disease in the body politic. Even the Irish immigrant here soon loses his careless, lazy, and turbulent disposition, and becomes as sober, prudent, industrious, and frugal as his neighbors. Nearly all the enormous fortunes that have been gathered in this country are the growth of a single lifetime, and therefore, even if they were more evenly distributed than they now are at the death of their founders, there would not be a smaller number of them in the succeeding generation. Consequently, they are regarded as the prizes of industry, economy, and enterprise; and the sight of them stimulates and sustains exertion, instead of chilling and repressing it, which is the effect produced by the fixedness, in certain families, of vast hereditary estates.

The aspect of society in England in this respect I will not say is the direct contrary of what it is here; for, with regard to a very large and influential class, it is just the same. The middle class

what on the Continent would be called the bourgeoisie, the merchants, the manufacturers, the small tradesmen, the master. mechanics are about as busy as we are here, in the pursuit of wealth; and their numbers and influence in the state gave occasion to Napoleon's sarcasm, that the English were a nation of shopkeepers. But the parallel between their condition and that of the free towns in the Middle Ages may be carried much farther; outside of the city-walls there are the nobles and the serfs. The effect of the activity of the commercial class upon the eye of the philosophical observer is qualified by the comparative repose the stagnation, one can almost say of the laboring poor and of the nobility and landed gentry. These two classes, the top and the bottom of English society, are true castes, for nothing short of a miracle can elevate or depress one who is born a member of either. The true movement, the life, of the community in Great Britain is among those who are engaged in commerce and manufactures here are alternations of fortune, not so frequent, perhaps,

as in this country, but as sudden and as great. An Arkwright begins life as a barber, and ends it as a millionnaire; a Peel gives his days and his nights to cotton-spinning, and his son becomes prime-minister of England. But outside of this class there is stagnation and death. One half of the whole population is composed of laborers who subsist entirely upon wages, who cannot make savings if they would, for their whole earnings barely

suffice to keep soul and body together. Hopeless of rising, encouraged by no examples, among those who were born his equals, of elevation to a higher grade, the laborer has no ambition, no thought even, of changing his position in life. His condition is best described in the strong language of McCulloch, when he speaks of "the irretrievable helotism of the working classes of England." And the upper classes, the nobility and the gentry, occupy a sphere which is equally immovable. With estates locked up by entails and marriage settlements, so that they cannot squander them, with an inherited scale of expenditure proportionate to their rank and fortune, so that they cannot make savings from income, and with a measure of political influence and social consideration secured to them by the long-established habits and opinions of their countrymen, they form a caste almost as fixed as that of the Brahmins in India.

Great inequality in the distribution of wealth may operate either as a check or a spur to industry and frugality; it is not, then, in itself, to be deprecated. On the contrary, a perfectly uniform partition of the goods of this world, if it were possible, which it is not, would create universal torpor. Take away the fear of poverty and the hope of rising in the world, and no one would exert himself but for his own amusement. Add the power of a despot, to make such exertion compulsory, and we should have exactly that state of things which existed in Egypt and India, when the institution of castes as yet was unimpaired. If the whole population formed but one caste, from which they could neither sink nor rise by any fault or merit of their own, they would be no more inclined to labor than if they were divided into several castes. It is the fixedness, and not the inequality, of fortunes which is to be dreaded it is the retention of them in the same families throughout many generations, which chills exertion and unnerves the right arm of toil. Wherever there is motion, there is life. Property cannot be rendered immovable, except by the effect of human institutions which are designed to counteract the laws of nature. In this instance, surely, if in no other, the political economist has a right to cry, Laissez faire ! -- let alone! and do not attempt to amend the ways of Providence! We do try to amend them when we attempt to enforce, or to render permanent, either equality or inequality. Laws of primogeniture and entail, the object of which is to insure

to certain families the possession of their wealth forever, are not a whit more unnatural and unjust in their operation, than would be the schemes of the philanthropic reformers, as they call themselves, who would fain reconstruct society on the basis of making the distribution of all property equal and unchangeable.

"The laws and conditions of the production of wealth," as Mr. Mill remarks, "partake of the character of physical truths. There is nothing optional or arbitrary in them. Whatever mankind produce must be produced in the modes and under the conditions imposed by the constitution of external things, and by the inherent properties of their own bodily and mental structure. Whether they like it or not, their production will be limited by the amount of their previous accumulation; and, that being given, it will be proportional to their energy, their skill, the perfection of their machinery, and their judicious use of the advantages of combined labor. Whether they like it or not, the unproductive expenditure of individuals will, to an equal extent, tend to impoverish the community, and only their productive expenditure will enrich it. The opinions or the wishes which may exist on these different matters do not control the things themselves."

Among such ultimate laws is the tendency to an unequal distribution of the wealth that is created by human labor. A law of natural justice, which is recognized by savages quite as much as by civilized nations, assigns the ownership of a useful article to him by whose skill and industry that article was created. The game that is caught, the implement of the chase that is manufactured, belongs, by the consent of all, to him by whom it is caught, or made. Nor is any alteration produced in this law because the successful person has so much strength, skill, and enterprise, that he can catch or manufacture two or three times as much as any other member of the tribe. The property is still recognized as his, for this simple reason, if for no other, that he would not put forth his force and ingenuity if others should deprive him of their fruits. Again, if he chooses to hold these articles in reserve, instead of immediately consuming them; if he prefers a wigwam well stocked with implements of war and the chase, and a store of food for future use, to present indolence or the immediate gratification of his appetites, still his rights of ownership are respected. His prudence and economy, as much as his strength and skill, are allowed to re

dound immediately to his own advantage. There is even a stronger reason for respecting his property in this case than in the former one; for the whole community profit by his savings: they operate to some extent as an insurance to them all against famine.

There

is now a stock of food or implements in the tribe, which, though not common property, may still operate for the benefit of all at some future day, when the chase happens to be unproductive, because the owner will sell them to others for their services, or for honors which it may be in their power to bestow.

In this simple instance, we can easily see how injurious it would be to the common welfare if the rights of property were not respected, and how surely such respect tends to an unequal distribution of the fruits of industry and frugality. As men are differently endowed by nature with faculties of mind and body, with indolence or energy, with improvidence or thrift, so their situations in life must differ. And it is the true policy of society to encourage the more valuable qualities; not to dishearten frugality by depriving it of its savings, nor to foster idleness by feeding it with the fruits obtained by the persevering toil of others. In civilized society, the same principles hold. The case becomes a little more complicated, because, by the transmutations of capital that have already been explained, the property of an individual is constantly assuming various shapes. But so long as it continues productive property, so long, in one form or another, must it further and assist the operations of labor; and so far must it benefit others as well as the owner. The general law, that industry is limited by capital, is borne out by the obvious consideration, that without implements, machinery, raw material, and a previously accumulated stock of food and clothing, the workman cannot bestow his labor to advantage, cannot, in fact, work at all.

Even if it were granted that all the wealth of a nation could be distributed equally among all the people, and that the stock of it, by obliging all to labor alike, would forever remain equal to all their wants, and no more improbable supposition could be framed, — it is certain that this would be no real improvement of their condition. "Those who have never known freedom from anxiety as to the means of subsistence," says J. S. Mill, are apt to overrate what is gained for positive enjoyment by the mere absence of that uncertainty. The necessaries of life, when they have

66

always been secure for the whole of life, are scarcely more a subject of consciousness, or a source of happiness, than the elements. There is little attractive in a monotonous routine, without vicissitudes, but without excitement, a life spent in the enforced observance of an external rule, and performance of a prescribed task; in which labor would be devoid of its chief sweetener, the thought that every effort tells perceptibly on the laborer's own interests or on those of some one with whom he identifies himself; in which no one could by his own exertions improve his condition, or that of the objects of his private affection; in which no one's way of life, occupations, or movements would depend on choice, but each would be the slave of all."

People are not aware, or do not sufficiently consider, that the sight of the two extremes of opulence and poverty — the hope of rising to the one or the fear of falling into the other is the constant stimulus which keeps up that energy and activity of the human race, through which alone these goods are created. Make men secure of a provision for all their wants, take away from them all objects of ambition, destroy both anxiety and emulation,— and these are the certain results of an enforced equality of property and condition, — and, after a few years, even'if there remained anything to be divided among them (which there would not be, for their wastefulness under such circumstances would equal their indolence), they would become useless and discontented drones, devoured by ennui, or eager for wrangling and fighting with each other, as the only means of relieving their otherwise stagnant

existence.

CHAPTER VII.

STRIFE BETWEEN LABORERS AND CAPITALISTS: STRIKES AND TRADEUNIONS: MEANS OF IMPROVING THE CONDITION OF THE LABORING CLASSES.

THE rate of wages in any country is determined by the competition of the laborers with the capitalists. Which shall have the advantage in the competition will depend on the relative numbers of the two parties, and will be in an inverse ratio to these numbers.