296 LAND AND LABOR. 



employed, until the general condition has been reached 

 that is stated in the first portion of this chapter. A 

 competition has been developed that in no way tends 

 to the elevation of the masses, or improvement in 

 their condition. On the contrary the whole effort has 

 been to cheapen labor to make it of less necessity, 

 of less value to give it less power in the struggle 

 for subsistence to create a competition that never 

 ceases its grinding of the labor of man to a lower 

 level. In the interest of what Adam Smith terms 

 the " mercantile system " the sole end and aim of all 

 effort appears to be to sacrifice every interest to cheap 

 production, that the merchant may be enabled to 

 " buy cheap and sell dear " - to build up trade to 

 extend commerce that the whole world may, either 

 as cheap producers or dear purchasers, or as both, 

 pay tribute to trade and to trade only. 



To the mercantile class it seems that the only value 

 of the workingman is in producing the greatest possi- 

 ble amount at so cheap a rate that it may be bought 

 and sold, at home or abroad, so as to yield the great- 

 est possible margin of profit to the merchant. The 

 effect that this system may have on the producer is 

 a matter of the utmost indifference. And of equal 

 indifference appears to be the ultimate effect that 

 these operations may have upon trade itself and soci- 

 ety in general. The supreme effort, to subserve which 

 all the powers of society appear to be directed, is the 

 production of every product primarily for mercantile 

 uses, that the merchant may obtain a profit. In this 

 effort is found enlisted the whole power and influence 

 of the daily and periodical press. It shapes our legis- 



