2 52 AMERICAN FARMS. 



of government to the actual needs of the people ; all 

 laws which prevent the placing of taxes where they 

 should be placed ; and all laws which force labor to give 

 unfair support to capital or to monopoly, creating in- 

 equality, sacrificing the true ethical spirit, which should 

 prevail, to the wiles of scheming politicians. This would 

 do much, very, very much, to correct that greatly neg- 

 lected division of political economy — the distribution of 

 wealth. Then the farmers, both large and small, would be 

 upon an equal footing with all others in the community. 



With the powers which prosperity gives, well diffused 

 among the small estates, dangerous socialistic movements 

 can make little headway. Individual ownership incites 

 to individual responsibility. Thus an effectual security 

 is given to the prevention of social disturbances. In 

 this greater diffusion of an augmented prosperity among 

 the rural classes, is also to be found an escape from 

 the dangers to morals, intellect, and the physical stamina 

 of men, which now threaten the human family. 



But, however true all this is, as conditions now exist, 

 it may well be questioned if the farmers of America, 

 with all the forces they may gather in our parliamentary 

 assemblies, would alone be able to combat the forces 

 which we see are pitted against them ; able to meet the 

 argument that, though admitting a policy of universal 

 economic freedom to be an " immense blessing to the 

 world," yet since the nations and so many individuals 

 have given themselves over to a " general scramble for 

 wealth and commercial supremacy," it would be puerile 

 and absurd for us to take the lead, or even to follow in 

 an effort to gain for the world these immense blessings, 

 but instead should take part in the scramble ourselves ; 

 that it is a practical age, which has little room for visiona- 



