62 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



hope of improvement, at least the power of making it better 

 does not rest, where it should, with themselves. 



It is a painful, though not an unheard-of anomaly, that, in the 

 midst of the greatest abundance of human food, immense num 

 bers of those by whose labor this food is produced are actually 

 suffering and perishing from hunger ; that where ten millions of 

 acres of improvable lands, capable of being made productive 

 lands, lie uncultivated,* millions of hands, which might subdue, 

 enrich, and beautify this waste, from necessity remain unem 

 ployed ; and that, in a country where the accumulations of 

 wealth surpass the visions of Oriental splendor and magnificence, 

 there exist, on the other hand, such contrasts of want, destitu 

 tion, privation, arid misery, as would surpass belief and defy the 

 power of the imagination, but for the support of incontrovertible 

 and overwhelming evidence. Under the present institutions of 

 the country, a perfect remedy is hopeless, and an alleviation of 

 these evils is all which can be looked for. An entire revolution 

 in the institutions of the country, in the forms of society, and in 

 the condition of property, could only be effected by violence ; 

 and the consequences of such a revolution it would be frightful 

 to contemplate. But should a revolution occur, and the frame 

 work of society be broken up, arid its elements be thrown into a 

 state of chaotic confusion, what sagacity could predict the 

 results, and what security is there that in any re-arrangement 

 these evils would be rectified and the rights of labor any better 

 protected ? I say the rights of labor ; for who, under any cir 

 cumstances, will presume to deny that they, by whose labor the 

 earth is made to yield her fruits, and all accumulations of wealth 

 are obtained, have not, indeed, in common justice, a perfect 

 claim to a full share of the products of their own toil ? I care 

 not what claims arbitrary and despotic power may set up ; nor 

 by what laws and rules she may seek to appropriate to her own 

 use or luxury much the largest portion of these products ; but I 

 claim for the laborer an ample share of the fruits of his industry 

 on the obvious grounds of natural right and justice, and the 

 plainest principles of Christianity. 



I am not at all disposed to quarrel with any of the institutions 

 of this great and enlightened country great and enlightened, 



* Journal of Royal Agricultural Society, vol. iv. pt. ii. p. 308. 



