growth of association, it follows that the nation which would increase in strength should carry into the management of public affairs the same system of morals recognized as binding on individual men. § 13. The Ricardo-Malthusian doctrine having been invented to account by means of laws instituted by the Creator for the existence of social disease, it is not surprising that modern political economy looks upon the soldier and the trader in a different light from that in which they have been here presented. M. Bastiat informs us that it is one of the errors of modern socialism to class amongst the parasitic races, the middlemen, such as the broker and the merchant; who, as creators of value, ought, he thinks, to rank with agriculturists and manufacturers. Now, it is quite true that the middleman is "a creator of values;" but it is for that reason that men always rejoice in finding themselves enabled to dispense with his services. Value being the measure of nature's power over man, whatever increases it diminishes the value of man. The trader is a necessity, not a power; and the more that men come together to arrange their affairs for themselves, thus dispensing with brokers, traders, policemen, soldiers and magistrates, the greater must be the strength and durability of the societary organization. The word commerce is constantly used to express ideas that are totally different. The man who makes shoes for a thousand people, each of whom comes to him to be fitted, pays neither porters nor commission merchants. His neighbor, whose customers are distant, pays a porter to carry them to the trader, and then pays the trader for finding persons to buy them. Here are three distinct operations: that of the trader, who simply arranges the terms of exchange, appropriating part of the proceeds as compensation for his services; that of the porter, who effects changes of place, and must likewise be paid out of the proceeds; and that of the shoemaker, who effects changes of form, and whose reward depends entirely on the quantity remaining after the others have been paid. All these operations it is the habit to include under the general head of commerce; whereas, the real parties to the commerce are only the man who makes the shoes and those who wear them. The others are useful in so far as they are necessary; but whatever diminishes the need of their services is as much a gain to man, as is improvement in machinery of any other description what soever. CHAPTER X. OF CHANGES OF MATTER IN PLACE. 2. Difficulty, in the early period of society, of effecting changes in the place of matter The necessity for so doing, the chief obstacle to commerce. Decline in the proportion of the society required for effecting such changes. Accompanied by rapid growth of commerce, and corresponding growth of power to obtain better means of trans portation. 2. The more perfect the commerce among men, the greater the tendency towards removal of the remaining obstacles to association. Man's progress, in whatsoever direction, one of constant acceleration. 3. The first and heaviest tax to be paid by land and labor that of transportation. The farmer, near to market, always making a machine: the one distant therefrom always destroying one. 24. Manure, the commodity most needed by man, and the one that least bears transportation. The less the quantity of labor given to effecting changes of place, the greater that which may be given to production. Power to maintain commerce grows with this change of proportions. 5. Freedom grows with the growth of the power of association. That power grows with every diminution of the necessity for effecting changes of place. § 1. THE first poor colonist, unable to raise logs with which to build a house, is forced to seek shelter in a cave. Compelled to wander far in quest of food, he is often obliged to waste it for want of means of transport. As his sons grow up, however, they combine their exertions and make instruments by help of which they bring together logs, and build themselves a hut. Again, they construct other instruments by aid of which they obtain more food from smaller surfaces, and thus lessen the labor required for effecting changes of place. The life of man is a contest with nature. His prime necessity is that of association with his fellow-man. The first settler, forced to cultivate the poor soils which yield but little food, must, of necessity, remain apart from other men. With increase of numbers he cultivates the richer soils, with constant increase in his powers of combination with others like himself. From a creature of necessity he thus passes into a being of power, from year to year more able to maintain commerce with distant men, while less dependent on that commerce for the conveniences, comforts, and luxuries of life. The powers of nature become embodied in THE MAN, whose value grows as that of all commodities declines. The solitary settler of the West, though provided with axe and spade, with difficulty constructs the poorest hut A neighbor arrives, possessing a horse and cart; and now a better dwelling can be built with half the labor that had been at first required. Others coming, a third is still more readily completed. The new-comers having brought with them ploughs and hoes, better soils can now be cultivated, with large increase in the return to labor. The Indian path becomes a road, and a store is soon established. The settlement grows into a little town; and with each addition to its numbers the farmer finds a new. consumer for his products, and a new producer ready to supply his wants, the blacksmith and the shoemaker coming to eat on the spot the corn he has hitherto carried to the distant market. The little community has thus far occupied only the higher lands. Roads being now made through the bottom lands, richer soils are brought into cultivation, and the new wealth takes the form of a bridge, which enables them to exchange services with another small community on the opposite bank of the little stream. Employments become more diversified as exchanges increase; the societies grow in strength, and forests are cleared, giving to cultivation the richest soils, with increasing returns to labor less severe, and corresponding facility of combination for every useful purpose. We here witness a constantly accelerating motion of society and an increase of commerce resulting from a diminution in the labor required for effecting changes of place. The power to maintain commerce grows thus with every diminution of the necessity for trade and transportation. § 2. In the early stages of society the obstacles to intercourse are almost insuperable; hence we see, even now, that while the value of commodities at the place of consumption is, in many cases, so great as to put them out of the reach of any but the wealthy, it is so small at the place of production as to keep the producer in a state of poverty and slavery. The sugar producer of Brazil cannot obtain clothing, while the cloth producer of England cannot obtain sufficient sugar for his family and himself. Both would have sufficient food and clothing could the one obtain all the cloth given for his sugar, the other all the sugar given for his cloth. It is because so large a portion is absorbed on its way from one to the other that both are so much enslaved. Thirty years since, the price of wheat in Ohio was less than one-third of what it would sell for on the Atlantic coast, the difference being then absorbed in the passage from the producer to the consumer. But recently, corn abounded in Castile while Andalusia looked to America for food. Food is wasted in one part of India, while men perish of famine in another. So it is everywhere, in default of that diversity of employment which makes a market on the land for all its products. In purely agricultural countries the crops are almost altogether absorbed in the cost of transportation, because of the exceeding distance of the consumer from the producer. Hence it is that slavery, or serfage, still prevails in those communities in which employments are not diversified. § 3. The first and heaviest tax to be paid by land and labor is that of transportation. It increases in geometrical proportion as the distance from market increases arithmetically; so that corn which would produce at market $25 per ton, is worth nothing at a distance of only 120 miles, if carried on the ordinary wagon road, the cost of transportation being equal to the selling price. By railroad, the cost is about one-tenth of this, or $2 50, leaving nine-tenths as the amount of tax saved by the construction of the road. Taking the product of an acre at an average of only a ton, the saving is equal to interest, at six per cent. on $375 an acre. If the product of an acre of wheat be twenty bushels, the saving is equal to the interest on $200; but if we take the more bulky products,-hay, potatoes, and turnips,-it amounts to thrice that sum. Hence it is, that an acre of land near London sells for thousands of dollars, while one of equal quality in Iowa or Wisconsin may be purchased for little more than a single dollar. The owner of the first can take from it several crops in the year, returning a quantity of manure equal to all he had extracted, and thus improving his land from year to year. He is making a food-producing machine; whereas, his western competitor, forced to lose the manure, is destroying one. Having no transportation to pay, the former can raise those things of which the earth yields largely,-as potatoes and turnips,--or those whose delicate character forbids that they should be carried to distant markets; and thus the power of combination with his fellow-men enables him to obtain large reward for service. The latter, being heavily taxed for transportation, cannot raise turnips, potatoes, or hay, of which the earth yields by tons, because they would he absorbed on the way to market. He may raise wheat, of which the earth yields by bushels; or cotton, of which it His yields by pounds; but if he raises even Indian corn, he must manufacture it into pork before it will bear the cost of traLsportation. Much of his land lies fallow, while the cost of maintaining the fences and roads is as great as if it were producing crops. A great part, too, of his time and that of his horses, is unemployed, while they must still be fed. harvests, too, may fail. The farmer near London is in the condition of an underwriter, who has a thousand risks, some of which are maturing every day; whereas the distant one is like a man who has risked his whole fortune on a single ship. When close to her destined port, she may strike on a rock, and be lost, her owner thus being ruined. So a farmer who has risked his all on a single crop, may see it destroyed by blight or mildew almost at harvest time. But still more important is the difference in the power of maintaining the productiveness of the land. The farmer distant from market is always selling the soil that constitutes his capital; whereas, the one near London not only returns to it the refuse of its own products, but adds thereto the manure resulting from the consumption of those products of other lands which are consumed by the millions of his own immediate neighborhood. § 4. Of all the things needed for the purposes of man, the one that least bears transportation is manure; and yet, this is of all the most important. Each crop withdraws from the earth certain elements; and if these are not replaced, that crop must soon cease to be produced. When cattle are fed upon the land, their excrements restore much of the material of which the soil is robbed by the plants they eat. If, however, their products be sent to distant markets, the pasture must eventually become exhausted. The grass lands of Cheshire, which had been impoverished by the exportation of butter and cheese produced upon them, were restored by the application of ground bones from the battle-fields of the continent, containing, like the milk, phosphate of lime. Different crops take very different substances, but each deprives the land of some ingredient, which must be restored, or its fertility must be diminished. The value of the manure applied to the soil of Great Britain in 1850, was £103,369,139 -$500,000,000-a sum much exceeding the entire value of the British foreign trade. The sewer-water of towns contains the refuse of the food of their inhabitants in a state of dilution, highly favorable to the increase of fertility. "From |