196 LAND AND LABOR. 



Adam Smith did not fail to point out with the great- 

 est clearness. 



In the very nature of things the speculation in and 

 exportation of food products can not always continue. 

 The English and European seasons will not always 

 remain bad ; neither can England nor any other coun- 

 try long exist and depend upon foreign importations 

 for any considerable portion of the food that feeds her 

 people. She must raise her own bread and meat. The 

 very first return of good seasons and harvests with that 

 people who now receive so largely from us, will throw 

 back upon ourselves the enormous amounts that we 

 now export, and cause such a demoralization in our 

 trade and industries as will shake us as we have not 

 yet been shaken. Even if this does not happen dur- 

 ing the coming year it must come soon. But whether 

 it gomes soon or late the present fever of speculation 

 can not long continue, and is sure to be succeeded by 

 inevitable prostration, as did the speculative mania 

 that followed the close of the war of the rebellion. 



When prosperity returns it will come upon us as 

 before : by springing from the root, not from the top 

 - the growth will be upwards, not downwards. As in 

 the years that followed 1861, it will have its founda- 

 tion in the improved condition of the masses, not in 

 food speculations and stock gambling. The tens of 

 millions of gold that have been received from Eng- 

 land, and grasped and hoarded by our great capital- 

 ists, will go no farther in relieving the distress of the 

 industrial classes than the hundreds of millions that 

 have already been invested in United States bonds. 



It is certain that money, whether hard or soft, much 



