would have labour, and produce as much under their control as they have at present. Their rate of profit in the home trade would be raised. Their losses would be much reduced, and their general trade, and in consequence profits, would be greatly enlarged.

Upon the whole, these would be the effects. Profits and wages would be carried to the highest point throughout the population. This would raise employment for capital and labour, the extent of trade domestic and foreign, the accumulation of capital, and public wealth and prosperity, to the highest point. This would reduce to the lowest practicable point, taxes, duties, rates, and the cost of foreign commodities.

I state this, not as opinion, but as unquestionable fact.

It is unquestionable fact, that if wheat were raised to 70s. per quarter, and other agricultural produce were raised in proportion, this would give good profits and prosperity to the landowners and farmers, and cause much more labour to be employed on every farm throughout the country; and that in consequence additional employment would be created for several hundred thousands of souls.

It is unquestionable fact, that the culture of inferior and waste lands would employ a vast number of souls.

It is unquestionable fact, that the increase of profit to the farmers, and the large additional demand for labour, would raise husbandry wages greatly.

It is unquestionable fact, that if the colonial agriculturists could obtain a comparatively small advance of prices, they would consume far more British manufactures than they do.

It is unquestionable fact, that if the agriculturists at home, and in the colonies, could obtain higher profits and wages, and were more numerous, they would consume an enormous additional quantity of merchandise and manufactures, and would thereby employ a vast additional number of souls in manufactures and trade.

It is unquestionable fact, that if the manufactures and trades which

do not export should receive a great increase of business, and be effectually protected from foreign competitors, they would raise their prices and wages greatly.

It is unquestionable fact, that, with brisk trade, and abundance of employment, profits and real wages would be much higher than they are at present, notwithstanding any advance of prices.

It is unquestionable fact, that the prosperity of the rest of the population would add very greatly to the general trade and profits of the exporting manufacturers.

It is unquestionable fact, which has been established by the whole of experience, that no rise in food or general wages can raise labour to the exporting manufacturers above what they can afford to pay for it-that it must take what they are able to give, or be without a market and that they can always obtain a sufficiency of it for what their prices will yield.

And it is unquestionable fact, that the higher general profits and wages are in rate and aggregate amount, the lower in reality are taxes, duties, rates, and the cost of foreign goods.

If all this be insufficient to remove the excess of population, resort to emigration, on an adequate scale. The excess must be removed, or wages cannot be properly raised; and wages must be so raised to give agriculture, manufactures, and trade, the proper portion of prosperity.

To prevent it from pressing unduly on the labour employed in the exporting trades, relieve them as far as possible from duties and taxes, and aid them when necessary with bounty.

I will here offer a few observations on the culture of inferior land.

The land, in England, is divided into parishes, just as it has been time immemorial, and this operates greatly against improvement. Four, six, eight, or ten thousand acres contain in the centre of them a single village; the land round the boundary is perhaps a mile or two distant from the village, and in consequence its culture is but little attended to. Going along the boundary line between two parishes, there is a mass of land half a mile in breadth in this estate. The land of every two villages, if

properly divided, should support three, but no new ones can be created.

In innumerable cases, three or four landowners, whose estates join, could with great advantage to themselves form a new village. If they would jointly surround the point of junetion with a thousand acres of land, and divide it into lots, containing from ten to one hundred acres each, they would be able to let the lots at a rent, which at the first would yield them sufficient interest on their outlay. If they would form a few lots, containing from two to five acres each, with a small house, they could easily sell them for a sufficient price. They might do this with land which at present yields very little rent; but which requires only common culture to make it fertile. I need not dilate on the rapid improvement in value which this land, and that surrounding it, would receive.

The state might do this, if the landlords would not. In innumerable cases, it might take on lease at a low rent, a thousand or two thousand acres of land belonging to different villages, and at a distance from them all; and form a new village in this

manner.

Portions of land containing a thousand acres are frequently on sale. If the state should buy them, divide them as I have stated, and a few years afterwards sell the lots separately, it would draw from this pecuniary profit.

I speak of that which is matter of pressing public necessity. This country is in circumstances different from those of any other. In most other old nations, redundant population can easily employ itself on the land, provided agricultural produce can be sold. In France the law of inheritance -I do not speak in defence of it— plants the increase of agricultural inhabitants on the land. But England has an excess of inhabitants which must be removed, or it will involve her in ruin-her land if properly regulated would, with benefit to all parties, employ infinitely more than this excess she could consume all the produce which the latter could raise

-and still her land is in such circumstances, that her idle population cannot gain any employment on it.

If a proper case for the interfer

ence of government could be conceived, this is one. The establishing of an additional number of souls on the land, would be in itself the employing of an additional number in manufactures and trade. Government ought not, in such a case, to be afraid of sacrificing the public money. It ought to assist the owners of waste land with grants and loans; and in many cases to drain, manure, enclose, &c., at its own cost, with the certainty of suffering much direct loss from it. Public money, which is practically expended in creating new land,-in providing employment for industry which could not otherwise exist-cannot be lost; it must yield to the state an adequate return in revenue and power for ever,

Industry in this country would never want employment, if the land were properly attended to by its rulers. But this inexhaustible source of employment, wealth and prosperity, is not only neglected, but continually sacrificed. The cabinet and legislature are always devising expedients for extending manufactures and trade, but they never can think of extending agriculture; on the contrary, they hold up its contraction as a matter of national benefit. Do manufactures and trade need employment ? it is to be effected by the diminution of agriculture: are they in distress? it is to be relieved by plunging agriculture into distress. Thus that which constitutes their great source is continually sacrificed for their advantage.

Let us suppose that 3,000,000 acres of waste land are taken into cultivation, and that in the space of a few years each acre will send annually to market two pounds' worth of produce. The greatest part of the money received for this produce-sup

pose five millions yearly-will be expended in manufactures and merchandise. The expenditure of this sum amidst the manufacturers and traders, must enlarge very greatly their consumption of their own goods. Assuming that it will add two millions to such consumption, the culture of this land will give to the manufacturers and traders a trade amounting to seven millions annually.

Government could soon create such a trade at a comparatively trif

ling sacrifice; it would be most cheaply bought, should it cost five or ten

millions.

I am advocating no division of the best land, and no injurious one of the inferior. I am no friend to very little farms. But in England the proportion of smaller ones needs enlargement. The working mechanic and artisan can hope to become masters by means of industry and frugality, but the husbandry labourers cannot. If the latter can save a little money, they can find no parcels of land sufficiently small for them to rent, and, in consequence, they are deprived of the most powerful temptation to saving. What I recommend would supply a remedy to this, without unduly lessening the proportion of good-sized farms. The least of the allotments would be taken by those who could combine with their farming some other calling. Land should be divided no farther than this-it should have no more population on it than it can fully employ; therefore the number of allotments incapable of fully employing their occupiers, should be limited by the means of the latter for procuring a sufficiency of other employment. When it is divided, as it has been in some parts of Ireland, every occupier is converted into a labourer without a master to employ him; his land will only give him work for a trifling part of his time, and the division has destroyed farmers to hire him for the remainder. Society could not be placed in a more calamitous condition.

To the plan for establishing the poor on waste lands by means of societies, I am a warm friend; but I fear it will not be acted on to an extent which will be felt by the community at large. Perhaps it might have due effect given it in this manner. Let the landowners and other respectable inhabitants of each county form themselves into a separate society, to act in its own county only; and let all be assisted in the most liberal manner by government. By this the plan will be carried into effect, in a sufficiently comprehensive manner in every county at the same time.

Let us suppose that there are 5000 idle souls, including women and children, in each county, who could

be beneficially established on the land, and that one hundred souls could be placed on a thousand acres. Fifty thousand acres would be required, which would form a thousand allotments, of different sizes, but averaging fifty acres each. If each allotment, on the average, should require an outlay of £300, the whole would require £300,000. Much of the money would be provided by the owners of the land. There would be in each county a thousand small houses to build, and as many small parcels of land to enclose, &c. ;—a work which, in point of magnitude, would not be equal to one half of the building alone which takes place in London annually.

In so far as it might be necessary, Government might supply the money on loan. The repayment of the greater part would be certain; and if two or three millions were wholly sacrificed, the public gain would still be immense.

This, in the forty English counties, would give permanent employment to 200,000 souls; by so doing, it would give permanent employment to a great number of souls in manufactures and trade-and by greatly enlarging the demand for labour, it would raise general wages, and thereby supply a vast additional number of souls with employment. It would likewise lighten very much the poor

rates.

I must now offer a few brief remarks on the currency.

The notes of Country Banks form capital, which, to a great extent, cannot exist, if they do not; and this capital is principally used by those who must have it or none. Practically, it can only exist in so far as it can be employed, and it is dispersed throughout the country always in readiness for those who have the means of employing it advantageously. It is not the competitor, but the auxiliary of other kinds of capital; up to a high point, it takes employment which they cannot, and enlarges their means of employment.

The less capital the individual possesses, the more in proportion he expends of his profits in consumption. If a man have only two or three hundred pounds, he perhaps expends all his profits in the maintenance of his family, and can save nothing; if he

have only five or six hundred pounds, he expends the chief part of his profits in this manner, and can save but little; but if he have twenty or thirty thousand pounds, he saves much more of his profits than he expends. Let the annual rate of profit on capital, after paying all the expenses of business, be thirty per cent, and divide the sum of fifty thousand pounds equally as capital amidst two hundred persons, it will yield no annual savings. Divide it amidst one hundred, and allowing for failures, &c. it will yield a very small amount of savings. But give it all to one man, and probably he will save twelve or thirteen thousand pounds yearly. The smallest capitalist will expend more by the last named sum in consumption, than the large one; with them the capital will not increase, but with him it will double itself in every four years; they would scarcely save so much with a rate of sixty per cent, as he will with this of thirty.

Thus, if the whole capital of the country were divided amidst such as these small capitalists, it would not, with this rate of thirty per cent, increase; but if divided amidst such as the large one, it would double itself in every four years. The small ones would expend five or six times more of the profits in consumption than the large ones. I showed, in a former letter, that the general rate of profit cannot be permanently above what will allow capital to increase in the same degree with the means of employing it; if, therefore, the whole capital were divided amidst the small capitalists, the regular yearly rate of profit might be forty or fifty per cent; but if divided amidst the large ones, this rate could not perhaps be above ten or fifteen per cent. I'draw from all this the following conclusion :

The more the capital of any country is monopolized by great capitalists, the lower the general rate of profit must be the smaller must the ex

penditure of profits in consumption be-the smaller must general consumption be-the less must the extent of general trade be-the smaller must the quantity of employment for capital and labour be the lower must wages be-and the more poor and miserable must be the country.

This conclusion is established by

the present state of England; if more proof be necessary, it may be found in the history of young nations, in which the capital is divided in small portions amidst the many. Great houses are necessary to take the trade, which, from the large amount of capital required, the slowness of returns, &c., smaller ones cannot take; but beyond this they are injurious. They are the natural enemies and destroyers of the middling and small ones, and very frequently of each other. By combining the greatest powers of production with the smallest of consumption, they form the great cause of the gluts which are so ruinous.

I will here observe, that a country cannot, except for a comparatively short period, have less general capital than it can beneficially employ. If it have less, the consequent high rate of profit will soon give it abundance. The doctrine, that Ireland is poor from scarcity of capital, is absurd; she has more than she can employ at a sufficient profit, and she is poor from the scarcity of profitable employment for capital. Her farmers and manufacturers cannot make profits which will admit of accumulation; hence her poverty. Much may be charged on the personal character of her population, for various of her legislators and writers have said, that British capital would soon be lost in her, if not under the management of British foresight and frugality. The case is the same with all poor coun

tries. An infallible method for taking from the richest nation its capital, and plunging it into penury, is this-Destroy as far as possible employment for capital and labour, and bind, by foreign competition, the rate of profit, and in consequence the rate of wages to the lowest point practicable. This is now acted on with triumphant success in the British empire.

The small notes of Country Banks constituted capital, which, in a great measure, could only exist in them; the use of this capital was, in effect, chiefly confined to the middling and small manufacturers and traders, who could not procure other in lieu of it, and it could only exist to the amount which could be beneficially employed. The notes thus formed a gigantic source of employment for capi

tal and labour of the highest character. They were used as capital by those whose expenditure of profits in consumption was the greatest, whose accumulation of capital was the least, and who were restricted from injurious speculation and excessive production. They thus caused the expenditure of general profits to be the greatest, not only in amount, but, in proportion to accumulation, made gluts less frequent, and of shorter duration, enlarged greatly the extent of business and employment, and kept the general rate of profit at a higher point.

The suppression of the notes has destroyed this gigantic source of employment for capital and labour. It has fallen principally on the middling and small manufacturers and traders; while it has annihilated their capital, it has left that of the overgrown houses as excessive as ever. It has destroyed consumption with capital, therefore it has not given the trade to the great houses which it has taken from the smaller ones: of course, it has caused a great loss of business and employment for labour. It forms an important part of that hateful and ruinous policy which this country is acting on, of grinding the middle and lower classes to powder, for the benefit of a comparatively few overgrown houses, which are, in a large degree, a scourge to the population at large.

In this manner, the suppression of the small notes has greatly aided the free trade measures, in reducing prices, and creating distress. There are those, however, who maintain that the evil has been produced, principally, and almost wholly, by the suppression: I dissent from them altogether, and in saying this, I will add, that nothing but public interest could lead me to controvert the opinions of allies. These individuals take their stand principally on the fall in prices; it is, therefore, incumbent on them to prove, that prices would have fallen if the notes had not been suppressed, or that prices could be materially higher with an unlimited issue of notes. They have not done this, and they cannot.

With an unlimited issue of notes, could wool be higher than it is? could corn be higher, without a glut of foreign corn?-could live stock

be higher, without causing a great import of salted provisions, &c.?— could butter, cheese, skins, seeds, &c. &c. be higher, without causing excess by importation? No-with such an issue, agricultural produce could not be materially higher than it is.

The case is the same with ships, silks, gloves, lace, and various other things.

Cottons, woollens, and other articles of export, are, as every one knows, governed in their prices principally by foreign markets.

It is thus demonstrable, that prices must have been nearly as low as they are, and of course that the mass of the community must have been almost as much distressed as it is, if the circulation of small notes had not been molested.

With regard to the great fall in the prices of live stock, I will remark, that the consumption of animal food has been prodigiously reduced amidst the lower orders by distress-that by means of steam, importation from Ireland has been for some time greatly on the increase-and that every facility has been given to shipping for using foreign provisions. Here are causes amply sufficient for the fall. In respect of Irish butter, its market has been, to a large extent, taken away amidst the working classes, and ships; therefore it is naturally at ruinous prices.

There are public men of great pretensions, who, strange to say! are the champions of both a paper currency and free trade. These men inveigh against the suppression of small notes on the sole ground that it has raised the value of money, or, in other words, has produced low prices; and in the same breath they vehemently eulogise the free trade laws, which will not suffer prices to be higher than they are! They actually do more than this-they advocate other free trade measures, which confessedly would subject prices to a further great reduction!! There are liberal publications which display this barbarous inconsistency. The "schoolmaster" has not yet been able to penetrate into every quarter.

Were small notes, therefore, again suffered to circulate, it would not, with the present commercial laws, have any material effect in raising