millions of lives have been sacrificed; and the result is seen in the fact that she now stands emphatically alone among the ruins she has made.

Having stopped the motion of society in Portugal, her old and faithful ally now hangs upon her hands, useless even for the purposes of trade. So is it with Turkey, and so, too, with the Indies of the West and of the East, both of which are causes of anxiety, and not sources of profit. Coming nearer home, Ireland —a country abounding in all the elements of wealth—presents to view, and for the first time in the history of the world, a nation gradually disappearing from the earth in the midst of the profoundest peace. Looking into Scotland, we see the land becoming consolidated, and its occupants being everywhere expelled to make room for sheep while almost hundreds of thousands of people around are in constant danger of starvation.* Turning storekeeper, and will soon have an archdeacon and a bishop; military colleges with thirty-four professors, educating seventeen ensigns per annum --being half an ensign for each professor with every species of nonsense, athletic, sartorial, and plumigerous. A 'just and necessary' war costs this country about one hundred pounds a minute; whip-cord, fifteen thousand pounds; and tape, seven thousand pounds; lace for drummers and fifers, nineteen thousand pounds; a pension for one man who has broken his head at the Pole-to another who has shattered his leg at the Equator; subsidies to Persia; secret-service money to Thibet; an annuity to Lady Henry Somebody and her seven daughters, the husband being shot at some place where we never ought to have had any soldiers at all, and the elder brother returning four brothers to Parliament-such a scene of extravagance, corruption, and expense as must paralyze the industry and mar the fortunes of the most industrious, spirited people that ever existed." Sidney Smith.

"Recent inquiry has discovered that even there, in districts once famous for fine men and gallant soldiers, the inhabitants have degenerated into a meagre and stunted race. In the healthiest situations, on hillsides fronting the sea, the faces of their famished children are as thin and pale as they could be in the foul atmosphere of a London alley. Still more deplorable are the scenes exhibited in the Western Highlands, especially on the coasts and in the adjoining islands. A large population has there been assembled, so ill provided with any means of support, that during part of almost every year from 45,000 to 80,000 of them are in a state of destitution, and entirely dependent upon charity. Many of the heads of families hold crofts from four to seven acres in extent, but these, notwithstanding their small size, and the extreme barrenness of the soil, have often two, three, and sometimes even four, families upon them." 'Of course, they live most wretchedly. Potatoes are the usual food, for oatmeal is considered a luxury, to be reserved for highdays and holidays, but even potatoes are not raised in sufficient abundance. The year's stock is generally exhausted before the succeeding crop is ripe, and the poor are then often in a most desperate condition, for the poor-law is a dead letter in the north of Scotland, and the want of a legal provision for the necessitous is but ill supplied by the spontaneous contributions of the land-owners." THORNTON: Over-Population and its Remedy, pp. 74, 76.

*

*

from the land to the great trading city, Glasgow, we meet there with the people who have been expelled — living in a state of destitution not exceeded even in Ireland.* Arriving in England herself, we find an overgrown metropolis and a great trading city, between which points is to be found nearly all the circulation of the empire. Such are the unhappy consequences of mistaking trade, ever warlike and exhausting, for the always peaceful and invigorating commerce.

§ 10. Adopting as her motto, "ships, colonies, and commerce," England has glorified the former, and has, therefore, sought everywhere to magnify the obstacles standing in the way of her own improvement and that of the world. To increase the number of her ships, she required colonies, and to obtain colonies she has involved herself in almost endless wars. To find employment for ships, she made herself the contractor for supplying negro slaves to the Spaniards; and to enable herself to obtain supplies of slaves, she stirred up wars in every part of Africa. As Portugal, Turkey, and Ireland became more and more impoverished and exhausted, she became more and more dependent upon India; and as India became more and more exhausted, it became more and more necessary to deplete China by help of opium and hence the opium war. As her earlier India possessions became more and more impoverished, troops were more

"The wynds in Glasgow comprise a fluctuating population of from 15,000 to 30,000 persons. This quarter consists of a labyrinth of lanes, out of which numberless entrances lead into small square courts, each with a dunghill reeking in the centre. Revolting as was the outward appearance of these places, I was little prepared for the filth and destitution within. In some of these lodging-rooms (visited at night) we found a whole lair of human beings littered along the floor, sometimes fifteen and twenty, some clothed and some naked; men, women, and children huddled promiscuously together. Their bed consisted of a layer of musty straw intermixed with rags. There was generally little or no furniture in these places the sole article of comfort was a fire. Thieving and prostitution constitute the main sources of the revenue of this population. No pains seem to be taken to purge this Augean pandemonium-this nucleus of crime, filth, and pestilence-existing in the centre of the second city in the empire." SYMONDS: Report on the Hand-loom Weavers.

+ The history of the colonies for many years is that of a series of loss, and of the destruction of capital; and if to the many millions of private capital which have been thus wasted, were added some hundred millions that have been raised by British taxes, and spent on account of the colonies, the total loss of wealth to the British public which the colonies have occasioned, would appear to be quite enormous. Parnell.

VOL. I.-30

readily obtained for carrying war into Scinde, Affghanistan, the Punjab, and Burmah. As Jamaica declined, the cooley trade was established. Trade and war thus travel always in company with each other—always exhausting the earlier fields of action, and always compelled to seek for new ones, with constant increase in the necessity for effecting changes of place, and constant decline in the condition of man; whereas, commerce tends always towards diminution of that necessity, with constantly accelerated improvement in his condition.

Centralization in both the material and social world is destructive of the power of motion. Annihilate the local attraction of the planets, and the splendor of the sun would for the moment be increased, but that splendor would be but the precursor of ruin, and of the total destruction of the individuality of the sun himself; and so precisely must it be in the affairs of nations. That centralization grows with the extension of empire, is a fact proved by all the chapters in the world's history; and therefore was it most justly said by one of England's greatest writers, that "extended empire, like extended gold, exchanges solid strength for feeble splendor"- centralization bringing in its train depopulation, slavery, and death; and producing a necessity for inventing a theory of over-population, whereby the rich and powerful may be enabled to comfort themselves with the belief that the poverty and wretchedness with which they find themselves surrounded, are to be traced to the blunder of an all-wise, all-merciful, and all. powerful Creator.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

§ 1. By help of association and combination with his fellows, man obtains power over nature-substituting steam, electricity, and other forces, for the human hand, and passing from the cultivation of the poor soils of the hills to that of the rich ones of the river bottoms; with constant increase in the facility of obtaining the food, clothing, and shelter required for his nourishment and support.

To enable them to associate and combine, there must be diversity in the modes of employment-developing the various faculties of individual men, fitting them for association, and producing that wealth of intellect by means of which they are enabled to direct those forces to their service. Commerce grows with the development of intellect and the growth of wealth. The more rapid its growth, the greater is the tendency towards having matter take upon itself the forms in which it is best fitted for the purposes of man the more regular and abundant is the supply of food and clothingthe longer is the duration of life, and the more continuous and regular is the motion of society; and the greater is the tendency towards diminution in the power of those who live by trade and transportation, and towards increase in the freedom of man.

Such are the facts observed in every country of advancing civilization.

Looking, next, to those of advancing barbarism, we find that all the facts are directly the reverse the power of association declining with the diminishing diversity of employments - men becoming more and more limited to the single pursuit of scratching the earth in quest of food the rich soils being more and more abandoned food becoming more scarce, and famines and pestilences more frequent-commerce declining-trade becoming

more and more the master of the fortunes of the poor cultivators – population diminishing—the chain of society becoming more and more deficient in its connecting links-and society itself tending more and more to take upon itself a form similar to that now seen existing among savage tribes, by whom the disease of overpopulation is most experienced.

§ 2. In the first of the cases above described, the tax of transportation steadily declines, with constant increase in the utility of the rude products of the earth, and as constant diminution in the value of commodities required for the uses of man. In the last, that tax as regularly increases, with constant decline in the utility. of the raw material, and increase in the value of food, clothing, and other necessaries of life.

In the first, land becomes more and more divided, with growing tendency to its cultivation by the man who owns it, and to the creation of local centres-facilitating the combination of men with their fellow-men, and increasing the demand for their various faculties. In the last, the land becomes more and more consolidated, with constantly increasing tendency to having the work of cultivation performed by hired laborers-towards the creation of a body of absentee proprietors and towards the disappearance of local centres, and the establishment of a single centre of action - thus lessening the facilities of association, and diminishing the demand for the exercise of mental power.

In the first, the prices, or money values, of the rude products of the earth, and those of finished commodities, tend steadily towards closer approximation with constant increase in the productiveness of labor, and in the laborer's proportion of the augmented product; and constant decrease in that remaining for the persons who stand between the men who produce and those who need to consume. In the last, those prices tend to recede from each other, with decline in the productive power, and diminution in the laborer's share of the diminished product.

In the first, the labor of the present is obtaining a constant increase of power over the accumulations of the past. In the last, the accumulations of the past are obtaining greater power over the labor of the present.

In the first, the forces of nature become centred in THE MAN,