which has been largely discussed in this country by
Mr. Everett and others, and which is examined at length from his point
of view by Mr. Carey, who shows that everywhere increase of population
has led to the cultivation of the lower and richer soils, followed by
increase in the facility of obtaining food, while depopulation has
everywhere been marked by the retreat of cultivation to the hills; a
truth which he illustrates by numerous instances.

He next surveys the circumstances attending the progress of wealth. It
is held by the English economists that capital, applied to land, must
necessarily bring diminishing profits, because applied to a machine of
constantly decreasing powers; and that, therefore, manufactures and
trade, steam-engines and ships, are more profitable than agriculture;
whereas, Mr. Carey shows that land is a machine of constantly
_increasing_ capacities, and that the only manner in which machinery of
any description is beneficial, is by diminishing the labor required for
converting and transporting the products of the earth, and permitting a
larger quantity to be given to the work of production. The earth is the
sole producer, says Mr. Carey, and man merely fashions and exchanges her
products, adding nothing to the quantity to be converted or exchanged,
and the growth of wealth everywhere is shown to be in the ratio of the
quantity of labor that can be given to the cultivation of the great
machine bestowed on man for the production of food and wool. This leads
to an examination of the British system, the object of which is shown
to have been that of compelling the people of every part of the world to
bring to her their raw products to be converted and exchanged, thus
wasting on the road a large portion of them, and all the manure that
would result from their home consumption, the consequence of which is
shown to be the exhaustion of the land and its owner. The broad ground
is then taken that the products of the land should be consumed upon the
land, and that nations grow rich or remain poor precisely as they act in
accordance with, or in opposition to, that view. Mr. Carey is a
free-trader. In his first book he advocated the British doctrine of
diminished duties, as the means of bringing about free trade. In his
_Past and Present_ he admits his error, and shows that the protective
system was the result of an instinctive effort at the correction of a
great evil inflicted upon the world by British legi