USE AND ABUSE; OR, RIGHT AND WRONG, IN THE RELATIONS TO LABOUR, OF CAPITAL, MACHINERY, AND LAND. BY WILLIAM M'COMBIE, AUTHOR OF HOURS OF THOUGHT," LONDON: WARD AND CO., 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. 1852. 232. c.16. INTRODUCTION. THE Distribution of the elements of wealth presented by Nature to man, and of the constituents of wealth secured from Nature by man, forms the great social problem of the times. Not only does this problem underlie all the various schemes of communism and organization of labour; but, discerned or not, is at the bottom of all jealousies between employers and employed-of all strikes and combinations, and, though more indirectly, not less truly, of all questions of rent, protection, and the incidence of taxation. There is the great storehouse of materials-the earth; and the great productive agent-the soil; and whatever man's skill and labour have educed, and his economy secured for his use, out of these. Of objects directly adapted to man's wants, Nature presents but a scanty supply. And this is more espe cially the case in countries like that which we inhabit, where the spontaneous productions of the earth would do no more than sustain the lowest form of animal |