f fiscal government, that a large
portion of the funds received as rent from the provincial labourer
should be expended in the manufacture of ladies' dresses in Paris. Where
is the political economist in France, or England, who ventured to assert
the conclusions of his science as adverse to this system? As early as
the year 1857 I had done my best to show the nature of the error, and to
give warning of its danger;[7] but not one of the men who had the
foolish ears of the people intent on their words, dared to follow me in
speaking what would have been an offence to the powers of trade; and the
powers of trade in Paris had their full way for fourteen years
more,--with this result, to-day,--as told us in precise and curt terms
by the Minister of Public Instruction,--[8]

"We have replaced glory by gold, work by speculation, faith
and honour by scepticism. To absolve or glorify immorality;
to make much of loose women; to gratify our eyes with
luxury, our ears with the tales of orgies; to aid in the
manoeuvres of public robbers, or to applaud them; to laugh
at morality, and only believe in success; to love nothing
but pleasure, adore nothing but force; to replace work with
a fecundity of fancies; to speak without thinking; to prefer
noise to glory; to erect sneering into a system, and lying
into an institution--is this the spectacle that we have
seen?--is this the society that we have been?"

Of course, other causes, besides the desire of luxury in furniture and
dress, have been at work to produce such consequences; but the most
active cause of all has been the passion for these; passion unrebuked by
the clergy, and, for the most part, provoked by economists, as
advantageous to commerce; nor need we think that such results have been
arrived at in France only; we are ourselves following rapidly on the
same road. France, in her old wars with us, never was so fatally our
enemy as she has been in the fellowship of fashion, and the freedom of
trade: nor, to my mind, is any fact recorded of Assyrian or Roman luxury
more ominous, or ghastly, than one which came to my knowledge a few
weeks ago, in England; a respectable and well-to-do father and mother,
in a quiet north country town, being turned into the streets in their
old age, at the suit of their only daughter's milliner.

II. Rent. The following account of the real nature of rent is given,
quite accurately, by Profes