his service, and has he not, himself, been endowed with all the faculties required for enabling him to compel them to minister to his wants, and aid in gratifying his desires? That such is the case is beyond all question. If, then, he perishes in the midst of this vast treasury, does the fault lie with his Creator, or with himself?

That men do so perish, and that, too, not unfrequently, we know. Why do they this? Because, as we are here told, of the insufficiency of the stock of nourishment "prepared" for their use. What evidence, however, have we of this? Have they ever found the treasury to have been exhausted? Have they ever had their drafts protested, when they had kept their accounts good, with the great Cashier? Have they not, on the contrary, found a large increase in the balance to their credit, whenever they have complied with the conditions upon which, alone, the earth makes loans that condition being, the punctual return of the raw material, after having used it? That this last has been the case is proved by the history of every advancing nation of the world the supplies of food having increased more rapidly than the numbers of those among whom they were to be divided, in every country in which men have been enabled so to combine their efforts, as to bring into activity the various powers with which they have been endowed. Thus far, then, man has had no opportunity for testing the sufficiency of the stock of food, clothing, and fuel, "prepared" for him.

We are told, however, that this is an universal law the tendency to increase beyond the subsistence that has been prepared,