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redundancy of labour in these islands to those parts of the empire where, for ages to come, it must always be deficient; THEN will remunerative employment be secured to every British subject who is able and willing to work; then industry, being certified of its full and meet reward, will put forth its utmost energies; wealth will be created in greater abundance and in more wholesome proportions to the wants of consumers, among whom it will distribute itself more according to the principles of natural justice. Industrious pauperism will then be extinguished, and poverty confined to the sufferers from unavoidable casualty or wilful misconduct. Then will this country present a spectacle, such as the world never yet saw, of a dense, thriving, and happy population, blessed with a copious supply of the necessaries, comforts, and luxuries of life-combining all the intellectual refinement, polish of manners, and assiduous cultivation of art and science, which are now the peculiar characteristics of old and populous states, with the ample remuneration for the inferior kinds of labour, which has been hitherto confined to the new and thinly-peopled. Then will other nations-among whom yet more barbarizing errors than deform our own statutebooks are still prevalent-learn to reform their institutions likewise, after our example, and at the sight of our increasing prosperity. Then will the true principles of political economy, as deduced from the natural laws of social welfare, be universally recognized and followed as beacon-guides to the certain, continuous, and indefinite increase of public prosperity and individual happiness.

These principles we have shown to be simple, obvious, and easily put in practice. They are -briefly enumerated-just and cheap government, affording a certainty of protection to the person, and to property acquired by honest exertion or legitimate succession; freedom of industry and exchange; a due enlargement of the cultivable territory at the disposal of an increasing population; and a systematic prevention of pauperism, by the removal of any local surplus of labour to localities where it is deficient.

Simple and obvious principles these, yet hitherto neglected, or at much pains counteracted, as if on purpose to derange and disturb the natural progress of improvement. Simple as they are, we are confident they will prove sufficient, if honestly acted on, to redeem man effectually and permanently from economical misery, and secure to him the constant and unlimited enlargement of his means of gratification. It is in his power, we have fully shown, by a wise prudential arrangement of the resources he has at his disposal, in every corner of the inhabited globe, continually to advance in the acquisition of social well-being. It is in the power of the government of every community, appointed to watch over and promote its welfare, by a wise and prudent disposition of the means it is entrusted with, to command and maintain this advance; and without any approach to an equalization of property, (which would, indeed, be repugnant to the first principle of improvement,) to equalize, at least pretty generally, the happiness: of individuals; to secure, at least, to the lowest class, and even to the poorest individual of that

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class, an ample supply of necessaries and comforts, in return for the not immoderate exercise of his industry, and the discharge of the duties he owes to society.

The elements of production are unlimited. Land of ample fertility we have proved not to be wanting. Capital will always, under security for its enjoyment and free use, spring up to meet the demand for it. Labour can never, by its deficiency, occasion distress. Skill, knowledge, art and science are daily improving in an accelerated ratio. All then that can be wanting, besides protection from force and fraud, is a judicious adaptation of these boundless means to their great end, the boundless augmentation of the wealth and happiness of society, individual and collective.

The writer is sensible of having touched very cursorily on many subjects of vast importance, and which may seem to require a more lengthened investigation. His object, however, has been, without dwelling too much on doctrinal refinements, to give a general and rapid, but yet, he hopes, a clear and succinct sketch of the true laws of social economy; to show that there is nothing in them, when rightly understood, mysterious or abstruse; and, in opposition to the narrow, disheartening, and, as he is convinced, utterly false doctrine of a modern school of economists as to the existence of an iron necessity and unavoidable natural tendency to deterioration in the condition of the mass of mankind, through a decrease in their means of subsistence accompanying their increase in number-to vindicate the scheme of Providence and the nobility of man, by proving that the ordained

multiplication of his race has no such tendency; but, on the contrary, that, coupled with the progress of invention and civilization, it has a direct tendency to multiply, without any visible limit, the comforts of existence procurable by an amount of labour at all times undergoing an indefinite diminution; in short, that HUMAN HAPPINESS MAY,

BY AN EASY EXERCISE OF HUMAN FORESIGHT, BE MADE CONTINUALLY TO INCREASE, NOT ONLY IN THE PROPORTION, BUT BEYOND THE PROPORTION, OF ANY POSSIBLE INCREASE OF THE HUMAN FAMILY.

Doubtless, in order to realize these bright prospects, there should be a moral improvement going on at the same time in the habits, disposition, and feelings of the people. But we are convinced that such improvement will be the certain accompaniment of an amelioration of their economical condition. Poverty is the fruitful parent of vice and crime, and the despair and negligence which a hopeless state of suffering engenders are utterly destructive of moral and orderly habits. Though the scope of our little work has been necessarily confined to economical ameliorations, we are far from shutting our eyes to the imperative necessity of concomitant reforms in our systems of moral and religious instruction. A general scheme of national education-of education, not merely in the elements of literature, but in the useful handicrafts, arts, and sciences; and still more in habits of moral discipline, of self-control, of benevolent sympathy, and virtuous conduct, is indispensable, as was observed at the commencement of this volume, to enable a community even to make the best use of the economical resources they have at

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their disposal, and certainly to secure to them that happiness which no abundance of physical enjoyments will afford, so long as the moral temper is in a diseased state.

The tendency of public opinion at present de cidedly points towards such an object. Nor will it, we trust, be long before steps are taken for its attainment by those who have the power to carry into effect the measures of great public benefit which they may be willing to introduce. Reform in our moral will then accompany-we do not agree with a respected fellow-labourer in the good cause, that it must necessarily precede*-the reform of our economical condition. Both may well make progress together, each aiding and accelerating the advance of the other-both conspiring to the same great end-the enlargement of the sphere of human happiness.

* Dr. Chalmers, on the Expediency of a good Moral preceding a good Economical Condition of Society. Edinburgh, 1833.

THE END.