work without encountering any great degree of toil. Add to this more especially, that the accumulation of wealth is not the object, does not become the tone of society, until an advanced stage of its progress. Every man is satisfied if he can continue pretty much as he is, and rear his children after the same fashion in which he

was himself brought up. But when the work of production falls into the hands of great capitalists - when quickness of return, and not the rate of profit, becomes the great objectwhen, above all, the accumulation of wealth becomes the great object of desire, then must every occupation be so distributed that not a moment may be lost by a single workman from early dawn to dark night; nothing then but the most strenuous and most continu

ous exertion will satisfy the requirements of the employer; the workman who will not contribute this must be cast aside altogether. He will, indeed, be remunerated for his labour, amply, abundantly, in money. Every stimulus to exertion will be held out to him, and, while his frame lasts, he will get wages such as workman never got before; he will have more to expend on stimulants to revive his exhausted nature, than his forefathers expended on the necessaries of life; but it is on the condition we have stated, a condition which the energy and determination of our AngloSaxon race makes them ready enough to fulfil--that of incessant exertion. In this way, as it appears to us, the accumulation of large capitals and the abolition of smaller capitalists, has in some degree occasioned that peculiar phase of society which now presents itselfthat a workman can earn nothing unless he works intensely hard, but that by doing so he will earn very much more than ever he did before.

That the change which has thus taken place from the employment of small capitals to large ones, is favourable to the increase of national wealth in all branches of trade, commerce, and manufacture, we believe, cannot admit of question. Whether the change has been equally favourable to agriculture we strongly doubt. There are few improvements which can be adopted on a large farm, that would not be proportionally beneficial on a small one; and if the small farmer be conyerted into a proprietor or yeoman, or

if he obtain an interest in his land nearly equivalent to such a tenure, we conceive that the agriculture of the country is much more likely to be ad. vanced than under any system of large farming. The devotion to his pursuit which such an interest in the land has always developed among civilised nations does more than compensate for any advantages which the large farmer may enjoy in the cultivation of his land. If any of our readers happen never to have considered this subject in this light, we would refer them to the numerous examples adduced by Mr. Mill in his treatise on Political Economy-examples drawn from Flanders, Norway, Switzerland, Germany, Lombardy, France, Guernsey, and other countries- examples of unequalled prosperity under a system of peasant proprietorship, attested by every traveller who has visited the cans alluded to.

We, however, feel bound to say, that a people may be so backward in civilisation, that it would be perilous to venture on this experiment. We greatly fear that our own countrymen are not yet prepared for the reception of such a measure; we by no means see that the lands are the best cultivated where the farmers have the best interests in them there must be a certain amount of knowledge and industry first subsisting among the people, before they can be trusted with the lands in fee; but when possessed of these qualities, we know of no way in which they can be more fully called into action, than by the system of peasant-proprietorship, that system which produced "the eminently manly and true-hearted race," the yeomanry of England.

And while we are on the subject of small proprietorships, it is impossible to avoid noticing a most forcible illustration of its advantages, which was submitted to the Statistical Society of London, in a paper read in the April of last year by Mr. John Barton. The subject of the paper was the influence of the subdivision of the soil on the moral and physical well-being of the people of England and Wales; and its object was to shew that crime diminishes as small proprietorships increase. That crime is least in Westmoreland and North Wales, where more than one-half of the farmers employ no labourers at all, but carry on the business of cultivation merely with

pro

But admitting this great accumulation of capital to be favourable to the increase of national wealth, as it unquestionably is, in every branch of duction, with the one exception, as we conceive, of agriculture-it yet may well be asked, to what does this perpetual struggle after wealth tend? Is it favourable to national character, or to national happiness? It would, of course, be absurd to strive against this, which is the engrossing passion of England at the present day, at least of the most numerous classes, the manufacturing and trading interests. But let us glance for one moment at the motives which lead to it, and at its results. The workman, of course, labours for his daily bread. As we have seen, he cannot work less strenuously than he does; if he were to do so, he would not be employed at all. But of the classes of producers, the vast upper majority of them are influenced, in a great measure, by the wretched ambition of becoming richer than their neighbours, coupled with the dread of ennui, and of the fearful listlessness which is the necessary consequence of there being but one pursuit of which they are capable. The passion for money-making, like every other high excitement, engrosses the whole mind, to the exclusion of all other pursuits. It will be among the triumphs of education, when it becomes generally dif fused, that it will withdraw our race from this eternal pursuit for gain, by supplying them with other and nobler objects on which to exercise their faculties that we may become poorer, and wiser, and happier men. The following observations of Mr. Burton are

deserving of the utmost consideration. They are most true and most philosophical. Our space will, unfortunately, only allow of our giving a short extract from a portion of his treatise, which we would gladly quote at length, if it were practicable:

"It would be a far worse world than a good Deity has made it, if felicity increased proportionally with riches, and the occupant of the castle were as much happier than the occupant of the cottage as his rooms are more stately, his drapery and furniture more costly, and his viands more dainty. It is not by multiplying twopence by thirty that we can estimate the happiness of him who drinks claret over him who drinks beer. It is a trite saying, that the poor are as happy as the rich, and happier; but perhaps the reasons for holding this belief have not been often closely examined, and hence the general principle has been attacked as a vain sentiment, invented by the rich to appease the poor. But if we look at the main elements of human felicity, we shall find that they are among the objects of moderate attainment. They consist in health, physical and mental-in food sufficient to satisfy hunger-in clothing sufficient to protect the body from the elements and in that enjoy

ment of the domestic attachments which continues the existence of our species. The wealth of the richest man that ever lived will not add to the list a fifth element of enjoyment so large as any one of these. The next in greatness will be found in intellectual pursuits; but this class of luxuries is unknown to those in whom a taste for them is not cultivated, and it rarely happens that where the love exists it is not gratified. It possesses, like the luxury of virtue, the rare faculty of ministering to its own demands; and it has the peculiarity of affording a method in which the poor can enjoy the possessions of the rich without humi.

liation, for the passing study of pictures and statues gives them some advantage from their rich neighbour's possessions without their picking the crumbs that drop from his table.

"Where there are equal laws, and the labourer, without exhausting exertion, can house, clothe, and feed himself; can marry and bring up children; he thus satisfies to himself the main conditions of our imperfect human happiness. There are none of these truly rich endowments that have not in their very nature a counteracting quality in every effort to expand them. The appetite has its limits of enjoyment. Its fastidiousness rises fully to a par with the art that indulges it; and he who makes a gradual progress onwards from the coarsest to the most exquisite food, certainly forfeits all relish for the simplicity he has deserted, but gains no new pleasure from the excitements which his appetite demands. The labourer suddenly raised to affluence by some freak of fortune, often leaves irrecoverably behind him the true pleasures of the table."

We need but advert to one instance which has of late years called forth much discussion, and which painfully illustrates how direct is the antagonism between national wealth and national weal-we refer to the employment of women and children in factories, and to the measures which have been brought forward for limiting their hours of work. Now if we assume that these persons, whose hours of labour it is proposed thus to restrict, could work with the same intensity for the longer time as for the shorter, there can be no question but that a curtailment of their hours of labour must diminish their productiveness, and so far impair the national wealth; but if we at the same time know that the prolongation of their labour is to the ruin of their domestic duties, their social enjoyments, and their human nature-that heart, mind, and body alike fail, and sink under the practice-surely it then becomes the duty of the legislature to interpose and to protect those who are incapable of determining for themselves, or of controlling the evil if they could appreciate its extent, and boldly to proclaim that no increase of national wealth shall ever be purchased at so fearful a price.

We cannot refrain from laying before our readers an extract or two more from Mr. Burton's book, which is immediately suggested to us by this subject. They refer to the responsibilities of employers with regard to the moral

condition of their workmen and of society :

"The capitalists of this country, especially the manufacturing capitalists, cannot be altogether acquitted of contributing to the disorganising elements which have produced the strikes and combinations, as well as the other evils of ignorance and prejudice, from which they and their workmen have severally suffered. Men cannot live to good purpose without the social affections of family and kindred, uniting their household civilisation with the external influence of the clergyman and the schoolmaster. When population grows by natural increase, without being influenced by adventitious circumstances, these regulating influences naturally grow with it, and become sufficient for their purposes. The increase still preserves the family shape and consistency; as the tree still consists of branches, leaves, and flowers, however great it grows. Even the clergy and the schoolmasters naturally increase with the gradual demands on their attention; though there should be no greater specific inducement to this increase than the mere habit of a people who have been accustomed to the services of a certain number of these spiritual and temporal teachers to each hundred of the population.

"When a mass of human beings, almost as great as the population of a city, are suddenly brought together by the temptation of lucrative employment, they do not naturally consist of families bringing to the new place of residence their home-sympathies, their family ties, and the gentle, but strong influence exercised by these regulators over their conduct. They consist of the class of persons who are wanted for the occupation -men alone, or men with a certain proportion of women and of children, as the nature of the labour suggests. If the manufacturer think of nothing but wages and profits, he cannot expect to gather round him a circle of moral, well-disposed, and agreeable neighbours; and if he suffer some inconveniences or graver evils from the state of society which he has himself been so instrumental in creating, he is not an object of deep compassion. But other people also have been sufferers. The peace of the community at large has been often shaken, and large portions of society have been demoralised by these inconsiderate aggregations of people, suddenly cast free from the usual controls of the domestic and social connections; while they rear children, who, in a great measure, continue on to future generations the peculiarities of character thus created, and indeed are themselves subject to but few organising influences likely to counteract them.

"The man who has brought together such a multitude without any other object of consideration than the profit he is to derive from his own enterprise and capital, and their

labours, and who abandons them to all the temptations which human beings, destitute of their natural controlling influences, and brought together in great masses, are liable to, must be held to incur a very serious responsibility to the whole of his species. That it is a responsibility capable of being legally exacted, would be a dangerous proposition. Laws cannot safely be made for such cases until after the mischief is done; for prospective legislation, proceeding without a full experimental knowledge of the circumstances to which it is to be applied, is a very precarious operation.

"It must be admitted, however, that a late formidable example has shown how difficult it is to influence the cupidity of men in their haste to become rich, so far as to make them reflect on the consequences of their acquisitive operations to society at large. We have already spoken of the social evils of the railway speculation of 1847 in connection with the pecuniary fluctuations occasioned by it. It was another evil of that mania, that it brought into existence an army of men-powerful in bodily strength, but totally uneducated, and little restrained by religious and social influences, who had necessarily, from their aggregation in large numbers, almost all the peculiarities of a military body, except its discipline. The number of labourers employed in the spring of 1847, in the construction of the various lines of railway, amounted, as we have elsewhere had occasion to say, to 240,307. Of these a large number were, by the late depression of trade, dispersed through society as suddenly as they had been originally brought together; and the various destitution funds throughout the empire, along with the riots which disturbed the peace of the community, were the indications of this partial disbanding of an army. Yet when we observe the utterly disorganised and chaotic nature of their amalgamation, their excesses and their mendicancy have been far less than might naturally have been expected.

"Believing that the time when workingpeople will be effectively protected from the selfishness and recklessness of their employers will come when the employers, along with the rest of the community, are protected from the barbarism of the workmen—that that civilisation, or e lucation, or whatever we may term the regenerating element, will leaven the whole mass-it should not be forgotten in the meantime, that for whatever disorganising influences in the arrangements between employers and their workpeople are removable, the former-being the better educated of the two classes, having the chief opportunities for reflection and observation, and being able to make the most considerable sacrifices-ought to be responsible."

It is time that we should now turn

to the other volume which lies before

us.

Mr. Heron's "Lectures on Taxation," although not free from error, which a little more consideration we are satisfied would have obviated, are creditable to himself and to the institution with which he is connected. The fair and practical spirit which pervades the whole is most commendable. Instead of claiming for his subject a paramount importance, as might naturally have been expected from a young professor, he thus fairly states the place which it is entitled to hold:

"Of course you will not understand me in this course of lectures as absolutely recommending anything to be done or any reform to be made in our system of taxation. It is merely the business of the political economist to state principles and draw conclusions; but his conclusions, however true they may be, do not authorise him to add a single word of advice. That privilege belongs to the statesman, who has to consider, besides the absolute justice of the measures which he proposes, the expediency also of these measures in relation to the existing interests and complicated rights of society. The business of a political economist is neither to recommend nor to dissuade, but to state principles which it is fatal absolutely to neglect, but neither advisable nor practicable to use as the sole guide in the conduct of human affairs The legislator must consider not only economic principles, but also the political, the social, the moral principles, and those which are expedient at the present time."

It would be very unfair to test this little work by the strict rules which would apply to a professed treatise on the subject. The publication consists of three lectures, which were delivered to public voluntary classes in the Queen's College, Galway. In lectures of this nature it would have been quite impossible for Mr. Heron to have discussed his subject strictly scientifically. He was necessarily obliged to attract and to fasten the attention of his audience. This no lecturer could succeed in doing, if he were to commence with the enunciation of abstract principles, and to proceed with rigid scientific accuracy to trace their application through every minute ramification of the subject. All that a lecturer, under such circumstances, can hope to accomplish is, to impress some strong leading views of his subject on his hearers. In almost all these views, so far as they are of

an economical character, we fully concur with him. There are a few less essential points, chiefly introduced by way of illustration, which it occurs to us Mr. Heron might reconsider with advantage. We would more particularly refer him to the forty-fifth page, in which he speaks of the effect of the abolition of the duty on tea :

"Supposing then," says Mr. Heron, "that the price of tea being lowered, consequent upon the abolition of the duty, the population of these islands continued to expend the same amount upon tea which they do now paying the tax, and that the price of tea did not vary materially in China, it is plain that nearly £5,000,000 additional (such being the amount of the duty), less the cost of transit, would be expended upon tea there. In order to pay for this, it would be necessary to send to China £5,000,000 in whatever manufactured goods they would take in exchange. Now we must bear in mind, that these goods would be manufactured in addition to the quantity already required; so that if this tax were abolished, not only would the price

of a wholesome article of food be lowered, and the comforts of the labouring poor, and the productive powers of the country be thereby increased, but there would be also a new demand for the £5,000,000 of manufactured articles; and this increase in the demand for manufactures would not only benefit the manufacturing population, but would also benefit ship-builders, labourers, carriers, and others engaged in the transit of goods to the port of shipment, and the brokers and commercial agents employed there. Again, the greater part of this £5,000,000 being distributed in wages amongst the people, they would to that extent be enabled to purchase, and would purchase better food; so that the agricultural population would be ultimately benefitted, the value of agricultural labour increased, and the landlords receive higher rents, for the interests of manufacture and of agriculture are inseparableunited."

Now here is an interminable series of advantages ascribed to the abolition of the duty on tea, by a process of reasoning which, as we conceive, involves much misapprehension. We only wonder that our author stopped so soon; for plainly, on the principle on which he set out, he might continue to expand the circle of advantages throughout all the foreign countries with which England directly or indirectly has any commercial intercourse. We apprehend that the effect of the abolition of the duty (supposing, as our author does, that we would expend the

same amount on tea that we now do paying the tax, and that the price did not vary in China) would be simply this that we would have more tea and fewer soldiers, or colleges, or ministers of justice, or whatever else it is that the tax is now expended on. Test the matter by an individual instance: a shoemaker produces a certain number of pairs of shoes annually-this is his income; with this he purchases his tea, pays his taxes, and soforth; if his taxes be remitted, he can buy so much more tea, no doubt, but he does not make more shoes than ever he did; of course the fact of his exchanging his shoes for money before he buys his tea, or pays the tax collector, makes no change in the matter. Now, how can the process vary when applied to a nation, which is but a collection of individuals. The income of a country is the annual produce of its land, its labour, and its capital; a certain portion of this, to the value of £5,000,000, is now expended in providing for some purposes of public defence, or education, or such like; it is transferred from these purposes to providing an article of food for the people. Surely this transfer of £5,000,000 from one mode of expenditure to another, can only affect the application of the income of the country-it can have nothing whatever to say to the amount; there may be changes created from one branch of trade to another, but the whole will result in this simple statement, that there is more tea by the value of £5,000,000 annually brought into the country, and distributed amongst its inhabitants.

In one way, indeed, which Mr. Heron was not called upon by his subject to advert to, the change might have the effect of increasing the manufactures of the country. The soldiers, and schoolmasters, and such like persons, to whom the five millions' worth of the annual produce of the country had hitherto been given, would be obliged to embark in some other occupations, and many of them, no doubt, would find their way into the manufacturing employments of the country. This would, of course, increase the manufactures of the country; and probably a portion, even of this increased manufacture, would find its way to China to purchase an additional quantity of tea; a certain number of persons would be transferred from one kind of occu