UNIVERSITY LAND AND LABOR. TH CHAPTER I. MACHINERY IN AGRICULTURE. HE eminent French Archæologist, M. LOUIS F1GUIER, in his "L'Homme Primitif,” says that in the Stone Age, before metals were known, all the efforts of man 66 must have tended to one sole aim that of insuring his daily subsistence." So it is at this day for the large majority of mankind. The long ages that have followed that period, with the marvellous developments of civilization the discovery of metals, the construction and improvement of tools and machinery of every nature that have increased more than an hundred fold man's power of producing all that enters into his daily sustenance and comfort -have not changed the fact that he still has but the 66 one sole aim—that of insuring his daily subsistence." The ratio of failures to achieve that object could not have been greater in the Stone Age than in the present; and never before, in any age, were practically one half of mankind forced out of all productive pursuits into idleness and destitution.. The discovery of metals, the construction and improvement of tools and machinery of every nature that have so wonderfully increased man's power of production, have revolutionized all the social and industrial relations of mankind in almost exact proportion to their development and use. Even the moral forces, also, are acted upon and stimulated for good or evil, in like degree, by these material discoveries and developments. This revolution is not confined to Christendom; it reaches out and extends into all societies and countries possessed of any degree or class of civilization. If these premises be true, and they hardly admit of a doubt, it follows as a matter of necessity that we must examine, in some degree, into the nature and extent of these material developments if we really wish to obtain a correct understanding of the causes and tendencies of the world's present material distress and moral destitution. In opening this discussion it appears to be proper to lay down certain economic principles that have become fixed, and are, as nearly as possible, universally accepted as fundamental. Adam Smith, in his Wealth of Nations, more than one hundred years ago, taught : That "the annual labor of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniences of life which it annually consumes." That "the demand for those who live by wages naturally increases with the increase of national wealth, and can not possibly increase without it." That “it is not in the richest countries, but in the most thriving, or in those which are growing rich the fastest, that the wages of labor are highest." That "the liberal reward of labor, therefore, as it is the necessary effect, so it is the natural symptom, of increasing national wealth. The scanty maintenance of the laboring poor, on the other hand, is the natural symptom that things are at a stand, and their starving condition that they are going fast backwards." That "servants, laborers, and workmen of different kinds, make up far the greater part of any great political society. What improves the greater part can never be regarded as an inconveniency to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that those who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labor as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged." That "it deserves to be observed that it is in the progressive state, while society is advancing to further acquisition, rather than when it has acquired its full complement of riches, that the condition of the laboring poor, of the great body of the people, seems to be the happiest and the most comfortable." "When in any country a demand for those who live by wages -laborers, journeymen, servants of every kind — is continually increasing; when every year furnishes employment for a greater number than had been employed the year before, the workmen have no occasion to combine in order to raise their wages. The scarcity of hands occasions a competition among masters, who bid against one another, and thus voluntarily break through the natural combination of masters not to raise wages." “But it would be otherwise in a country where the fund destined for the maintenance of labor was sensibly decaying. Every year the demand for servants and laborers would, in all the different classes of employment, be less than it had been the year before. Many who had been in the superior classes, not being able to find employment in their own business, would be glad to seek it in the lowest. The lowest class being not only overstocked with its own workmen, but with the overflowings of all the other classes, the competition for employment would be so great in it as to reduce the wages of labor to the most |