capital could not produce more food. How is it possible that an increase of gold can produce an increase of food? Cover Great Britain from John O'Groats to Land's End with golden sovereigns, would they have any more bread, or beef, or porridge? There has, for many years, been an uninterrupted flow of gold into Great Britain. But are they better off on this account? Has pauperism decreased? Has crime decreased? What amelioration has there been in the condition of the laboring population? Have the mill workers been removed a degree beyond pauperism? Have commercial convulsions become less frequent? It takes now the enormous sum of twenty millions of dollars annually, to feed the hungry paupers of England and Wales alone.

Money, real money, is neither more nor less than an instrument of exchange, and as it, also, is one of those things for the possession of which the miner must give his labor, so, instead of "capital producing labor," it is just the reverse, for labor must produce capital.

Nature has imposed no obstacles to the proper flow of labor to the land. The application of labor is the only capital which it demands. But usury has diverted the labor from the land, and disarranged the whole constitution and division of society. One-fifteenth part only of the population of Britain is engaged in agriculture, and there are not more than 150,000 able-bodied laborers in the whole country. As the result of the speculation engendered by usury, large cities have been fostered into an abnormal state of growth, and have drawn to them, as to a focus, a large proportion of that energy and labor which ought to be devoted to the cultivation of the soil. Whether, therefore, we look at the effects of usury on commerce or agriculture, we see nothing but the same pernicious results.

An increase of the metallic currency in any country must ever indicate, or ought ever to indicate, that it has been received in exchange for articles of similar value. Can any one really imagine that this great law of our social economy, applicable to nations and to the world at large, can every be made to bend to the so-called interests of a particular class? It is true, I admit, that the lands of Great Britain do not yet produce near the quantity of food they are capable of doing under different division and management. But a system of mortgages, such as desired, would only aggravate those evils introduced and propagated by the feudal tenure. The land of Britain might possibly be induced to feed its present population. But under its present state of division the thing is impossible. Enormous estates have engendered many hurtful lusts. Enormous wealth and power have their counterpart in abject misery and pauperism. To speak the truth, there is no country in a more dependent position than Britain in her present circumstances; a fact which is but too well evidenced by the alarming results of every fresh commercial convulsion. She is entirely dependent on foreign demands; and there is a sort of necessity imposed upon her to force poor John Chinaman to buy her opium and calicoes at the point of the sword.

Destroy the paper currency of Britain, and she becomes at once the most helpless nation in the world. And it cannot be otherwise with any community which has, for two centuries, deluded itself and neighbors. with promises to pay; and in which the usury of money, the usury of goods, and the usury of land, have held long, free, and full development. A commercial revulsion, which would only cripple the United States,

would dismember Great Britain. Let the readers of this magazine attentively weigh the results of the crisis of 1857 upon both countries.

The arguments in favor of facilitating the means of mortgaging lands, by encouraging a flow of capital to the soil in the way of borrowing, overthrow the first and most essential principles of trade and labor. For these principles plainly teach us that the natural flow of capital to the soil, depends upon the amount and value of the labor expended on that soil. The introduction of foreign capital to be incorporated with the soil, introduces foreign interests, foreign partnerships, and, too often, foreign possessors. It is a method of progress which, in its vain and foolish anticipations, subverts all the simple order of nature.

No one can calmly read the article in the Edinburg Review without coming to the conclusion, that those obstructions in the way of land owners borrowing money on the security of their lands, which the reviewer labors to prove so detrimental to national and individual interests, are, in reality, their best and surest safeguards. Mark this language the italics are ours-"If persons possessing capital once found they could lend or invest their money with ease, and the present system were altered, we should, in all probability, soon find the class of persons who borrow on landed security no longer confined to those who do so from hard necessity, and to whom secresy is of importance. On the contrary, another class would be tempted to come forward, in whose case the fact of borrowing would be no sign of poverty, but one of the best means of developing their own resources, and those of the nation!" This writer sees not one of the thousand evils of property groaning under debt. He deliberately shuts his eyes to these evils, and holds forth the strange doctrine, that debts and indebtedness indicate a state of health and prosperity, and would remove every obstacle on the way to destruction. If these are considered the means of developing our national wealth, the sooner society is purged of such foolery the better.

We must clearly class the Edinburg writer with the worthy Scottish baronet of the past generation. Sir John Sinclair dabbled in finance. He says, "the public debts of a nation not only attract riches from abroad with a species of magnetic influence, but they also retain money at home." An idea as ridiculous as it is contrary to fact.

The reviewer would wish to see created in England and Scotland a sort of national landed debt. He speaks familiarly of payments towards interest and sinking funds, and of ultimate redemption. Perhaps he has forgotten to inquire to what extent the soil of Great Britain is already mortgaged on account of debts, or of its ability to bear further pressure. I am sure I need not remind him, that a tax must be ground out of somebody to pay the interest of this borrowed money. He would like to see the mortgages canceled at some period in the distant future. But-to use his own argument-why cancel the debt at all? Would not the same desire, on the part of these thrifty borrowers, to have their lands progressing on this road to unlimited wealth, exist then as now? If the debt is a good thing now, it would be a good thing then. Happy English people! Happy Scottish people! who can swallow such bait, and deliberately pile debt upon debt, tax upon tax. You seem amazingly to delight in trusts and pledges, debts and mortgages. But the mortuum vadium will yet prevail.

The Land Credit Institutions of the continent of Europe "create habits

of order among proprietors, by vigorously enforcing the punctual payment of the interest when it becomes due." Here is a new way of having things done decently and in order. Now, what hope can there be of ultimate redemption if the very interest has to be vigorously enforced? How will they vigorously enforce punctual payment of interest but by bringing the property to sale? Whether will such a system as this conduce to order or disorder? Such means may lead to misery and distress, but to thrift and order, never. "By receiving and investing certain small annual payments at compound interest, they not only are enabled to restore to the borrower his estate perfectly free, but also make him feel that every year his debt is decreasing in amount, through his own prudence." Most generous and disinterested people!

On the whole, it appears that these land-credit banks are nothing but gambling institutions, designed to create debts, and to introduce, through the negotiation of lettres de gage, &c., the landed property, with all its important interests, into the excitement and speculation of the "money market." No man can be otherwise impressed who reads carefully the account of the figure cut by these lettres de gage in their various perambulations in the hands of scheming financiers. It is stated, and with an air of satisfaction, that not less than twenty millions worth of lettres de gage circulate in a German population of twenty-eight millions! The Credit Foncier of France is a villainous system of lottery and hazard, having its gambling features only perhaps a little more prominent than those of similar institutions in other countries. It requires small reflection to see that the principles upon which all such institutions are founded, though by whatever name known, subvert the simple order of nature, destroy all manly independence of character, open wide doors for schemers and gamblers, encourage want of faith in the never-failing promises of God, and result in misery and sorrow, when once the sleeping suspicions -misnamed commercial confidence-of the public are aroused.

The reviewer refers to the Mosaic law regulating the restoration to property on the year of jubilee. I give him credit for not speaking flippantly of this right royal law. But does he propose any such safeguard against the rapacity of usury? Or would he like to see such a law enforced? I would recommend him to reconsider his rudiments of social science, for it appears to me he has a deal of rubbish to clear away before he gets down to the solid rock of the Mosaic social economy.

The Mosaic law of release is one of the most benevolent laws of that benevolent system, and well worthy of being copied by modern governments. With regard both to the release of the seventh year, and to that of the fiftieth, there is a wisdom exemplified which it is impossible for us too much to admire. Both of these laws proceed upon the assumption of the greatest good for the greatest number, a principle upon which the whole economy of our social existence rests. As the year of release of the seventh year provided a positive national remedy for the evils introduced by those who had contravened the anti-usury Mosaic laws bearing upon money, goods, and chattels, so the law of release of the fiftieth year provided a great national barrier against the accumulation of large landed estates; and, at the same time, exercised a remedy for those who had been compelled by indebtedness, or other misfortune, to sell their paternal properties. If the seventh year's release provided a remedy for the evils of the usury of money and goods, the fiftieth year's

release provided a remedy for the evils of the usury of land. Practically, a Jewish family never could become a race of wanderers or outcasts; for, though it might, for a time, undergo the trials and sorrows of expatriation, yet the trumpet of jubilee was sure, at no very distant date, to usher in the joyful day of return to home and possession. And let him who has experienced the fulfillment of hopes long deferred, endeavor to realize, if he can, the glory of that morn which should fill a nation's heart with joy and gladness. There is a perfection, a simplicity, a perpetuity, about the Mosaic agarian laws which, on sober reflection, must commend them to every mind. The lawful possession of property was fenced on every side, and defended from every intruder. These laws, whilst recognizing universal equality as a very good thing, form, at the same time, the only sure safeguard against that inequality in the possession of property, which has been the bane of every civilized nation; which has exposed thousands of homes to the inroads of poverty and distress; and created, especially in high commercial communities, the invidious distinction of a laboring class. It is impossible for us to conceive the beauty and rich profusion of a Jewish harvest home, in those times of comfort and peace, when God bestowed upon their highly favored land the blessings of His good treasure. The heart of the Christian world beats high with anticipation that that goodly time shall soon be reproduced on a mightier scale-when the sword of war shall be beaten into the plowshare of peace-and earth's long drawn furrows shall proclaim that the years of complaining have ceased, and that the long promised years of rest have come. In a word, the Old Testament social economy is founded on the eternal principles of truth, justice, and equity, and must, therefore, be of universal application. These laws acknowledged a principle which, I think, has only to be stated to be approved-that he who owns the land should cultivate it, and that he who cultivates the land should own it.

The written constitution of the Bible acknowledges no system of tenantey. In truth, we cannot disassociate the usury of land from the usury of money, or the usury of goods. The renting of land is the usury of land, and is to be condemned equally with the usury of money. Commerce suffers by the one, agriculture by the other. The land cannot, indeed, be bartered away like an article of merchandise, or a piece of money, and the evils of the system of tenantey may not on this account be just so patent as those which are seen every day in the usury of money. Yet, in the long run, the effects are pretty much the same. He who rents a piece of land must sell his produce at an enhanced rate in order to pay a profit to both landlord and tenant, in precisely the same manner as he who buys his cottons with borrowed money, must sell them at a fictitious price, in order to pay both merchant and banker. On the other hand, he who owns and cultivates the land, can afford to sell at a cheaper rate, just as he who buys his cottons with his own ready money, can afford to undersell his neighbor who trades with borrowed money. All who have ever rented an acre of ground, will at once subscribe to the truth of these statements. In both cases, the industrious must support the idle; in both cases production is circumscribed; and in hoth cases prices are enhanced beyond the natural and healthy limits imposed by the inexorable rules of demand and supply. These three pernicious results of usury, again, react upon society in producing untold misery and wretchedness. The healthy division of labor is altogether disarranged,

and hosts of people, who ought to be producing their share of the great staples of life, spend their lives in a state of inaction, in meretricious display, or in pursuits which only minister to and foster depraved tastes. And, however active such people may be in following such pursuits, they are, in reality, as much pensioners upon society as the positively idle. To usury, and to usury alone, must we trace that feverish anxiety which we now yearly witness, regarding the yield of the growing crops. And it must be confessed that there is enough, in the present crowded and dependent state of our large cities, to warrant the most anxious solicitude. So thorough is the disarrangement caused by this mighty system of evil, that our fair, our beautiful, our bountiful earth, is in danger of being reproached with inability to support its human inhabitants. The evils of the tenant system, or of one man holding more of the world's surface than will afford a comfortable maintenance to himself and family, are so well exemplified in the territorial divisions of England and Scotland, in the estates and middlemen of Ireland, and in the serfdom of Russia, that I need not add more than merely refer to them. True freedom, true independence, true patriotism, can never consort with such unequal divisions. There must everywhere be a healthy limit to territorial possession. Rollin has truly said that "the soul of popular States is equality."*

I am thus particular in specifying some, at least, of the evils of the usury of land, because the European system of land banks has recently been introduced, with no small flourish, into the American continent. The all but universal individual proprietorship which so happily prevails here, is one of the most prominent and interesting features of the social system of America. This is the brightest star in her banner, and the surest safeguard of her liberties. But monopolizing forces are at work which may overturn this state of things, and lead to the same evils as were engendered by the feudal system of Europe. By all means let us keep a jealous eye upon European fashions and institutions, and especially beware of land sharks. Let me enjoin American farmers and owners of land to turn a deaf ear to all such charmers. The introduction, into the soil, of foreign capital, and foreign interests, will, by no means, conduce to the greenness of the fields of America.

W. B.

Art. III.-CANALS OF THE UNITED STATES.

A BRIEF VIEW OF THE CANALS, THEIR PAST HISTORY AND PRESENT STATE-LIKE CAUSES PRODUCE LIKE EFFECTS-CERTAINTY AND CELERITY, WITH SAVING OF TIME, AND THIS, TOO, EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR, ARE THE WATCH-WORDS OF COMMERCE, PRODUCED BY RAILWAYS, TO THE DECADENCE OF CANALS.

THESE plain axioms have produced the revolution taking place in the mode of transportation, both in Europe and the United States. It is a fact, now well established, that all tonnage of value, cattle, and perishable articles are leaving the canals for the railways, more and more each successive year, as the consumer and producer will pay for time, certainty, and celerity, while banks patronize railways to get short drafts.

Sixty thousand families own all the territory of Great Britain. Five noblemen own about onefourth of all Scotland. VOL. XLII.-NO. I.

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