are inadequately compensated by the cheapness of the article.

Mr. Porter, in the "Progress of the Nation," calculates that, during twenty-four years of peace, eight hundred millions had been added to the wealth of the country, and yet, during that period, wages, notwithstanding occasional fluctuations, had continued to decline.

In contending for the advantages of machinery, without adverting to its concomitant evils, as employed in the service of commerce only, Mr. Travis refers to a passage in the Factory Report, announcing an important discovery by Mr. Senior :

"The general impression on us all as to the effects of factory labour has been unexpectedly favourable. The factory work-people in the country districts are the plumpest, best clothed, and healthiest looking persons of the labouring class that I have ever seen. The girls, especially, are far more good-looking (and good looks are fair evidence of health and spirits) than the daughters of agricultural labourers."

Mr. Senior is here writing in discharge of a special duty as one of the Commissioners, but the introduction of this passage into a lecture delivered before those who may be the future Legislators of the Empire, is not calculated to awaken sympathy for the sufferings of factory

children, doomed to perpetual imprisonment and wearisome labour.

No one can attentively peruse the writings of the Political Economists, without a strong impression of their benevolent intentions, but it is the unfortunate tendency of their speculations to confirm the worst errors of society.

How much more conducive to the best interests of mankind, if sentiments like the following were fostered and encouraged in the rising generation:

"Telle est d'ailleurs la noble nature de l'humanité, qu'elle ne saurait voir un grand développement de force matérielle sans aspirer à la force morale qui doit s'y joindre et la dominer; quelque chose de subalterne demeure empreint dans le bien-être social, tant qu'il n'a pas porté d'autres fruits que le bien-être même, tant qu'il n'a pas élevé l'esprit de l'homme au niveau de sa condition."-Guizot.

We have yet to advert to another principle, for the discovery of which Dr. Adam Smith was eulogised, and which is not the least favoured by the economists of the present day-the celebrated "Laissez faire" system.

In all the great thoroughfares of the metropolis, in the principal streets, as well as in some of the most obscure, are two or three costly establishments vying in the splendour of their decorations with the temples raised to the worship

of God; these magnificent buildings, well warmed and brilliantly lighted up, are singularly attractive to the shivering, half-naked, and starving multitudes, issuing from cold, dark, and wretched apartments in courts and alleys-for to those edifices they crowd, in the hope of finding a short oblivion of their cares in a delusive excitement which only adds to their despair and misery.* It is somewhat difficult to understand how the distillers, who pursue their own interests in their own way," are "prosecuting branches of industry advantageous to the public." The same observations will apply to the keepers of gaminghouses and brothels, to the vendors of licentious publications, to all the panders to the vices and follies of mankind. It is said that at Hamburgh the manufacture of cigars is carried on so extensively as to occupy more than 10,000 persons, chiefly women and children. The total number

* We are told that, in the Island of Tahiti, the inhabitants became so convinced, from the exhortations of the missionaries, of the beneficial effects of temperance, that, when the Parliament met, and before the members proceeded to business, they sent a message to the Queen to know upon what principles they were to act. She returned a copy of the New Testament, saying:-"Let the principles contained in that book be the foundation of all your proceedings;" and immediately they enacted a law to prohibit trading with any vessel which brought ardent spirits for sale!

of cigars manufactured annually is 150,000,000, the value of which is 6,000,000 of marks current, about £350,000 sterling. If the opinion of some of the medical profession is correct, all this labour, as well as the large traffic in opium, so far from being "advantageous to the public," is a positive injury.

Sir James Graham, in his speech on the Factory Question, March 15th, 1844, bears testimony to the evils of non-interference:-"I have been informed that 35,000 children are employed in calico printing; that they are worked without limitation of time; they begin to labour at six years of age, and they work fifteen hours a-day; even night labour is not prohibited. So far therefore from the tendency of legislation being such as has been stated by my noble friend, it has been directly opposite. There has been a congestion of labour where there has been no legislation; there is a depletion of labour where there has been interference." Thirty-five thousand children worked for fifteen hours in the day! It is impossible that such an abomination can be "advantageous to the public." Competition is a kind of civil war, in which women and children are the first victims, and it is one of the chief causes of national antipathies. Among the losses occasioned by war, there is not one more to be lamented by

nations than the sacrifice of their most courageous and enterprising men, those who would probably have been the most valuable members of society, and highly distinguished in any other profession in which they had embarked. It was an ordinance of Napoleon, which forbade the surrender of any fortress without having stood at least one assault, and the reason he assigns was as follows:-"To inflict loss upon an enemy is the very essence of war, and as the bravest men and officers will always be foremost in an assault, the loss thus occasioned may be of the utmost importance." Colonel Napier, who, in his "History of the Peninsular War," makes this statement, gives the following description of a melancholy spectacle at the siege of St. Sebastian:-"The forlorn hope had already passed beyond the play of the mine, and now speeded along the strand amidst a shower of grape and shells; the leader, Lieutenant Macguire, of the Fourth Regiment, conspicuous from his long white plume, his fine figure, and his swiftness, bounded far ahead of his men in all the pride of youthful strength and courage, but at the foot of the great breach he fell dead, and the stormers went sweeping like a dark surge over his body." Such are the barbarous conflicts of Christian Europe! The time cannot be very far distant when men of all ranks will be too enlightened to