association having gradually declined, it was now to be abolished by investing a body of middlemen with legal right to be the soie medium of exchange between the men who produced shoes, boots, and coats, and those who needed to consume them. Production steadily diminished, and with it the power of consumption, until at length the richest soils were abandoned - those which yet were occupied being cultivated by hordes of slaves.

In Italy, as in Greece, the period of the greatest glory was that of the greatest poverty and wretchedness the productive power having steadily diminished. With the gradual extension of dominion, land accumulated in the hands of the few who were rich, at the cost of the many who were otherwise; until, at the close of the last Punic war, the flower of the Latin race seems entirely to have disappeared their places having become occupied by slaves, the property of traders, through whom those who labored were required to make all their exchanges with each other. As a necessary consequence, the number desiring to consume, increased with a rapidity corresponding with that which marked the decline in the powers of those who were required to produce. All who yet claimed to be free, flocked to the great central city, there to be amused and fed. Pauperism at home grew with the growth of power abroad - the gratuitous distribution of food having followed close upon the destruction of Carthage upon the attainment of exclusive dominion over the countries bordering on the Mediterranean — and upon the elevation of the Scipios to the high position they since have occupied in the books that pass for histories. As great men increased in number, and as land became more and more consolidated, the slaves increased in their proportion to the numbers claiming to be free, while the latter became more and more pauperized and brutalized-thus producing that wretched populace which held itself at all times ready, on condition of participation in the plunder, to lend its aid to a Marius or a Sylla, a Pompey or a Cæsar, a Tiberius or a Nero, a Caligula or a Domitian.

Turning now to the Netherlands of the Middle Ages, we find a steady growth of numbers, attended by a development of individuality such as was scarcely elsewhere known in Europe. Increasing power of combination was accompanied by a constant increase

in the ability to direct the forces of nature to man's service exhibited in the extension of cultivation over rich soils that, in the days of Cæsar, had been a mass of swamps and forests. In no part of Europe did consumption so rapidly follow on production; and in none did any similar population exercise so great an amount of power, at home or abroad.

Looking next to France, their immediate neighbor, we find a state of affairs directly the reverse of that above described. From the days of Charlemagne almost to the Revolution, she has abounded in wandering vagrants-peers and paupers men whose hand was against every man, while every man's hand was against them. At home, her history is a record of almost unceasing civil war; while abroad she has been the constant disturber of the public peace. Nowhere in Europe has centralization more existed, and nowhere have its effects in arresting the circulation of society been more fully and disastrously exhibited. Always seeking dominion abroad, at home she has been always wasting power that, properly applied, would have made of the country a garden-yielding abundant support to a population thrice greater than that by which it now is occupied.

§ 6. An unceasing waste of labor being one of the conditions of early society and a scattered people, the advantage resulting from the growth of wealth and population is nowhere more fully exhibited, than in the equal manner in which employment is distributed throughout the year. Where a whole population is limited to scratching the earth in quest of food, large numbers are required in harvest, for whose services there is no demand at other times. As employments become diversified, the workshop absorbs the labor that before was wasted, and the circulation of society becomes more regular-enabling the farmer to increase his cultivation, which before was limited within his power to make the harvest; as is now the case in the planting States.

In England, at the close of the fourteenth century, there were employed, in securing the crop of corn from 200 acres, 250 reapers and thatchers on one day, and 200 on another. On another occasion, 212 were hired, for a day, to cut and tie up 13 acres of wheat and one of oats. Admitting these acres to have

yielded even a dozen bushels each, it would follow that 212 persons were employed to harvest 168 bushels of grain-an operation that could now with ease be accomplished by a single man.

The wages then paid to reapers, "during the first week in August, were 2d. per day, and from that time to the end of the month, 3d., without food. To weeders and haymakers, 1d." Were we to estimate wages, during the year, at a penny, we should, however, err greatly, because employment was only occasional-leaving a large portion of the labor-power wholly without demand.

In proof of this, we may take Ireland as she now stands-occupying a position analogous to that of England, when the latter exported wool and imported cloth. In a collection of papers relative to that country published, some twenty years since, by order of the government, the average price of wheat for two years is given at 52s. 6d. per quarter, and the wages of common laborers at 8s.. enabling them to obtain nearly a bushel and a half for a week's labor. Almost simultaneously, however, with the publication of these tables, appeared the work of a highly intelligent English traveller, who had visited Ireland with a special desire to understand the condition of her working population; and by him we are told that, while 10d. per day, without food, is the highest rate of wages, 6d. is often "willingly accepted;" but that, "with diet, 6d. is the sum usually given." *

Small as is this sum, it would yet give 3s. a week and board; and to him who, centuries hence, may study such subjects, it will appear difficult to reconcile even this with the picture of a nation "starving by millions," almost simultaneously exhibited to the British public. Examining the question more closely, however, he would find that employment had, as a rule, been only occasional, and that while, at one place, "seventy-five per cent. of the working population" were "not in constant employment," at another "a couple of hundred laborers" could be had "at 4d., even for a temporary employment;" and that the average amount at the command of the laborer, for the support of his family and himself, did not exceed 4d. Summing up the result of his observations, our traveller-and he is not at all to be suspected of any disposition to underrate the position occupied by the laborer

* INGLIS: Ireland in 1835.

says that "in a country where not one-half of the people are in constant employment, it would be unfair to state the average amount' obtained by a laborer throughout the year, to be more than one-half of the year: during that half, his wages cannot be fairly stated at more than 8d. for four months; and for the other two months - seed and harvest times - 18. The 104 working days, at 8d., are £3 9s. 4d.; and the 52 days, at 1s., added to this, make £6 18. 4d.; which is all the laborer, 'obtaining an average amount of employment,' may earn in a year; and this sum, divided by 365 - the number of days which the laborer has to support himself and his family gives him, per day, not quite FOURPENCE! I am quite confident," he continues, "that if the whole yearly earnings of the laborers of Ireland were divided by the whole number of laborers, the result would be under this sum -FOURPENCE a day for the laborers of Ireland!"

The more careful examination that has been suggested would thus bring to light the fact, that the average earnings of the laborer were reduced to £6 18. 4d. per annum, of which 35s. were to be allowed for rent of his cabin; and that only £4 6s. 4d. remained to supply himself with food and clothing, the latter of which was necessarily much higher than in England-all the wool of Ireland being required to pass through English factories before it reaches the Irish consumer of cloth; and the limited amount of commerce compelling the trader to claim a large proportion of the price of the cloth in exchange for his services. In these facts he would find an explanation of the apparent discrepancy; and in them we find the key to that which has so much misled economists in reference to English wages in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Employment was to the last degree temporary, as may be seen from the vast numbers required to do a little work in harvest the wages of a single day having been required to furnish means of support for many days, if not even weeks. When it was permanent, wages were exceedingly low. In 1444, when the common laborer has been supposed to have received two pecks of wheat per day, his allowance was 15s. per annum, with clothing of the value of 3s. 4d., and meat and drink. The cloth of russet, or blanket, then used by the laborers, sold at 2s. per yard the whole wages of the laborer, therefore, not exceeding nine yards of cloth, and his own food. Where, then, could he obtain

the means of support for a family, if so unfortunate as to have one?

The power of man to avail himself of the great natural forces then scarcely at all existing, he was required to cultivate the poorest soils those yielding the smallest return to labor. Population being, necessarily, widely scattered, there was little power of association, or combination. Labor not being in demand, the force yielded by the consumption of food was, to a great extent, wasted yielding no result. Consumption followed slowly on production, because-all being farmers-all had hides or wool to sell, and few had cloth to give in exchange for either.

Mr. Malthus and his followers having been led into serious error by their omission to notice the fact, that where population is widely scattered there can be little commerce-and that where such is the case there can be no steady demand for human laborit has been deemed necessary to give this explanation of the causes of their difficulty, with a view to satisfy the reader that the true course to be adopted in reference to the power of production is, to take the actual consumption, as exhibited in the contemporary accounts of the condition of the people, and of the wages actually paid for permanent employment.

§ 7. In the period that followed the Norman conquest, so many English slaves were exported to Ireland, that the market of the latter was glutted with them; and, down to the reign of King John, there was scarcely a cottage in Scotland in which they might not be found. In this latter, no slave could purchase his liberty with his own "proper gudes or geir, because all the cattell and gudes of bondmen are [were] understood to be in the power and dominion of the master." At the close of the thirteenth century, a slave and his family were sold for 13s. 4d. In England, a few fish, principally herrings, a loaf of bread, and some beer, constituted the allowance in harvest-time, whence we may readily imagine how small it must have been during the rest of the year. Meat and cheese were then considered as rarities not entering into the consumption of the laborer. A valuation of the personal property at Colchester, the tenth city, and one of the most thriving towns in England, exhibits the condition of the tradesmen and artificers of that period, and enables us to form