a iiiturc ordeal. Writing to an American corre- 



li-nt 50 years ago, Lord Macaulay used these 



words: "As long as you have a boundless extent of 



ud unoccupied land your l.iU.rm^ population 

 will IK* found more at case than the laboring population 

 of the ( )M World; but the time will come when wages 

 will IK- as low and will fluctuate as much with you as 

 they do with us. Then your institutions will be brought 

 to the test. Distress everywhere makes the laborer 

 unit in. .us and discontented and inclines him to listen 

 \\ nh eagerness to agitators who tell him that it is a 

 monstrous iniquity that one man should have a million 

 and another cannot get a full meal. * The 

 day will come when the multitudes of people, none of 



:n has had more than half a breakfast or expects to 

 have more than half a dinner, will choose a legislature. 

 1> it possible to doubt what sort of legislature will be 

 chosen? * * * There will be, I fear, spoliation. 

 The spoliation will increase the di^ :he distress 



win produce fresh spoliation. * * * Hither civili- 

 zation or liberty will perish. Hither some Caesar or 

 Napoleon will seize the reins of government with a 



ng hand, or your republic will be as fearfully plun- 

 dered and laid waste by barbarians in the twentieth 

 century as the Roman Hmpire in the fifth." We need 



accept this gloomy picture too literally, but we 



have been already sufficiently warned to prevent us 



from dismi-sjn^ the subject as unworthy of attention. 



Every nation finds its hour of peril when there is no 



free access to the land, or when the land will no 



