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that peculiar class, the members of which, as navigators, have been taken even to the Continent at high wages, from their superiority to other unskilled workmen. The less energetic adventurers, therefore, it may be presumed, will gradually be driven away from the mines; and if the current of emigration now setting strongly to Australia be aided as far as possible by the Government-the shepherd class especially, who are not accustomed to the hardest labour, being encouraged to go out-it is no unreasonable expectation that considerable numbers would soon be found glad to undertake and adhere to the old pastoral employments. One strong recommendation of this scheme is, that in any case it must tend to correct at the earliest moment the disturbances produced by the gold discoveries in the whole of Australian society. The capacity of the gold-mines must be, as it were, saturated, that is to say, the openings which they offer must be filled up, before other branches of industry have a chance of attention. If the present state of things continues long, the whole social fabric, not merely in New South Wales and Port Philip, but in Van Diemen's Land, and even in New Zealand, will be dislocated and pulled to pieces.

Importance of the Supply of Wool.

The evils with which the colonies are threatened are very great, and those which must result to our own manufactures will scarcely be less great. Upon the latter ground alone, that is to say, with a view to the security of our regular supply of that material which is second in importance to cotton only, the largest advances that might be made by the Government in promoting emigration would be a judicious investment, even if repayment could not be secured, as it might easily be, out of colonial resources. To multitudes of the manufacturing population wool is as necessary as bread. Without the wool there is no way of getting the bread. The foreign grain would become a mockery to spinners, carders, and weavers who, for want of materials, were standing in compulsory and hungry inaction. It must be remembered that the evil of a short sup

ply of wool is not represented by the mere rise of price. The effects of that rise must be traced. It instantly checks demand at home and abroad; and manufacturers, in such cases being always more or less uncertain as to the future, become anxious to contract their operations, which means to diminish employment, and stop, to numbers of families, the daily supplies of food. That a Government, with any power to avert so great a calamity as a short supply of material to a great branch of industry, should look passively on and see the mischief take place, out of respect for the economical dogma of leaving things to themselves, would be a pedantry as imbecile and ridiculous as that of the physician who would not use a lancet to save the life of a man in a fit because he was not qualified to practise as a surgeon.

Supply of Cotton.

One thing is very clear, and that is, that the Manchester Chamber of Commerce would not be guilty of any such pedantry. It was in no such spirit that they sent Mr. Mackay' to India. That most judicious mission was no doubt intended to lead, and probably will yet lead, to the pressure upon the Government of India of measures calculated to extend largely the growth of cotton in that country. It may be safely said, that, at this moment, there is no object of greater national importance. The supply of cotton, which is scarcely less needful than the supply of corn, depends upon the regularity both of industry and the seasons in one region of the globe in which the social system is so violently at war with all the tendencies of modern civilization, that no man acquainted with history can put faith in its permanency. It may or may not last out a generation; but no one can tell what impulses are obscurely working in the minds of that vast slave-population which thrives and multiplies, while the white man is daily losing both the

I cannot pass the name of Alexander Mackay without expressing the sorrow with which I heard of the loss of an old friend and fellow journalist, who was every way likely to fulfil, in public life, the expectations created by a youth of great promise.

bodily and mental energy which originally gave him the mastery. In the beginning of the year 1789, the island of St. Domingo was in profound tranquillity. No cotton plantation in the United States is at this day more prosperous or better organized than were then the sugar estates of the French and Spanish proprietors. No European merchant had the faintest suspicion that the wealthiest of all the West Indian colonies was about to discontinue its supplies to the markets of the world, and yet in a few months a negro population, animated by the genius of an unexpected native champion, broke the yoke which seemed likely to endure for ever, and the ruling class awoke at the same moment to the sense of their danger and to the knowledge that their ruin was complete. If by any chance a Toussaint L'Ouverture should make his appearance in Alabama or Carolina, and, as is always the case with such men, take the world by surprise, where would Manchester turn herself for a new supply of cotton? She certainly would not at such a time pay much attention to a counsellor who should proceed to grind the old barrel-organ tune of expecting the best from leaving things to themselves. On the contrary, the simplest, surest, most potent instrumentality of opening up new sources of supply is that to which every man would look; and if any conceivable interference of the Government in India, consistent with justice to the Hindoos, can develope the magnificent resources of that region for the cultivation which is required, Manchester will deserve to want cotton if she does not strain every nerve to enforce and compel such interference.

In these cases, as in the case of agriculture, opportunities may present themselves for action on the part of that body which represents the collective will of society. No rule but that of general utility can be laid down to settle where they should interfere and where they should not. Each case as it arises ought to be determined wholly upon its own merits, and in total disregard of a theory as narrow and empirical as any which has ever caused facts to be distorted or important interests to be neglected.

CHAPTER VI.

LOANS FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF TOWNS.

"Meanwhile, at social industry's command,

How quick, how vast an increase! From the germ

Of some poor hamlet, rapidly produced,

Here a huge town, continuous and compact,

Hiding the face of earth for leagues; and there,

Where not a habitation stood before,

Abodes of men irregularly massed

Like trees in forests,-spread through spacious tracts,
O'er which the smoke of unremitting fires

Hangs permanent, and plentiful as wreaths

Of vapour glittering in the morning sun."-WORDSWORTH.

A Town Life the future Life of England.

For

ONE of the governing facts in our social condition is, that all the increase of the population flows into the towns. many years the rural population has not increased, and whatever may be done to favour the direction of labour to the land, it is not likely permanently to employ a greater number than at present. The great majority of the people of Great Britain already live in towns, and in towns it seems to be the destiny of succeeding multitudes to spend their existence. A town life, then, is already, for the most part, and in the future time will still more be, the life of the people of England. It is well that we should study the circumstances of that life, and see how far they are, or can be made, consistent with the highest ends for which man exists.

The general characteristic of a town life is crowding, or the collection of men in masses; and the first conspicuous effect of such aggregation is the peculiar stimulus which it gives to

all the powers of the mind. Whether it be for good or for evil, our whole life is rendered deeper and more intense by social intercourse. As "Iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend." Indeed, so far as we know, society is a condition indispensable for the deliverance of man from the most torpid brutality, and therefore, in its highest forms of development, must approach nearest to that "natural state" which imaginative writers, like Rousseau, suppose to have been left behind us in the primitive forests. It accords with this, that cities have played the chief part in the progress of civilization'. In the ancient world, Athens was the radiant centre of intellectual light, not for Greece only, but for the world. At a later period, the greatest moral influence known to man was first felt in the most crowded communities. Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, Rome, not to speak of Jerusalem, was each in its turn a cradle of the Christian faith, and from each of those points of concentration the healing and regenerating spirit was carried abroad to all who could receive it. In modern times the same fact presents itself. Whatever noblest enterprise be undertaken, whether for freedom or philanthropy, for preaching the gospel to the heathen or for lifting that pall of ignorance which hangs with such gloom over the population at home, the cities in every case still form the basis of operations. There, if anywhere, the needful intelligence, energy, and self-sacrifice, are to be found. Amidst the life of towns, then, will be the great duties of the coming time; and whatever evils attend such life, our business is to look them fully in the face and struggle with them as best we may.

Evils of a Town Life.

But it is not to be denied that the evils are enormous. If towns give us the highest view of man's range of moral attainment, so do they open up the deepest abysses of human

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