I FEAR that I shall but imperfectly respond to the partiality which invites me here this evening, for I have, perhaps unwisely, selected for the theme of my remarks an old and hacknied subject, and one which may be thought to be but remotely connected with literary studies and pursuits, and not altogether appropriate to the interesting and joyful anniversary you are met to celebrate. My subject is SOCIAL REFORM.

But the bare enunciation of my subject tells you little, in advance, of what you are to expect from my discourse. Social Reform may be treated from several distinct points of view. We may, for instance, assert its necessity, show that a reform is possible, point out wherein it is necessary and practicable, and suggest, and attempt to defend, some particular plan or scheme of reform; or, we may deny the possibility of effecting any social reform, contend that none, in fact, is needed, and, therefore, that none should be attempted; or, we may simply take up and endeavor to show the impracticability or insufficiency of this or

that particular scheme of reform, which we find others proposing and contending for. From which of these several points of view, or whether from them all, I propose to treat the subject will unfold itself as 1 proceed.

I have selected this subject, because I choose to address you as men with active duties, as men already engaged or about to be engaged, in active life, rather than as mere scholars; for I am unable to address scholars in their own language, or to treat purely literary subjects to the gratification of purely literary tastes. I have selected it, also, because it is a subject that forces itself or is forced-upon our attention, and we cannot escape its consideration, if we would. The cry for social reform rings upon our ears from every quarter, and whole armies of real or pretended reformers swarm over the land. They meet us in highways and byways; they come into our houses, into our sleeping chambers, and our kneading troughs. There is no escaping them, and they give us no rest by day or by night.

Then, again, the question of Social Reform forces itself upon our attention. No man, who reflects seriously on Society as it is, throughout the whole of Christendom, and who feels that his own lot is bound up with that of his countrymen or with that of his race, can be contented to see things remaining as they are. Nowhere does Society come up to our conceptions of what it should be. Over the whole Actual there hovers the bright Ideal of something better, and happier, inviting us by new and stronger efforts to realize a higher social state. Nor is this all. Great and

manifold evils do obtain; not merely, and not chiefly, among ourselves, but throughout Christendom. For the last three hundred years, there has been, under several points of view, a constant deterioration of the condition of the great mass, and elements have been introduced into our civilization, and are now operative, which have a direct and necessary tendency to reduce us still lower than we have as yet fallen. Confining ourselves, in what we have now to advance, to the social and industrial aspects of the question, we may assume, that such is the constitution of our modern society, such are the principles of its industrial arrangements, that the tendency is to reduce the great mass of the people to a state of extreme poverty, if not absolute destitution. The natural tendency and thus far it has been an unchecked tendency is to reduce the price of labor to the mere minimum of human subsistence, if not to a lower point still.

The principal cause of this tendency is in another tendency, -the constantly operating tendency to separate labor and capital; to place the capital exclusively in the hands of one class of the industrial community, and the labor in the other; thus making of labor a commodity to be bought and sold, and subjecting its price to be regulated, like that of all other commodities, by the supply and the demand in the market. There is also by means of the wonderful improvements in labor-saving machinery, which are an augmentation of capital in the hands of the capitalist, and a contrivance to enable capital to dispense with labor, a capacity of production beyond, I say not the wants, but in the actual state of society, the ability

of the community to consume. There is probably not one of what we call the more advanced nations of Christendom, that is, of the nations the more remarkable for their industrial skill and enterprize, that could not, if it would drive its whole productive force to the utmost, produce more in any one year than could be sold to the actual consumer in any five years. In consequence of this there is a two-fold competition continually operating, the tendency of which is the continued reduction of the price of labor. The markets of the world are not large enough for our productions. Hence a continual competition between producers to command as large a portion of the markets as possible. The producer can secure the market only by underselling his brother producer, which he can continue to do only by cheapening the cost of production; and this he must do, either by the direct reduction of the wages of the laborer, or by the introduction of better or more machinery, which also by diminishing the demand for labor operates necessarily a reduction of its price. Hence, competition between producers tends necessarily to the reduction of the price of labor.

On the other hand, from the same causes there is a continual competition among laborers. There is, viewing the question generally, a constant surplusage of labor. There are more laborers than labor to be done. Each laborer wishes to monopolize as large a portion of this labor as possible, which he can do only by underbidding his brother operative, and consenting to work cheaper. Consequently, the competition among laborers themselves tends constantly to the

diminution of the price of labor; and the two competitions, that of producers and that of operatives, tend to the same end, and may be regarded as one and the same tendency.

This tendency has been constantly operating with more or less force ever since the breaking up of the old Feudal system, and has acquired an immense increase of strength within the last sixty years. It is stronger at this moment than at any former period, and there is operating in modern society, so far as I am able to discover, no counteracting tendency. Nothing resists it, and it must, therefore, of a necessity, ere long divide the whole community into a small class of capitalists, corresponding to the old feudal lords, and into a large class of operatives, who by their labor can obtain only the minimum of human subsistence, if indeed so much as that.

In point of fact, this result has already been obtained, or very nearly obtained, in many countries. In England, which stands at the head of modern industrial nations, and which has pushed the modern system furthest, the great mass of the people have been reduced to a state of frightful destitution. In the summer of 1842, one million of her operatives struck work, stood silent, moody, because there was no work for them to do. One out of every seven of her popu

lation is a pauper. Of Ireland, poor, oppressed,

crushed Ireland, on which the Norman and Saxon conqueror has set his iron heel for these seven hundred years, it is not necessary to speak. In France matters are becoming nearly as bad; in Belgium no better; the same may be said of some of the German