346 LAND AND LABOR. 



ness ; by our own folly we pervert all our opportuni- 

 ties and powers, and change our blessings to curses. 

 The law of compensation avenges itself. A Divine 

 Providence immutably speaks through all His laws. 



Ours is the opportunity to not only bless ourselves, 

 but to become an example to all other peoples ; to 

 teach all nations that there is a way in which the 

 highest good of all may be reached, and that in the 

 highest good of all is found the greatest good of the 

 individual. Not that every man and woman can 

 reach the same degree of intellectual excellence, or 

 position of material comfort, but that all shall have 

 at least a liberal subsistence guaranteed from his own 

 industry. 



This can not be brought about by degrading our 

 industrial classes to a groveling competition with the 

 pauper labor and slavish customs of other peoples. 

 We have already had too much of that, bringing, as 

 it does, their wretchedness to our very doors. But it 

 is well to look a little more closely than we have yet 

 done, and see the real condition of the labor in that 

 country with which our competition has been most 

 active, and which, undoubtedly, will continue to have 

 the greatest influence upon the labor and industries 

 of our people. 



During the time that this volume has been in press, 

 Robert P. Porter, Esq., late a member of the United 

 States Tariff Commission, has been examining the 

 great industrial interests of England, on behalf of the 

 New York Daily Tribune, and making reports of 

 \vluit he observed, and the facts gathered, in a series 

 of letters to that great journal. From those letters 



