502 



NEW ENGLAND FAR^VIER. 



Nov. 



a lone time before they deviate from this rale of 

 cohesion. They will only begin to disperse in a 

 manner to render them available as domestic ser- 

 vants after they have become familiar with the 

 pervading genius of the country, an essential part of 

 which geiiiiisis an invincible antagonism to servant- 

 hood of the primitive menial sort. They cannot 

 bat imbibe in a large measure the spirit of this 

 "antaaoniani. It will be in the air which they 

 breathe. It will be one with the spirit of the age, 

 which is not to he successfully resisted or circum- 

 vented or evaded — which is, in a word, the auto- 

 crat of the age. 



People, then, who have vexed their heads over 

 the servr.nt question, had better at once remit it to 

 the limbo of obsolete problems. Let them recon- 

 cile themselves as well as they may to the idea of 

 buying n certain kind of hovsehnld labor, a certain 

 kind of personal help, as they would buy any other 

 sort of merchandise, giving them no claims what- 

 ever to general obedience arid deference from the 

 persons selling. In so far as they want service in 

 those kinds beyond what they can buy on these 

 terms, they must be their own servants or go with- 

 out it. Let them prepare their minds, train their 

 faculties, ard adapt their habits accordingly. — 

 The IScuth Land, edited by D. Redmond. 



Some of the views expressed in the article 

 above quoted remind us so forcibly of those 

 advanced by M. De Tocqaeville, in his "De- 

 mocracy in America," that we cannot refrain 

 from making a single extract from that work, 

 which it will be remembered was written nearly 

 forty years ago. Our extract relates to the 

 antiquity of what the South Land denominates 

 "the tendency of servanthood, in general, to 

 disappear." Some of the manifestations of 

 this tendency, as seen in the history of France 

 during the past seven hundred years, are thus 

 strikingly presented by this celebrated and 

 philosophical writer : — 



Let us recollect the situation of France seven 

 hundred years ago, when the territory was divided 

 among a small number of families, who were 

 owners of the soil and rulers of the inhabitants ; 

 the right of governing descended with the family 

 inheritance from generation to generation ; force 

 was the only means by which man could act on 

 man ; and landed property was the sole source of 

 power. * * * 



If we examine what has happened in France at 

 intervals of fifty years, beginning with the eleventh 

 century, we shall invariably perceive that a two- 

 fold revolution has taken place in the state of 

 society. The noble has gone down on the social 

 ladder, and the roturier has gone up ; the one de- 

 scends as the other rises. Every half century 

 brings them nearer to each other, and they will 

 very shortly meet. 



Nor is this phenomenon at all peculiar to France. 

 "Whithersoever we turn our eyes, we shall discover 

 the same continual revolution throughout the 

 whole of Christendom. 



The various occurrences of national existence 

 have everywhere turned to the advantage of demo- 

 cracy ; all men have aided it by their exertions ; 

 those who have intentionally labored in its cause, 

 and those who have served it unwittingly — those 

 who have fought for it, and those who have de- 

 clared themselves its opponents — have all been 

 driven along in the same track, have all labored to 

 one end, some ignorantly and some unwittingly ; 



all have been blind instruments in the hands of 

 God. 



The gradual development of the equality of con- 

 ditions is, therefore, a providential fact, and it pos- 

 sesses all the characteristics of a divine decree : it 

 is universal, it is durable, it constantly eludes all 

 human interference, and all events as well as all 

 men contribute to its progress. 



In several of our Northern papers we have 

 seen utterances which appear to us to be 

 strangely in contrast with these views. That 

 the reader may judge for himself we give, as 

 samples of much that has appeared in these 

 papers, the following extracts of editorial 

 articles recently published in the Prairie 

 Farmer, of Chicago, 111., and in the Daily 

 Journal, of Boston. From want of space we 

 are obliged to omit most of the elaboration of 

 the points quoted, but we have aimed to do as 

 full justice to the writers of each of these arti- 

 cles as is possible without quoting them in 

 full :— 



It is admitted by all that the great obstacle that 

 stands in the way of development of the resources 

 of this country is the scarcity of labor, and as a 

 consequence, its high price. » * * Statisticians 

 tell us that over a million of dollars a day goes 

 from the United States to purchase goods that are 

 manufactured by means of cheap labor of foreign 

 countries. 



No persons, as a class, are suffering so much 

 from the scarcity and high price of labor as are the 

 farmers of the West and South. * * * Much of 

 our wheat finds its way to Liverpool, where it is 

 put into the market along with the products of 

 Russia, where harvesters can be employed for a 

 week for less money than they can be hired here 

 for a single day. 



As a rule, there are very few of our native-born 

 citizens who wish for employment as hired laborers 

 on a farm. Ordinarily they can find occupations 

 more remunerative and better adapted to their 

 tastes. Without disparagement to the European 

 foreigners amongst us, it must be said that they 

 are, tor the most part, seeking homes for them- 

 selves, and only wish to engage temporarily as 

 hired laborers on the farm. * * * 



Where then are we to look for cheap and abund- 

 ant labor, if not to that ancient empire, the number 

 and industry of whose population are the wonder 

 of the world ? Here are a people ready and willing 

 to become '■^hewers of wood and drawers of water," 

 if thereby they can earn a sum which would not 

 tempt the European, much less the American la- 

 borer, to engage in the most desirable business 

 occupation. — Frairie Farmer. 



The time was — say twenty-five or thirty years 

 ago — when a race existed known as family ser- 

 vants. This race has become extinct. * * * The 

 wealthy classes in the large cities have done much 

 to demoralize servants by paying large wages and 

 demanding very small returns. The middlinsr 

 classes are obliged to pay higher for this class of 

 labor, because their more wealthy neighbors have, 

 out of their abundance, established a tariff whicti 

 regulates the market price. The rich in this way 

 inflict a positive evil upon society, and they are, 

 we think, responsible in a large degree for this 

 domestic evil. — Boston Journal. 



We have not a word to say, at present, on 



the Chinese question. The emigrants from 



