steps, the other going down with a rapid and headlong descent, and that the barriers and obstacles we meet with in our upward progress, are frequently placed there by our own fault or folly. The working classes in a community thus enjoying all the substantial comforts of life, experiencing the rewards of industry and the excitement of accumulation, relishing intellectual pleasures and the pure satisfaction of virtuous conduct, will they not sensibly feel that they have a deep pledge in the political fabric, and will they not be prepared to guard it with jealous care, and will they not be far superior to the romantic follies and insidious devices of those who would tear away its very foundation, security of property? Yes, most assuredly. And therefore every man in the community has a solemn interest in increasing the gains, and thus elevating the condition of the working classes. Whatever be his occupation, or the employment of his capital, he should feel even a personal interest in giving efficiency to such measures. Should it be the case, which is not however at all likely, that his own profits are somewhat diminished, let him nevertheless remember, that if a small stream is diverted, it renders the great reservoir more secure. But if those who think they own all the waters, and can control all the privileges, will resist with a determined and jealous care the form

ing of any outlet, let them not vainly imagine that their embankments will stand for ever. If they do not burst by the superincumbent weight, the hand of violence will undermine them, and they will one day rush down in precipitous ruin. But how are wages to be kept up without protection from competition with foreign, tax-ground and pauper-eaten nations? And if you protect against the introduction of their fabrics, how can you protect against the influx of their ignorant, needy and worthless population, coming in to compete with the earnings of your own lawful born children, and of course taking the bread from their mouths? But I touch on dangerous and shaking ground, and feel that I have not knowledge of the sound places for the feet to stand on, or skill or strength to force my way through the dark and tangled forest, that broods over this as yet impervious swamp. I entertain the fullest confidence however, in the principle itself, and would follow fearlessly to where it leads. INDUS

TRY SHOULD BE ENCOURAGED BY MAINTAINING WAGES OF ALL KINDS AT A LIBERAL STANDARD.

But then on the other hand, men must be left to their own energies, and must understand and feel that they must rely upon their own exertions for support, and that there is nowhere any generous hand or well endowed institution, to pamper them

in idleness and vice. No one thing has tended more to aggravate the evils caused by the existing distinction between the rich and the poor, than the well meant efforts made by the one to alleviate the miseries of the other. By an unenlightened and perverted liberality, the extent of pauperism has been increased and its miseries aggravated. It is now time for us to make a broad distinction between the means by which real and inevitable distress is to be relieved, and those injudicious attempts which operate as a bounty to encourage the idle and dissolute. It is the duty of all who wish to exercise a genuine philanthropy, to examine rigidly the tendency of every institution for whose support they are called upon to contribute, and to question very closely every single applicant for charity. Every sum given to the idle and dissolute beggar, is so much lost to the purposes of true benevolence, and in addition to this, it is so much given to increase the evils of mendicity. So with charitable institutions, if their tendency be, as is sometimes the case, to afford an anticipated asylum to those, who by indolence and vice have reduced themselves to distress, then all that goes to support such institutions increases the very evils they were designed to remedy. This indeed is a very perplexing as well as important subject to treat of, and we have hardly

yet obtained a sufficient amount of facts and observations to direct us to positive results. Amongst ourselves, however, we have the satisfaction of believing, that the mistakes committed have been very few, the good accomplished very great. Our almshouses which are houses of industry, our dispensaries to give medicine and attendance to the sick poor, our hospitals to receive them when suffering from casualties or from chronic or violent diseases, our asylums to protect their fatherless and motherless offspring, our provident institutions to beget in them the spirit of economy and to husband for them its results, and in our chief cities a board of visiters and ministers at large, to instruct and comfort them and to relieve their temporal wants with a discriminating benevolence-all these we must regard as most praiseworthy institutions, and most unexceptionable modes of lessening the evils flowing from the unequal distribution of wealth.

2.

Another means of alleviating these evils, is by improving and diffusing education.

You may remember the forcible remark of one of the most eloquent men and distinguished statesmen of the past age-that "education is the cheap defence of nations."* I would adopt and enlarge upon it, and say that it is their defence, not merely from external

* Burke.

foes by leading them to fight valiantly for that beloved country whom they acknowledge to be the author of their intellectual as well as physical being, but their defence also from inward danger, arising from corrupt principles, vicious practices, pernicious maxims of government, and prevailing ignorance, that can easily be wrought upon and made the tool of wicked and ambitious demagogues. Were the people of a country generally well instructed, for example, in sound principles of political economy, is it not obvious that a most favorable influence would be exerted upon their habits, and also upon the acts of their legislature? And not only so, could there any danger arise from the false but plausible maxims of those who talk so loudly about equalizing the condition of man. Would not the fallacy of all such doctrines be at once understood, and those, who dared to advance them, be at once detected and shunned as the worst enemies to their country and their race. But once give to the poor man an insight into the structure of civilized society, and into the principles by the operation of which the comforts the intelligence and the whole well being of a community are produced and preserved, and he would feel that his own safety and happiness are no less involved than those of the rich, in maintaining inviolate the rights of property. He would see that the lev