talists and simple operatives, a division which may one day lead to a war between capital and labor, but which at this epoch could work no ill. The amount

of capital in the hands of the industrious class, including the mercantile and manufacturing portion, in comparison with that possessed by the feudal population, was exceedingly small, and it was necessary to concentrate it in as few hands as possible, in order to increase its productiveness and augment its power. It was so small, that if equally distributed among the whole population, it would have been lost, at least have had no power to redeem the class. Every trader or manufacturer, who had capital which he invested in commercial or manufacturing enterprises, became a public benefactor; because he was increasing the amount of wealth belonging to the industrious class, and throwing into its hands the power with which it was one day to conquer equality with the feudal lord.

Trade and manufactures, though they did not distribute wealth equally among all the members of the industrious class, nevertheless augmented the gross amoutn of its wealth, enriched it as a class. But for them the capital of the world would have remained in the hands of the feudal society, in the hands of the nobility and of the church. In their hands it must have remained virtually unproductive. No addition to its amount would or could have been made. But just in proportion as capital came into the hands of the trader and the manufacturer, it became productive, and the wealth of the world was augmented. Individuals amassed large estates; but not by impoverishing others, as was the case when a nobleman became rich, or richer. The wealth they amassed they had called into existence; not, it is true, with their own hands, but by the profitable employment of the hands of others. In creating this additional amount of wealth, they did a real good, without doing any injury. The operatives they employed, indeed, did not become rich themselves, but they did not become the poorer. Their condition, on the contrary,

was much improved. The laborer at wages, though his wages were below what they ought to have been, was in a condition altogether superior to that of a bondman, which he was before he became a workman at wages.

Trade gives a spring to manufactures. It finds out markets, and thus creates a demand for them. By creating a demand for them, it aids their growth, calls a greater number of workmen into the factories. This in its turn increases the demand for agricultural products, and with this increased demand for the products of agriculture, agricultural labor rises in importance, and as a necessary consequence the agricultural laborer finds his condition improving. The smaller nobility, proprietors of a portion of the soil, turn their attention to the better cultivation of their lands, and take pains to increase their productiveness, because they find a market for their produce, or because they wish to obtain a larger supply of the articles furnished them by the merchant and the manufacturer. An additional amount of capital, a portion of that invested in land, is thus added to that employed in the interests of industry.

As the merchant and manufacturer, the tradesman and artisan, increase in wealth, they form a sort of middle class, or a class of commoners. Gradually they give to their children a decent education, and prepare them to compete, successfully in many respects, with the children of the nobility. Intelligence, polished manners, and refined taste are, after a while, associated with the names of some wealthy commoners. Some casual intercourse is commenced between them and the nobility. A marriage between one of their daughters and one of the sons of the nobility, desirous of replenishing his estate, now and then occurs, and the process of amalgamation begins, never to cease till it becomes complete.

It is only by slow degrees that the money power is instituted, and business men obtain an influence in the affairs of the world. Business men require a

fixed order, security for persons and property. They can do little for themselves or for the cause of industry, when they can count with no tolerable certainty on a return for their outlays. Now through long ages of modern Europe, order, security for property or persons, there was little. The banker was not always a nobleman. The capitalist was not always a lord. From the fifth century to the tenth, moneyed men in no sense of the word constituted an aristocracy. No class of the community were more harassed or more exposed than they. Kings, lords, and bishops, harassed, vexed, taxed, despoiled them at their will. Nevertheless they contrived to prosper. Their wealth, power, importance, were ever on the increase. This is seen in the Communal movement, in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, of which we have already spoken. The burghers were then able, in a multitude of cases, to force the kings, lords, and even bishops, to grant them charters of incorporation, securing to them important privileges, and allowing them, within the walls of their town, to live under laws of their own making, and magistrates of their own choosing. Some, we are aware, pretend that these charters were granted to the towns, through the generosity or policy of the kings; on the one hand to aid the people, and on the other to secure their assistance in controlling the feudal lord, of whose power the kings were jealous. But they who attribute the least of the good, which they find the people enjoying, to the generosity or policy of kings, are the worthiest interpreters of history. Kings play a much less conspicuous part in the real history of the world than they do in the narratives of historians. The Communal charters, in nearly all cases where they secured any important franchises, were obtained. because the Commune was powerful enough to conquer them, or rich enough to buy them. That the kings of France and of England, as well as some of the great feudal lords, and perhaps now and then a bishop, did grant charters of incorporations to some old

towns, and to some new ones, is very certain; but they did it as a means to obtain money. Whether, therefore, the burghers conquered or purchased their charters of incorporation, the fact of the charters being granted proves their growing importance, their increasing wealth, and their efforts to obtain a fixed order, favorable to trade and manufactures.

The Communal movement failed before the end of the fourteenth century, and in the fifteenth century, the towns and boroughs, as a sort of petty republics, have no longer any significance. But the wealth and influence of the burghers or commoners have increased. They constitute now one of the three estates of the States-General. They were first compelled to send their deputies to the Parliament to vote the supplies demanded by the king, that the town or borough might be held to pay it, because voted by its deputy. But this, which was at first a compulsory duty, becomes with the improved condition of the commoners, a valued right, not to be surrendered, and the origin of representative government. The commons remembering that they originally voted supplies, and forgetting that they did it because compelled, and in the interest of the king, not of themselves, come to claim the exclusive right to vote them, and therefore become masters of the government, and from an estate, become the nation.

These, of course, are only loose hints on the influence of the moneyed power in elevating the plebeian class, in creating the Commons, and in amalgamating the two populations which occupied the European territory at the commencement of modern history. We should be glad to be more explicit and minute; but we have been enough so for our present purpose. The moneyed power has been one of the great agents by which modern civilization has advanced, and the business men have contributed their full share to the progress of popular liberty. By means of trade and manufactures, the majority of the available wealth of Christendom has been thrown into the hands of the

Commons, and this has given the Commons a preponderance in the government of the world. It must be added too, that trade and manufactures have not robbed the feudal lord of the wealth, they have placed in the hands of the Commons. They have created it, and by so much augmented the wealth of Christendom, of the world. Having now, at least in England, France, and America, a majority of the wealth on their side, the Commons are the real rulers. They have as a class risen from their degradation, broken the yoke of the conqueror, and recovered their independence.

The progress of society has brought up the industrious class as far as it was identified with the moneyed power. But the work of modern civilization is not completed. The feudal lord restrained the absolutism of the monarch; the moneyed power has restrained, supplanted, taken the place of the feudal lord, and made the government of the world pass from the hands of the soldier to those of the banker, and substituted the pen for the sword. But it places that government still in the hands of a class, not in the hands of Humanity. It has brought up a much larger class than the old feudal nobility, and a class too, which has come out from the bosom of the people and can claim no preeminence over them, in point of blood, or race; but still it leaves the immense majority below the proper estate of man. The distinction

between the capitalist and the laborer now manifests itself, and becomes an evil. Till the moneyed power had triumphed over the old nobility and lodged the government in the hands of the business men, the interests of capital and labor were one and the same. It was necessary to secure the victory to the moneyed power, in order to redeem the people, that population to whom the business men belong. That victory is gained; the class is redeemed, as a class; and the work now is to redeem the class as individuals, that henceforth the government of the world shall be in the hands of no class, but in those of Humanity.