here above given, and so utterly at variance with the real facts as above presented, that he deems it well, by examination of a single case to enable his readers to determine the value of the rest; to that end submitting for their consideration the following paragraph: 'But, notwithstanding this limitation of the sources and amount of income, the requirements of the National Government for military, naval, and civil expenditures, and the payment of the principal and interest of any debt, were so moderate, that the receipts of the Treasury continually tended to exceed its disbursements; and the difficulty which most frequently presented itself to the financial administrators was, not the customary one of how to avoid an annual deficit, but rather how to manage to escape an inconvenient and indispensable surplus. And it is a curious fact, and one perhaps altogether unprecedented in history, that, from the years 1837 to 1857, there was not a single fiscal year in which the unexpended balance in the National Treasury-derived from various sourcesat the end of the year was not in excess of one-half of the total expenditure of the preceding year; while in not a few years the unexpended balance was absolutely greater than the sum of the entire expenditure of the twelve months preceding." Before entering on the proposed examination he asks the reader's attention to the fact, that the twenty years here lumped together consist of three widely different groups, to wit, the non-resistant one of the years 1837-42; the resistant one, 1843-48; lastly, that of the Californian golden age 1849-57. This premised, we may now advantageously compare the real facts as given below,* with the impression intended to be produced on the minds of the Commissioner's readers, as follows: * Amount of moneys derived from leans and treasury notes, as exhibited in the published statements of the Treasury Department. Of these it may safely be affirmed, that not even one has failed to be impressed with a belief that the "revenue" had throughout been all sufficient; that not one has imagined that the words "various sources" had been inserted for the purpose of covering up large receipts from loans made necessary by great deficiencies of "revenue;" that not one has supposed that the first six of these 20 years had brought with them a constant need for loans; that a nation which just before had extinguished its debt could have found itself in 1842 wholly unable, either at home or abroad, to borrow a single dollar;* that the need for loans had disappeared almost on the instant of the re-adoption of the resistant policy; that the California discoveries had for a time adjourned the period of suffering under the then existing nonresistant one; that the brilliant years 1858-1860, than which, "After a failure in the American market, a citizen of high character and talent was sent to Europe with no better success; and thus the mortifying spectacle has been presented of the inability of this Government to obtain a loan so small as not in the whole to amount to more than onefourth of its ordinary income; at a time when the Governments of Europe, although involved in debt, and with their subjects heavily burdened with taxation, readily obtained loans of any amount, at a greatly reduced rate of interest."-President's Message, December, 1842. "The credit of the Government which had experienced a temporary embarrassment, has been thoroughly restored. Its coffers, which for a season were empty, have been replenished. A currency, nearly uniform in its value, has taken the place of one depreciated and almost worthless. Commerce and manufactures, which had suffered in common with almost every other interest, have once more revived; and the whole country exhibits an aspect of prosperity and happiness."-President's Message, December, 1844. as they had been assured, there could be none that would afford a more happy illustration of the influence of the "non-interference," or "non-obstructive" policy of Government, had been excluded for the reason that their revenues had proved so greatly deficient as to have required loans to the extent of more than 70 millions; or, finally, that there had then arrived a state of things so desperate that money could no longer be obtained except at rates so usurious as indicated a total loss of the public credit. Nevertheless all these things were so.-Ex pede Ilerculem. From commencement to close this "Chapter" is all alike. No one could imagine from its perusal that the reward of labor had, in the decade 1860-1870, so much increased as to have caused a duplication of immigration; that the consumption of wool by the people of the Union had so greatly grown as now to exceed two-thirds of the whole manufacture of Britain, in 1864, for home consumption and for the world at large ;* that the consumption of cotton had grown nearly 75 per cent., as compared with the average of the three-so-called-prosperous years 1858-1860;† that cotton producers were profiting of this by obtaining a large increase of price; that the consumption of cottons, of home or foreign manufacture, had arrived at half the British production for the thousand millions of the world's people, those of Britain herself included; that Total British cotton consumption, 1871.............. 1,207,000,000 American for 1871.......... Net import, $26,000,000 .............. 520,000,000 550,000,000 railroad tonnage had quadrupled; that the consumption of iron had grown to half the production of Britain for herself and for the world at large; or, finally, that the growth of material wealth had been far greater than all the accumulations since the date of the Mayflower's arrival on the coast of Massachusetts.* CHAPTER IX. MATTER AND MIND.-(Continued.) § 1. As has been already shown, the first attempt at subjecting to cultivation the soil of England was made in the bleak and barren Cornwall, and there was found for many centuries the centre of English power. Later, in the days of the earlier Plantagenets, a population of less than two millions was thinly scattered over the higher, drier, and comparatively unproductive soils of the kingdom; Gurth and Wamba then wearing around their necks the collars by which the world was made to know that they, alike the jester and the clown, were "born thralls" of their compatriot, the Saxon Cedric.-Passing now * On the treasury books the States of the Union stand severally charged with their shares of $28,000,000 nominally deposited with, but really given to, those States in the year 1836. This was done at a time when the effects of a non-resistant policy, then recently readopted, were exhibiting themselves in a general deluge of British merchandise, furnished on long credits, and thus stimulating a speculation that, for the moment, caused large excess of the public revenue. Counting as money the figures representing those deposits the Commissioner may, perhaps, find some justification for his statements; and yet none better than himself should appreciate the fact that they are but the shadow of moneys long since expended. onward a couple of centuries, population having meantime much increased, and Edward III. having instituted measures by means of which local centres had been made to greatly grow in both number and importance, we find the descendants of Saxon churls on the field of Agincourt, freed from all outward mark of slavery and sending their cloth-yard shafts among the chivalry of France with a force and effect that since then have never been exceeded, and rarely, if even ever, equalled.* Simultaneously therewith, landlords are everywhere seen praying for protection against their so recent serfs, to be secured to them by means of laws regulating the prices at which labor should be sold, and imposing heavy penalties on any who should pay or receive more than those to be thus established.† Passing again onward, we reach the brilliant * Discussing the period immediately anterior to the day of Agincourt, Prof. Rogers speaks as follows: "In fifty years, then, the tenant farmers were able to accumulate, in order to supersede stock and land leases, not much less than treble the value of the land they occupied, and this even in despite of somewhat unfavorable times, for agricultural produce was low in the last ten or twelve years of the fourteenth century. Is it wonderful, therefore, that men who in the early part of the century had no place in the political history of the times, assert their rights with so much vigor in the latter part, embrace Lollardism, delight in Piers Plowman,' adopt his style, inveigh bitterly against the friars and great ecclesiastics, and crowd tumultuously' to county elections?"-History of Agriculture and Prices in England, vol. i. p. 688. †The first Statute of Laborers bears the date of 1349.-Thenceforward throughout a whole century we have constant repetitions thereof, each and all tending to prove how futile had been the previous efforts at maintaining even qualified slavery in face of a policy looking to increased diversification in the demand for human service, and manifesting its powers by causing great increase in the societary circulation. |