as, from the steam engine in mines and manufactories,—it is quite impossible for the central legislature to be omniscient or prescient. Laws against unimagined offences cannot exist: hence evil of a new type grows up gradually, and becomes known to the legislature only after it is matured and deadly; after a new generation has been reared in new habits and inured to it; after buildings have been erected and vast capital sunk, on the expectation that it is not to be interfered with: and then,--the power of vested interests is exerted to support it. Among the causes of this, is the great unwillingness of Parliament to pass laws in broad and simple terms; which is the only way of approximating to that state of things in which Law shall become identical with Morality, and lose its arbitrary elements. But an over-worked Parliament, agitated by party-conflicts, has not the judicial temperament and tranquil leisure needed for such law.

The cry of Pauperism so loudly sounded from East London, is sadly reverberated from Liverpool and from Edinburgh; nay, everywhere the increase of violent crime, poor-rates, jail-rates, and other burdens from the traffic in intoxicating drinks, is bitterly bewailed. But upon these comes a new alarm, and something worse than an alarm, from the Cotton districts. It had been fondly hoped, during the American civil war, that, so soon as it terminated, the crops of cotton and the whole trade would resume their previous course. So firm was this conviction, so great the infatuation of individuals, that all through the war an extensive building went on of new mills furnished with the newest improvements in machinery. Now, on the contrary, it is far more plausible to forebode that the cotton trade of England will never regain its pre-eminent position. Were these dangers unforeseen? On the contrary they were both foreseen and pointed out, alike by individuals and by Chambers of Commerce; and were pressed upon the attention of Governments always overoccupied, always unwilling to undertake any business which they could possibly defer; moreover prepossessed, both enough and too much, with a jealousy, in itself wise, against doing what it belongs to the trader to do. The traders who urged their suit were not unacquainted with political economy and the doctrine of Laissezfaire; but they pleaded that it had its limits,--that there were things which no private persons could do; that obstacles created by Government, only Government could remove; and that when a trade overspread a great area, involving the fortunes of an entire population, its failure would be a public calamity, to say nothing

of the prospects to the Exchequer. The Manchester Chamber of
Commerce did what it could by sending agents of its own to
India, in hope of promoting the growth and exportation of Indian
cotton to England; but the impediments from want of road or
watercarriage, with the peculiarities of Indian taxation which dis-
inclined English capitalists to risk at once their fortunes against
incalculable elements and their lives against the climate,-besides
the fixed habits of the natives,-made progress very slow. The
enormous danger of depending on slave culture was well under-
stood. It was foreseen that rebellion might suddenly cut off our
whole supply of cotton from America, and that freedom would
probably take the women (that is, half the labourers) off the
fields. Two things were not foreseen, which now threaten
the trade or are actually pressing it down. The one is, that the
Southern States of America are no longer satisfied with depend-
ing on the North for food, and are turning their cotton fields to
a new purpose. The other; that the English people, by the
temporary scarcity of cotton, are become less and less dependent
upon it. That this is, on the whole, to be regretted, it may be
impossible to say. Our ancestors found wool to be excellently
suited to our wet and chilly climate only in a few sunny months
did linen and muslin appear suited for outward show. The Welsh
have continued to prefer woollen garments, and except for partial
internal wear, cotton has no intrinsic advantages to us. It be-
longs to a vulgar and unwise taste to prefer under our sky two
flimsy cotton gowns to one of wool or mixed stuff; and there is
much to indicate that the great start given to our woollen manu-
factures during the cotton famine will not be lost again. In fact,
that famine continues. The insane panic which seized the Indian
cotton merchants when the Confederate armies in the United
States were crushed, inflicted a ruin which still paralyses the
trade in India. The price of raw cotton is 50 per cent. greater
than it was in 1861, and cotton gcods in our market sell only at
15 per cent higher. The customer, apparently, goes without the
article, if a higher price is demanded. A wide-spread strike from
the Trades Unions has long been threatened, because masters who
are working their mills at an actual loss, desire to lower the
wages. All these things necessarily make the immediate future
of our most important manufacturing district very gloomy.

Now, what is this to our present purpose? We are not blaming any one statesman, nor any one ministry; but the more one exculpates individuals, the more the old inference comes back

upon us, that the system is to blame. If our principles force ministers to carry economic "Laissez-faire" into political neglect and blindness, this is a formidable evil, very apt to make a constitutional state less wise than a despotic monarchy, and thereby to raise hankerings after despotism. If we are asked, "What is our remedy? Are we preaching despair? Is this a mere jeremiad What is the use of finding fault, if we propose nothing?" we reply: We do not preach despair, and we do not believe that evils are without a remedy, if intelligent men were in earnest to seek for it. But physic is proverbially nasty; every change pinches somebody; all reform which goes beyond small routine startles the timid and invites attack from the pugnacious. Proposals from us will not be listened to with deference. They may contain a germ exceedingly precious, yet may need partial correction of a friendly kind, such as we cannot expect, until the parties whose rivalry distracts the nation feel a deeper patriotic alarm at possible common calamity. At present it may be wiser only to invite our readers to study the disease, and consider whether we have overstated it. The remedies for Pauperism, Proletarianism, Vice, and Crime, cannot be single nor superficial. They will demand much sacrifice of prejudice and of selfishness, much devotion of time and tranquil thought.

IN

CONDITIONS OF PERMANENT PEACE.

From "Fraser's Magazine," October 1871. (Shortened.)

N our schooldays we read much of the cruel wars between Border States of Greece or Italy; wars such as rose anew in mediæval Italy; though ancient Etruscans, Phoenicians, and African Punic States generally obviated them by the simple remedy of Federation more or less intimate. When kindred States which might have coalesced in early barbarism have passed beyond that stage, the personal ambition of chieftains is apt to resist any just and healthful fusion, even if the multitude have no jealousy, nor bitter memory of mutual injuries. A citizen who advised union might be charged with treason by the powerful. Niebuhr, indeed, calls Isocrates a blockhead for desiring union with Philip, which in retrospect now seems the happiest of the lots open to Athens and Greece. So now, if a Dutchman desire incorporation of Holland with Germany, or a Belgian plead for absorption of his country by France, plenty of critics would sneer down his longings as unpatriotic and absurd. Nevertheless, these yearnings for Union are incipient cement of neighbour and congenial peoples, and out of them a real Federation may be born at length.

European communities have long suffered from one another the horrible curse of war, which is more painfully felt in proportion to our humanity, our refinement, and the artificial means of livelihood. Recent wars undoubtedly are shorter. The gain from this is vast; for, the destruction of crops and cattle, of stores, of houses and of trees with the discouragement to cultivation, from long wars, is worse than the loss of life in battles. But while we must not shut our eyes to the gain which has really been made, still the evil of war to Europe is alike enormous and disgraceful.

Yet there is nothing gained by mere talking against it, without pointing out the causes, and the direction in which a preventive is to be sought. To declaim against war in the

commonplace way which confounds both combatants in common guilt, is not merely useless, but is also unjust and mischievous. In private life also (no one denies it) fights between individuals are greatly to be deprecated. But if it be ever so true that it would be higher virtue in an invaded nation to act on Quaker principle, it remains clearly unjustifiable to equalize in our censure the aggressor and the repeller; or indeed to use censure at all against those whose cause is just, who yet have the calamity of suffering under aggression. Where the injustice of one side is clear, the Quaker mode of talking against war is manifestly wrong; indeed the most thoughtful men among them avoid it. Nothing gives plausibility to it but the complications of war itself; the frequency of error, injustice, or folly on both sides, the sufferings of neutrals, and of populations which had no voice in the war; to say nothing of suffering to the whole female sex, to children, and to thousands of horses, who die in long agony or starvation. An invaded nation has to submit to all this contingent misery. If in necessary self-defence it carry the war over to the enemy's soil, it then unwillingly inflicts the misery; but THE GUILT RESTS ON THE AGGRESSOR.

The causes of war are as plain as the causes of quarrel in private life. Cupidity, pride, injustice, fear, in turn excite men to aggression. It is a familiar thought, that men will fight out their private quarrels-or, as it is expressed, will take the law into their own hands-unless the law-court is open to them, and a police be at hand for their defence against sudden attack. In so far as pride without cupidity may stimulate to war, it might seem that a mere resort to arbitration would suffice to keep the peace. The late Mr Cobden, who must always be mentioned with respect, was entirely convinced that European wars could be stopped by a general agreement to abide by arbitration. His urgency won so much upon our statesmen, that, on the close of the Russian war by the peace of Paris in 1856, Lord Clarendon in the name of England initiated some important clauses, of which one avowed that the powers who signed the treaty would never thenceforward undertake war without first attempting to stay and supersede it by arbitration. England, France, Russia, Sardinia, Turkey, all signed this treaty; yet in a very few years the solemn promise proved itself to be mere wind. In 1859 two of these powers, France and Sardinia, entered upon war with Austria without first asking arbitration : and a moment's consideration will explain why. The arbitrators.