laws besides those you glance
at. Several millions of acres of unoccupied land belonging in a sense
to the people of this country are to be kept untilled in defiance of the
plainest policy that nature and God have indicated to us, namely, that
labor should come in contact with land! For want of this conjunction our
colonies are to be checked, while at home miserable millions are gaping
for work and food."

"Oh! let them take themselves out. There are too many going already.
They will follow natural laws, and where labor is required thither the
stream will flow."

"Mere surface talk, my clever friend," replied the other, "the men who
are trooping out at their own expense are our most sober, careful, and
energetic workmen. Else they could not go. They go because here so many
indifferent ones are weighing down their shoulders. And where do most of
them go to? Not to strengthen and develop our colonies, but the United
States--a not always friendly people, and just now your free-trader's
bugbear!"

"Well, well," said the minister, "drop that question. It's utterly
impracticable at this time. We couldn't entertain the demand for
State-help for an instant. I tell you again you're a Fourierite. You
virtually propose to put your hand in the pocket of the upper classes to
pay all sorts of expenses for the lower."

"You may call me a communist if you please," replied Sir Charles
Sterling; "I do not shrink from shadows. Perhaps I am in favor of
something nearer to communism than our present form of society. One
thing I am clear about: no state of society is healthy wherein every
man does not own himself to be the guardian of the interests of the
community as well as his own--does not see that he is bound, morally
and as a matter of public policy, to add to his neighbor's well-being
as well as his own. Does not society, by its protection and aggregation,
make it possible for the rich to grow rich, the genius and the ambitious
man to pursue their aims, the merchant to gather his vails, the noble to
enjoy his lands? For these privileges there is more or less to pay, and
it may be that the proper proportion which the capable classes should
be called upon to contribute to the common weal has never been correctly
adjusted. The first fruit of practical Christianity was community of
goods, and but for human selfishness we might hope for an Eutopian
era--when, while it should be ruled that if a man would not work neither
should he eat,