The savage inhabitant of a forest, for example, is enabled, by his own labours, if in average health, strength, and intellect, to provide himself with such food, and clothing, and habitation, as the forest can afford him. But man, civilized man, living in a state of society wherein every acre, plant, and animal, is appropriated, is, of himself, the most helpless of created mortals. A smith cannot feed upon iron, nor use it for clothes and habitation. The savage may kill a beast, eat its flesh, and clothe himself with its skin; but the civilized smith can do neither. He can earn his livelihood by exchanging, and only by exchanging, his labour for portions of the labour of others; and whenever he has no subsistence in store, unless he can do this, he must beg, borrow, steal, or starve.

The importance of the productive classes has been often illustrated by an appeal to the inutility, in certain situations, of money. A chest of gold, had he possessed one, would, no doubt, have been gladly exchanged by Robinson Crusoe for a chest of carpenter's tools; and a million of bank notes, had he possessed them, would have been as gladly given for a few acres of well-stocked and cultivated land. The aptness of this observation is not, however, confined to money; it

is equally applicable to any one thing that exists, for upon no one thing can man subsist. He cannot live by bread alone; he must have other food, as also clothes and lodging; and as, in a state of society, the difficulty, to any one man, of producing, by his own labour, whatever he requires, is immeasurably increased, the necessity of being able to exchange one thing for a variety of other things, becomes the more urgent. To be able to exchange is to him as important, as it was to Robinson Crusoe to be able to produce.

Rejecting, then, the particular instances arising from bad conduct, imprudence, or casual misfortune,-Have mankind, generally speaking, the power of exchanging their labour for portions of the labour of other men, without delay, without difficulty, and at a fair price? In a word, can the whole productions of Great Britain and Ireland be sold to-morrow, at fair prices, for money? Can he who possesses one thing,-an extensive stock of household furniture, for example,-convert that thing into portions of every thing, or of whatever he requires to have in exchange for it, without the certainty of incurring an immense loss by the exchange? It were almost idle to answer the question, by saying that this is an obvious impossibility, in the

present state of society.

A man, it is well known, who has a tolerable extensive stock of such goods, must generally keep them many months on hand, and exert great care and industry before he can dispose of them at a fair price,—that is, for more than the cost of producing them, by so much as may be considered a fair profit upon the capital employed, and a proper remuneration for the unproductive labour exerted in his business.

This, then, I say to that man: The present system of exchange is founded in the very depths of ignorance and folly, and I will shew you how produce, in quantities without any known or conceivable limit, may be disposed of on the terms already defined, at all times, in a single hour, and without the chance of the time ever arriving when there can, by any possibility, be a market overstocked, or demand be overtaken by production.] And moreover, so plain, so simple, and so practicable, is the method by which this may be accomplished, that the time must come when mankind will look back upon the present state of society with very much the same feeling that we experience when we look back the belief of our ancestors in witchcraft. We are astonished that so much folly and so

upon

much wisdom could have existed at the same period, and in the same minds.

The chief object that I have here in view, then, is to shew how production may be rendered the uniform and never-failing cause of demand. But to explain this doctrine fully, and to shew the manner of its operation, necessarily involves the consideration of a commercial system.

Some persons there are, indeed, who, on viewing the title-page of a book, purporting to give a system for society, will ask, What nonsense is this? Why any system at all, other than that "which has grown up with mankind from a state of barbarism, and which, with reform, free trade, and small taxes, are, all that are necessary for our prosperity?" The answer, and I have here quoted the words in which this question has been already asked me, is, that reform, free trade, and small taxes, are not all that are necessary to our prosperity; because that system which has grown up with mankind from a state of barbarism, contains an error, so important, so extensive, and so overwhelming in its power and consequences, that, unless it be removed, it is totally impossible to confer substantial benefit upon mankind; and that error is, a defective system of exchange. But its removal can only be

effected by a considerable change in the commercial arrangements of society; and hence the necessity of a system, different in some respects from that on which we are now acting.

But, again, it may be said, Why not state simply what the particular improvement is that wish to introduce, and leave every you man to judge of it, and to apply it for, himself, instead of putting him to the trouble of following you through details, many of which he already understands? The answer to this is, that such a course would be perfectly unintelligible, and this will be easily shewn by doing the very thing proposed. Here, then, is one of the principal features of the plan I wish to introduce :

The want of money-a story in every body's mouth—is a great evil; and I propose to remedy it by causing the production and destruction of goods and money to proceed together. But how, it is immediately asked, do you propose to do this, and what will be the good of doing it? Read the book, is the

reply.

Few persons, at all accustomed to contemplate the vast changes which have sometimes taken place in society, in consequence of simple and apparently insignificant disco