ing wealth by tricks of trade, without industry; who,
possessing wealth, have lost in the use of it even the conception,--how
much more the habit?--of frugality; and who, in the choice of the
elements of wealth, cannot so much as lose--since they have never
hitherto at any time possessed,--the faculty of discretion.

Now if the teachers of the pseudo-science of economy had ventured to
state distinctly even the poor conclusions they had reached on the
subjects respecting which it is most dangerous for a populace to be
indiscreet, they would have soon found, by the use made of them, which
were true, and which false.

But on main and vital questions, no political economist has hitherto
ventured to state one guiding principle. I will instance three subjects
of universal importance. National Dress. National Rent. National Debt.

Now if we are to look in any quarter for a systematic and exhaustive
statement of the principles of a given science, it must certainly be
from its Professor at Cambridge.

Take the last edition of Professor Fawcett's _Manual of Political
Economy_, and forming, first clearly in your mind these three following
questions, see if you can find an answer to them.

I. Does expenditure of capital on the production of luxurious dress and
furniture tend to make a nation rich or poor?

II. Does the payment, by the nation, of a tax on its land, or on the
produce of it, to a certain number of private persons, to be expended by
them as they please, tend to make the nation rich or poor?

III. Does the payment, by the nation, for an indefinite period, of
interest on money borrowed from private persons, tend to make the nation
rich or poor?

These three questions are, all of them, perfectly simple, and primarily
vital. Determine these, and you have at once a basis for national
conduct in all important particulars. Leave them undetermined, and there
is no limit to the distress which may be brought upon the people by the
cunning of its knaves, and the folly of its multitudes.

I will take the three in their order.

I. Dress. The general impression on the public mind at this day is, that
the luxury of the rich in dress and furniture is a benefit to the poor.
Probably not even the blindest of our political economists would venture
to assert this in so many words. But where do they assert the contrary?
During the entire period of the reign of the late Emperor it was assumed
in France, as the first principle o