368 NATURAL AND CIVIL 



of any public benefit, to have the profits of the 

 labor of manyj centre in the hands of a few 

 wealthy men. This would reduce the body of 

 the people to poverty, dependence, and venality ; 

 and introduce all that endless confusion of laws 

 for the support of the poor, which has perplexed 

 all the wealthy parts of Europe, for more than a 

 century. Those laws, with their perpetual al- 

 terations, plainly denote that the difficulty does 

 not admit any remedy from the ordinary course 

 of law. In every country, in which the state of 

 society is such, that the laborers have the pros- 

 pect and the hope of acquiring property, that 

 body of men are as active, enterprising, and 

 economical, as any other order in the state. 

 Take from them, under any pretence, the proper 

 profits of labor, and all prospect and hope of ac- 

 quiring ease and property by it, and the Euro- 

 pean consequences will follow ; The poor will 

 every where abound, the wealthy must maintain 

 them, and both will be dissatisfied : Speculators 

 will be perpetually proposing new laws, and the 

 more the laws are multiplied, the worse will be 

 tlie condition of the poor, and the greater will 

 be the expense of the rich. This will be the 

 unavoidable consequence, Vv-hen the wealth of a 

 nation has passed into the hands of a few men : 

 Or when the body of the workmen, instead of 

 laboring upon their own property, continue to 

 serve under a master. 



