174 On the Circulation of Organic Matter. [April 24, 



without one iota of personal responsibility is obviously dangerous. 

 To allow reckless borrowing for the construction of works which are 

 a source of expense and waste and never of profit, would be called 

 madness in private life. 



Doubtless a seat on a Council which borrows money in lots of 

 100,000Z. at a time affords a delightful amusement to the idle man, 

 the busy-body, the faddist, the philanthropist with a mission for 

 fumbling in other persons pockets, and the prophet who is ever 

 anxious to borrow in order to provide for the future of which he is 

 ignorant. Your prophet is the most dangerous of these persons, and 

 instances will occur to the minds of most of us of municipalities 

 which have been half ruined by over sanguine persons endowed with 

 speculative minds and persuasive tongues. The risks run by these 

 persons is so small, be it remembered, that if an aggrieved ratepayer 

 makes them defendants in an action they enjoy the unique privilege 

 of paying j)art of their costs and damages out of the successful 

 plantiff's pockets. 



Most of the local borrowing in this country has been for works 

 of sewerage, and although such works are financially ruinous we are 

 told that we get a dividend of " Health." This, however, is not true, 

 at least in London, and nobody could expect health to emerge 

 from a system of which putrefaction and overcrowding arc the chief 

 characteristics. 



The application of organic matter to well-tilled soil leads to 

 positive gain and definite increase. The soil is the only permanent 

 source of wealth in this world. And we are all of us absolutely 

 dependent upon it for existence and happiness. The soil, if properly 

 tilled, provides health as well as wealth, and be it remembered that 

 in proportion to its productiveness so is the need of labour; and 

 further, be it remembered that long after the eye is too dim and the 

 hand too slow to keep time with steam machinery, the physical powers 

 are amj^ly sufficient for the cultivation of the land. 



Many of our pressing social problems are inextricably linked 

 with our duty to the soil, and any country in which the fertility of 

 the soil does not increase cannot be rightly regarded as really in the 

 van of civilisation and scientific progress. We are probably the 

 wealthiest country on the globe, because for some time past we have 

 been the hub of the entire financial world. Our success in one 

 direction is no excuse for neglecting the more certain sources of 

 wealth, and it is to be hoped that it will soon be regarded as evidence 

 of neglect of our moral obligations to allow the land to drift out of 

 cultivation. 



[G. V. P.J 



