existence, and that but to a very limited number. The materials of which the earth is the repository require skill and labour to adapt them to man's use; and the productive elements embodied in the soil require skill and labour to develop them, and to secure products out of them adapted to man's daily wants.

And the constitution of things under which he is placed is adapted to stimulate man to provide not merely for his present, but for his prospective wants.There are, for example, but certain seasons of the year at which the crops which constitute a large proportion of his food can be grown. If he does not till the land in its season, and sow and reap those crops in their season, he wants them for the year. Man, as he regards and provides for only his immediate wants, is an animal and a savage; man, in proportion as he contemplates and provides for his prospective wants, evinces and calls into exercise his rational nature; he rises above the animal condition, and secures the instruments of civilization.

And the labours of the savage, as they tend only to the supply of immediate wants, so do they bear only on the supply of individual wants, or of those of them for whom the instincts of nature prompt him to provide. But regard to prospective wants tends to develop the social elements of man's being. To make effective provision for these, men must act more or less in con

cert. They first combine their labour; and as they attain greater skill in the processes, and better tools wherewith to perform them, they divide their labour. And the more that skill and variety of tools are called into requisition in any branch of labour, the more of training becomes necessary to fit for its expert and efficient performance. Hence the origin of different trades-the settled division of labour.

The fruits of labour adapted to prospective wants constitute capital. Capital is the product of skill and labour, saved and secured for future use. Not only can there be no capital without labour, but none without saving. All our houses, furniture, land-improvements, roads, railways, ships, factories, are the fruit of savings made by our predecessors or ourselves. Had our forefathers consumed as fast as they produced-had they saved nothing of the products of their skill and labour, we should have been in much the same state as the natives of Kamschatka, or New Holland. Capital, therefore, is the instrument of civilization.

So long as the only productive instrument is man's hands, or an appropriate tool which he uses with his hands, the difference between one man's productive capacity and that of another, is just as is the difference between their skill, strength, and power of application. But, in the progress of society, the possession of capital indefinitely increases this power. A man

who is able to produce more than another, or who saves more of the fruits of his labour, can procure better tools-he can purchase other animal power to do the heavier portions of his work; and, as invention proceeds, he can obtain machines, which will do great part of what he has hitherto done with tools, much more expeditiously, and in larger quantity.

One man who has produced and saved more than his neighbours, or, which comes to the same thing in effect, who has inherited what others have produced and saved, comes to possess more productive power than he himself can direct and apply; he is a capitalist. The man who has neither inherited nor saved, has no productive instrument but his hands. As to power of production, he, in consequence, stands at a great disadvantage compared with the man possessing capital. He, therefore, hires his labour to the capitalist; as, in this way, he can earn more than in working on his own account, with the very inferior instruments he might be able to obtain. This is the origin of working for wages; and when the number of capitalists in a community is large compared with the number of noncapitalists, hired labour is well paid—as capital has ever a tendency to seek productive occupation; and men, generally, who possess capital, will hire others to perform the heavier kinds of labour, rather than perform these themselves.

So far, all would be smooth and equitable; and the more of the members of a community who were industrious and economical-the more that it possessed of the saved fruits of industry (supposing always that there is scope for remunerative labour)-the better wages would there be for those who had yet to begin to save-whose position led them not to be employers, but employed.

So far, we say, there is a clear and equitable relation between the capitalist and the labourer. But in modern society, especially as it exists in this country, this relation has become increasingly open to three great sources of derangement-the first source being found in the state of property in land; the second in the extensive use of machinery; and the third in the system of credit.

When one expends labour in the reclamation and culture of a certain portion of previously unappropriated land, by giving it a value which it had not before, he acquires a certain right to its possession ; and, subject to an equitable charge to the State, to be adjusted periodically, as the country advances in population and wealth, it is the interest of the whole community to sustain his title as valid. He owns the land which he cultivates, subject to a rent-charge for the maintenance of the civil government of the country. But the case is entirely different when property in

land is held territorially-immense tracts being owned by parties who do not cultivate it, and whose ancestors acquired it, not by cultivation, but by gift from irresponsible kings, or by means still more questionable; and who hold it, not under a rent-charge to the State, subject to adjustment, according to its increasing value -but subject merely to a trifling tax, whose amount was fixed more than a century and a-half ago. This is the first derangement in the relations of capital and labour. The territorial proprietor of land has become (or might have become, if he has not) an immense capitalist, without any labour, invention, skill, or care on his part-simply in consequence of the advance of the country in population, industry, commerce, and wealth. With respect to territorial estates recently purchased, the case is different as respects the owners; though, as falling in with the general system, the effects are the same as regards the community. Fresh capital has been invested in this sort of ownership of land-the former owners, generally, having dissipated theirs.

The second element of disturbance in the relations of capital and labour is, the extensive introduction of machinery as a substitute for manual work. Mr. Mayhew, in his "London Labour, and the London Poor," calculates the manual workers of England and Wales at 4,000,000, and the steam-power as equivalent