DOMESTIC EXTRACTS. 327 



Wealth of Nations, and the true reason why misfortunes seemingly 

 overwiielming are eusily triumphed over by any nation whose in- 

 dustry has full and constant employment. If France, under Napo- 

 leon, wasted enormous sums in war ; if her disasters in Spain, if 

 her disasters in Russia, if the invasion of her territory by an innu- 

 merable host, and the tribute she paid to the allied armies, caused 

 her an enormous loss of money, that loss was easily repaired by the 

 masses of industry which the genius and the institutions of the same 

 Napoleon had set in motion, and had rooted so deeply that not even 

 such commotions could eradicate them, or destroy the daily exube- 

 rance of their fruits The 800,000,000 of dollars lost by the contri- 

 bution to the evacuating armies were easily recreated by eighty 

 days labor of 38,000,000 Frenchmen, at an average earning of 

 thirty-three cents per day ; and scarcely a trace either of her losses 

 or of her misfortunes can now be found in la belle France, whose 

 governing monarch ( a banker, a trader, a merchant, and a thrifty 

 man), having learned in the school of misfortune the value of 

 productive industry, is incessantly occupied in giving to the French 

 people productive occupation, by protecting their home industry, 

 and by unfolding the resources of the whole country ; by a well 

 digested and extensive system of internal improvements, carrying 

 out (with the more modern inventions) the vast plans designed for 

 the public welfare, by the towering genius and the practised talent 

 of the mighty mind of Napoleon. 



Occupation, then, constant occupation is the true source of wealth. 

 If, by any blunder of legislation, if by any neglect or oversight in 

 using the gifts placed in our hands by a kind Providence, we throw 

 into idlenes-s for one-third of the year our 19,000,000 of people, it 

 is a loss to the country of the product of their labor for one hundred 

 days ; and if their average earnings, when occupied, are 50 cents 

 per day (equal to 9,500,000 for every day), it gives for 100 days of 

 idleness a loss of 950,000,000 of dollars. 



By productive labor, we not only mean the labor of him that tills 

 the earth and of him that saws wood and works by the day, but we 

 also mean the labor of all who in any vocation (whether as mer- 

 chants, lawyers, shoemakers, schoolmasters, seamstresses, or in any 

 other way), present something so useful and so acceptable to some 

 in society, that money is voluntarily and freely paid ior the service 

 by them rendered. 



What we have stated is true of nations, as it is of individuals : 

 industrious nations, like industrious individuals, invariably thrive ; 

 while idle nations, like idle imlividuals, are a constant prey to 

 poverty, and to what is even worse, namely, to the numerous vices 

 which are the natural offspring of the want of occupation. 



It is by such considerations that we are led to appreciate as an 

 estimable blessing, the permission to carry freight on the New- York 

 railroad from Buffalo to Albany in the winter. The permission was 

 granted by a law passed May 7, 1844. This law unfetters the in- 

 dustry of the west from its icy chains. It has opened a new field ; 



