time to time since; while Hamilton's opinions have been acted upon.
The ground of objection is a very strong one. It lies in the provision that "all powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people." No power to establish corporations is, in any case, delegated by the constitution to the United States; nor does it appear to be countenanced by any fair construction of the permissions under which its transaction of the general business is carried on.
The answer to this is, that the supreme law of the country may give a legal or artificial capacity, (distinct from the natural,) to one or more persons, in relation to the objects committed to the management of the government: in other words, that the government has sovereign power with regard to the objects confided to it; all the limitations of the constitution having relation to the number of those objects. This was Hamilton's ground; and this is, I believe, the ground which has been taken since by those who shared his opinions on the main question. To me it appears as unsatisfactory as any other mode of begging the question.
If the power of making corporations is to be assumed by the general government, on the ground of its being implied, the whole country might be covered with corporations, to which should be entrusted the discharge of any function exercised by the general government.
In countries differently governed from the United States, it appears as if it would be most reasonable either to have the currency made a national affair, transacted wholly by the government, on determined principles, or to leave banking entirely free. In neither case, probably, would the evils be so great as those which have happened under the mixture of the two systems. But in the United States, the committing the management of the currency to the general government is now wholly out of the question. Free banking will be the method, some time or other; but not yet. There is not yet knowledge enough; nor freedom enough of production and commerce to render such a policy safe.
Meantime, various doctrines are afloat. Some persons are for no banking whatsoever: but mere money-lending by individuals. Some are for the abolition of paper-money, and the establishment of one public bank of deposit and transfer in each State. Some are for private banking only, with or without paper money. Some are for State incorporations, with no central bank. Others are for restoring the United States Bank.
No objections against banking and paper-money altogether will avail anything, while commerce is conducted on its present principles. It answers no practical purpose to object to any useful thing on the ground of its abuse: and while the commerce of the United States is daily on the increase, and the only check on its prosperity is the want of capital, there is no possibility of a return to the use of private money-lending and rouleaus.
The use of small notes may well and easily be discontinued. The experiment has been tried with success in Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. The prohibition might, perhaps, be carried as high as to notes of twenty dollars. There seems no adequate reason for the public being, further than this, deprived of the convenience of a representative of cash; a convenience so great that there is much more probability that the ingenious Americans will devise some method of practically insuring its convertibility, than that they will surrender its use. It has often occurred to me that out of the currency troubles of the United States, might arise such a discovery of the true principle (which yet lies hidden) of insuring the convertibility, or other limitation, of a paper currency, as may be a blessing to the whole commercial world. This is an enterprise worthy of their ingenuity; and one which seems of probable achievement, when we remember how the American merchants are pressed for capital, and how all-important to them is the soundness of their credit. The principle lies somewhere, if it could but be found: and none are more likely to discover it than they.
Private banking is, in the present state of affairs, necessary and inevitable; so that there is little use in arguments for or against it.
Capital is grievously wanted, in all the commercial cities. There must be some place of resort for small amounts, and for foreign capital, whence money may issue to supply the need of commercial men. There must, in other words, be money stores; and, in the absence of others, private banks must serve the purpose. The amount of good or harm which, in the present state of things, they are able to do, depends mainly on the discretion or indiscretion of their customers; who, in common prudence, must look well whom they trust.
As for State incorporations, it cannot be said that they are absolutely necessary; though the arguments in favour of their expediency are very strong. More and more money is perpetually required for the transaction of commercial business; and in a different ratio from that required by the affairs of farmers and planters; since the latter receive their returns quickly; while the merchants of the sea-board have theirs delayed for long periods, and consequently require a much larger amount of capital. These larger amounts must come mainly from abroad, whence money can be had at four and five per cent. interest; while at home, from six to twelve per cent. is paid, even while foreign capital is flowing in. It is obvious that this foreign capital will enter much more abundantly through the credit of a State bank than through private banks. Small amounts of capital, dispersed and comparatively unproductive, will also be more readily brought together, to be applied where most needed, in a State bank, than among many small firms. The States of New York and Pennsylvania have carried on their improvements, their canals and rail-roads, as well as much of their commerce, by means of foreign capital; and the surpassing prosperity of those States may be considered owing, in a great degree, to this practice. The incorporation of a bank is not always to be considered in the light of a monopoly; it may be the reverse. It may enable a number of individuals, by no means the most wealthy in the community, to compete, by an union of forces, with the most wealthy. Corporations may be multiplied, as occasion arises, and, by competition, give the public the benefit of the greatest possible amount of service done at the least cost.
Such are the leading arguments in favour of State Banks. The objections to them are in part applicable to faulty methods of incorporation, and not to the principle itself. The special exemption from liabilities to which individuals are subject; the imposing of such inhibitions elsewhere as render the affair a monopoly; the making responsibility a mere abstraction, are great, but perhaps avoidable evils. So are the methods by which charters have been obtained and renewed; the method of "log-rolling" bills through the legislature; and other such corruption.[9] An objection less easily disposed of is, that by the creation of any great moneyed power, means are afforded of controlling the fortunes of individuals, and of influencing the press and the political constituency. If these objections cannot be obviated, they are fatal to banking corporations. If, however, any means can be devised, either by causing a sufficient publicity of proceedings, or by granting charters for a short term, renewable on strict conditions, or by any other plan for establishing a true responsibility, of uniting the benefits of incorporated banks with republican principles, it seems as if it would be a great benefit to all parties in the community.
The difference of opinion which has made the most noise in the world, is about a National Bank.
It appears to have been contemplated, in the first instance, to place the currency of the United States under the control of the general government; according to the spirit of the provisions of the constitution, that Congress should have power "to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin:" but without affording to Congress any power to control the fortunes of individuals, as may be done by certain banking operations. The state of the colonial currency had been deplorable.[10] The object now was to substitute a uniform and substantial currency, instead of the false representatives which had been in use: and to put it out of the power of the States to alter the terms of contracts by taking advantage of the faults of the currency.
Nobody would take the continental bills; and gold and silver were deficient. A national bank was the resource; and the old United States Bank was chartered in 1791; it being ascertained that its issues were based on real capital, and a strict watch being kept over its operations.
This bank was believed to be wanted for another purpose;--to watch over and control the State Banks. It was not the first institution of the kind in the United States. The Bank of North America had been chartered in 1781, under the authority of the Continental Congress: but by soon accepting a charter from the Legislature of Pennsylvania, it ceased to be a national, and afforded the precedent of a State Bank. New York and Massachusetts had soon State Banks also. They were prudently conducted; and their notes presently banished the coin. The power of Congress over the currency was gone. All that could be done now was for the National Bank to control the State Banks, and keep their issues within bounds, as well as it could.
Occasional disorders happened from the misconduct of country banks, prior to 1811. The renewal of the charter of the United States Bank was then refused. The government was pressed by the evils of war; and the check of the superintendence of the Bank being withdrawn, the local banks, out of New England, came to the agreement, (too senseless to be ever repeated,) to suspend specie payments. All issued what kind and quantity of paper pleased themselves, till above twice the amount of money needed was abroad; and the notes were in some States five, in others ten, in others twenty, below par. The New England people, meantime, used convertible paper only; and under the law which provides that all duties, imposts, and excises should be uniform throughout the States, were thus compelled to pay one tenth more to the revenue officers than the people of New York, who used the depreciated currency: and one-fifth more than the Baltimore merchants.
This state of things could not last. A national bank was again established, in 1816, for the purpose of controlling the local banks.
Its charter was for twenty years, with a capital of 35,000,000 dollars, to which the federal government subscribed one fifth. Its notes were made receivable for any debt due to the United States.
Its purpose was presently answered. The local banks had, in three years, resumed cash payments. The management of the United States Bank, during the rest of its term, has been, upon the whole, prudent and moderate.
That a power has not been abused is not, however, a reason for its continued exercise, if it be really unconstitutional. President Jackson thinks, and the majority thinks with him, that it is contrary to the spirit of the constitution, (as it is certainly unauthorised by its letter,) that any institution should have the power, unchecked for a long term of years, of affecting the affairs of individuals, from the further corners of Maine or Missouri, down to the shores of the Gulf of Mexico; of influencing elections; of biassing the press; and of acting strongly either with or against the administration. The majority considers, that if the United States Bank has great power for good, it has also great power for harm; and that the general government cannot be secure of working naturally in its limited functions, while this great power subsists, to be either its enemy or its ally.
This seems to be proved by the charges brought against the late Bank by President Jackson. Whether they are true or false, (and the gravest of them do not appear to have been substantiated,) they indicate that power is in the hands of a central institution, which no federal establishment ought to have, otherwise than by the express permission of the constitution.
As for President Jackson's mode of proceeding against the Bank,--it is an affair of merely temporary interest, unless he should be found to have exceeded the authority conferred on him by his office. He does seem to have done so, in one particular, at least. His first declaration against the renewal of the charter, was honest and manly. His re-election, after having made this avowal, was a sufficient evidence of the desire of the majority to extinguish the Bank. It was, no doubt, in reliance on the will of the majority, thus indicated, that the President removed the deposits in a peculiarly high-handed manner; and also exercised the veto, when the two Houses had passed a bill to renew the charter of the United States Bank.
With the last of these measures, no one has any right to quarrel. He exercised a constitutional power, according to his long-declared convictions. His sudden removal of the deposits is not to be so easily justified.
The President has the power of removing his Secretaries from office, and of appointing others, whose appointment must be sanctioned by the Senate. The Secretaries of State are enjoined by law to execute such orders as shall be imposed on them by the President of the United States:--all the Secretaries but the Secretary of the Treasury. In his case, no such specification is made; obviously because it would not be wise to put the whole power of the Treasury into the hands of the President. President Jackson, however, contrived to obtain this power by using with adroitness his other power of removal from office. Mr. Duane was appointed Secretary of the Treasury on the 29th of May, 1833; his predecessor having been offered a higher office. It is known that the predecessor had given his opinion in the cabinet against removing the Treasury deposits from the Bank; and that Mr. Duane was an acknowledged enemy of the Bank. On the 3rd of June, the President opened to the new Secretary his scheme of removing the deposits. Mr. Duane was opposed to the act, as being a violation of the government contract with the Bank.
He refused to sign the necessary order. While he was still in office, on the 20th of September, the intended removal of the deposits was announced in the government newspaper. On the 23rd, Mr. Duane was dismissed from office; and Mr. Taney, who had previously promised to sign the order, was installed in the office. On the 26th, the official order for the removal of the deposits was given. No plea of impending danger to the national funds, if such could have been substantiated, could justify so high-handed a deed as this. No such plea has been substantiated; and the act remains open to strong censure.
Just before the expiration of its charter, the United States Bank accepted a charter from the Legislature of Pennsylvania. It remains to be seen what effects will arise from the operation of the most powerful State Bank which has yet existed.
The problem now is to keep a sound currency, in the absence of an institution, believed to be unconstitutional, but hitherto found the only means of establishing order and safety in this most important branch of economy. Here is a deficiency, which cannot but be the cause of much evil and perplexity. It must be supplied, either by increased knowledge and improved philosophy and practice among the people, or by an amendment of the Constitution. Meanwhile, it is only time and energy lost to insist upon the return to a mere metallic currency. Society cannot be set back to a condition which could dispense with so great an improvement as paper-money, with all its abuses, undoubtedly is.
The singular order which last year emanated from the Treasury, compelling the payments for the public lands to be made in specie, will not have the effect of making the people in love with a metallic currency. If this measure is intended to be an obstacle to the purchase of large quantities of land, or virtually to raise the price,--these are affairs with which the Treasury has nothing to do. If it is intended merely to compel cash payments, as far as the administration has power to do so, it seems a pity that those who undertake to meddle with the currency should not know better what they are about. The scarcity of money in the eastern States has been well nigh ruinous, while large amounts of specie have been accumulated in the west, where they are not wanted.
The mischief thus caused has been much increased by the injudicious method in which the deposits have been distributed among the States, according to the Deposit Bill of the session of 1836. The details of the extraordinary state of the money-market in America, last year, are too well known on both sides of the water, to need to be repeated here.
One principle stands out conspicuously from the history of the last few years: that no President or Secretary should be allowed the opportunity of "taking the responsibility" of meddling with the currency of the country: in other words, the taxation should be reduced, as soon as in equity and convenience it can be done, so as to bring down the revenue to a proportion with the wants of the government. If the general government is to have anything to do with the currency at all, it should be by such business being made a separate constitutional function. To let the Treasury overflow,--and leave its overflowings to be managed at the discretion of one public servant, removable by one other, is a policy as absurd as dangerous. The most obvious security lies, not in multiplying checks upon the officers, but in reducing the overflowings of the Treasury to the smallest possible amount. This is President Jackson's last recorded opinion on the subject. It appears worthy to be kept on record.
SECTION II.
REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE.
There is less to be said on this head than would be possible in any other country. When it is known that the United States are troubled with the large surplus revenue accruing from the sale of the public lands, the whole story is told. The stranger will hear much lamentation in the Senate about the increase of the public expenses, and will see Hon.
Members looking as solemn as if the nation were sinking into a gulf of debt: but the fear and complaint are, not of the expenditure of money, but of the increase of executive patronage.
The Customs are the chief source of the revenue of the general government. They are in course of reduction, year by year. The next great resource is the sale of the public lands. This may be called inexhaustible; so large is the area yet unoccupied, and so increasing the influx of settlers.
This happy country is free from the infliction of an excise system; an exemption which goes far towards making it the most desirable of all places of residence for manufacturers who value practical freedom in the management of their private concerns, and honesty among their work-people. The brewer and glass-manufacturer see the tax-gatherer's face no oftener than other men. The Post-Office establishment in America is for the advantage of the people, and not for purposes of taxation; and every one is satisfied if it pays its own expenses. A small sum is yielded by patent fees; and also by the mint. Lighthouse-tolls constitute another item. But all these united are trifling in comparison with the revenue yielded from the two great sources, the Customs and the Public Lands.[11] The expenditures of the general government are for salaries, pensions, (three or four hundred pounds,) territorial governments, the mint, surveys, and improvements, the census and other public documents, and the military and naval establishments.
The largest item in the civil list is the payment to Members of Congress, who receive eight dollars per day, for the session, and their travelling expenses. The President's salary is 25,000 dollars. The Vice-president's 5,000. Each of the Secretaries of State, and the The seven Judges of the Supreme Court are salaried with the same moderation as other members of the federal government. The Chief Justice has 5,000 dollars; the six Associate Judges 4,500 each.
The Commissioned Officers of the United States army were, in 1835, 674.
Non-commissioned Officers and Privates, 7,547. Total of the United States army, 8,221.
In the navy, there were, in 1835, 37 Captains, and 40 Masters-commandant. The navy consisted of 12 ships of the line; 14 first-class frigates; 3 second-class; 15 sloops of war; 8 schooners and other small vessels of war.
The revenue and expenditure of most of the States are so small as to make the annual financial statement resemble the account-books of a private family. The land tax, the proportion of which varies in every State, is the chief source of revenue. Licenses, fines, and tolls, yield other sums. In South Carolina, there is a tax on free people of colour!
The highest salary that I find paid to the government of a State is 4,000 dollars, (New York and Pennsylvania;) the lowest, 400 dollars, (Rhode Island.) The other expenses, besides those of government, are for the defence of the State, (in Pennsylvania, about forty pounds!) for education, (two thousand pounds, in Pennsylvania, the same year,) prisons, pensions, and state improvements.[12] Such is the financial condition of a people of whom few are individually very wealthy or very poor; who all work; and who govern themselves, appointing one another to manage their common affairs. They have had every advantage that nature and circumstances could give them; and nothing to combat but their own necessary inexperience. As long as the State expenditure for defence bears the proportion to education of 40l.
to 2,000l., and on to 80,000l., (the amount of the school-tax, now, in Massachusetts,) all is safe and promising. There is great virtue in figures, dull as they are to all but the few who love statistics for the sake of what they indicate. Those which are cited above disclose a condition and a prospect in the presence of which all fears for the peace and virtue of the States are shamed. Men who govern themselves and each other with such moderate means, and for such unimpeachable objects, are no more likely to lapse into disorder than to submit to despotism.
FOOTNOTES: [8] The value of the cargoes which arrived at Mobile in 1830, was, Dollars.
By American vessels 69,700 British 74,435 ------- 144,135 In 1834, by American vessels 314,072 British 74,739 ------- 388,811 The value of the cargoes which departed from Mobile in 1830, was, by American vessels 1,517,663 British 476,702 --------- 1,994,365 In 1834, by American vessels 4,684,326 British 1,585,871 --------- 6,270,197 [9] "Log-rolling" means co-operation for a point which must be carried: on a new settlement in the wilds, by neighbours devoting a day to fell, roll, and build logs, to make a house before night: in a legislature, by a coterie of members urging on a bill in which they are interested, and getting it passed in defiance of inquiry and delay.
[10] I have before me a collection of specimens of the colonial, and early west continental paper currency; such as brought ruin to all who trusted it. The colonial notes are such as any common printer might forge. For instance, here is one, on common paper, with a border of stars, and within it, "Georgia, 1776.
"These are to certify, That the sum of SIXPENCE sterling, is due from this Province to the bearer hereof, the same being part of Twelve Thousand Five Hundred and Seventy-two Pounds Nineteen Shillings Sterling, voted by Provincial Congress, for taking up and sinking that Sum already issued.
6d."
Those of the early days of the war have on the back emblems, varying with the promissory amount, exhibiting bows, arrows, leaves of the oak, orange, &c.
It would be absurd to argue against all use of a paper currency from such specimens as these.
[11] See Appendix B.
[12] See Appendix B.
CHAPTER V.
MORALS OF ECONOMY.
"And yet of your strength there is and can be no clear feeling, save by what you have prospered in, by what you have done. Between vague, wavering capability, and fixed, indubitable performance, what a difference! A certain inarticulate self-consciousness dwells dimly in us; which only our works can render articulate, and decisively discernible. Our works are the mirror wherein the spirit first sees its natural lineaments. Hence, too, the folly of that impossible precept 'know thyself,' till it be translated into this partially possible one, 'know what thou canst work at.'"
The glory of the world passeth away. One kind of worldly glory passes away, and another comes. Like a series of clouds sailing by the moon, and growing dim and dimmer as they go down the sky, are the transitory glories which are only brightened for an age by man's smile: dark vapours, which carry no light within themselves. How many such have floated across the expanse of history, and melted away! It was once a glory to have a power of life and death over a patriarchal family: and how mean does this now appear, in comparison with the power of life and death which every man has over his own intellect! It was once a glory to be feared: how much better is it now esteemed to be loved! It was once a glory to lay down life to escape from one's personal woes: how far higher is it now seen to be to accept those woes as a boon, and to lay down life only for truth;--for God and not for self! The heroes of mankind were once its kings and warriors: we look again now, and find its truest heroes its martyrs, its poets, its artisans; men not buried under pyramids or in cathedrals, but whose sepulchre no man knoweth unto this day. To them the Lord showed the land of promise, and then buried them on the confines. There are two aspects under which every individual man may be regarded: as a solitary being, with inherent powers, and an omnipotent will; a creator, a king, an inscrutable mystery: and again, as a being infinitely connected with all other beings, with none but derived powers, with a heavenly-directed will; a creature, a subject, a transparent medium through which the workings of principles are to be eternally revealed. Both these aspects are true, and therefore reconcilable. The Old World dwelt almost exclusively on the first and meaner aspect: as men rise to inhabit the new heavens and the new earth, they will more and more contemplate the other and sublimer. The old glory of a self-originating power and will is passing away: and it is becoming more and more plain that a man's highest honour lies in becoming as clear a medium as possible for the revelations which are to be made through him: in wiping out every stain, in correcting every flaw by which the light that is in him may be made dimness or deception. It was once a glory to defy or evade the laws of man's physical and moral being; and, in so doing, to encroach upon the rights of others: it is now beginning to be shown that there is a higher honour in recognising and obeying the laws of outward and inward life, and in reverencing instead of appropriating the privileges of other wards of Providence.
In other words, it was once a glory to be idle, and a shame to work,--at least with any member or organ but one,--the brain. Yet it is a law of every man's physical nature that he should work with the limbs: of every man's moral nature, that he should know: and knowledge is to be had only by one method; by bringing the ideal and the actual world into contact, and proving each by the other, with one's own brain and hands for instruments, and not another's. There is no actual knowledge even of one's own life, to be had in any other way. Yet this is the way which men have perversely refused to acknowledge, while every one is more or less compelled to practise it. Those who have been able to get through life with the least possible work have been treated as the happiest: those who have had the largest share imposed upon them have been passively pitied as the most miserable. If the experience of the two could have been visibly or tangibly brought into comparison, the false estimate would have been long ago banished for ever from human calculations. If princes and nobles, who have not worked either in war or in council, men sunk in satiety; if women, shut out of the world of reality, and compelled by usage to endure the corrosion of unoccupied thought, and the decay of unemployed powers, were able to speak fully and truly as they sink into their unearned graves, it would be found that their lives had been one hollow misery, redeemed solely by that degree of action that had been permitted to them, in order that they might, in any wise, live. If the half-starved artisan, if the negro slave, could, when lying down at length to rest, see and exhibit the full vision of their own lives, they would complain far less of too much work than of too little freedom, too little knowledge, too many wounds through their affections to their children, their brethren, their race.
They would complain that their work had been of too exclusive a kind; too much in the actual, while it had been attempted to close the ideal from them. Nor are their cases alike. The artisan works too much in one way, while too little in another. The negro slave suffers too much by infliction, and yet more by privation; but he rarely or never works too much, even with the limbs. He knows the evil of toil, the reluctance, the lassitude; but with it he knows also the evil of idleness; the vacuity, the hopelessness. He has neither the privilege of the brute, to exercise himself vigorously upon instinct, for an immediate object, to be gained and forgotten; nor the privilege of the man, to toil, by moral necessity, with some pain, for results which yield an evergrowing pleasure. It is not work which is the curse of the slave: he is rarely so blessed as to know what it is.
If, again, the happiest man who has ever lived on earth, (excepting the Man of Sorrows, whose depth of peace no one will attempt to fathom,) could, in passing into the busier life to come, (to which the present is only the nursery mimicking of human affairs,) communicate to us what has been the true blessedness of his brief passage, it would be found to lie in what he had been enabled to do: not so much blessed in regard to others as to himself; not so much because he had made inventions, (even such a one as printing:) not so much because through him countries will be better governed, men better educated, and some light from the upper world let down into the lower; (for great things as these are, they are sure to be done, if not by him, by another;) but because his actual doing, his joint head and hand-work have revealed to him the truth which lies about him; and so far, and by the only appointed method, invested him with heaven while he was upon earth. Such a one might not be conscious of this as the chief blessedness of his life, (as men are ever least conscious of what is highest and best in themselves:) he might put it in another form, saying that mankind were growing wiser and happier, or that goodness and mercy had followed him all the days of his life, or that he had found that all evil is only an aspect of ultimate good: in some such words of faith or hope he would communicate his inward peace: but the real meaning of the true workman, if spoken for him by a divine voice, (as spoken by the divine voice of his life,) is, as has been said, that his complete toil has enriched him with truth which can be no otherwise obtained, and which neither the world, nor any one in it, except himself, could give, nor any power in heaven or earth could take away.
Mankind becomes more clear-sighted to this fact about honour and blessedness, as time unfolds the sequence of his hieroglyphic scroll; and a transition in the morals and manners of nations is an inevitable consequence, slow as men are in deciphering the picture-writing of the old teacher; unapt as men are in connecting picture with picture, so as to draw thence a truth, and in the truth, a prophecy. We must look to new or renovated communities to see how much has been really learned.
The savage chief, who has never heard the saying "he that would be chief among you, let him be your servant," feels himself covered with glory when he paces along in his saddle, gorgeous with wampum and feathers, while his squaw follows in the dust, bending under the weight of his shelter, his food, and his children. Wise men look upon him with all pity and no envy. Higher and higher in society, the right of the strongest is supposed to involve honour: and physical is placed above moral strength. The work of the limbs, wholly repulsive when separated from that of the head, is devolved upon the weaker, who cannot resist; and hence arises the disgrace of work, and the honour of being able to keep soul and body together, more or less luxuriously, without it. The barbaric conqueror makes his captives work for him. His descendants, who have no prisoners of war to make slaves of, carry off captives of a helpless nation, inferior even to themselves in civilisation. The servile class rises, by almost imperceptible degrees, as the dawn of reason brightens towards day. The classes by whom the hand-work of society is done, arrive at being cared for by those who do the head-work, or no work at all: then they are legislated for, but still as a common or inferior class, favoured, out of pure bounty, with laws, as with soup, which are pronounced "excellent for the poor:" then they begin to open their minds upon legislation for themselves; and a certain lip-honour is paid them, which would be rejected as insult if offered to those who nevertheless think themselves highly meritorious in vouchsafing it.
This is the critical period out of which must arise a new organisation of society. When it comes to this, a new promise blossoms under the feet of the lovers of truth. There are many of the hand-workers now who are on the very borders of the domain of head-work: and, as the