their old, old stupidity, are slow to recognise it. Each fresh incarnation as he enters on the world's stage is liable to much contradiction of stupid sinners. He wanders to and fro with his manuscript in his pocket, often without any comfortable corner wherein to rest his weary head, and cannot find a publisher. By and by he touches the heart of some humane fabricator of books, who, more in pity than confidence, gives the poor man a chance. At first men listen in puzzled wonder, as if they heard one speaking in an unknown tongue. Gradually, as their ears grow accustomed to his strange accent, they begin to trace some meaning in his jargon. "He is not utterly a fool after all," the critics say. Fool!" says some discerning authority; "the man is a prophet, and speaks with divine authority." All the world soon wonders, and the despised of not many days ago sets the fashion of people's thoughts, as absolutely as Paris sets that of external adornment. At last the prophet dies. A quondam disciple writes his biography. It is discovered the great man was but human, and what the world had accepted from him as the sum of all truth, is found to be but half truth after all. The greatest man drops his thought into the ocean of humanity, as a little child drops a pebble in the sea, which, Science

cells, will raise circles that go on widening for ever far beyond the child's ken, and long after he himself has disappeared from view. It may be so with Malthus as with bigger men. Perhaps there is no necessity at present to follow the example of Agamemnon, which led to such direful consequences in his family history, and sacrifice our offspring in this cloud-darkened calm of trade, to procure from the gods a favourable breeze to waft our ships to Troy. The industrial world is suffering more from hypochondria than anything else, resulting from its own imprudence in not making the best of circumstances. No complaint paralyses more the energies of man or public; and for both patients there is the same remedy—a vista of hope, and a better regulation of life in view of it.

The development of the world's resources has outstripped that of its regulative faculty. Dr Walter Smith, as he told us in one of his charming letters in the Scotsman newspaper, saw in the New York Exchange a miniature of modern industry. He saw a crowd of men, who seemed to be as mad as March hares, all wildly shouting and gesticulating. That is just what manufacturers, merchants, and traders are doing all over the world, if people would open their eyes to see it. Spurred on by necessity, the

wage-earners have done more than capitalists have done to introduce something like order into their affairs. The sensitiveness of all parts of the community of workers to what affects any of them, is proof of a higher nervous organism at least than the community of employers possesses, whether it has reached the dignity of a true regulative faculty or not. Trade Unionism, which in many of its youthful features gave evidence of a questionable parentage, has grown up to be a useful institution. Would that present necessity might do as much for capitalists, to urge them to organise, not for war purposes upon their men, but for the more efficient discharge of their regulative functions. In trade every employer is a law unto himself. The workmen found out long ago that their only safety lay in standing shoulder to shoulder. Capitalists cannot be near each other without digging into one another's ribs in their competitive struggle to get into the market. They might take a hint from a sensible Parisian custom, and arrange themselves en queue. Every capitalist regards every other capitalist as a man to be undersold if possible and brought to ruin. They woo prosperity as the lion woos his bride, by beating their rivals off the field. It is the interest of each to keep his business pro

cedure a secret from all. At least it has been thought to be so. They are as chary about betraying their business concerns as literary men are reputed to be of dropping in conversation with each other what may be utilised in writing a book. That mutual jealousy among capitalists must cease, if the world's gait is ever to get over its discreditable stagger. Absolute individualism has led to disaster. When the capitalist sees that organisation, the intellectual counterpart of a healthier moral feeling, is his interest, he may be expected to begin to respect it as his duty.

It was well said lately that dislocation of industry is the main cause of the present unsatisfactory state of things. The industrial machinery is so complex that it is perpetually getting out of gear. Division of labour has reached its "logical conclusion" under the régime of Free Trade. No blame to Free Trade, however. It can never be unwise to follow the example of Providence in using the means at our command as economically as possible for the attainment of our ends, or to purchase with our superabundance of some commodities the superabundance of other people. Every such transaction between nation and nation is bound to be a mutual benefit. Owing to division of labour, as it really is,

co-operation of labour as it might be and ought to be, whereby the raw material has to be passed from hand to hand through many distinct trades before it becomes a finished article, there is perpetual risk of misunderstanding. At one intermediate stage of manufacture there is too little produced to keep a subsequent stage going, and the workmen in the latter are thrown idle for a time. Or there is too much produced, and the workers in that stage have to pause until the over-abundant supply has been used up. Each producer guides his business mainly by rule of thumb; makes a rough and ready guess at what he will be able to sell from a glance at his own past trade, and trusts to the chapter of accidents. Moreover, the machinery of production is often thrown out of gear by a mere freak of fashion. The sprigging" industry had well-nigh disappeared in Ireland a few years ago; but ladies received orders from some whimsical leader of fashion in Paris, I suppose, to place the pockets of their dresses at the back. The despot of fashion in this case must surely have been a secret ally of the light-fingered gentry; but ladies have baffled her if she was, for they don't carry their handkerchiefs in their back pockets, but put them in the front of their dress. The handkerchiefs have to be very pretty to be