: not agree with our author, that the denunciation By the sweat 'of thy brow shalt thou eat bread,' means something opposite to what the account in Genesis declares it to have been; but we quite accord with him in the idea, that the Almighty has superinduced upon what was at first penal, a law of benevolence. 'The necessity,' he justly observes, for exertion, though it falls ' on the human race in a more onerous manner than on most 'other animated beings, is yet tempered with goodness, and 'freighted with richer blessings. This necessity has impelled man to cultivate and improve his powers, whereby he not 'merely subsists in a stationary condition, but has attained to a supremacy over creation, and has risen higher in intellect than in station; enlarging his abundance, securing his health, and 'administering to his enjoyments. It is not only the preceptor 'of the intellect, but the guardian of the morals of the human 'race.' It is not pretended, indeed, that labour can create any thing but human agency, combining with the operations of nature, produces new forms of matter, suited to the necessities and desires of our species; and it is of course in this sense alone, that production must be understood in political economy. employment of the several instruments of production,-labour in conjunction with capital, or with capital and land, is expressed by the term industry: and the circumstances which conduce to the effectiveness of industry, and the progress of opulence, are of two classes; those which are beyond our control, and those lying within it. Amongst the former, are fertility of soil, excellence of climate, certain natural productions, advantages of situation, or facilities of intercourse. Amongst the latter are knowledge, skill, excitements to industry, division of labour, freedom of trade, demand for commodities, roads, posts, canals, distribution of property, density of population, and amount of capital. addition to these, political and moral causes should never be forgotten. Private probity tends to public opulence, as on the other hand general profligacy leads to national poverty. In touching upon such matters, Mr. Eisdell has filled his first volume, replete as it is with sound sense, conveyed in plain and perspicuous, if not always in the most attractive language. In On the mode in which science and skill have operated upon industry, he mentions amongst other striking illustrations, the manufacture of cloth. Yarn was spun by the distaff in ancient days, as it is still along some parts of the banks of the Danube, no doubt to the immense consolation of all anti-reformers in their neighbourhood. This primitive instrument in England gave way, ages ago, to the one thread spinning-wheel, which doubled the results of toil, and added to the picturesque of poetry. Under George the Third, Hargreaves and Arkwright brought forward in quick succession the water-frame and the spinning-jenny. These machines, subsequently combined and perfected by Crompton, have now reached such perfection, that instead of one thread held by hand, the mule will work a vast multitude at one and the same time. There have been some machines con'structed upon this principle, which spin the almost incredible 'number of 2200 threads, and with no other attendance than one 'spinner, assisted by a child; while the thread is spun with such 'evenness, and may be made of such delicacy of fineness, that it 'would scarcely be possible to spin it by hand.' So also with regard to bleaching cloth, the discovery of Scheele in 1770, who ascertained that chlorine possessed the property of destroying colour, and whitening substances submitted to its action, was so beautifully applied by our countrymen, that through chloride of lime, this process is effected in a less number of hours, than it formerly occupied months. The invention of printing by cylindrical rollers, instead of blocks, then followed: enabling workmen to print just a hundred times faster than they ever could before. Power-looms brought up the rear of modern improvements. Nor have we room to enumerate the new fullingmills, the machinery for combing wools, nor all the other various modes in which wind, and water, and fire, and above all, steam, have enriched and blessed mankind. The results of labour are actually in some cases multiplied two hundred-fold: and the united aggregate of our steam-engines alone may be stated as equal to the force of twelve million of common operatives, such as existed from fifty years to a century ago. Gunpowder itself has helped to fill the cornucopia of peace, instead of glutting the appetite of war. Rock-blasting could have been carried on, to the degree we now see it, by no other means. Bridges, tunnels, roads over mountains, or mines excavated in their foundations, bear witness, that some mightier agent than vinegar has levelled every Alp of difficulty between barbarism and civilization. A greater than Hannibal is here! Knowledge and science have proved the true Prospero and Ariel of latter years or rather, we would acknowledge with grateful reverence, that an Almighty Benefactor has so brought them to bear upon what the economists call production, that as Sir J. F. W. Herschel remarks, obstacles 'seem to diminish as we advance, instead of thickening around us 'with an increasing complexity.' Unnecessary apprenticeships, ignorance, and monopolies, as well as the petty interferences of legislation, alone remain to be got rid of, that the fullest development may ensue of industrial power and ingenuity. The labour of every nation is undoubtedly that wonderful fund, by the outlay of which, not only its supply of all the necessaries and conveniences of life is acquired, but all the higher interests of man, intellectual, social, and moral, are advanced. Industry mainly depends upon the operation of two motives to exertion,-fear and hope; the fear of bad or worse, and the hope of better circumstances. The institution of private property therefore must be looked to, as having constituted one of the chief incitements to both manual and mental toil. Individual appropriation, though emanating from selfishness, has thus been among the best benefactors to our race at large. Land and labour soon produce capital: but the effect of capital on employment, and its influences in determining the rate of wages, appear to our author to have been much misunderstood. He adopts the ideas of Lord Lauderdale, and shows that capital and labour are not equivalent; that capital does not maintain a population, nor of itself cause employment; and that the general industry of a country is not necessarily in proportion to its existing quantity of capital. We recommend this portion of his work to the careful perusal of our readers; since it bears on the pauperism of Ireland, as well as on the prospects of our growing operative classes in England and Scotland. In his classification of property we entirely agree, as also in his chapter on machinery. On the division of employments, Adam Smith had left little or nothing to desire; nor on the freedom of industry, can we anticipate that enlightened persons, unbiassed by interest or party, will be found to differ from Mr. Eisdell. Axioms, which would have frightened our worthy progenitors into fits, have now become household proverbs amongst us. Experience, general information, the twenty-four letters of the alphabet, and the nine Arabic numerals, these are the new philosophers, endowed with something like ubiquity, to teach practical wisdom, and the lessons of utility, not merely to dunces possessing seats in certain houses of parliament, but to the humbler artisan, by the fire-light of his hearthstone, with a wife and children around him. Blessings on the hearts that throb, and the pens that indite, with the benevolent object of doing good to our handicraftsmen! They form the sinews of our strength, whether they dedicate their vigour to appropriative, agricultural,-manufacturing,--or distributive industry. Upon each of these heads there is an interesting section in the treatise before us. The last, in discussing commerce, branches off, as it could scarcely fail of doing, into three disquisitions on the home,-the colonial,-and foreign trade. Then follows a chapter on supply and demand; which we must pass over through want of space, and a desire just to touch upon monetary principles. Our author commences with laying open the functions, properties, and origin of money; which may be ranked as an invention, conspicuous amongst those methods which the ingenuity of man has found out to lighten his labour, and raise its efficiency to the highest point. The different functions performed by it may lead to its being regarded in two different points of view, namely, as a standard of value, and an instrument of exchange. The remarks of our economist on gold and silver, and a circulating medium generally, without at all aiming at novelty, are well worth attention. He proceeds, however, to say that The present state of the currency in England, which restricts the circulation of paper to sums of five pounds and upwards, leaving the smaller payments to be made in coin, is perhaps that middle course between the two extremes of too great or too small an amount of metallic currency, which while it prevents coin from disappearing from circulation to an unsafe extent, does not on the other hand load the circulating medium by too heavy an amount of expensive coin. The public convenience too is effectually secured against too little coin, by the right, which the people have of demanding it in exchange for paper to any extent that may be required.'—Vol. i. p. 452. Our own views on this subject are somewhat different we confess: nor do we see, why we should not dispense at least with the golden part of our metallic currency altogether. Its cost is believed to be no less than ten per cent; that is to say, that all profit which the metal would have produced, through being employed productively, is lost by its being used as a circulating medium. To this must be added heavy items both for detrition and accidents at sea besides which, much less employment is afforded by coining, than by working up gold for other purposes. Supposing the gold currency of the country to be thirty millions,* the charge of providing it would scarcely be reckoned at less than £4,000,000 per annum ; a sum which it is certainly desirable to save, if it can be done. Harriet Martineau has illustrated this, if we remember right, in her story of Berkely the Banker; which we allude to, not as being an authority, but rather as being an ingenious little publication within the reach of almost every individual. Our plan would be, to have one national bank of issue, responsible to parliament, and keeping no accounts which the public may not inspect; least of all such as may be huddled up in a back-parlour. One of its special functions should be to watch the rates of exchange in the great market of the world, and adjust its paper issues to the necessity of the case; so that an English note for a pound sterling should be equivalent to twenty shillings at all times, and in all places. It strikes us, that some such scheme as this,-depriving country-bankers of that prerogative of issuing money which ought never to have been separated from the executive, and which would save the nation an enormous annual charge in having to provide, as it now does, a cur • Mr. Eisdell understates it at £20,000,000 gold, and £10,000,000 silver, p. 468 of his first volume. The quantity of metallic money all over the world is supposed to be above, rather than below, a thousand millions of pounds sterling! rency of metallic sovereigns,-would also preserve us from those fluctuations in prices, which sooner or later prove ruinous to mercantile enterprize. The return to cash payments on the part of the Bank of England was an honest measure as far as it went: but a larger amount of justice than it afforded, at far less cost of suffering than it occasioned, might without doubt have been secured, we venture to think, had sound information on the subject been then as generally diffused as it is now. We can only further refer to several able articles in the Westminster Review, attributed to Colonel Peyronnet Thompson and his friends, which demonstrate, that an inconvertible paper currency might be adopted upon safe and upright principles, combining all the advantages, without the disadvantages, of a metallic medium, as we at present have it. It is perhaps hardly necessary to add, that we regard such schemes as Cobbett and his living admirers have termed an equitable adjustment, with the abhorrence which dishonesty deserves; whether it veils its designs under magniloquent harangues at Birmingham, or expiates its offences against society upon the drop at Newgate. Our author admits, that if the issue of paper money were, like the coinage, in the hands of government exclusively, there would ensue an uniformity in the value of the circulation, or, in other words, an equality of prices. Yet the objections to it he deems so strong, as altogether to counterbalance such benefits. He states them so acutely and candidly, that we should with the greatest pleasure transcribe them, did our limits permit; whilst we feel fearful of weakening them by abbreviation. In his apprehensions of political, instead of commercial panic, we do not participate; provided always, that the government in question shall be a constitutional and responsible one; that is to say, a realization of what we profess to have in this country. It appears to us that there would exist, under the circumstances supposed, an additional guarantee for good behaviour, on the side both of governors and subjects. If either failed in their duties, the punishment would be just so much the more prompt and severe, as to operate in the way of stronger motives to mutual vigilance. But the warlike character of government,' it is argued, should sepa'rate its pecuniary resources, as much as possible, from a depen'dence on credit or opinion, and present its means, like its 'weapons, of hard metal, efficient under all circumstances, and 'fitted to withstand both open attack, and insidious underminings 'of reputation.' This is, however, where we differ from him; and we cannot help thinking that metaphorical analogies have for the moment run away with his generally excellent judgment. A really valuable government can have no proper basis but opinion. The fewer weapons of hard metal' which it may be necessary for it to possess, so much the better. As public opinion gets 6 |