LAND AND LABOR. 



77 



strip commercial countries of their trees, yet, in order to support the 

 required supply of fuel, not only for the comfort and preservation 

 but also for the industry of the race, the heart of the earth beneath 

 the soil which is required for cultivation, is found to be veined 

 with inexhaustible supplies of mineral coal. 



The bounty and the protective forethought of God for his crea- 

 tures is not only intimated but proved by these benevolent store- 

 houses of treasure, comfort and freedom ; and whilst we acknow- 

 ledge them with proper gratitude, we should not forget that their 

 acquirement and enduring possession are only to be paid for by 

 labor, economy, and social as well as political forbearance. 



We do not think these observations out of place in a chapter 

 devoted to the mineral wealth of Mexico. The subject of property 

 and its representative metals, should be approached in a reflective 

 and christian spirit, in an age in which the political and personal 

 misery of the overcrowded masses of Europe, is forcing them to 

 regard all who are better provided for, or more fortunate by thrift 

 or the accident of birth, as enemies of the poor. The demagogue 

 leaders of these wretched classes, pushing the principle of just 

 equalization to a ridiculous and hideous extreme, have not hesi- 

 tated to declare in France, since the revolution of February, 1848, 

 that " property is robbery." 1 We shall not pause to examine or 

 refute the false dogma of a dangerous incendiary. The common 

 sense as well as the common feeling of mankind revolts at it. 

 Property, as the world is constituted by God, is the source of new 

 industry, because it is, under the laws of all civilized nations, the 

 original result of industry. " It makes the meat it feeds on." 

 Without it there would be no duty of labor, no exercise of human 

 ingenuity or talent, no responsibility, no reward. The mind and 

 body would stagnate under such a monstrous contradiction of all 

 our physical and intellectual laws. The race would degenerate 

 into its former savage condition ; and force, instead of its antago- 

 nists, industry and honest competition, would usurp the dominion 

 of the world and end this vicious circle of bastard civilization. 



And yet it is the duty of an American, — who, from his superior 

 position, both in regard to space in which he can find employment 

 and equal political laws by which that employment is protected, 

 stands on a vantage ground above the confined and badly gov- 

 erned masses of Europe, — to regard the present position of the 

 European masses not only with humane compassion, but to sympa- 

 thize with that natural feeling that revolts against a state of society 



1 " La propriete c'esf It voW" 1 Prudhon. 



