of different employments, it would be necessary to extend the work very far beyond the limits of the present intention. The principle is equally applicable to every trade; and it may be affirmed, with a degree of confidence amounting to certainty, that it is totally impossible, by any means that the ingenuity of man can contrive, ever to govern this, or any country, in such a manner as to ensure the general prosperity of its people, until the existing plan of exchange be uprooted from society, and another substituted for it, by which production would be rendered the constant cause of demand,— demand keeping pace with it, though production should be multiplied a thousand or a million fold.

This being effected-and it may easily and very quickly be effected—I will confess my total inability to comprehend how, in the present very advanced state of productive science, there could be any such thing as unmerited poverty, or any thing the least resembling it, in any civilized nation upon the earth.

The evil of society is not of a comparative, but of a positive nature. A defective system of exchange is not one amongst many other evils of nearly equal importance: it is the evil the disease-the stumbling block of the whole society. Commerce is a species of

machinery, requiring a multitude of parts consistent with each other to make it work well, and a single error now throws the whole into confusion. An immense machine having a single faulty wheel, one tooth too few or one too many, entirely frustrates the object of the whole,—and so it is with commerce : this one error deranges the working of the whole system; and though it may be difficult or impossible for a humble and unknown individual to arouse mankind to a due sense of its importance, time will do it, and future ages will look back with astonishment upon the miserable ignorance of the present generation upon this all-important subject.

The most that can be immediately expected, perhaps, is to bring this subject into public discussion, and if I should be so fortunate as to effect this humble object, I shall be more than repaid by the satisfaction of feeling assured that I have cast my mite into that ever accumulating fund of knowledge by which man must ultimately be emancipated from the miserable thraldom to which he is at present consigned.

Little importance is attached to the details of the plan here promulgated; indeed scarcely any are given. They may be modified and altered, perhaps, in a variety of ways; but it

would have been difficult to combat the great error without shewing, in theory at least, the effect of a different system of exchange. Dismiss what you please-alter what you please-modify what you please—but preserve, not in the shape of a quibble or a quirk, but in a direct and obvious manner, the one principle, and the rest will follow, substantially at least, make production the cause of demand: do not do this, and be you whig or tory, radical or reformer, aristocrat, republican, or political economist, if you expect to see any considerable change for the better, in the condition of society, you are an Utopian, a visionary, an enthusiast, a man stone blind to the principal cause of human trouble and distress. There is a wall of adamant between you and the object you would embrace, and you can neither climb over it nor get round it. others, may easily remove it, provided you are first made to see that it is there, and that your case is entirely hopeless until it is away: but the fleetest horse can win no race so long as he is shut up in the stable, and neither can your visions of prosperity ever be realized, until you knock off the chain of commercial error by which you are now bound to adversity.

You, assisted by

CHAPTER VI.

Distribution-Observation upon the nature of the theory here advocated - Importance of considering the national debt in fixing the rate of wages-The proper average of wages defined — Wages — Salaries-National charges-National capital-Education — InIncapacity Depreciation of stock

surances

Unproductive

labour - Change of employment - Taxes-National balance sheet -Business for Mr Hume-Conclusion of the Chapter.

THE observation will, I think, be allowed to be just, that the theory of free trade, domestic as well as foreign, which is here advocated, is, upon the face of it, better entitled to an impartial examination than many others, for the reason that it stands altogether aloof from those violent feelings of the mind, which so often lead us headlong into the wildest suppositions.

There are certain terms in our political vocabulary, the mention of which has too frequently sent the multitude in quest of a Will-o'-the-wisp. The national debt, taxes,

liberty, freedom, rights of the people, and sundry other expressions, are in themselves volumes of argument in favour of any theory, the professed object of which is to support the popular side in all that relates to these matters; and too often has this short-hand of oratory been used in the stead of well founded and consistent argument. The taxgatherer, it is said, comes home to us; not, indeed, to give, but to take away. We had a guinea-we have it not-the tax-gatherer has taken it from us; and our organs of acquisitiveness like not the man, or his trade, at least, is odious to us. All schemes, therefore, for getting rid of taxes have an advocate before-hand in the feelings of every man, which sufficiently accounts, not only for the general, but most erroneous, opinion, that the taxes are the great evil of the country, but also for the frequency of disappointments resulting from the faith that is put in every scheme having the reduction of taxes for its object. A theory, on the other hand, which appeals solely to the reason and judgment, has no such friend at court; and yet it is evident, that the man who does not object to bank notes, gold, or silver, as instruments of exchange, but who merely says that the same tools may be used in a better way, is more