and selling them at high ones; and from the moment that those profits ceased to be made, she would cease to have the power to feed or clothe her people, without a total change of system.

Such a change would look to elevating the workman, instead. of depressing him to developing his faculties, instead of crushing them to making of him A MAN, instead of a mere machine* to the extension of commerce by means of the development of the scientific and artistic powers of the people-and not to the augmentation of the power of trade by means of contrivances for driving the poor Hindoo from his loom, and for preventing the various nations of the world from availing themselves of the great gifts of God, in the form of coal and ores, of steam and other powers. Such a change, however, would require much time-the tendency of the system for so long a period having been towards the brutification of the laborer, and towards reducing him to a condition near akin to slavery.†

§ 13. What, however, would be the effect upon France, of a change of policy such as above is indicated, on the part of Ireland, Turkey, Portugal, Brazil, India, the United States, and other countries? Would she be placed in a similar position? She would not, because her policy is thoroughly to elaborate and perfect her own rude products, and those of other lands received in exchange. With her, as a general rule, the value of the raw material bears but a small proportion to that of the finished com

"The whole map of human life, as it is seen in England at the present day, presents violent extremes of condition - huge mountains of wealth and luxury, contrasted with awful depths of poverty and wretchedness; but in respect of mental ability, we find immense flats of uniformity - dead levels of respectable talent, with scarcely any such thing as originality, freshness, or high creative genius in any department of literature, art, science, or even trade."-JOHNSON: England as it Is, vol. i. p. 217.

Is it not notorious that no English manufacturer ever made one single useful discovery in arts or science? We have heard a good deal of the school of Manchester. What has it ever produced that was scientific or useful? Has it any name in chemistry to boast of? Can it point to a Fourcroy? Can they quote any Manchester manufacturer who has written upon any scientific subject connected with his trade? Why, sir, it is well known that they know no more of the chemical agents required for their own printworks than the blocks they use. They had been obliged to confess that nothing but the actual cheapness of their wares obtained them a market — that there was not a person in Europe who would not prefer the more artistic taste, and the more beautiful fabrics, of the French, or indeed even of the Chinese manufacturer."-Ibid. vol. i. p. 293; quoted from DRUMMOND: Debate, House of Commons, February 19, 1850.

modity; and while she sends to the world the finest silks and cloths, wines and porcelain, her rival exports cotton-twist, blankets, coal, pig and bar iron, beer, and earthenware. The one aspires to lead the world, while the other seeks to underwork it In the one, artistic taste is being from day to day more fully stimulated into activity; whereas, in the other, the tendency towards making of man a mere machine increases from year to year. The one looks to the cheapening of labor and land; whereas, the policy of the other tends towards raising the price of both.

Those who desired to supersede the one would require only the lowest description of manufacturing skill-to be acquired in the briefest period; whereas, those who sought to supplant the other would need a skill to be acquired only at the cost of very many years of application; and a taste for the development of which would be required a ready access to works of art; and, whatever might be their progress, France would still continue in advance.

In proof that such would be the case, we need only take the tables of exports doing which, we find that the purchasers of French merchandise are chiefly found in those countries that are already largely manufacturing, and that are, themselves, anxious to compete with France, to wit:—

Adding to these the colony of Algeria, 103,000,000, we have 905,000,000 exported in 1852-leaving 345,000,000 for the rest of the world; and nearly all that balance is so divided as to show that France is everywhere ministering to the tastes of the more refined portions of the various communities of the world. So far, therefore, is she from fearing competition, that she has reason to desire it knowing that with every increase in the power elsewhere to make cotton and woollen cloths, and iron, there will be an increased demand upon her workshops for commodities requiring that high development of the artistic faculty, which she alone can furnish.

Turning to England, we find that her exports to the advancing portions of Europe, that is to say

To Europe, exclusive of Turkey, Italy, and Portugal — amount

to only...........

While the raw material that has undergone the single process of twisting, and that goes only to manufacturing countries, amounts, alone, to.......

£19,000,000

£10,000,000

Adding to this the unmanufactured metals, and the coal, sent to those countries, we shall obtain almost all the balance-England having, in fact, but little to send to any country that is itself advancing in civilization.*

To this country, the exports in the same year, 1852, were more than £16,000,000; but of this nearly the whole amount consisted in coarse cottons and woollens, iron, and other articles requiring little skill or taste; while from France were imported nearly all of those in the preparation of which artistic skill was manifested. Deducting the two quantities above referred to, there now remain no less than £38,000,000, or more than half of the whole, for India, Australia, and other colonies and Portugal, Turkey, Buenos Ayres, Mexico, and other countries-in which there exist no manufactures; and in which, consequently, are found the evidences of barbarism — raw materials being cheap, while finished commodities are dear.

The system of France is based upon the idea of the enlargement of commerce-resulting from the compression of raw commodities into their smallest form; and from the emancipation of the farmer from the tax of transportation. Commerce grows with the growth of the powers of man; and therefore would France profit by the adoption in other countries of the system that has so well been carried out at home.

The system of England is based on the idea of the supremacy of trade, and the augmentation of the tax of transportation. Trade grows with the growth of man's necessities; and therefore would England suffer under any system leading in other countries to development of the faculties, and increase in the powers, of man.

"The exhibitors of Manchester, who had sent to the Exhibition a mass of their productions amounting, at the lowest price, to £7000 sterling, were unable to sell in Paris more than the half of it. The remainder they were obliged to bale up again, and carry it back to England; and yet, the import duties had been reduced, for the occasion, to ten per cent., and that upon a declaration of the value made by the importer."-Journal des Economistes, May, 1856, p. 302

§ 14. But, it will be asked, how could these various communities accomplish the work suggested? All of them are poor, and so, it will be said, they are likely to remain. So must they do, while they shall continue the work of destroying capital, as they now are doing; but so they will not do, whenever they shall begin to establish that circulation of service which constitutes society, and economizes labor. Ireland feeds daily more than seven millions of people — all of them consumers of capital, while but few of them are producers of any thing to represent the things consumed. More than three-fourths of the mental and physical power of that country goes to waste; but that waste would cease so soon as A and B were enabled to exchange services with C and D; and they, each and all, were enabled to exchange with others. Estimating the loss as being equivalent to the labor of only two millions of men and women, and the value of the things they might produce at only half a dollar per day, we obtain a daily amount of a million of dollars; and an annual one of $300,000,000. The effect of this labor in utilizing the coal, the ore, and the thousand other things, now useless, by which those idle millions of people are surrounded, would be, to add half as much, yearly, to the value of the land in cultivation and here we have an annual amount far exceeding the total value of all the machinery for mining coal and smelting iron ore, and for spinning and weaving cotton, wool, flax, and silk, now in use in Great Britain. Turning to India, we see a hundred millions of people, nine-tenths of whose powers are wasted for want of commerce. Give them that, and capital will at once exist to an amount far greater than that of the machinery of Great Britain and France combined. Looking next to Carolina, Alabama, and Louisiana, we see millions of people in a situation precisely similar; and yet, they must all be fed, clothed, lodged, and kept in order for daily work. The daily loss, there, is greater than the annual amount of skill and labor given by England to the conversion of the cotton and the wool, the iron, the copper, and the tin, they can afford to purchase. Let employments be diversified, and that loss will then cease; and then capital will be found to exist in vast abundance. So is it everywhere. Mexico and Peru, Turkey and Portugal, would have an abundant supply of capital were they so to modify their

policy, as to produce in society that circulation which is required for securing that each and every man be enabled to sell his own powers, and to become a competitor for the purchase of those of others. All force results from motion, and it is only because there is no motion in the society of Ireland, India, and Carolina, that those communities continue poor.

In all countries, capital accumulates in the precise ratio of the economy of human power. That it may be economized, there must be differences in society, resulting from the development of the various faculties of men. The commercial policy of France tends in that direction, and therefore does she grow rich; while, for want of that policy, Turkey and Portugal, Ireland and India, decline from day to day—and this they do for the plain and simple reason, that in each and every of them there is an enforced waste of capital amounting, weekly, to more than the annual value of the manufactures they now consume. Let them be emancipated from the dominion of trade. - let them have commerce at home they will soon have ten times as much to sell, and will be enabled to buy ten times more than they now do becoming larger customers to the producers of cotton and sugar on the one hand, and to the makers of silks and ribbons on the other; and adding, too, to the market of these latter by increasing the demand for the products of the former. The harmony of international interests is perfect, and it is the greatest of errors to suppose that one nation can permanently thrive at the cost of others.

and

§ 15. The French system looking specially to the enlargement of the agricultural base, its effects are seen in a steady diminution in the proportion of the product of labor going to the support of the other classes of society, and a consequent diminution in the proportion borne by these latter to the mass of which society is composed. Commerce is there gradually, and certainly, correcting the evils resulting from the political centralization under which France so long has suffered.

The English system, on the contrary, looks to a contraction of the base of society; and Britain now presents to view a great community resting entirely upon the shoulders of probably less than half a million of men, women, and children, constantly at war with their employers the former being anxious to bring