land, instead of being turned into fixed capital in Ireland. Hence, the annual increase adds but little to the capital of the country; and the people must starve or emigrate.

This subject illustrates the connection between capital and population. Population always follows capital. It increases as capital increases; is stationary when capital is stationary; and decreases, when capital decreases. And hence, there seems no need of any other means to prevent the too rapid increase of population, than to secure a correspondent increase of capital, by which that population may be supported.

Several conclusions naturally belong to this part of this subject, to which it may be proper in this place to allude.

1. If the above reasonings be correct, we see the great importance, both of individual and national frugality. It is by many persons, supposed, that luxury and expensiveness in individuals are specially useful to the poor; and that economy and frugality are injurious to them. We see, however, that nothing could be more evidently erroneous. He who consumes upon horses, and dogs, and equipage, ten thousand dollars' worth of value, is annually putting out of existence a value, which, if united with industry, might support several families in comfort; and he is thus rendering it impossible, that so many can be supported. He who saves this sum by frugality, and invests it in some profitable enterprise, employs the persons whom it will support the first year; and, by so doing, is enabled to support a larger number the next year, and so on indefinitely. The one is destroying, for ever, a fund for the support of industry; the other is annually rendering that fund larger and more productive.

2. The same is true of nations. The annual revenue of a nation, must of course be derived from the annual revenues of the people. If a man, this year, pay one hundred dollars in taxes, he has precisely

ninety dollars less to unite with the industry of the next year, than he would have, if he paid only ten dollars. And thus, if the annual expenditures of a nation be fifty millions, these fifty millions are just so much abstracted from the fund which has been collected during that year, for the purpose of supporting the addition which this year has made to the number of the human race. If the whole reve

nue of the nation were barely sufficient to employ and support the annual increase of its inhabitants, those who would have been supported by these additional fifty millions, must perish. Such is the natural and necessary result of national prodigality. I do not, however, by any means intend to assert, that taxes are unnecessary. A government necessarily involves expense. And, if the government be well administered, no mode of expenditure yields a richer or more valuable product than taxes. What I have to say, is merely this; that while all the expense necessary to good government should be met, and met cheerfully and liberally, yet expense beyond this is a benefit to no one; it diminishes the comforts of all, and destroys the lives of multitudes. Hence, we see the evil of any form of government, which, by necessity, involves great expenditure. Hence, also, the evil of laws of entail, and of all other arrangements by which immense amounts of capital are accumulated in the hands of single individuals, or of families, in perpetuity. In this manner, the annual productiveness of a country is greatly decreased, and, in consequence, the annual revenue of the whole, is by the difference lessened.

3. Of all the modes of national expenditure, the most enormous is that of war. In the first place, the expense of the munitions of war is overwhelming. In the next place, the most athletic and vigorous laborers must be selected for slaughter. Of these the time and labor are wholly unproductive. The operations of industry, in both belligerent nations, are thus greatly paralyzed. The destruction of

property, in the district through which an army passes, is generally very great. All this must be taken from the earnings of a people; and is so much capital absolutely destroyed, from which multitudes might have been reared, and have lived in prosperity.*

If the considerations which have been adduced above be correct, there is no need of seeking any fur

* To illustrate the vast expenditure of war, I here insert an estimate of the expenses of some of the latest wars. I do not vouch for its entire accuracy, but, I presume it will be found, in general, correct. It is from one of the publications of the Peace Society, and seems to be made up from authentic documents.

This is nothing but the national expense, without estimating the prodigious and incalculable losses to individuals.

ther for the cause of that distress among the lower
classes of which we hear so frequently in Europe.
If the capital which a bountiful Creator has provi-
ded for the sustenance of man, be dissipated in wars,
his creatures must perish for the want of it. Nor
do we need any abstruse theories of population, to
enable us to ascertain in what manner this excess of
population may be prevented. Let nations cultivate
the arts of peace.
Let them reduce the unnecessary
expenses of governments. Let them abolish those
restrictions which fetter and dispirit industry, by
diminishing the inducements to labor. Let them foster
the means by which the productiveness of labor may
be increased, and the annual gifts of the Creator
will so accumulate, that the means will be provided
for the support of all the human beings which are
annually brought into the world. As soon as this
accumulation bears a suitable ratio to the number of
inhabitants, we shall hear no more of the evils of
excess of population. It is vain to throw away
the food of a million of people in a single day, and
then be astonished that a million of people are starv-
ing for the want of it.

Hence we learn the economical evils of every form of vice; as, for instance, of intemperance. The money spent in intemperance, is so much absolute waste of capital. This is, of itself, in most civilized countries, enormous. But besides this, it unfits the individual for labor; it is the author of numerous diseases, both in parents and in children. It is the cause of almost all the crime and pauperism in the community. All these together, if they could be correctly estimated, would form a total amount which would seem almost incredible; and they are altogether exclusive of that loss of social, intellectual and moral happiness, which results from this vice.

To sum up what has been said. We see that the demand for the labor employed in the production of the necessaries of life; and, of course, the wages of labor, must be in proportion to the ratio which the

amount of capital in any given community, holds to the number of laborers; and to the ratio which the accumulation of capital bears to the increase of the human race. And these being at any time fixed, wages will rise or fall, as this ratio varies. If capital be increasing more rapidly than human beings, wages will rise. If it be not increasing so fast, wages will fall. And if, from any sudden change in the affairs of a country, this ratio be suddenly affected, wages will be affected accordingly.

II. I now come to consider that sort of labor, which requires special and expensive education, and some peculiar natural endowment; such, for instance, is the labor which is bestowed upon the fine arts, and which is employed in some of the professions.

1. The desire for this labor varies with the age of a society. In the beginnings of a nation, when every one is interested in providing the means of subsistence, there is little time or capital to spare for the cultivation of a taste for the fine arts. And, at a yet more advanced period, when wages for labor are universally high, and every one may reasonably cherish the hope of attaining to independence, the love of gain is too absorbing a passion to allow of the developement of any habit that does not conduce to pecuniary acquisition. It is only in the later and more advanced stages of society, where hereditary fortunes have been built up, and where accumulated property gives opportunity for leisure and refinement, that much desire is manifested for those productions of the fine arts, which are considered the offspring of the rarest and most highly gifted talent.

2. The ability to gratify this desire, depends also upon the form of social organization. The productions of the fine arts are generally very costly. Hence, where property is nearly equally divided, where no one is poor, though no one may be exorbitantly rich, such productions could have but few purchasers. Whether wages were high or low,