CHAPTER XVII.

SELECTIONS FROM JUGERNATH’S SACRED WRITINGS.

Allow me, my dear Idolator, to make a few quotations from one of your sacred Vedas, on the subject of land.

You are fond of quoting them when it suits your purpose.

_Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith._ _Action of Free Trade._

(1.) Every improvement in the Free Trade has ruined circumstances of the society agricultural industry. Can it tends, either directly be an improvement in the or indirectly, to raise the circumstances of the society. real rent of land, to increase the real wealth of the landlord, his power of purchasing the labour or the produce of the labour of other people.

(2.) Every increase in the real Free Trade has lowered rents. wealth of the society, Can it have wrought increase every increase in the in the real wealth of society? quantity of useful labour employed within it, tends indirectly to raise the real rent of land.

(3) All those improvements in The improvements in machinery, the productive powers of science, steam, and electricity labour which tend directly prevented the collapse of to reduce the real price agriculture at first, and has of manufactures, tend indirectly even given a semblance of to raise the real temporary prosperity, and this rent of land. has been dishonestly claimed by Free-traders as their work.

(4.) Whatever reduces the real In spite of this advantage price of manufactured agriculture has collapsed produce raises that of under Free Trade. rude produce of the landlord.

(5.) The neglect of cultivation Your Free Trade prophets, Bright and improvement, the fall and Gladstone, are unceasing in the real price of any in their endeavours to destroy part of the rude produce the landlord and diminish his of the land ... tend to power of employing productive lower the real rent of land, labour. to reduce the real wealth of the landlord, to diminish his power of purchasing either the labour or the produce of the labour of other people.

(6.) The whole annual produce of the land and labour of every country constitutes a revenue to three different orders of people, --to:-- 1. Those who live by rent. 2. Those who live by wages. 3. Those who live by profit. The interest of the first of these three great orders is strictly and inseparably connected with the general interests of the society. _Whatever either promotes Free trade obstructs the or obstructs the one, promotes interests of the first of or obstructs the other._ these three great orders, and necessarily obstructs the general interests of the nation at large.

(7.) The interest of this third Free trade has emanated from order has not the same this order. connection with the general interest of the society as that of the other two.

_Merchants and Master Manufacturers_ are, in this order, the two classes of people who commonly employ the largest capitals.

(8.) The proposal of any new If attention had only been paid law or regulation of commerce, to Adam Smith’s warning, we which comes from should not now have to mourn this order, ought always the decadence of England’s to be listened to with great industries. precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious, attention.

(9.) It comes from an order of men whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public; who have generally an interest to _deceive and even to oppress the public_, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, How true of your prophet Bright! both deceived and oppressed Free Trade is another fearful it. (Wealth of Nations, example of the _deception and by Adam Smith, Bk. I. oppression_ practised by Chap. XI.) this class.

You will probably, attempt to discredit your sacred writings when they do not support your own views.

You will argue that Adam Smith wrote when the conditions of society and commerce were very different from what they are now.

Mathematicians say, that when a formula will not accommodate itself to altering conditions and circumstances, it is unsound. It is the same with political science. Either the political science of Adam Smith is unsound, and he is not reliable, or the serious indictments against Free Trade given in the quotations above are well-founded.