necessarily in proportion to the number of appetites to be satisfied; and the other articles which are absolute necessaries of life must follow the same measure. Even the demand for luxuries will be determined in the same way, if the tastes and the abilities of the people remain the same.

Secondly, it is equally plain that the extent of the demand for finished products will be affected by the degree of civilization which the people have attained, and that, other things being equal, it will advance with the progress of refinement among them. The wants of the natives of the South Pacific Isles, when they were first visited by Europeans, were almost entirely supplied by the bread-fruit and cocoa-nut trees, and by yams and bananas. The bread-fruit tree alone supplied them with food, clothing, and the material for huts. When they learned from foreigners the existence of other comforts and luxuries, their wants rapidly multiplied; the knowledge of the uses of iron alone opened a wide field for the industry that it created. Intercourse with China has created a demand all over the world for tea; the discovery of America added tobacco, the potato, and many other articles, to the list of our wants. It would be difficult to estimate the number of trades that have been created, and the number of persons who have found employment, through the diffusion of a taste for the fine arts.

Thirdly, as an effectual demand is created only by the coexistence of the disposition and the ability to purchase, its extent will depend upon the equality of the distribution of property. The two circumstances already mentioned affect only the magnitude and prevalence of human desires; and in the present state of civilization in Europe and America, it may be said that these desires are unbounded; the gratification of some desires appears to have no effect but that of exciting others. But the ability to satisfy these desires exists in very different degrees. If this ability were equally diffused, no such thing as over-production would be possible; the consumption of an individual, or a family, possessing a very moderate amount of wealth, certainly exceeds the productive power of such a person or family. On the other hand, the consumption of much the larger part of the population of Europe is limited to mere necessaries, or to what the custom of the country regards as

necessaries. If the demands of all were thus restricted, there would be a great surplus of productive power; in the present state of invention, and with the present accumulation of capital, mankind might be idle probably more than half of the time. It is the luxury of the rich which offers the only vent for all finished products that exceed the definition of necessaries. This fact does not furnish any apology for such luxury; for a more equitable division of the goods of this world would cause the surplus of productive power — all that is not needed for the creation of necessaries-to be expended in providing a multitude of what may be called comforts and decencies for the bulk of the nation. But when property is very unequally distributed, the luxury of a few must make up for the forced abstinence of many, or there will be a constantly increasing surplus of capital, which will manifest itself either by the forced emigration of such capital, or by such a diminution of the rate of profit as will take away all temptation to make additional savings.

This doctrine seems plain enough, though it is vehemently opposed by all English Economists of the Adam Smith and Ricardo school, who insist upon the paradox, that, not consumption, but production, creates a vent or market for products, and that the only means of dissipating an apparent glut is to stimulate production. Their chief reason for insisting upon this theory is the admitted fact, that no one ever finds any difficulty in bartering a finished product for some other finished product, provided he will allow the purchaser to fix the terms of the exchange. Certainly, exchange is always possible; the only question is, whether it is always profitable. And this question seems to be answered by another admitted fact, that as a country becomes wealthy, and capital accumulates, producers find that the only exchanges which they are able to make become less and less profitable, or, in other words, that profits decline, and are only prevented from ceasing altogether by a stop being put to the process of accumulation.

All will allow, that the productive power of every civilized nation already exceeds what is requisite for providing all the people with a stock of mere necessaries. Any excess beyond this point-whether such excess be created by the invention of new machinery, or by the accumulation of fresh capital —

must be directed towards the production of comforts and luxuries. It is a mere evasion, as we have seen, to say that it may be directed to the purchase or construction of more productive agents. Such additional agents will only increase the amount, perhaps already too great, of comforts and luxuries in the form of finished products. But when they have reached this form of finished products, they must either be consumed, or they will lie idle and rot; no other use can be made of them. They are no longer agents for anything but the gratification of taste and desire. Consumption, or rotting unused, is their only possible destination. Now, I have admitted that, if property — or purchasing power, which is the same thing—is pretty equally distributed among the people, the aggregate desire will take off and consume the aggregate product of comforts and luxuries, without causing any great declension of profits. On an average, each family would be inclined to consume all the products which, under a perfectly equal distribution of property, it would be able to produce; and this would be enough to prevent profits from falling at all; the only effect of the invention of new machinery and improved processes of manufacture would be to increase the stock of luxuries which each family might thus consume, or to give them more leisure time, which is in itself an additional luxury. Some would consume more, and some less, than this; but the prodigality of the former would be balanced by the frugality of the latter, and the only effect would be the inequality of property that would thus be gradually induced.

But suppose property to be very unequally distributed, only one hundred families now having all the wealth, and the whole remaining population being limited to the bare necessaries of life. As we suppose the productive power of the community to be unaltered by this change in the distribution of property, there will be the same amount of comforts and luxuries to be consumed as before, and it is evident that they must be consumed solely by the one hundred wealthy families. Now, suppose one of these families to be disposed to make savings, and thus to increase its productive power: it may be proved that both the act of saving and the employment of the savings will tend to create a glut and to lower profits. The act of saving will leave the luxuries formerly distributed among one

hundred, to be consumed by only ninety-nine families; and this diminution of the demand will depress prices and profits. And the employment of the savings as capital, though it will give wages to an additional number of poor families sufficient to procure necessaries for them, and will furnish these necessaries through their labor, will leave also an additional margin of profit, which must be devoted, as before, to the creation of luxuries; and thus a larger supply of luxuries will be forced upon the market in which the ninety-nine wealthy families are the only purchasers. A second depreciation of prices must be the consequence.

The intention of Providence seems to be, that the time and labor economized, through the use of machinery and improved modes of production, in the production of necessaries, should be devoted to the creation of luxuries for very general use,- for most of the working families, as well as for a few persons of wealth; or, supposing that there are already luxuries enough for all, that the time, the immunity from the necessity of labor, so obtained, should be distributed among the people with some approach to equality, nearly all having a portion of leisure each week, to devote either to recreation or mental improvement. When the distribution, not of wealth indeed, but of the opportunities for obtaining wealth, is equalized, or made to approach equality, there will be no possibility of creating too many labor-saving machines, producing too much, reducing the rates of profit too low, being oppressed with a surplus of population, or glutting the market of the world. Those whose ambition is limited and whose wants are few, will not enter into the strife as rival producers, but will devote the surplus of time and wealth which they have earned to the gratification of their tastes and to a quiet enjoyment of life.

I have already noticed the fact, that Ireland, where the inequality in the distribution of property is extreme, is, in proportion to her population and wealth, one of the poorest markets for manufactured produce in the world; while in the United States, as there is a near approach to equality in everything, there is the largest demand for such produce. From their inability to purchase the cheaper products of the English manufactories, the peasantry of Connaught, of some parts of Munster, the county of Donegal, and the western counties of

Leinster, "usually make their own clothing, consisting of linen, knitted stockings, a coarse but very serviceable flannel for women's clothes, and a good frieze for men. The fleece of his own sheep, spun and woven in his own house, at seasons which would otherwise have been unemployed, enabled the cottier and peasant farmer to provide comfortable clothing for his family, which it was hardly possible for him to obtain in any other way." In the United States, on the other hand, notwithstanding our home manufactures are already very considerable, the importation of cotton and woollen goods alone, in 1853 and 1854, after deducting the reëxportation, exceeded in value an annual average of 58 millions of dollars, or nearly three dollars a head for the total white population. These large imports consist for the most part of commodities which may be accounted as comforts and luxuries; the cheaper articles, which come under the head of necessaries, are now almost exclusively of home production.

In the business of production, capital-which may be called embodied labor, because it consists of the reserved fruits of previous industry—must bear a certain proportion to free or immediate labor, which is the direct application of human strength and skill. Embodied and free labor have each a task to perform; neither can be effectually applied without the aid of a due portion of the other. The industry of man is of little avail, if it be not assisted by tools, implements, and machines, the accumulated results of his previous toil or earnings. Even the savage cannot hunt without his weapons, nor fish without appropriate implements; and in order to rise in the scale of civilization, he must have industry and foresight enough to get together an accumulated stock of necessaries, so that he may be able to execute prolonged tasks, and to wait till they are completed before he can enjoy their fruits. On the other hand, at the opposite extreme of the social scale, when the arts are carried to perfection, and machinery exists in its most costly and complicated forms, wherewith to abridge human labor, there is still a necessity for some free labor to superintend and aid its operation. There may be an excess, as well as a defi

*The Condition and Prospects of Ireland, and the Evils arising from the Present Distribution of Landed Property, by Jonathan Pim, (Dublin, 1848,) p. 111.