NEARLY ALL THE EVILS THAT AFFLICT THE SONS OF MEN, FLOW FROM ONE SOURCE-WEALTH, THE APPROPRIATION OF THINGS TO INDIVIDUALS AND TO SOCIETIES. TAKE AWAY THIS MOTHER-CURSE AND ALL ITS CURSED PROGENY, AND THE WORLD WOULD BE, COMPARATIVELY SPEAKING, A PARADISE! WE passed by the residence of Polydore. We saw his gorgeous palace and widely extended fields. We examined his gardens, his park, his orchards; and were struck with astonishment at the splendour of his establishment. And is this all, we inquired, designed for the accommodation of one man? Can one creature, not six feet high, occupy all these splendid apartments? Behold the flocks and herds, and fields of corn! Can all these be necessary for the sustenance of one? But if all this be the product of his own labour, he has full liberty to enjoy it. Polydore must be a giant. Did he pile up these massy stones, and erect these ponderous buildings? Did he subdue the lordly forest, and cover the fields with waving grain? No: Polydore has done nothing. He owes all this to the labour of others. But how then, we inquired with amazement, did Polydore gain this ascendancy over others? How did he compel his fellows to cultivate his fields, or labour in his ditches? Polydore did not compel them; they were compelled by their necessities. A fortunate concurrence of circumstances, and the laws of the country, have made Polydore rich; but these men are poor. A small portion of the product of their labour goes to the support of themselves and their families; but the far greater part is applied to the aggrandizement of Polydore's establishment. And as this aggrandizement increases, in like manner increases his ascendancy over others. We saw through the whole in a moment. It is therefore absolutely necessary that every rich man should be surrounded by men more indigent than himself. If it were otherwise, in what manner would he induce them to supply his factitious wants, or gratify his luxurious inclinations? Cottages, then, must necessarily be found in the vicinity of palaces; and lordly cities must be surrounded by suburbs of wretchedness! Sordidness is the offspring of splendour; and luxury is the parent of want. Civilization consists in the refinement of a few, and the barbarism and baseness of many. As the grandeur of any establishment is augmented, servile and base offices are multiplied. Poverty and baseness must be united in the same person in order to qualify him for such situations.-The Savage. Riches are attended with Luxury, and Luxury ends in Despotism.-Erasmus. The Monopoly of Wealth.-All wealth in a state of civilized society is the produce of human industry. To be rich, is merely to possess a patent, entitling one man to dispose of the produce of another man's industry. The fruitful source of crimes consists in one man's possessing in abundance that of which another man is destitute.- Godwin. Tithes bear a higher price than Conscience in any market in England. A reward offered to indolence impoverishes the state and corrupts the people.-Bentham. 214 The rich man's policy. There is no deficiency of charity towards the poor of this country, but there is a total absence of justice in regard to them; and if the justice, which is wanting, prevailed, the charity that exists would We level the poor to the dust not have the same occasions for its exercise. by our general policy, and then take infinite credit to ourselves for raising them up again with the grace of charity.-Fonblanque. Slavery.-The weight of chains, number of stripes, hardness of labour, and other effects of a master's cruelty, may make one servitude more miserable than another; but he is a slave, who serves the best and gentlest man in the world, as well as he who serves the worst-and he does serve him if he must obey his commands and depend upon his will.-Algernon Sydney. White Slaves.-The laws and the progress of civilization have made the indigent labourer a slave to every man in the possession of riches. He may change his master, but he is condemned to perpetual servitude; and his reward is the reward of every other slave-subsistence. The situation of the white slave is often more unfortunate than that of the black: he is probably harassed by domestic cares, and compelled to be a helpless witness of the distresses of his family; or he changes his employer so often, with the vain hope of meliorating his condition, that he becomes sick, infirm, or old, without having had it in his power to secure the friendship or protection of any of his masters. What then is the consequence? The wretched outcast, after a life of slavery, is neglected by those who have enjoyed the fruit of his labour: he may perish in the streets, expire on the highway, or linger out a miserable existence in some infirmary or poor-house, till death shall relieve him of his pain, and the world of a burthen. And the pitiful assistance, which is granted by the rich to their sick, decrepid, or superannuated slave, is given as a charity, accompanied with reproaches and expressions of contempt; and the dying pauper must receive it with all becoming humility. He is upbraided with his vices, reproached with his follies, and unfeelingly insulted by every purseproud fool who may man age theconcerns, or have the superintendence, of the poor. The black slave is compelled to labour; but he is destitute of care. He is not at liberty to change one service for another; but, when he grows old, or infirm, he is sure of being maintained, without having recourse to the tender mercies of a justice of the peace, overseer of the poor, or superintendent of a workhouse. Is it not a little strange that the opulent man, when he contributes his quota to the necessities of a wretch who has been, in every sense of the word, a slave to the community of the rich, considers himself as bestowing a charity; whereas the slaveholder considers himself bound in justice to support the blacks who are worn out in his service?-Is it not a little strange that we should hear men pour forth reproaches against their brethren for holding slaves, when they themselves are supported by the labour of slaves? hypocrite! first cast the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast the mote out of thy brother's eye."-The Savage. "Thou A noble heart will disdain to subsist like a drone upon honey gathered by others' labour, like a vermin to filch its food out of the public granary, or like a shark to prey upon the lesser fry; but will rather outdo his private obligations to other men's care and toil, by considerable service and beneficence to the public.-Barrow. Individual Accumulation.The accumulation of that power which is conferred by wealth, in the hands of the few, is the perpetual source of oppression and neglect for the mass of mankind. The power of the wealthy is farther concentrated by their tendency to combination, from which, number, dispersion, indigence, and ignorance, equally preclude the poor. The wealthy are formed into bodies by their professions, their different degrees of opulence called ranks, their knowledge, and their small number. They necessarily, in all countries, administer government; for they alone have skill and leisure for its functions. Thus circumstanced, nothing can be more evident than their inevitable preponderance in the political scale. The preference of partial to general interests is, however, the greatest of all public evils. It should, therefore, have been the object of laws to repress this malady; but it has been their perpetual tendency to aggravate it. Not content with the inevitable inequality of fortune, they have superadded to it honorary and political distinctions. Not content with the inevitable tendency of the wealthy to combine, they have embodied them in classes. They have fortified these conspiracies against the general interest, which they ought to have resisted though they could not disarm. Laws, it is said, cannot equalize men. No. But ought they for that reason to aggravate the inequality which they cannot cure? Laws cannot inspire unmixed patriotism; but ought they for that reason to foment that corporation spirit which is its most fatal enemy?— Sir James Mackintosh. The Abolition of Money in Sparta.-The second establishment made by Lycurgus, says Plutarch, was the division of the lands, and the abolition of gold and silver. This bold undertaking, adds the biographer, was made in order to banish fraud, envy, and luxury, and those two ancient plagues of society, poverty and avarice; and in order likewise that honour should be rendered only to virtue. * When we come to examine, under a moral point of view, the benefits which mankind have received from the use of the precious metals, we shall not perhaps condemn the step taken by Lycurgus upon this occasion. If money has contributed to the comfort of mankind by facilitating their commercial intercourse with each other; and if it has rendered the sciences more flourishing, not only by exciting invention, and by rewarding industry,†t but by dividing into innumerable branches the pursuits and occupations of men; it has also given birth to some of the most violent of those passions which distract and agitate the soul, and which stifle in the human breast its noblest affections. Who that looks upon the chequered scene of life, can fail to remark, on each woe-worn visage, the traces left by care-creating avarice? It is this which multiplies grief in the cottage-it is this which imbitters disappointment in the palace. What is that which dries up the tears of filial sorrow; which dissolves the bonds of friendship; and which, while it occupies the sordid heart, shuts out compassion, and leaves no room for mercy? IT IS GOLD-that false semblance of happiness-that ideal standard of all other possessions-that idol of human affections-and that universal Baal, worshipped alike by the Jew and by the Gentile.-Sir W. Drummond. [ It may be as well to mention that morality is the most important among the conducers to happiness. Witness our jails for honest debtors.] ↑ In prisons or poor-houses. Gold! yellow, glittering, precious gold? No, gods, Will lug your priests and servants from your sides; Will knit and break religions; bless the accurs'd; O, thou sweet king-killer, and dear divorce Thou ever young, fresh, loved, and delicate wooer, And mak❜st them kiss; that speak'st with every tongue, All that you meet are thieves. Shakspere.-Timon of Athens. Money is the sov'reign power, Butler.-Hudibras. Commerce. The venal interchange Which wealth should purchase not, but want demand, From the full fountain of its boundless love, For ever stifled, drain'd, and tainted now. Commerce! beneath whose poison-breathing shade No solitary virtue dares to spring, Which, poison'd body and soul, scarce drags the chain, Commerce has set the mark of selfishness, Cast down and crushed by sorrow. The mob of peasants, nobles, priests, and kings, Since tyrants, by the sale of human life, The harmony and happiness of man Yield to the wealth of nations; that which lifts Is barter'd for the poison of his soul; The weight that drags to earth his towering hopes, And statesmen boast Of wealth! the wordy eloquence that lives All things are sold: the very light of heaven And the poor pittance which the laws allow Those duties which his heart of human love On each its price, the stamp-mark of her reign. Falsehood demands but gold, to pay the pangs Shelley-Queen Mab. |