The Dutch flag waved on the shores of Africa, Asia, and the new world, but in its turn drooped before the one which since has known no rival. Our country has long been the commercial metropolis of the globe; our ships are carriers for the world; a large proportion of the aggregate merchandise of mankind is carried in British vessels; our manufacturing energy, seeking an outlet for itself, has opened channels of intercourse with the most distant and barbarous lands. But we would not wish, if it were possible, to be alone in this magnificent work. Our brethren of the United States, true to their origin, and backed by natural resources in some respects superior to our own, will soon be by our side. Let both welcome each other to the post of honour, and inscribe on the flag which they jointly bear in the van of the world's progress-" ONE-INDISSOLUBLY ONE-IN JUSTICE AND LOVE FOR EVER."

CHAPTER III.

THE CHEMISTRY OF MONEY: A FEW WORDS ABOUT CAPITAL.

WE have considered in their natural order of development the various steps which lead to the acquisition of wealth: we now proceed to consider the same subject in another and still more interesting point of view; with regard, namely, to the two co-efficients which always concur in its production. Capital and labour may be regarded as twin powers, born at the same moment, gifted with the same length of existence, fitted to accomplish in concert what neither could possibly accomplish by itself. So far from being opposed, they are necessarily co-operative, and whatever fluctuations await them in society, they must live or die together. Labour is the parent of capital, and capital is the soul of labour. Destroy either, and the acquisition of wealth becomes a vanishing dream.

1. What is capital? We will suppose a number of persons intent upon reclaiming fifty or sixty acres of that boggy land which abounds in the west of Ireland. The task we shall

suppose is considered practicable. Appropriate manures are abundant and within easy reach. A certain method of procedure will assuredly bring this wet and rotten soil into a condition fit for bearing the best produce. But twelve months must pass away before any results can be obtained, and several years before the projectors' expectations can be fully realized. How then shall the persons be sustained in the meantime? Their families will daily need food and clothing, they themselves will require tools to work with, as well as horses and carts for the conveyance of soil. The ground, as it is reclaimed, must be fenced off, and superfluous moisture carried away by means of drainage. It is certain that, how profitable soever the enterprise might prove, until these resources are provided from some quarter, it cannot possibly be undertaken. Labourers may offer themselves by thousands, some such employment may be their only refuge from absolute starvation; but the condition is imperativesome person must find them implements and food; deny this and they may perish in the midst of natural affluence. The necessity for capital is still more evident in the case of manufactures, since here it is requisite to provide materials as well as tools and sustenance. To-morrow morning a hundred thousand persons will proceed to the factories of Manchester; but what would they do if, on reaching their respective places of employment, they found no employer to receive them, no materials, no machines, no

workshops? Perhaps their first impulse would be to commence working for themselves; but how many obstacles would rise in opposition to this design! Factories must be erected, materials purchased, and costly machines set up. When their ingenuity and labour had converted these raw materials into useful articles, they would be no nearer the end of their exertions till money or other commodities had been procured in exchange. Even this might not prove a very easy matter. No doubt articles of real utility may generally be sold at some price, but there are seasons when this price would do no more than defray the cost of material, if it did even that, leaving nothing for the labourer; and goods, if they are to remunerate the owner, must be kept back to await a higher demand. Hence labour is useless without some fund out of which the labourer can be provided with tools and materials, as well as sustenance for himself and family, till his labour has actually become productive; and everything which furnishes those resources, everything which is employed in setting the labourer to work, whether it is fixed in buildings and machinery, or floating in the shape of money between manufacturer and merchant, master and man, is called CAPITAL.

2. Let us now ask, How is capital produced? The original source to which the production of capital must be ascribed, is the liberal return which, in the arrangements of our Creator, the earth makes to any one who bestows labour upon it Referring to the illus

tration already adduced, if the produce of fifty acres, which we supposed a number of persons to be bent upon reclaiming from the bogs of Ireland, was only sufficient to replace, without surplus, what had actually been expended in raising it, those persons would necessarily be obliged to confine their efforts to the quantity of land at first inclosed. Twelve months' produce being only able to keep them during an equal period, they would live, to use an expressive saying, from hand to mouth, with nothing to spare. If this had been the case universally, not only could mankind never have grown rich, but if the present laws which regulate the increase of the human race had been in force, they must always have pined in misery, since there never could have been any surplus on which to maintain families, or maintain the labourer till his labour became remunerative. But Providence has ordained a very different state of things. The produce of fifty acres is found sufficient not only to cover the cost of production, but to furnish a wide margin of profits. Our Irish cultivators would find themselves at the year's end not only repaid for the money which had been expended in food, clothing, and implements, but possessed of a considerable quantity of commodities to be disposed of as they saw fit. They might now look beyond their fifty acres; having saved enough to support several additional labourers during the next twelve months, they might now inclose a larger plot of ground, of which, at the