famines except through the desolations of war. More than the population of any American State died of hunger in India under the reign of Victoria, and in times of profound peace.

NOTE. A government report on Indian famines, made in 1885, says: At the root of much of the poverty of the people of India, and of the risks to which they are exposed in seasons of scarcity, lies the unfortunate circumstance that agriculture forms almost the sole support of the mass of the population; and no remedy for present evils can be complete which does not include the introduction of a diversity of occupation, through which the surplus of population may be drawn from agricultural pursuits and led to find means of subsistence in manufacturing or some such employment."

17. The history of man as a farmer is one of progress in the conquest of nature through the growth of association, which the increase of numbers and of intelligence permits. He passes from worse land and methods to better.

From

a decreasing acreage he obtains an increasing crop. But his progress requires the co-operation of other industries than his own, and the neighborhood of the artisan to give him a steady home market.

CHAPTER IV.

Labor, Capital and Machinery.

The

This the

I. A POOR man, who was out of work, once asked a wealthy merchant for assistance or employment. Stephen Girard did not believe in giving money to those who would not work, but he told the man to go into his yard and carry a big pile of stones from one side of it to the other. man did it, and came back to report that he was done. "Now carry them back again," said Mr. Girard. man refused to do, and Mr. Girard dismissed him. Was the man right or wrong? He was right, because what Mr. Girard offered him was not the labor he wanted, and it was beneath his dignity as a man. Labor is human effort directed to some useful purpose by human intelligence. A horse may toil, and a machine may work, but only a man can labor. To ask of a man toil which has no regard for use or service is to insult him. The "dignity of labor " lies

in usefulness.

2. All labor requires the co-operation of capital if it is to produce anything. Capital is the result of past labor employed to carry on present labor. Every man is a capitalist, in this sense. All the knowledge and experience he possesses, all the tools he owns, all the special expertness he acquires in doing any sort of work, and even all the vigor he derives from the food he has eaten, are forms of capital. Even to dig clams on the seashore requires capital. You must have (1) the knowledge that a clam is hidden under that little airhole in the sand; (2) a clam-shell at the least to lay him bare; (3) the alertness of eye and hand

needed to keep him from escaping; and (4) the strength from food which is needed to keep you up to the work. So of berry-picking in the woods, or any other simple employment: they all require capital, the results of past labor, to carry on present labor with success.

3. Equally true is it that capital requires the help of labor to produce anything. The wealthy man may live indeed on what he has accumulated until it is exhausted; but if he wishes to keep up his stock or add to it, he must do this either by his own labor or that of others. There is no increase without labor. Even the forces of nature and the toil of animals cannot be employed without it.

The laborer and the capitalist therefore are partners in every undertaking. All they produce is a joint-product, from which labor draws wages and capital draws profit.

The rude tools, the

4. In the first stage of the history of labor, each worker owned all the capital he made use of. There were no two classes called laborers and capitalists. imperfect intelligence and the poor skill of the barbarian workman were his own, and no better were to be had. was his own master, and he did not produce much, because he had so many things to do that he never learned to do any of them very well.

He

5. In the next stage we find masters and workmen as separate classes, yet working side by side. The masters are very many, and none of them has much capital. Each has a workshop, and employs his journeymen and his apprentices at hard labor mostly, and works beside them himself. Every journeyman expects to become a master, as every apprentice knows he will be a journeyman as soon as he is old enough. The laws will not allow any one to practice any trade, or open and own a workshop, unless he has begun at the beginning, and has worked his way up. Each trade has its guild, in which both masters and work

of his crop in order to purchase the real or supposed necessaries of his existence. The "age of homespun" is departed, or lingers only in out-of-the-way corners of the country.

15. It is of great importance to the farmer, therefore, to have those who supply him with what he must buy, at work in his own neighborhood. If his farm is near by a large and busy population, which is not producing food, he has a steady market for a large variety of farm, garden, orchard and dairy produce. He can vary his crops from year to year, so as to avoid the rapid exhaustion of his land. He can keep many cows and horses, to the enrichment of his manure-heap, and can supplement it with all kinds of town refuse. He can distribute the risks of farming by growing a great variety, so that the weather which hurts one may suit another. While he who farms at a distance from his market can hardly help injuring the quality of his land, he who farms in the neighborhood of his market has constant and plentiful opportunity to improve it.

16. A whole community in which there is no employment but farming is in constant risk of famine. It sounds odd that people are in danger of starvation when they give all their energies to producing food; but experience proves this true. All the foreign countries which have had great famines in recent times, have been merely agricultural countries. Ireland, India, China, Persia, Asia Minor, Russia, northern Sweden are instances. At home we have had local famines in parts of Virginia and of West Virginia, and in Nebraska, for the very same reason. When a community "puts all its eggs into one basket," if the basket fall they are ruined. In India if the rains fail to come in the rainy season, it means death to myriads, perhaps to millions. When India was a manufacturing country, the greatest manufacturing country in the world indeed, she had no

famines except through the desolations of war. More than the population of any American State died of hunger in India under the reign of Victoria, and in times of profound peace.

NOTE. — A government report on Indian famines, made in 1885, says: At the root of much of the poverty of the people of India, and of the risks to which they are exposed in seasons of scarcity, lies the unfortunate circumstance that agriculture forms almost the sole support of the mass of the population; and no remedy for present evils can be complete which does not include the introduction of a diversity of occupation, through which the surplus of population may be drawn from agricultural pursuits and led to find means of subsistence in manufacturing or some such employment."

17. The history of man as a farmer is one of progress in the conquest of nature through the growth of association, which the increase of numbers and of intelligence permits. He passes from worse land and methods to better.

From

a decreasing acreage he obtains an increasing crop. But his progress requires the co-operation of other industries. than his own, and the neighborhood of the artisan to give him a steady home market.