slower the motion of society, the larger being the proportion borne by their incomes to that of the community at large. The new debt made a great addition to the amount required to be seized on its passage from the producer to the consumer thus augmenting the proportion borne by floating to fixed capital, to the disadvantage of both land and labor.

The war of 1793 now following, the close of the century witnessed another duplication of the amount requiring to be so seized the interest on the debt having been swelled from £10,000,000 to £20,000,000. Now it was, that the effect of want of circulation of labor and its products became obvious in the vast increase of pauperism, the scarcity of food, the consolidation of the land, and the invention of the monstrous, unchristian, and unphilosophical doctrine of over-population. Corn, potatoes, and turnips increasing only arithmetically, while man, according to Mr. Malthus, increased geometrically, it seemed to him that wars, pestilences, and famines, must have been provided by the Creator for the correction of that first want of man's nature which prompts to association with his kind, and leads to the contraction of that obligation which, above all others, tends to the development of the best feelings of the heart-involving, as it does, a necessity for providing for the support of wife and children.

Messrs. Malthus and Ricardo next united in the effort to establish the fact, that the supply of food must always be in the inverse ratio of population - being abundant when numbers are small, and scarce when numbers are great. A scattered people could, as they told their readers, cultivate the richest soils - the swamps and river bottoms; but a numerous one must resort to the poorer ones-those, therefore, of the hills. The power of making "savings," and thus accumulating capital, must steadily diminish-producing a necessity for having thousands to "die of want." The "constantly increasing sterility of the soils" being the difficulty with which man has everywhere to contend, he must, of necessity, become, from year to year, more and more the slave of nature, and of his fellow-man. Following out this view, it came next to be asserted that the capital and labor employed in carrying commodities,

"and dividing them into minute portions so as to fit them for the wants of the consumer, were really as productive as if employed in agriculture and manufactures"-perhaps, indeed, even more so, "lands of the best quality being soon exhausted," while of the steam-engines and ships "the last would be as efficient in producing commodities and saving labor as the first."* We have here the glorification of trade, the obstacle standing in the way of commerce; and this now becoming the received doctrine of the English school, we need feel no surprise at seeing that every step thereafter made, tended in the same direction, that of increasing the trading power, and further arresting the circulation.

From that time to the present, British history is a constant record of efforts at increasing the proportion borne by floating to fixed capital-being precisely the phenomenon of declining civilization. The more ships needed- the larger the quantity of merchandise kept passing on the road-the longer the time elapsing between production and consumption—and the slower, consequently, the circulation between the man who raises the food and him who requires to eat it the greater, as it is held, must be the prosperity of all. As a necessary result, the land becomes more and more consolidated the little proprietor disappearing and the hired laborer taking his place - the trader and the annuitant becoming more and more masters of the people—and a state of war becoming more the habitual condition of the community. The necessity for arresting the property produced, on its passage to him by whom it should be consumed, and thus providing for the support of fleets and armies, becomes, therefore, more urgent, from year to year. †

* MCCULLOCH, Principles, p. 166.

†The manner in which the circulation of land is being arrested, as land itself is monopolized, is well exhibited in the following passage from a leading English journal:

"The entangled interests in land which have grown up under the present system of settlements and entails, the enormous extent of the encumbrances by which land is affected, and the total absence of knowledge how to manage an estate on the part of most of the proprietors, have rendered the ownership of land in England little more than nominal. In a similar, though more extreme and aggravated, case in Ireland, the decisive remedy of the Encumbered Estates' Commission was found necessary, and is likely to prove most effectual; and there can be no doubt that something of the same kind, in substance, if not in form, will be soon found to be necessary in England, for the purpose of disentangling land from the trammels and fetters which at

Increase in the ratio of fixed capital is attended with growing power of association, increased development of individuality, and rapidly augmenting steadiness in the movement of the societary machine the base of which widens, as the apex rises in the air. Increase in the ratio of floating capital produces the reverse effects- the power of association declining, and the base of society becoming less, with declining steadiness of movement, and diminishing power of accumulation. Frequent monetary revolutions producing uncertainty in the demand for labor and labor's products, the rich are thus made richer, while those who have physical or mental force to sell are deprived of bread. At no time past, have individual fortunes been so great as at the present moment. Never have the workmen of England more entirely failed, than in their recent efforts to obtain an increase of wages proportioned to the augmented cost of various necessaries of life. Inequality grows daily the separation between the highest and lowest portions of society becoming more complete, as land becomes more and more consolidated, and more and more burthened with mortgages, entails, and settlements. The policy of the country being based upon the cheapening of raw materials, and those materials being always low in price in barbarous countries, the reader will readily see that every step in that direction leads towards barbarism. It is, therefore, but natural, that the country which pursues that policy, should be the one to give birth to the unchristian and unphilosophical doctrines of the Ricardo-Malthusian school.

§ 9. The road to civilization lies in the direction of the approximation of the prices of raw materials and finished products -that being always accompanied by a rise in the prices of labor and land—an increase in the proportion borne by fixed to floating capital-and an increase in the rapidity of circulation. Such being the case, a policy based upon cheapening the raw materials of manufactures-food, wool, and labor *-should tend towards barbarism and slavery: that it does so, the reader will be satisfied in an examination of the following diagram:

present limit its productive powers within such comparatively narrow bounds." -Economist, 1852, p. 645.

* See ante, vol. i. p. 239.

Passing from left to right, we find a steady rise in the prices of land and labor-a diminished necessity for the services of the trader a diminished proportion of the products of labor assigned him in return for his services - an extension of cultivation over the richer soils—an incessant activity of circulation and an increase in the power of man the free proprietor taking the place that first was occupied by the wretched being who was slave to both nature and his fellow-man. This is the forward motion of the being made in the image of his Creator, and endowed with the distinctive faculties of MAN.

Passing now from right to left, we obtain the reverse of this land declining in value-the trader taking an increased. proportion the land becoming consolidated-circulation declining and man becoming more and more enslaved — the free population gradually disappearing, as fixed property declines in the proportion borne by it, to that floating capital with which the trader works. This is the backward motion of the human animal treated of by the Ricardo-Malthusian schools; the one that must be fed that will procreate—and that needs the whip of the tax-gatherer, to stimulate him to the proper exercise of the faculties with which he has been endowed.*

The first represents the course of all communities, ancient and modern, as the circulation has become more rapid, and as they have increased in civilization, wealth, and real power. The last, that of all which have declined that in which land has become consolidated-in which circulation has become more sluggishand in which man has become enslaved.

"To the desire of rising in the world, implanted in the breast of every individual, an increase of taxation superadds the fear of being cast down to a lower station, of being deprived of conveniences and gratifications which habit has rendered all but indispensable; and the combined influence of the two principles produces results that could not be produced by the unassisted agency of either."-MCCULLOCH.

Looking round us at the present time, we find in the countries whose policy is in harmony with that of Colbert, and which, therefore, follow in the lead of France, all the phenomena first above described- land becoming divided- fixed property increasing in its proportion—the circulation becoming more rapid -and man becoming more free. Turning thence towards Ireland, India, Jamaica, Portugal, and Turkey - the countries following in the direction indicated by the economists of England, we find the reverse phenomena-the land there losing value -fixed property there declining in its proportion- circulation becoming more sluggish- and man becoming from day to day less free. In the first, man grows in individuality, and the communities grow in strength and power. In the last, the human mind is becoming dwarfed, and the communities become weaker, and more helpless, with each succeeding year.

Seeing all these facts, we are led, and that, too, irresistibly, to the conclusion that the advance of communities towards wealth, strength, and power, and that of their members in morals, intellect, and happiness, is in the inverse ratio of the proportion borne by the land they occupy, to the people by whom it is occupied- the tendency towards civilization being in the direct ratio of the power of association and combination. Such was the conclusion at which thoughtful men had been generally led to arrive, a century since. Until then, growth in wealth and strength had been regarded as being inseparably connected with increase of numbers-all Europe. then uniting with Adam Smith in the belief that "the most decisive mark of the prosperity of any country" was to be found "in the increase of the number of its inhabitants."'* Dr. Smith, therefore, believed in the advantage to a country resulting from "the liberal reward of labor"- while throughout his work, denouncing the system based upon the idea of cheapening the raw products of the earth, and thus enslaving the man to whose labor they were due.

Holding agriculture in high esteem, and regarding it, as it is, in the light of the most ennobling of human pursuits, he in no manner sympathised with those of his contemporaries who sought to build up trade, by means of measures involving a sacrifice of

*Wealth of Nations, book 1, chap. viii.