No. 85.] 51 



lion against our unwise and unjust laws, which calls for the brute force 

 of military power. It is thus that we are so successful in filling our 

 poor-houses with paupers, and our jails and prisons with criminals. 



Suppose a paternal government, acting on the principle of equal and 

 exact justice, were to credit every member of the community, every 

 family in the State, with all the good things produced by the same, 

 and should debit each person and each family, with all they have ever 

 consumed, how few could show a balance in their favor of $2,000 ? 

 Under a system of just debit and credit with every mouth, back, and 

 pair of hands, how many who are now rich would be bankrupts for 

 thousands 1 How many, now really poor, would rejoice in their com- 

 fortable circumstances 1 



Suppose every man that has $3,000 at interest, were compelled to 

 work at 75 cents a day, to pay his own interest 1 Who then would 

 care to overreach his neighbors, and acquire $3,000 which rightfully 

 belong to the families that gave them existence 1 



It is because $3,000 will draw for its holder, from human bone and 

 muscle, 200 days' work a year, for ten generations, that we are all so 

 anxious to acquire the means thus to eat bread by the sweat of other 

 men's faces, rather than by the sweat of our own. Humanity gains 

 nothing by the circumstance that capital so often changes owners. To 

 the producing classes, who work 100 days at 70 cents a day, for the 

 service of $1,000 a year, it matters not whether this money has shifted 

 owners a thousand times, or only once. 



Having thus briefly noticed a few of the evils which affect most in- 

 juriously the great agricultural interest of New-York, your committee 

 regard it as a part of their legitimate duty to suggest a remedy. 



The objects sought to be attained are these : 



First, to increase the productiveness of rural labor. 



Secondly^ to secure to every cultivator of the soil the entire pro- 

 ceeds of his better directed and more productive industry. 



On what does the productiveness of the farmer's labor mainly de- 

 pend 1 Surely not on his mere muscular strength, for in that case the 

 mechanical power of a cart-horse will exceed fivefold in value the 

 labor of an agriculturist. It is the sound judgment, experience and 

 acquired knowledge of the directing Mind, that imparts productive 

 value to the labor of human hands. And it is mainly because the in- 

 tellect employed in rural pursuits is less developed than the mind de- 

 voted to other and more professional occupations, that agricultural 



