it is essential that they be distinguished from each other, and that most carefully. The sovereign, desiring to centre power in himself, imposes heavy taxes; but, beyond the interference required for their collection, or that resulting from their expenditure, he derives no advantage from any measure tending to lessen the power of association among his subjects. On the contrary, it is desirable to him, that their labor should become productivetheir ability to contribute to the public revenue being, thus, increased. Leaving to him the administration of the government, his people may combine for peaceful purposes-his power growing with every increase in the rapidity of circulation, and in the quantity of things produced. Certain exceptions being allowed for, his interests, and those of his subjects, are one and the same; and therefore it is, that we see, in some of the most despotic countries of Europe, such constant effort for facilitating every movement tending to increase the competition for the purchase of the services of the laborer, and of the rude products of the farm. Directly the reverse of this, is trading centralization — its primary object being that stoppage of the circulation which, in political centralization, is but an incidental result. The trader desires to keep the people apart from one another—thus producing a necessity for numerous changes of place and ownership, at each of which their produce may be taxed. The power of the sovereign grows with the growing diversity of employment-with the development of human faculties-with increase in the proportions of fixed property-and with the growth of wealth. That of the trader grows with the growing necessity for circumscribing the range of employment with increase in the proportions of movable property- with the dwarfing of human faculties and with the growth of poverty and wretchedness among his slaves. Of all the forms of slavery, the most searching and exhaustive is that of trading domination -seeking, as it does, to annihilate competition for the purchase of the rude products of the earth, and thus destroying the value of both labor and land. To what extent it does so, we may now inquire. - Less than half a century since, an account of the cotton manufacture would have included "no less than a description of the lives of half the inhabitants of Hindostan."* 239 India then exported cotton cloth to all the world-having first clothed the hundred millions of a population, described, by one of the most eminent of all the men that England has sent to that country, as being "not inferior in civilization to the people of Europe." Political centralization then existed in its fullest force; but trading centralization was greatly modified by the exercise of a sovereign power, that yet stood between the trader and those who were engaged in the production, conversion, and consumption of cotton wool. Trade, however, subsequently carried the day, compelling its unhappy subjects to submit to the free importation of cotton cloth from Europe, while prohibiting the export of machinery of any kind, or of the artisans by whom it might be made. The domestic manufacture, consequently, disappeared-carrying with it, all competition for the purchase of labor, or its products. As a consequence of this, the potential energies of a tithe of the human race, are almost wholly wasted, to the essential injury of the world at large-the man who cannot sell his labor, being unable to compete for the purchase of things produced by that of others. § Fifty years since, the people of the United States had established, among themselves, competition with Europe for the purchase of cotton wool- that, in turn, bringing with it competition for the purchase of human faculties, to be employed in its conversion into cloth. Undisturbed, it would, long since, have grown to such extent, as to have produced, throughout the planting States, that competition for the purchase of labor which leads to freedom. Obliged, however, on repeated occasions, to * See ante, vol. i. p. 339. + "I do not exactly know what is meant by civilising the people of India. In the theory and practice of good government they may be deficient; but if unrivalled manufactures- - if a capacity if a good system of agriculture to produce what convenience or luxury demands - if the establishment of schools for reading and writing-if the general practice of kindness and hospitality-and, above all, if a scrupulous respect and delicacy toward the female sex, are amongst the points that denote a civilised people, then the Hindoos are not inferior in civilization to the people of Europe."- SIR THOMAS MUNRO; quoted by SLEEMAN: Rambles in India, vol. i. p. 4. Colonel Sleeman, himself, says: "I am much attached to the agricultural classes of India generally, and I have found among them some of the best men I have ever known. The peasantry in India have generally very good manners, and are exceedingly intelligent, from having so much more leisure, and unreserved and easy intercourse with those above them." + See ante, vol. i. p. 347. ? Ibid, p. 360. succumb to the assaults of trade, the result is seen in the fact, that the people of those States, and the hundred millions of India, have, during the whole of this period, been engaged in competition for the sale of their products-a course of proceeding leading, inevitably, to exaggeration of the evils of slavery where it already exists, and to its production where, as yet, it is not found. Exporting always the rude produce of the soil, the same effects are seen in both - exhaustion of the land, with growing tendency towards commercial and moral death, and political dissolution. In the one, the government is dependent upon monopolies of salt and opium for its support; while, in the other, we witness a frantic determination, at any hazard, to extend throughout the continent a system that, seventy years since, was regarded, by the most eminent men of the Southern States, as a blight and a curse, requiring to be removed. Half a century since, there yet existed competition for the purchase of Irish labor. Political centralization had long existed; but it remained for that of the trader to annihilate all competition for the purchase of human energies at home, and to terminate all Irish competition for the purchase of those abroad. The consequences are seen in the fact, that the 8,000,000 of Irish people do not make a market for the chief product of India and Carolina, to so great an extent as is now made by a single million in Massachusetts. Half a century since, Mexico suffered under the oppression of political centralization, yet she still was prosperous. Since then -having become politically independent she has fallen under the trader's power. The consequences are, that, producing little, she has little to sell; and her markets are, to the rest of the world, almost wholly worthless. So is it with Turkey, Portugal, Jamaica, and every other free-trade country- their power of production being so very small, that they scarcely appear in the world as competitors for the purchase of the labor of other nations. How stationary, even where not declining, is the condition of the people of all those countries, and how useless they are to the rest of the world, is shown in the fact, that, of the addition made to the supply of cotton, in the last twenty years, nearly the whole is consumed in those countries which seek to produce competition for the purchase of labor at home, as preparatory for increase of competition for its purchase abroad.* Competition, by A, for the purchase of the labor of B, tends to the production of competition by B for that of C, and, through him, to the end of the alphabet; or it does not. If it does, then are all those communities whose policy tends in that direction, moving towards freedom for themselves and the world; while those whose tendencies are opposite, must be moving towards the establishment of slavery, both at home and abroad. Such is the fact; and yet, strangely enough, while the first embrace many of the despotisms of Europe, the last are found in the two especial traders of the world, Great Britain and the United Statesself-styled friends of freedom, and patrons of the revolutionists. of the world.† The average product of cotton, in the four years 1839-40 to 1842-3, was 1,950,000 bales. That of the four ending 1856-7, has been about 3,000,000-the increase having been 1,050,000. In the last twenty years, the consumption of Germany has increased more than 1,000,000 cwts. = 250,000 bales. From 1842 to 1847, the American consumption increased 380,000 bales. Adding to this, the increase of Sweden, Denmark, Russia, and France, under steady protection, and that of the United States, consequent upon the perfect protection so long given to coarse cottons, it will be found that the whole increase of crop has been absorbed by the protected countries of the world.-That the countries which, being themselves manufacturers, purchase raw materials, are the best customers of France, is shown, ante, vol. i. p. 557. That those which sell them, and thereby exhaust their soil, are her poorest customers, is shown by the fact, that, of an export averaging, during five years, 1,092,000,000 francs, the whole quantity taken by the hundred millions of the people of India, and the foreigners by whom they were governed, scarcely exceeded 3,000,000; Portugal took 3,000,000; Turkey, 17,000,000; but, of the latter, no inconsiderable portion was probably intended for consumption without the limits of the Turkish empire. Germany, now so vigorously engaged in manufacturing for herself, was a customer for French labor to the extent of 42,000,000; while the whole of South America, capable of maintaining hundreds of millions of people, could pay for only 72,000,000. See L'Annuaire de l'Economie Politique, 1855, p. 61. Totally forgetful of the extermination of the population of the Scottish Highlands, of the annihilation of the Irish nation, of the entire disappearance of the millions of blacks that should now be found in the British islands, and of the conversion of millions of small proprietors in India into mere laborers, the British people regard themselves as the special protectors of those of Greece and Italy—although maintaining colonies for the single object of preventing that combination of action without which freedom can neither be obtained nor maintained.-The American people rejoice in revolutions abroad, as leading to freedom, while pursuing a policy tending to the production of slavery abroad-the whole energies of the Federal Government being, meanwhile, directed to the re-establishment, throughout the Union, of the right to buy and sell men, women, and children. Exclusive advocates of freedom, the American and British people are ever ready to patronise disturbers of the public peace abroad-disturbance being favorable to the growth of trade. Both now rejoice in the growing freedom of VOL. III.-16 § 5. Cheap raw materials are, however, as we are assured, indispensable to the prosperity of the British people. If so, there can be no harmony of interests cheap raw materials being, and that invariably, the accompaniment of barbarism, slavery, and valueless land. That it is not so, is obvious from the facts, that the advocates of the system regard the cheapening of English labor as being essential to the maintenance of manufacturing prosperity;* and that eminent Englishmen now present us with pictures of vice, crime, and degradation, not to be exceeded in the world.† Cheap labor and cheap raw materials mean, simply, barbarism -they being a natural result of the absence of that competition for the purchase of both, which results from small production. Production declines in England; and hence it is, that one of the most philanthropic of travellers, after a careful survey of England, is impelled to tell his readers, that, while "much is, in that country, being done, and of the noblest sort, for the lower classes-much which has called forth humane sympathy, patient labor, and genuine sacrifice- you cannot avoid the reflection, that it has been begun too late. "It is not," as he continues, "merely, that you pass through filthy streets, meeting with wretched and abandoned men and women, and seeing old rookeries of murder and of crime. Such things are to be met with, in some degree, even in the new streets of our newest cities in America. "It is the amount, the mass of these evils, which astounds. To go through school after school, refuge after refuge, and see, in every new place-not merely ragged, and dirty, and criminal children but children absolutely homeless, and cast out, with all the marks on face and body of being the wild animals of the street; to hear that those in the private institutions are but a small part of this refuse population in the city, and that, still beyond them, is the class of foundlings and orphans, cared for by the government; to walk on and on by the day, through lanes crowded with filthy, blear-eyed, tattered multitudes; to watch the almost agonising, and, in any other circumstances, Neufchatel-its growth having already manifested itself in the imposition of heavy indirect taxes, where, before, all contributions for the service of the State had been direct, and therefore light. * See ante, vol. i. p. 239. † Ibid, pp. 442, 446. |