ut any
disparagement of the soundness of the policy, as best adapted to
existing circumstances, of the system when first applied. The theory of
free trade may be, in its entirety, as plausibly it is presented to us,
founded on just principle; the abstract truth and perfection of which
are just as unimpeachable as that of the social theory propounded by
Rousseau in the Savoyard's profession of faith, or that of the "liberty,
equality, and community of property" (to say nothing of women) theory
preached, and practically developed to some extent, in the paganish
philosophies and New Harmony vagaries of the St Simonians, the
Fourierians, and of Robert Owen, in these our days. And yet, from the
beginning of time--whether from the world before the flood, or since the
reconstruction of the world after--never, to this present epoch, has one
single example come down to us of the sober realization of either the
economical abstraction or the social abstraction. Primeval chaos, chaos
existing before all time, could alone have represented the _beau-ideal_
of each. So far indeed as their own demesnes and domains, Laban and
Pharaoh were not without their practical proficiency in the elements of
economical science--for the one knew how to sell his daughters, as the
other his corn, in the "dearest market;" and each to buy his labour and
his money at the "cheapest." And never will these free-trade and social
day-dreams be accomplished to the end of all time; never until chaos
come again; never, unless perchance the Fitzwilliams and the Phillipses,
impregnated with the beatific reveries of socialist Robert Owen, should
throw open, the one, Wentworth hall, with its splendid parks and
spacious domains--the other, his Manchester mills, wonder-working
machinery, and million of capital stock, to joint-stock occupancy, with
common right of possession of the rural labourers who till the ground,
and the urban operatives who ply the shuttle--the producers, in fact, of
all their wealth--share and share alike; themselves, in future,
undertaking the proportion of daily task-work; driving the "teams
afield," or tenting the mule-frame. Should, perhaps, the Phalansterial
system of Fourier preferably suit their taste, they will be entitled to
enter into the "phalanx of harmony," and share _a des degres differents,
dans la repartition des trots facultes--capital, travail, talent_, ...
with the enjoyment of such an apartment in the Phalansterial "palace"
fo