It is not only not true, but the converse proposition is true. It is an actual and very great gain, to the nation as a whole, to pay for British ships, British sailors, and British freight. It is an actu al and verygreat gain, though the nation should pay much more for them than it really does.

But we have been hitherto speaking of the mere sordid pecuniary gain. We have not alluded to the gain of keeping on the deep tens of thousands of British tars, the true defenders of their native isle, in the constant exercise of their healthy, hardy, perilous vocation. In peace costing nothing, incapable of being corrupted by idleness, or perverted by ambition; yet always ready at the first blast of the trumpet to climb your first-rates, and make every foreign heart quake with your thunder.

Again we understate the case. This great naval reserve is kept afloat not merely for nothing, but for less than nothing. The mercantile navy, it cannot be too often repeated, is not only not a source of loss, but a source of enormous gain.

But the most frightful view of what we have done, remains to be considered.

The blackest horrors of war are seen in a populous and blockaded city. Incomparably more awful would be the famine of an island swarming with people, dependent on foreign supplies of food, but beleagured by superior naval forces.

Such a catastrophe has hitherto been impossible, for three reasons.

First, we were not dependent on foreign supplies of food. Till very recent times we produced enough for our own consumption, and in the last century a great superfluity.

Secondly, our military and commercial marine, (owing chiefly to the navigation laws) has been so large, as at all times not only to supply a cheap and effectual defence, but to sweep the sea.

Thirdly. No other power, either separately or combined possessed any naval strength comparable to ours. All these three things are now changed.

First, we have become (and in a great measure suddenly) dependent on foreign countries, for large supplies of corn, to say nothing of sugar and cotton. It has been said that we draw, or shall soon draw, nearly a fourth of our supply of food from abroad. The sudden and forcible withdrawal of that proportion would instantly cause famine prices,-prices ten times, twenty times as high as at present. Such prices, frightful as they are, are yet but the heralds of actual famine.

Secondly. We have now, at the very crisis when we have begun to require this increased supply, repealed our navigation laws, and reduced our military marine. The effect of the repeal will be (there is too much. reason to fear) highly injurious, if not destructive to British shipping. The best that can be said of the experiment is, that its results are untried and unknown.

We are calling out for still further reductions in our Royal Navy. Already it is no longer such an effectual defence, as our altered circumstances and vast possessions might suddenly require.

Thirdly. The marine of France, of Russia, and of the United States, are now, each of them, formidable rivals. Combined, they are already our actual superiors.

It is said, that it would be as inconvenient to the exporting countries to withhold their supplies, as it would be for us to forego them. Alas! these are the dreams of men of peace. The answer is, first, It would not. Which is the greatest evil, famine or a temporary superfluity? One is death, the other but transient inconvenience. The animosity and evil passions of war have often and joyfully endured a temporary and partial inconvenience, to consummate the final ruin of an ancient and haughty enemy. Next the attacking and beleaguering powers may be those who have the least interest in the commercial question; but who in intercepting supplies of food from neutral parties, may have not only superior force, but public law on their side.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

Labour should be left to flow in its own natural channels."

Of all the idols worshipped by the let-alone superstition, this is perhaps the Moloch. Never before were human sacrifices offered up on so vast a scale.

We have already seen that the channels in which both capital and labour, when left to themselves, may chance by accident to flow, are not necessarily the most advantageous. That both capital and labour may be (and often have been) artificially diverted into channels ten times, twenty times, a hundred times as advantageous to the whole nation. Just as many a river, which left to itself, spreads and stagnates in shallow and pestilential marshes and lagoons, may have its course or its levels artificially altered and improved, so as to irrigate whole countries, and feed great nations, or bear their commerce on its deep and ample bosom.

But what we propose here to consider is, the distribution of the population itself. Will it naturally distribute itself in the most advantageous manner?

Reader! have you ever seen a map of England

shaded according to the density of the population Middlesex, Lancashire, the West Riding of Yorkshire, a portion of South Wales, and a few other places are almost black. But the residue of the kingdom is either slightly shaded, or almost white. This map shews the English population to be, not so much large, as congested.

Let things alone, and the fatal 'congestion is aggravated. The recent returns shew that the population of our largest towns grows, but the rural population decays. Men are more and more driven from their natural, virtuous, and healthy calling in the open air— the subjugation, fertilization, and culture of the soil. They encourage foreigners to cultivate foreign soils, but are themselves driven to herd promiscuously, like beasts, in the cellars of Liverpool, the garrets of St. Giles's, the Wynds of Glasgow, the victims and parents of idleness, disease, want, filth, vice, and irreligion.

No sanitary measures, no education, no schools, no churches, will ever stop the progress of evils like these. You might as well attempt to stop a hundred-andtwenty gun ship in full sail, with a bit of pack-thread. There is but one remedy. Restore these really exiled children of the land to their natural condition and occupation. Plant them on the soil. This is the only true and solid sanitary improvement. Then indeed, and not till then, will what is now the refuse and sewerage of your cities really fertilize the land. In the United Kingdom alone, the room is ample. There are mil