Blair Collection > Celtic magazine > Volume 4

THE CELTIC MAGAZINE. 397
oLl gospel that the love of money is the root of all evil, and that nothing
but evil can possibly spring to a society whose grossly material prosjoerity
grows luxuriantly, it may be, for a season out of such a root of bitterness.
►Something may be done in this way, especially with a class of people in
whom the selfishness of the mere merchant may be considerately tem-
pered by the generosity of aristocratic traditions. But the mere preach-
ing of this gospel, even though aU the pulpits should ring with it, will, I
am afraid with the great body of those to Avliom it is addressed, have little
elleot ; for the moral atmosphere of this country has been so corrupted by
mercantile maxims that it is difficult to move one man out of twenty to
do the smallest thing for the benefit of his fellow-creatures unless you can
prove to him that it will " pay." More hopefid it may be to attempt in-
teresting the manufacturing population of the toAvns in the welfare of
their rural neighbours ; showing them hoAV the home trade, when wisely
cidtivated, acts ^vith a more steady and reliable force on home manufac-
tures than the foreign trade, and that a depopulated country and an im-
poverished peasantry are the worst possible neighbours that an energetic
lu-ban population can possess. An occasional sermon on this text, with a
few practical illustrations from European experience in various countries,
wliere our monstrous system of land monopoly does not prevail, might no
doubt be useful. As for the evil done to the agricultural popidation by
free-trade, there seems no doubt that the danger from this quarter, not
inconsiderable now, is likely to become greater. But however wise it
may be in Erance and Germany and other countries to protect theh' na-
tive manufactures against the overwhelming activity of British traders
who, for their own aggrandisement, would gladly see the wliole countries
of the world remaining for ever on the low platform wliich belongs to the
producers of all raw material; nevertheless, it is in vain to expect that states-
men in this country will ever revert to the policy of protection, when that
policy means the raising the price of food to the seething mass of people
in our large towns, whoju our feverish manufacturmg activity keeps con-
stantly in an unhealthy oscillation betwixt the two extremes of plethora
and want. What, theu, is to be done ? Plainly we must buckle our-
selves — submittmg witli a wise grace to a permanent lowering of rents
through the whole country — to the readjustment of our land laws which,
by universal admission, are in some respects the worst possible, and di-
rectly calculated to keep up rather than to break down the unnatural an-
tagonism of interests between the lords of the land and the occupiers of
the soil, to which our present abnormal agrarian condition is mainly at tribut-
al^le. Our land laws, as a matter of history, were made by the aristocracy,
and interpreted by the Lnvj^ers for the aggrandisement mainly of the aris-
tocracy, and not for the preservation of the people. This was natural, and
we may say necessary ; for it is one of the most trite maxims of political
science, that any class of persons, entrusted for long periods of time with
unlimited and irresponsiljle power are sure to abuse it. Hence the gradual
diminution of small proprietors, the absolute non-existence in Great Bri-
tain of one of the best classes in all communities, the peasant proprietors,
and the maintenance of law of heritable succession, and certain forms of
heritable conveyance, Avhich practically tend to lock up the land in the
hands of a few, and to remove it in a great measure out of the vital cir-