§ 11. The economy of labor is in the ratio of the rapidity of circulation. The man who eats food consumes capital, but does not destroy it. It reappears in a higher form — that of mental and muscular power. That power being applied, the food reappears again, increased in quantity. Not being applied, the capital is wasted. That it may be economized, there must be association and combination; and that these may exist, the demands for services, physical and mental, must be diversified. From year to year it is being more economized in all the protected countries of the world, and therefore it is, that the power of consumption in all of them so rapidly increases. It is being more and more wasted, from year to year, in all the unprotected countries of the world, and therefore it is that their power of consumption so rapidly declines. In the United States, it was being economized from 1824 to 1834, and from 1842 to 1847—and in both those periods, as the reader has seen, the power of consumption rapidly increased. It was being wasted in the period from 1835 to 1842, and then consumption rapidly declined. At the present moment, the waste is probably as great as in any civilized country of the world, as the reader may satisfy himself by remarking how large a proportion of the population is engaged in the effort to obtain a living by means of trade, brokerage, gambling, speculation, law, and other pursuits requiring comparatively little effort of the physical or mental powers-and how large, too, is the number that would gladly sell their labor if they could. The waste power of a city like Philadelphia cannot be estimated at less than a million of dollars per week, while that of New York is probably twice that sum. Throughout the country, it may be assumed that the quantity of physical and mental power that is employed is not even one-third of what is produced — giving, if we take the present productive power as being equal to $3,500,000,000, an annual loss of $7,000,000,000, as a consequence of the absence of that diversity of employments which is required for giving rapidity to the circulation, and thus making demand for all the physical and mental force resulting from the consumption of food.*

Were all that force employed, the power of production would

The reader who may doubt the correctness of this view, may have his doubts removed by a visit to almost any rural district south of New England, He will see everywhere that time is little valued, because of absence of the power to sell it.

be trebled, and the comfort that might be obtained in return for the labor of a morning, would be greater than can now be had in exchange for that of a day.

§ 12. The power of accumulation is in the ratio of the rapid ity of circulation, and is a consequence of the economy of labor That the circulation may be rapid, there must be diversity of em ployments; and the more perfect the diversification, the greater is the development of individuality, and the greater the power of progress. That accumulation exhibits itself in the opening of mines, the building of mills and furnaces, the drainage of swamps, and the subjection of the most fertile soils to cultivation; and with each and every step in that direction agriculture becomes more and more a science, while man becomes from year to year more enlightened, more moral, and more free. The reverse of all this is seen in all the countries in which the circulation becomes less rapid; and therefore it is, that there is no accumulation in Ireland, India, Portugal, Turkey, or other unprotected countries, while capital accumulates so rapidly in Northern Germany, France, Denmark, and other protected ones. In the former, men are from year to year more compelled to depend upon the unassisted force of the human arm; whereas, in the latter, the powers of nature are being everywhere more subjected to the command of man.

Looking to the United States, we meet with facts corresponding precisely with that which in other countries is observed. In the period ending in 1816, there was a rapid accumulation, as was shown in the building of mills and furnaces; and labor was then in universal demand. In the years that followed, no mills were built, men were everywhere unemployed, and the power of accumulation appeared to have ceased. From 1824 to 1834, accumulation was rapid, as was shown by the fact, that mills and furnaces were built, that mines were opened, and that roads were everywhere being made. From 1836, the course was downward. Foreign debts, to the amount of hundreds of millions, were incurred in the closing years of that free-trade period, and poverty was almost universal throughout the country. Again the scene was changed, and the country that had been so poor in 1842, ranked, in 1847, among the richest of the world. In proof of the truth of this, it is needed only that the reader remark the fact, that while in the

previous free-trade period, the stocks and bonds of American companies and States were peddled through all the markets of Europe, not only were no debts contracted in the protective one, but much of the accumulated interest of previous years was then discharged. That the necessity for the contraction of debt, is to be received as an evidence of poverty in the first, is shown by the fact that the consumption of cloth and iron remained stationary during the period in which the loans were being made; and that the emancipation, in the second of these periods, from the necessity for contracting foreign debt, was a consequence of growing productive power, is proved by the fact, that the consumption of both cloth and iron was then increasing at a rate that had never before been known in any country of the world. In the decade that has just elapsed, consumption has not increased; and yet an enormous debt amounting, probably, to $200,000,000— has been added to that which before existed. It is when the circulation of society is most rapid that the consumption is greatest, and then it is that the power of accumulation most exists; and for the reason, that then it is, that the capital that is consumed in the form of food most tends to reappear in the form of commodities and things produced by human labor.

§ 13. The greater the mass of coal, iron, lead, and copper that is mined, and of machinery and clothing that is made, the larger will be the quantity to be offered in exchange for food and other raw materials the greater will be the tendency to the creation of a scientific agriculture, and to the cultivation of the richest soils the larger will be the product of agricultural labor -and the greater must be a tendency to a rise in the price of the commodities the farmer has to sell. In proof of this, we need only to look to the course of affairs in Russia, France, and Northern Germany, in all of which, as the reader has seen, the rise in the price of food has kept pace with the development of the mechanic arts and the improvements in the modes of cultivation. If further proof be needed, it may be obtained by looking to the unprotected, and therefore non-manufacturing, countries -- Ireland, India, and Turkey — all of them abounding in metals that might be mined, and in fuel that might be used-and marking the

gradual decay of agriculture, the steady abandonment of the land, and the decline in the price of the commodities produced.

In the first, the dependence of the farmer on the distant market steadily diminishes. In the last, it as steadily increases. In the first, man is becoming more and more the master of nature and of himself. In the last, he becomes more the slave of nature and of his fellow-man. Turning now to the United States, we find their first exhibition of independence in the closing years of the tariff of 1828, when the price of food remained for several years entirely unaffected by the extraordinary change in the English markets. * In the twenty years that since have passed, those of protection have been but four, and the result is seen in the fact, that the dependence on the distant market has steadily increased, with constant decline in the prices of flour, corn, and tobacco, until, in the period that immediately preceded the recent war, they had fallen to a point lower than had ever before been known. Low as were the prices, the quantity of food for which a foreign. market could be found was so insignificant that it would have been absorbed by an extra home consumption of less than a dollar per head. The labor- physical and mental that is here allowed to run to waste, could, if properly applied, produce commodities to be given in exchange for food, that would amount to more than a hundred dollars per head. Were but a very small portion of that labor economized, the additional consumption would amount to ten times more than all that goes abroad causing prices to rise to a level with those of England or of France. A bushel of corn is worth as much in Illinois, or Iowa, as in the neighborhood of Paris, or of London; and the sole reason why it sells for only a fourth or a fifth as much is, that the farmer is burdened with the cost of sending it to market. Bring the market to him by opening the great coal and ore deposits of Indiana and Illinois, Missouri and Michigan, and then not only will he be relieved of the necessity for looking to distant markets, but it will become impossible for him to supply them, because the price at home will be on a level with that abroad. The change thus effected would count to the farmers of the country to the extent of many hundreds of millions of dollars, and at no distant day it would be reckoned by thousands of millions. †

*See ante, p. 229.

† Ibid. p. 194.

Great as would be the effect thus produced, it would elsewhere be exceeded. Becoming rich themselves, the farmers would cease to be obliged to solicit favors in the Atlantic and European cities -praying wealthy capitalists, who have been enriched at their expense, to accept, and at a large discount, their bonds, bearing interest at the rate of 8 or 10 per cent.- and thus imposing upon themselves a heavy tax that must be paid for ever. * Freed from such taxation, they would construct five miles of road — and that, too, without the contraction of any debt-for every one they now can make.†

Capital is always abundant and cheap when circulation is rapid and labor is productive, as was the case in the closing years of the protective periods that terminated in 1834 and 1847. It is always scarce and dear when circulation is slow, and when the power of association declines, as was the case in the free-trade period that followed the close of the great European war—in that which ended in 1842—and in the present one, when men are everywhere engaged in the work of changing the places of their families and themselves, and not in that of production. In the one, the labors of the present are obtaining a constantly increasing control over the accumulations of the past; whereas, in the other, the power of the capitalist is an increasing one, while that of the farmer and the laborer as regularly diminishes.

§ 14. Clearly as is this the case with regard to the farmer and his products, its truth becomes much more obvious when we study the movements of the plantation. Forty years since, the planter sent to market 80,000,000 pounds of cotton, for which he received at the ports of shipment $20,000,000. Twelve years later, he gave thrice that quantity for the same amount of money; and at the close of another period but little longer, he sent nine times as much, in exchange for little more than double the quantity of gold and silver. His power to command the services of the precious metals steadily declines, as he more and more ex

*The average cost of the roads of the United States is probably not less than double what it would be but for the inability of the land-owners to make them for themselves, and without the help of loans.

Almost the sole condition upon which railroads can now be made, is the grant by the Federal government of as much land as pays for making them: and yet the people who require to use them are taxed just as heavily as they would have been had the capital been furnished by individuals.