344 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



often as severe as any bodily toil, and which deserve to be fully 

 compensated. In general, this enterprise is perfectly competent, 

 however, to take care of its own interests, and seldom fails to 

 provide for itself. But it is said, these people take no risks ; 

 they are sure, in any event, of their stipulated wages ; they have 

 no right to any more. I know they have no legal right. But I 

 do not understand that they take no risks. There is always a 

 risk of losing their wages, which is something ; but in all em 

 ployments there is a risk of health, and in many a constant 

 exposure to disease, to accidents of various kinds, to loss of 

 sight, or loss of limbs, or loss of life. There are many trades 

 arid professions where health is almost certain to be impaired, 

 and life to be prematurely cut off. There are peculiar dangers 

 in mines, among complicated machinery, in unhealthy climates, 

 on the open seas, and on the ice-bound and rock-bound shores, 

 bristled with pointed cliffs and ruffled with foaming waves. 



I know very well the great rules of trade, as they are called 

 &quot; Buy as cheaply as you can ; sell as dearly as you can j get your 

 labor performed for the least possible wages ; and accumulate, 

 accumulate, accumulate, as your great end and aim.&quot; This men 

 call Christianity ; I think, to give it such a name is a libel upon 

 a religion which teaches us to do justly and to love mercy, 

 and which enjoins it upon us, as the highest law of social duty, 

 to do to others as we would that others should do to us. I 

 admit that, if men could enter into a perfectly free and equal 

 competition, unmixed self-interest, though an inferior, might yet 

 not be so objectionable a rule as in other circumstances ; but 

 how seldom is the competition equal between capital and labor, 

 wealth and poverty, skill and ignorance ; and especially in a 

 country like England, where wealth is enormous ; labor supera 

 bundant ; the professions, and trades, and occupations crowded 

 to repletion ; the lower classes extremely ignorant and dependent ; 

 and the population increasing with a rapidity perfectly astound 

 ing. I complain of no man s wealth, if that wealth be the fruit 

 of honest industry and enterprise. I envy no man s power, if 

 that power be justly acquired. But I do envy with no desire, 

 however, to pluck a single jewel from his crown that man s 

 honor and felicity, and equally his wisdom and goodness, who, 

 in the possession of ample power, whether of wealth, or learning, 

 or talents, finds his highest honor in being just, and his purest 



