The erroneous courses both of reasoning and of action amidst which writers and statesmen have involved themselves with regard to the great question which I have now tried, have occurred to them on account of their having failed to see, and to acknowledge, the first principle in which the action or the labour of man is included, and from the operation of which it can never be disconnected. This principle is contained in labour, and UNITED labour, the Creator having freely given the earth or world as a sphere of residence and of action, and placed all the varied materials contained in it in subordination to the labour of man. Thus, labour joined with labour, or man united with man, in whatever part of this sphere it may be that this union of effort and of power is formed, constitutes the living, intelligential, and sympathetic agency; and all material things are to be developed in reverence and conservation of the rights, advantages, and enjoyments of the creatures with whom this living, intelligential, and sympathetic agency is deposited. Now, in this we see that the agency being of an intelligential, moral, and spiritual character, is placed above, or precedes, the dormant and unliving material; so that, in all courses of action connected with the development of material things, the condition, the interest, and the rights of the living agent, are designed to be regarded before the development of material things is continued or increased. Attention to, and regard for, human interest and welfare is the obligation precedent; the development of material things, is the obligation subsequent. Matter made to fulfil its intended office, that of sustaining the corporeal frame with which spirit, mind, intelligence are connected, coextensively with the existence of spirit, mind, and intelligence. Thus, the greatest object that can be involved Is involved; the just union of spiritual and intelligent beings, or man engaged in developing and appro

priating the matter of the world under the influence of a principle by which the welfare of all his fellow-creatures is included.

Now, the order here shown, the design intended, has not been kept in view by those men whose especial duty it has been to ascertain, to declare, to uphold, and to conserve right. These men are writers on Social and Political Economy, and Statesmen, who, after being engaged in discovering, and examining theoretically, the character of subjects, have had to enter practically on the consideration and application of principles. They have deserted the higher range of their subject, and have immersed themselves, together with those whom they have influenced and led, in the lower range. They have inverted the just order of things, by placing the character and importance of the materials which are to be educed and developed, before or above the character and importance of the agents who are to educe and develope them. Instead of keeping strictly to the expansive and noble courses which the subject involved, and which would have been opened to them if they had directed the power of their minds to a just consideration of the operation and efficiency of labour, and of those true interests of every man which constitute natural rights, they have, at the very commencement of their work, deviated from this course, and have appended to labour and the division of labour, or the distribution of employments, another term or element which ought to have been kept distinct, and in a position of subordination; this term, conveying the extra element, is territorial. Having got their subject into a state of confusion, by not reasoning correctly on labour, - the division of labour, the subdivision of labour, and the effects issuing from these adopted courses, followed by the due adaptation, or adjustment, of supply to demand and again of demand to supply these courses, when cor

rectly worked, eventuating in the realisation of value they have sought to extricate themselves from the perplexities with which they found themselves to be surrounded, by adopting the term "territorial division of labour." By means of the latitude contained in these terms, and the licence to be derived from them, they have continued to evade the duty of rendering strict definitions; and thus the most important interests of man have been thrown into confusion, and have been kept in this state, in order that incompetency might be allowed to prevail in and to preside over the science. The law of the Creator, by which due arrangement is determined, has been ejected from the human system. The course and practice of the constructor have been rejected; the course and practice of the subverter have been adopted. Men have decided on having those material things which they covet, even though they should have to acquire them by the degradation and by the completed misery of their fellow-creatures. Thus, social virtue and duty have been ejected from the policy and practice of nations; and, in their place, self-interest, individual enjoyment and indulgence, or general covetousness, have been implanted.

I have now shown that every advancement made in mixing up the interests of nations, when this advancement is made without regard being paid to the natural social law of advancement, is followed by direful consequences to the people of all nations who engage in the attempt. The cherished idea of people at this era is, that the free or promiscuous intercourse of the people of all the nations of the earth is fraught with advantages innumerable, by reason of the transmission and distribution of all those enjoyable elements from one part of the world to another, which, being indigenous in the soils and matured by the climates

of the several countries, are educed and wrought into convenient and agreeable forms, by the ingenuity, talent, and industry of man. The object sought and announced is, that the general elements, or the material advantages of the world, shall be unrestrainedly participated in by all the people of the world. I have shown that this object of general and universal enjoyment is most wisely placed, by the Creator, under the guidance of an all-prevailing law of social action, which law is inseparably attached to the working of that instrument, by which alone all the materials of the earth are procured and made useful, namely, Labour; and hence it arises that the attempt to place commerce, and foreign commerce, in a position of unrestrained or unregulated flowwhich flow is determined by the individual and general selfish desires of man eventuates in a result the reverse of that which is predicated of it by the general writers and statesmen of the age. Instead of raising or increasing the earnings and enjoyments of the people of different nations to one universal high level, its tendency and inevitable operation is that of depressing, or decreasing, the earnings and enjoyments, and placing the people of all nations on the lowest general level to which they can be forced, this being effected by the powerful action of stimulated universal competition; for, whilst this free course necessitates that the efforts of labour by all the people or classes engaged, shall be exerted to the greatest degree, it necessitates, likewise, that the earnings or wages of labour-comprehending, as these do, the general enjoyment of the greater part of the people of each nation

shall be acquired in the smallest degree.

The writers who engage in the attempt to pass off on the credulity of the people, a promised abundance and enjoyment, to come to them from the operation of free desire, free action, the fullest and freest competition of all

labourers, or the free intercourse and commerce of the whole world, irrespective of any law of union, or of production and consumption, are under the necessity of inventing some plan of concealment for the false doctrines, or some cloak; for, as I have shown, being wholly unable to acquire a knowledge of the subject, they cannot but be apprehensive of bad results, or that general adversity, instead of general prosperity, may issue; and so they endeavour to persuade the people that the state is one of transition, that, before attaining the delightful land of promise, or of abundance, they have to pass through a hard and sterile land, a land of want and suffering; and when the people are got into the land of bog and difficulty, they again delude them by some other fabricated invention, still urging them to believe that what they are suffering is the inevitable condition attendant on a state of transition.

Thus, whilst the result predicated by the theoretical contenders for thorough freedom of action, is that of universal advantage, the fact realised by the adoption of the free course, is general injury. When it has become too late to retract and to avoid, bitter experience marks, in strong and unmistakable characters, that in union, and in regarding religiously the laws of union, prosperity and strength are alone to be derived; and that by disunion, or disregarding the laws of union, there ensue, inevitably, loss, weakness, decay, and, eventually, dissolution.

The view here advanced has been clearly and concisely enunciated by Dugald Stewart, in the following sentence, which I have already quoted:-"Keeping constantly before the mind of the speculative politician the standard by which the wisdom and expediency of every institution is to be estimated; and in checking those partial views of human affairs which have led so many eminent writers, in their zeal