68 LAND AND LABOR. 



degrades and blasts eveiy people where it obtains, 

 and to just the extent of its hold. To-day the most 

 conspicuous social feature of China, of India, and of 

 Mexico, is the cheapness of labor ; and in these very 

 countries we find the greatest poverty, misery, and 

 degradation. In precisely the same degree does cheap 

 labor degrade and make miserable all the nations of 

 Europe where and to the extent it obtains. So it is 

 in our own country. But, on the other hand, never 

 were our people, nor any other, so prosperous, with so 

 great and rapid development, as when its labor was 

 dearest. Our distress and the distress of England 

 have come upon us as the labor of both has been 

 cheapened ; and the greater the degree and more in- 

 timate the union between capital, machinery, and 

 cheap labor the more rapid the increase of the dis- 

 tress. Their union sounds the knell of all those forms 

 of industry, and the social development and material 

 progress out of which have grown our institutions. 



The successful development of the large farm in- 

 terest has the direct and immediate effect not only of 

 impoverishing the sections in which they exist, and 

 robbing and skinning the lands without any compen- 

 sating benefit, but of barring them to the settlement 

 of a fixed and strong population that would cover the 

 soil with homes of comfort for a great people. Not 

 one dollar of the gross amount or net profit received 

 from its products is returned and placed upon the 

 land from which it is taken, beyond the construction 

 of the fewest buildings necessary to shelter and pro- 

 tect the laborers in the working seasons, and the care 

 of the work stock and tools. On the whole 5,300 cul- 



