therefore, which excite envy and tempt rapacity, must be put out of the possibility of danger. But we apprehend that no such distinction is made between property and ability in the actual constitution of the country. Property is not thereby supposed to be the opposite of ability, but rather its exponent. Without ability, it could not have been acquired; without ability, it cannot be maintained. The state can have, in the first instance, no pledge for a man's capacity to do it service, other than his capacity to serve himself. He who has not been successful in the little, how shall he be entrusted with the much? No; it is not that sort of ability which is armed against property-not that rapacity which is envious of the great masses of accumulation-which the State requires; but that ability which supposes property, or is induced upon it. It asks, or should ask, for the complex conditions of an advanced stage of society-for ability of a higher grade than is merely necessary for private acquisition or prudential preservation-but, at any rate, it demands that degree and kind of moral power.

This is, indeed, all the state can require-it can deal only with the kind-the degree of merit is a subject of individual animadversion. It is the philosopher who would elevate the political recipient into a higher form of manhood, and fit him, in the very last appointments of wisdom, for the duties which the state has imposed upon him. The duties of a member of parliament, it is said, are great-to be a good member of parliament is no easy task. But it is not sufficiently inculcated, that the duties of a constituent are also great, and that to become a good one, requires art and pains. Political knowledge comes not by inspiration; yet it is well that the constituent, even as his representative, should con. sider that he is but a "member of perhaps a rich commercial city"-- that that city, however, is but a part of a rich commercial nation, the interests of which are various, multiform, and intricate-that that nation is but a part of a great empire, extended by our virtue and our fortune to the farthest limits of the east and of the west-that all these widespread interests must be considered; must be compared; must be reconciled, if possible. He should reflect, that he is a member of a free country; and that the machine of a free constitution is no simple thing, but as intricate and as delicate as it is valuable :-a member of a great and ancient monarchy, and he should therefore feel solicitous to preserve religiously the true legal rights of the sovereign, which form the keystone that binds together the noble and well constructed arch of our empire and our constitution." The information which all this implies should be within the reach of the People, whose voice is to be as the oracle of heaven. But, until very lately, the education received by the great body of electors in this country has been utterly incompetent to furnish them with any thing like the knowledge requisite; and to such of them as belong to the labouring class, that " opportunity of leisure,' which the son of Sirach demands as the condition of "the wisdom of a learned man," is denied from the cradle to the coffin.

It is observed by the eloquent Coleridge, that "those institutions of society which would condemn me to the necessity of twelve hours' daily toil, would make my soul a slave, and sink the rational being in the mere animal." Mr. Godwin has also, in his "Thoughts on Man," devoted an essay to the subject of leisure, and shown how advantageous it

N.S.-VOL. III.

D

is to the developement of the intellectual character.

On Mr. Godwin we look as an adversary-but we are not of those who disdain to learn wisdom, even from an enemy.

The ends of leisure this writer supposes to be promoted by convivial meetings at the public-house-but they might be much better answered by mechanic and agricultural institutions, if properly conducted on conservative principles, and other similar associations, for the exercise and improvement of the intellectual powers among all classes of persons. Still, however, sufficient leisure is not accorded, in this country, to any class; and yet, owing to the introduction of machinery, leisure in abundance might be accorded to the operative. Labour being less in demand, many hands are thrown out of work. How much better would it be to divide the labour which exists among all the hands, and, by employing all, give to every one a share of labour. But machinery is altogether perverted from the substantial good which it might effect, by the accidental evil which accompanies its introduction.

Since the invention of machinery, as things desirable to have can be made more easily and abundantly than before, it would be reasonably expected that the people should get the benefit of such surplus supply. Over-production ought to be beneficial. If there be more clothes made than people can wear, no one ought to be in rags; if less labour be required, every man ought to have more leisure to cultivate his moral and intellectual being. It is to be hoped that the education which is almost universally diffused, will correct the evil which, in all the improvements of society, has been transitory, while the good remains permanently. Education will instruct every man how to make these advantages of an inventive age available to individual enjoyment, instead of being, as they now are, engines of oppression in the hands of the selfish, and the occasion of distress to the ignorant.

All improvement, hitherto, has been never for the generation that is, but for that which is to come. But this need not be, if legislation kept

pace with the progress of invention. Provision should be immediately

made by the State for those thrown out of employment, and they should be rendered participant of the common benefit by a public act.

Too much, indeed, under the present systems of government, is left to private exertion and to private interest. Government is too fearful of exercising a paternal character. Those who, for the public good, fall a sacrifice to new invention, should be taken up into the care of the State, and provided with the improved means of production. They should not be suffered to lose their hold on society; and since, through the operation of machinery, their ordinary labours have been suspended by which they were able to get food and clothing, they should be provided, at they public expense, with the machinery whereby they might still procure them.

A com

We have said, at the public expense-but in fact, such a plan might be carried into execution without any ultimate expense at all. mission might be delegated to ascertain the number and condition of persons whom, in a certain district, mechanical invention had deprived of employment of these a community might be formed, provided with machinery for the benefit of the whole; and since all the hands would not be wanted to work it, even with due allowance of leisure for selfimprovement to those actually employed, those not otherwise engaged

:

might be set over the polity of the community, and cater, by attention to a small library or a school of instruction, for the intellectual improvement of the rest. The quantity of produce sent forth from the machine, might be made to exceed considerably the immediate necessities of those dependent on it; and, besides in time paying the first outlay of the institution accumulate a joint stock capital for the future purposes of the company. Government, by thus taking advantage of the new powers developed in the progress of society, might rear up a race of respectable families, whose religious as well as worldly welfare might be secured, by thus connecting them with the state. This plan, we repeat, would cost nothing in the end, but would pay itself, while it prevented distress and crime, and promoted industry, intelligence, and virtue. As things are permitted to be, these families are an expense-they come upon the poor rates.

But this plan would increase the numbers of the people, and the political economists of modern times no longer look upon the number of a people as the wealth of a state. But we leave such men as the late Mr. Sadler to battle the watch with these calculators of the means of subsistence, against the level of which it is fit that population should continually press, that by elevating such level, it may urge society through advancing stages of prosperity, by the strong and resistless hand of necessity. Upon the theory of Malthus we never could bring ourselves to reason. We felt it to be false. We never could believe that the Author of Nature had so disproportioned the means to the end, that his prime creature, man, should be commanded to increase and multiply in a globe whose limits were too small, whose measure of sustenance was deficient.

But population has never yet exceeded the limits and means of the earth. Nature has been no niggard-she has been prodigal in her gifts. The God of Nature has been no miser, and still continues bounteous in his promises, and blessed in his Providence. Has not man ever had enough, and to spare? A luxurious animal-to him every luxury has been awarded. Little has been denied either to his body or mind. His wants, as an animal, his desires, as an intellectual being, have been gratified. As the first, life, and the means of life, have been granted to him. As the second, immortality has been presented to his prophetic hopes, and the method provided to his religious faith. Earth has hitherto been sufficient for the sustenance of the one, and Heaven is promised to perfect the other. With an increase of population, much exceeding that of former ages, man yet has a superfluity-not only sufficient for his wants, but more, infinitely more, than sufficient for his luxury. In this country, now, the consumption is less than the supply. Our insular situation would most probably have subjected us to the apprehended inconvenience long ere this, had it been in the nature of things, and so written in the laws of nature. Ere this, we should have crushed each other to atoms, or pushed the outermost into the ocean. Even then there had been the ocean for a home-a nation-a kingdom -a people-a liquid road for the majestic ship, a town upon the waters, moving with a buoyant colony upon the heaving bosom of the great deep. The sea-breeze sings in our shrouds a song of triumph over the theory of Malthus-the waves laugh in their beauty-in the face of Harriet Martineau.

THE PEOPLE ARE THE WEALTH OF A NATION. Being all dependent on each other, every man is the support to his fellow. Such is the wise constitution of society. Further, the people are not only the wealth, but THE STRENGTH, THE BEAUTY, THE WISDOM of a nation. Shall we, for the feeble argumentation, and iniquitous logomachy of the Malthusians, resign this support-throw away these Riches, like pearls to swine-mar this Beauty-enfeeble this Strength-despise this Wisdom? It were folly-impotence-the odiousness of theory-the poverty of philosophy-the abandonment of hope and faith! Shall we, for their absurd sophisms, break a positive and Divine command— task Providence with carelessness-Nature with extravagance-and the God of Nature with folly? For such mere words, shall we avoid beauty as a loathsome thing, or make it one,- -"loveless, joyless, unendeared" and crush or preclude, in the loins of the present, the Shakspere, or Milton, or Newton, of a future generation?

And by whom is beauty to be avoided? In whose loins is the seed of genius to be crushed? Name it not, Charity! Hear it not, Religion ! See it not, Heaven! The POOR-the POOR-the POOR MAN is to resign the only enjoyment in his power! In poverty, yea, under circumstances of total privation, wedded love may exist, and bless both man and woman :--

If Love can make the worst wilderness dear,

Think-think what a heaven she must make of Cashmere !

Is the poor man's wilderness to be deprived of this blessing, and the Cashmere of the rich to possess it, in addition to every other? Are the rich and great to marry, and be given in marriage, but the poor man's life to be a desolation, and he a blasted barren tree, whereon no sun ever shines, no dew ever falls, whereof no fruit can ever proceed?

It would not be for the benefit of a country that this should be so. Progressive civilisation, more or less, brings on corruption. Providence aforetime provided a fresh supply of rude barbarian virtue, which it poured out, like the waters of the Nile, to freshen and invigorate the worn-out soils of ancient states. There is a large supply of this barbarian virtue still existing in the lower dregs of population in this country, even among its rabble, its criminals. The very energy which leads to crime is in itself good; of which good might be made, if to legislators might be given knowledge, and governments would listen to wise counsel. Our transports have become already the fathers of mighty states in the new world; and the same men might have been colonised without guilt or punishment, had a better feeling, or a more generous Providence animated the mighty of the earth, towards those whom they have degraded by the terms, "the labouring poor,"* or towards those who were poor without labour.

* Burke is very indignant on this topic : "The vigorous and laborious class of life." says he," haslately got, from the bon ton of the humanity of this day, the name of the labouring poor. We have heard many plans for the relief of the labouring poor. This puling jargon is not as innocent as it is foolish; in meddling with great affairs weakness is never innoxious. Hitherto the name of poor (in the sense in which it is used to excite compassion,) has not been used for those who can, but for those who cannot labour-for the sick and infirm, for orphan infancy, for languish. ing and decrepid age; but when we affect to pity as poor, those who must labour, or the world cannot exist, we are trifling with the condition of mankind. It is the

It is not our place, in this paper, to discuss the question of the efficacy of capital punishments, or, indeed, of any punishment; it might easily be proved, and has been proved, that they are of no avail against the goads of necessity, or the pride of lawless courage. It is the part of a wise government to prevent crime rather than to punish it. A wise government would provide for the moral education and religious instruction of every individual under its care; it would not wait until application was made by those by whom such aids were wanted, because it would know that such persons are the last to discover their wants; but it would provide responsible ministers, to seek out those who "were in the hedges and lanes and by the way-side." Neither did our constitution, as anciently established, neglect this necessary duty. For this purpose it set apart an order of men, who were commissioned to preach the Gospel to the poor. For this purpose it appointed a Church, and laid its foundation broad and deep. It desired that it might take root in the soil, and provided that its spires should ascend, in calm grandeur, pointing towards heaven! From certain causes, these designs failed of perfect success; but the praise of good intentions must be awarded to the projectors.

For this, at least, our forefathers must be commended; they never conceived so infamous a design as shutting out any man from the state on account of his want or deficiency of property. All that they guarded against was the unfair preponderance of the greater number, composing the aspiring classes, who, in all matters decided by a majority, would be numerically stronger than the professing classes, unless some arrangement were made by which their numerical strength should be fairly balanced. This was attempted by the selecting, in the least invidious manner, from the more populous order of a certain proportionate number, so that, not by mere numbers, but rather by the collision of common doom of man that he must eat his bread by the sweat of his brow, that is, by the sweat of his body or by the sweat of his mind. If this toil was inflicted as a curse, it is, as might be expected, from the curse of the Father of all blessings-it is tempered with many alleviations, many comforts. Every attempt to fly from it, and to refuse the very terms of our existence, becomes much more truly a curse; and heavier pains and penalties fall upon those who would elude the tasks which are put upon them, by the great Master Workman of the world, who, in his dealings with his creatures, sympathises with their weakness, and, speaking of a Creation wrought by mere will out of nothing, speaks of six days of labour, and one of rest. I do not call a young man healthy in his mind, and vigorous in his arms, I cannot call, such a man poor; I cannot pity my kind, as a kind, merely because they are men. This affected pity only tends to dissatisfy them with their condition, and to teach them to seek resources where no resources are to be found, in something else than their own industry, and frugality, and sobriety. Whatever may be the intention (which, because I do not know, I cannot dispute), of those who would discontent mankind by this strange pity, they act towards us, in the consequences, as if they were our worst enemies."

Again :

"Nothing can be so base and so wicked as the political canting language, 'the labouring poor.' Let compassion be shown in action, the more the better, according to every man's ability, but let there be no lamentation of their condition. It is no relief to their miserable circumstances; it is only an insult to their miserable understandings. It arises from a total want of charity, or a total want of thought. Want of one kind was never relieved by want of any other kind. Patience, labour, sobriety, frugality, and religion, should be recommended to them all, the rest is downright fraud. It is horrible to call them 'the once happy labourer."