Political Economy. 
165 
lution inevitably must come, and in its most fearful shape. That 
system, if it continues to increase, will more eifectually tend to ruin 
England than all the might and ail the machinations of her ene- 
mies were they ten times more formidable than they are. It com* 
municates just knowledge enough to the populace to make them 
dangerous, and it poisons their morals. The temper of the mob has 
been manifested at the death of Despard, and there is no reason to 
suppose that it is not the same in all other great towns as in liOn- 
don. It will be well for England when her cities shall decrease, 
and her villages multiply and gro^v ; when there shall be fewer 
streets and more cottages. The tendency of the present system is 
to convert the peasantry into poor ; her policy should be to re verse 
this, and to convert the poor into peasantry ; to increase them and 
to enlighten them ; for their numbers are the strength, and their 
knowledge is the security of states.’ * ^ 
Among the circumstances that favour the disorganization of 
the lower orders, the manufacturing system agaiiri presents itself 
in the first rank. The extent to which it has been carried^ makes a 
large fiavt of our fiofiulation dejiendent for employ.^ which is<^ in far t^ 
for subsistence^ upon other countries ; and when the tyro.nmj of a 
frantic barharian in Europe^ and the servility or corruption of a 
ruling faction in America^ shuts us out from out accustomed market^ 
distress and riots in the manufacturmg districts are the consequence. 
Let it not be supposed that we are among the wholesale declaimers 
against foreign commerce ; or that, because we perceive the fatal 
consequences which result from the manufacturing system, carried 
on as it has hitherto been, we v/oiild, in the spirit of radical reform, 
destroy it root and branch. Doubtless it has been productive of 
great and essential benefit. But as nations may be too warlike for 
their own happiness, or even their own security, so they may be too 
commercial. ^ ^ ^ 
In other times we have had men thrown out of employ by the 
fluctuations of foreign politics, but their numbers have been com- 
paratively trifling, and the eiTect partial ; nor wmre there in those 
days public speakers and public writers ready to inflame their dis- 
contents and array them against their rulers. The rapid increase 
of manufactures, and the wider scale upon which hostility is carri- 
<^d on against us, have caused the effect now to be felt over every 
part of the country ; and a cause which arises out of our real im- 
provement and the high civilization to which we have attained, lias 
given consistency to the danger. ****** 
The first duty of government is to stop the contagion ; the next, 
as far as possible, to remove the causes v/iiich have pre-disposed so 
large a part of the populace for receiving it. We shall do little if 
wm do not guard against a recurrence of the danger by wise and 
extensive measures of prospective policy. The anarchists may be 
silenced, and the associations of their disciples broken up ; but 
while the poor continue wliat they are, continuing also, as they 
must, to gain in number upon the more prosperous classes, the 
materials for explosion will ahvays be under our feet. 
The first and most urgent business is to provide relief for those 
upon whom the pressure of the times bears hardest. Charity is no 
where so abundantly and munificently displayed as in England, not 
tCven those countries where alms-giving is considered as a com- 
