"I do not know that a single example can be cited, from the Syrians to the English, of a manufacturing and commercial people which has not also been a free one. There is thus a close tie and necessary relation between these two things, liberty and industry."

Liberty is the daughter of reason and the mother of wealth.

Despotism finds its ordinary result in decay. Never has this been better exemplified than in the fall of the Roman Empire. "Thanks to the multiplicity of functionaries," says Lactantius, "there were more tax-consumers in the Empire than taxpayers, so that the cultivator was ruined by the exactions to which he was exposed. Fields were deserted, and lands, once tilled, abandoned, till they lapsed again into the forest." "The Fiscus," says Salvienus, writing in the sixth century, "was a robbery which completed the ruin of the Roman Empire."

Order, security, liberty, justice, above all, that organisation of responsibility which assures to the industrious the fruits of their labours-these are necessary conditions of the development of wealth; and a government will advance this development in proportion as it guarantees these conditions. When, as under the old régime, taxes fine the workers and savers, without touching those who squander at court the money torn from the cultivators, under such a government prudence is shown

in doing nothing and living from hand to mouth. When, as in Turkey, the arbitrary exactions of the treasury increase in proportion to the outward signs of prosperity, to be or to appear poor is the sole guarantee of safety.

To be convinced that a bad government is the worst of scourges it is only necessary to visit the Turkish provinces, formerly the richest in the Roman Empire. "The populations of these provinces," says a traveller, Dr. Lennep, "capable in themselves of great progress, are stifled in a general atmosphere of malversation and decay. Beggars are everywhere; from top to bottom of the social scale there is mendicity, theft and extortion. Little work is done at present, and there will be less in the future. Commerce is degenerating into peddling, banking into mere usury; every undertaking is a fraud; politics are an intrigue, and the system of police sheer brigandage. The fields are deserted, the forests devastated, mineral riches neglected, and the roads, bridges, and all public works falling into ruin." The grass withers in the footprint of the Turk, not because the Turk is worse than his neighbours, but because the Turkish government is detestable.

In the reign of Louis XIV. the same cause produced the same effects. The Maréchal de Vauban, of whom Saint Simon said that he was 'the most honest man of his time, with a passion for the public good amounting to madness," wrote, "If any one is well off he must hide what little comfort he

has so carefully that his neighbours have no knowledge of it. He must even push precaution so far as to deprive himself of necessaries lest he should appear to be in easy circumstances" (La Dime

royale).

"

We pray in the Litany to be delivered from "plague, pestilence, and famine," and from "battle and sudden death," but these are only passing evils, soon repaired by the fruitfulness alike of labour and marriages. A bad government is a permanent evil, and, so long as it lasts, the ills it produces go on increasing. Montesquieu has expressed himself admirably on this point. "There are two kinds of poor people," he tells us, "the first made so by the harshness of the government, and thus incapable of almost any virtue, since their poverty is part of their slavish lot; the second only poor because they have despised or never known the conveniences of life, and capable of great things since their poverty is a part of their freedom" (Esprit des Lois, xx. 3). Elsewhere, to explain how liberty enriches a people, the same author writes, "As a general rule a nation which is in bondage works rather to preserve than to acquire, a free nation rather to acquire than preserve."

§ 14. Influence of Democracy on the Productiveness of Labour.

In passages not easily forgotten Tocqueville has shown the influence which democracy exercises on

the production of wealth. "Every cause," he writes, "which gives force in the human heart to the love of the goods of this world, helps to develop commerce and industry. One of these causes is equality; and this favours commerce, not directly by giving men a love for business, but indirectly by strengthening and extending in their minds the love of comfort."

Despite the turmoils inseparable from freedom, the democratic communities of Greece, of Flanders, and of Italy, all enjoyed exceptional prosperity and great renown. The Florentine historian, Machiavelli, gives as the reason that "the virtue, morality, and independence of the citizens were more effective in strengthening the state than their dissensions in weakening it. A little agitation lends energy to the mind, and the real promoter of human prosperity is, not so much peace, as freedom."

Slavery brings about decay by diminishing activity. "When everything rests crushed beneath the yoke," says Rousseau, "it is then that everything perishes and that the chiefs destroy the people." Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant-they make a wilderness and call it peace" (Tacitus).

§ 15. Influence of the Freedom of Labour upon its Productiveness.

Guided by self-interest, where he has any light, man will devote himself to the most profitable form of labour. It follows that the more labour is free,

the more it will be productive. Freedom of labour comprises :

(1) Freedom to choose a trade. Of this monopolies and guilds are the negation.

(2) Freedom to labour wherever one pleases: no privileges for certain districts; freedom in the choice of a dwelling.

(3) Freedom of partnership.

(4) Freedom to buy and sell to the best advantage : freedom of trade.

(5) Freedom to lend money: abolition of the laws against usury.

All these liberties, proclaimed by the French Revolution and adopted in England, have since the end of the last century successively gained a footing in the different civilised countries. Hence has resulted an extraordinary increase in the activity and productiveness of labour.

Nothing contributes so much to render labour productive as the free competition of the labourers. It is a pacific contest to see who will sell the most and with the greatest profit. Every one is on the alert, racks his brains, and tries to devise some saving, some improvement, or some new piece of machinery. The punishment of those who fail is embarrassment or misery; the reward of the successful comfort and wealth.

Among animals the struggle for existence is decided by strength of claws and teeth; among

F