12 LAND AND LABOR. 



miserable and scanty subsistence of the laborers. Many would 

 not be able to find employment even upon these hard terms, 

 but "would either starve, or be driven to seek a subsistence, 

 either by begging, or by the perpetration of the greatest enor- 

 mities." 



That " the liberal reward of labor, as it is the effect of in- 

 creasing wealth, so it is the cause of increasing population. 

 To complain of it is to lament over the necessary causes and 

 effects of the greatest prosperity." 



These principles, as laid down by the greatest of 

 human political economists, require no interpreter. 

 But there is an older law in economics which, whether 

 a formal declaration by the Almighty, or something 

 that has grown out of the workings of an experience 

 simply human, is generally received as of Divine ori- 

 gin, and accepted as the law of our existence, and 

 that is : 



" In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou re- 

 turn unto the ground. 1 ' 



In the light of these principles, as fixed by a higher 

 than human power, and approved by human experi- 

 ence, that only in universal labor, liberally rewarded, 



be found life and prosperity, not only for the in- 

 dividual but for society, we will examine the facts of 

 our present condition. 



iiii;x from the time in which Adam Smith wrote 

 v. will endeavor to note a few of the changes in meth- 

 ods and increase in power of production that have re- 

 sultcd from the invention and use of machinery, as a 

 basis ujiMii which to estimate its effects on the demand 



nan's labor in the supply of his wants, and of his 

 present employment. But first we will note that at 



