very heavy, and frequently debar poor men from the benefits of the law, while in the case of other lands where the fees are trifling the government makes the survey.

The practical working of this legislation has been such as any reflecting man would have anticipated. During the year 1866 our product of gold and silver amounted to seventy-six millions of dollars. During the past year it was only sixty-five millions, being a falling off of eleven millions of dollars, though the population and settlement of the mining regions has considerably increased within the past two years. That this crude legislation is a partial explanation of this decline in the product of the precious metals I have no doubt, and that its amendment in the points I have specified would add to their future product is equally evident.

Mr. Chairman, I now approach the conclusion of what I desired to say. The sum of it is that beyond the enforcement of a rigid economy, legislation can only lead the country out of its financial troubles by removing the several obstructions to national progress which I have mentioned. We can abolish the curse of land speculation, and devote the remainder of our public domain to actual settlement and productive wealth. A bill providing for this is now pending. We can reform our policy of railroad land grants, so that it shall build roads, and at the same time populate and improve the country along their lines. We can overhaul our disgraceful Indian treaty system, and provide by law that hereafter whenever the title to any of our vast reservations shall be extinguished they shall fall under the control of Congress, and be dedicated to settlement and tillage. And, finally, we can so reconstruct our legislation respecting our mineral lands as more fully to develop their vast wealth, and thus compel them to help efface the existing difference between our paper currency and gold. These, sir, are the four channels through which the swelling tide of our wealth must pour in, and save at once our national finances and our national honor. These are the golden gates through which the Republic must pass, if it would crush out the insidious but steadily growing power of Aristocracy and Landlordism, and secure for itself an honorable name among the nations calling themselves free. Through the adoption of these practical reforms specie payments would be resumed, just as soon as our quickened industries and improved condition would allow. Unprecedented prosperity and wealth would answer to the roused energies of the people and the moral power of equal rights guarded by equal laws. The Old World, inspired anew by our

blessed example in checking the growth of feudalism on our soil, would reinforce our grand army of producers by her surplus millions, and thus, as never before, add to our wealth and power.

"See the Old World," says Guyot, "exhausted by long cultivation; overloaded with an exuberant population, full of spirit and life, but to whom severe labor hardly gives subsistence; devoured by activity, but wanting resources and space to expand." On the other hand he describes America as "glutted with its vegetable wealth, unworked and worthless," and argues that it was made for the man of the Old World. "Everything in nature," says he," points to this great change. The two worlds are looking face to face, and are, as it were, inclining toward each other. The Old World bends toward the new, and is ready to pour out its tribes." And he adds that "the future prosperity of mankind may be said to depend on the union of the two worlds. The bridals have been solemnized. We have witnessed the first interview, the betrothal, and the espousal ; so fortunate for both. We already see enough to authorize us to cherish the fairest hopes, and to expect with confidence their realization." Sir, let us legislate in the light of these manifest tokens of Divine Providence. Let us, by the justice and humanity of our laws, invite Europe to our shores, and to join us in developing our inexhaustible and unused wealth. Let us reverently accept our part, and faithfully perform our duty, in the grand march of the world's civilization and progress to which we are summoned. Our great Pacific Railway will soon be completed, belting the continent with bars of iron, linking in friendly embrace the two great oceans of the world, and placing the United States on the great highway from Europe to China. Our position as a free Republic commands the world, and the hour has struck for us bravely to accept it. If we prove false to our grand trust, and in welcoming the Old World to our shores we welcome also its feudalistic practices, its effete theories of govern ment, our guilt can only be measured by the mighty opportunity sinned away; while the Old World, instead of finding its new birth and baptism on our shores, will be buried in a common grave with ourselves. But if, on the other hand, we are inflexibly true to the rights of man, spurning all compacts with Serfdom and Caste, all the approaches of Aristocracy and Privilege, then the "contrast between the Old World and the New will soon be reduced into a grand and beautiful harmony that will embrace the whole earth."

L

THE OVERSHADOWING QUESTION.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JANUARY 21, 1871.

[This elaborate review of our land policy, including all its later phases and most startling developments, has been published in large English and German editions by the friends of Land and Labor Reform. It is believed that the many facts it embodies in the way of argument and illustration, and the thoroughness of its discussion of general principles, give it both a present practical interest and a permanent value.]

MR. SPEAKER, - Nothing is more remarkable than the growing tendency of legislation in this country to lend itself to the service of capital, of great corporations, of monopolies of every sort, while too often turning an unfriendly eye upon the people, and especially upon the laboring poor. The cause of this may fairly be traced to the evil genius of the times, which makes the greed for sudden wealth a sort of devouring passion, and thus naturally clutches the machinery of government in the accomplishment of its purposes. This bad spirit, which has been steadily marching toward its alarming ascendency since the outbreak of the late civil war, writes itself down upon every phase of society and life. It breeds political corruption in the most gigantic and frightful forms. It whets the appetite for public plunder, and through the aggregation of capital in the hands of the cunning and the unscrupulous, it menaces the equal rights of the people and the well-being of society. So malign a spirit must be resolutely confronted. It is no mere question of party politics, for it threatens the life of all parties, and the perpetuity of the government itself. It not only invokes the saving offices of the preacher and the moralist, but it summons to new duties and increased vigilance every man who really concerns himself for the welfare of his country.

Mr. Speaker, I believe the evil to which I refer finds some explanation in the false teaching of political economy. According to many of the leading writers on this science, its fundamental idea is the creation and increase of productive wealth. If farming on a great scale, carried on with the skill and appliances which concentrated capital can command and methodize, will yield greater results than the tillage of the soil in small homesteads and by

ruder methods, then the system of large farming must be preferred, though it deprives multitudes of the poor of all opportunity to acquire homes and independence, and entails the appalling evils of landlordism and the whole brood of mischiefs with which the monopoly of the soil has scourged the people in every age of the world. So, if manufacturing on a grand scale, with the perfected machinery and cheap labor which capital can wield, will turn out a larger product and at lower rates than numerous small industries, then such manufactures must be fostered, though the policy pauperizes and brutalizes thousands of human beings who take rank as "operatives," and whose existence is thus made a curse rather than a blessing. Sir, I protest against such principles as both false and unjust." The increase of wealth," says Sismondi, "is not the end in political economy, but its instrument in procuring the happiness of all. It has for its object man, not wealth. It regards chiefly the producer, and strives for the welfare of the whole people through a just distribution. It is not the object of nations to produce the greatest quantity of work at the cheapest rate."

In the light of these broad and humane principles I interpret the duty of the government. Its mission, within the sphere of its just powers, is to protect labor, the source of all wealth, and to seek constantly the well-being of the millions who toil. Capital can take care of itself. Always sagacious, sleepless, and aggressive, it holds all the advantages in its battle with labor. The balance of power falls so naturally into its hands that labor has no opportunity to make a just bargain. The labor market, it has been well observed, differs from every other. The seller of every other commodity has the option to sell or not; but the commodity the working man brings is life. He must sell it or die. Labor, therefore, should not be regarded as merchandise, to be bought and sold, and governed entirely by the law of supply and demand, but as capital, and its human needs should always be considered. "The rugged face of society," says a celebrated writer, "checkered with the extremes of affluence and want, proves that some extraordinary violence has been committed upon it, and calls on justice for redress. The great mass of the poor in all countries have become an hereditary race, and it is next to impossible for them to get out of that state of themselves. It ought also to be observed that this mass increases in all countries that are called civilized." The proposition that the rich are becoming richer in our country and the poor becoming poorer has been vehemently denied; but I cannot doubt its truth for a moment. I want no statistics to set

tle it, since the unnatural domination of capital over labor, which, instead of being repressed by legislation is systematically aided by it, clears the question of all doubt. Our vitiated currency largely increases the cost of the chief necessaries of life, and is thus a heavy tax upon the poor. Our system of national banking is an organized monopoly in the interest of capitalists, demanded by no public necessity, and rendering no substantial service in return for the burdens it imposes upon the people.

Our tariff laws for years past, while pretending to favor the laborer, have been framed in the interest of monopolists. The duty on coal, which is a necessity of life, admits of no defense. To tax coal is to tax the poor man's fire, "to tax the force of the steam-engine, to starve the laborer, on whose strength we depend for work." The duty on leather has increased its cost annually about ten million dollars, while the consumers of boots and shoes have had to pay an increase of some fifteen million dollars. The duty on lumber has largely increased its price, and is wholly paid by the consumer. The duties on wool, salt, and pig iron, impose heavy burdens upon the poor, and, like the other duties named, can scarcely be defended, even granting the principle of protection to be sound. This legislative discrimination in favor of the richer and more favored ranks in society, and against the laboring and producing masses, ought to cease. Instead of being loaded down with burdens and exactions for the aggrandizement of a few, they should share the unstinted favor of the government.

It is estimated by writers on public economy that four fifths of the people of a nation are employed by agriculture. Probably this estimate is too large. But it will be safe to say that in our own country at least one half of those engaged in industrial occupations are employed in agricultural pursuits; and they contribute to the gross value of national production three billions two hundred and eighty-two million dollars. The total number of those engaged in manufactures, including railway service and the fisheries, is seven hundred and thirty thousand, and they produce in value nine hundred and forty million and fifty thousand dollars. The estimated number of those engaged in mechanical pursuits is one million, yielding a product of one thousand million dollars. If we remember that the gross annual product of the country is only six billions eight hundred and twenty-five million dollars, and that, according to careful official estimates, only ten millions of our population are in receipt of income, or, in other words, contribute anything to the increase of our aggregate wealth, we shall see what a