this age to extend the benefits of CHRISTIAN EDUCATION to all classes of people in every land, must greatly facilitate the diffusion of pacific sentiments, and render it more easy to erect a barrier in public opinion against the cruel resort to arms. The establishment of permanent schools among the American Indians, and the liberal patronage which has recently been given to these institutions by the government of the United States, are auspicious occurrences. They afford ground of hope, that a humane policy will be pursued, by which our nation will be saved from the guilt and reproach of exterminating the residue of these unfortunate tribes. Should similar schools be also established among the white people in the vicinity of the Indian settlements, still greater benefits might result. For the savage character is not peculiar to red men. As means for abolishing War, the importance of a virtuous and PACIFIC EDUCATION can hardly be overrated, too strongly recommended, or too liberally patronized by communities, and by governments. For in no way can money be better employed, than in that of imbuing the minds of the young with sentiments of filial obedience to God, and good will to men. By the influence of Education, the spirit and love of War have been rendered powerful and hereditary. But, with far less expense and greater safety, the children of every country might be so educated, as to grow up with an habitual abhorrence of war, and every sanguinary custom. Should governments duly encourage a Christian education, and the culture of pacific affections, as preparations for peace, these might soon supersede the posed necessity of preparations for war. Should proof of this be required, proofs the most ample may be found in the well known influence of education among the several societies of Christians who regard war, in all its forms, as at variance with the precepts of the gospel.

sup

Were it needful to adduce other

occurrences of the last year, which have an auspicious bearing on the objects of Peace Societies, it would be pertinent to refer to the luminous reports and discussions in the national legislature, on the Seminole war, during the last session of congress. Such documents, published and circulated through the country, must produce salutary reflections, and operate as a check to military ambition and the atrocities of war.

When, therefore, we contemplate the various and annually increasing means which God is employing to illuminate and humanize the minds of men, it is natural to anticipate a more rapid extension of the principles of Peace. Communities as well as individuals may soon perceive, that robbery, depredation, and the murder of the innocent, are atrocious crimes, whether perpetrated by a prince, or a pirate,-that multiplying such acts by public authority, or celebrating them as deeds of glory, cannot render them works of benevolence, justice, or mercy, that wars and fightings between neighbouring states, are as unnecessary and abominable, as between neighbouring families,- that they may be avoided in the former case as well as in the latter, and by similar means. Were the heads of neighbouring families, like the rulers of different nations, mutually to expend a great part of their annual income in avowed preparations to contend with each other, -were they also to cherish and applaud in their respective households a spirit of ambition, envy, and revenge-what better fruits could reasonably be expected, than actual hostilities, depredation, murder, and woe? On the contrary, while the heads of these families are themselves of a kind, pacific temper

careful to display towards each other a spirit of confidence, benignity, and forbearance, and to cherish this spirit in their children and servants— friendship, peace, and happiness, are the natural consequences.

When the rulers of different coun

tries shall incorporate these benign dictates of reason, religion, and experience, into their several systems of government, and discontinue their menacing preparations, their sarcastic reproaches, and their irritating triumphs; the most salutary effects will result to themselves, to their respective subjects, and to the whole race of man. Then it will be seen that the wars of this age, in which millions of men have been sacrificed, were the natural fruits of maxims, principles, and dispositions, which have been derived from pagan ancestors, and ages of barbarism. Other animating facts and considerations might be added, were it consistent with the proper limits of this Report, and the time allotted for its communication. Perhaps however enough has been exhibited to satisfy reflecting men, that the object of the Society is attainable; and also to furnish adequate motives for more extended, liberal, energetic, and persevering exertions. The time when the nations shall learn war no more, may indeed be so remote, that all the present members of the Society shall, before its arrival, be numbered with their deceased brethren. But some of them may live to witness happy fruits of their benevolent exertions, in the amicable adjustment of many national disputes, and a consequent diminution of the frequency and ferocity of public And all who have cordially engaged for the emancipation of our race from the delusions and calamities of war, may leave this world with the cheering hope, that they have not lived in vain,-that the seed they have sown will yield to future generations the blessed harvest of PERMA

wars.

NENT AND UNIVERSAL PEACE.

On the Evils arising from falsely constructed Systems of Society.

[From the "Economist."] Or the weekly publication in aid of the Society about to be formed in the

Metropolis, on the plan or on the ideas suggested by Mr. Owen, we shall from time to time take notice, not from a bigoted devotion to our own preconceived opinions, but as much as possible to give publicity to a subject of paramount interest, and therefore demanding universal examination. If, as is generally_conceded, there are in the present formation of society very material defects, it is desirable that the public mind should be roused to activity in developing their causes and in spiritedly attempting an efficient remedy. Especially should we rejoice in being the humble assistant instruments in hastening the period that shall lessen the almost indescribable mental degradation and physical suffering of vastly the greater portion of humanity. It were something if the now idle and famishing population of this and other countries were enabled to obtain a sufficiency of food by mere dint of labour; but this we contend is not enough. Man has a right to subsist, and to subsist rationally; and it is not less the interest than the bounden duty of governments to foster and rear their subjects in a state of comparative ease, freedom, and plenty, rather than coerce them under the humiliating circumstances of sordid ignorance, surrounded by penury and privations of every kind. Poverty, the deadly aconite to Mind, Liberty, and all that pertains to human Happiness, applies in the most odious acceptation of the term to a very large proportion of the people of these Isles; and till its influence, with all its deteriorating adjuncts, shall be subdued, tardy and protracted will be the fruits of Education, and by consequence no less so the effects most anxiously sought by the opposers and throw out these few remarks, as inoppugners of War. We merely troductory to a short extract from No. 2, of The Economist, in which it is asserted, and we think with truth, that the vice, poverty, and wretched

ness, with which the world is at this time and for ages past has been deluged, are attributable to falsely constructed systems of society.

"The poverty of nations, and the decline and fall of states, have been assigned by different writers to various causes. The object of some of these writers has been to vindicate or condemn certain principles and systems of government: that of others has been to enforce the superior wisdom of that domestic polity which encourages agriculture in preference to commerce, or commerce in preference to agriculture. Some have laboured to prove that the prosperity and power of nations are always in proportion to the extent of their civil and religious freedom; that their declension has always kept pace with the declension of public liberty; and that their downfall was necessarily consequent upon her overthrow. Others, again, have contended, not only that the ultimate destruction of states, but the previous loss of freedom itself, is solely attributable to the accumulation of wealth, and to the effeminacy and demoralization which attend the progress of luxury and of dissolute refinement. But, from the knowledge of facts, which we now possess, it will be easily made to appear, that these supposed causes of decay are in truth effects. They are not the source of the disease, but symptoms of its existence. They are not precursors of the fall, but stages in the descent.

"It is in a deeper knowledge of human nature than had been acquired by former ages, and from a more accurate and extensive view and comprehension of the principles which determine the circumstances of mankind, not only in society, but as individuals, that we are to seek the seeds of all those disorders and revolutions to which society has hitherto been subject.

"As the instincts of man are in

tended to be subservient, and not paramount, to his reason, they serve merely to introduce him, as it were, to particular stages of action, not to guide him in his course through that endless diversity of circumstances which each individual may encounter. It is from the influence of these almost infinitely various circumstances, and the exercise they afford to the intellectual powers, particularly to observation, comparison, and reflection, that mankind begin to make accumulations of facts, to obtain a knowledge of the nature and properties of things, and to acquire what is termed experience. The use of language (whether natural or acquired) in the first instance, and the inventions of writing and printing subsequently, have enabled mankind to preserve and collect the experience (which is the knowledge) of remote regions and distant ages; and these, successively, have necessarily given a certain degree of inclination, direction, and force, to the thoughts and pursuits of each succeeding generation. In proportion, then, to the amount of error, or of truth, in the earlier collections of presumed facts, must be the degree of error, or of accuracy, in the deductions drawn from them, and in the systems of real or false knowledge, of which they form the foundations.

"As men are instinctively led to unite in societies, we may rest assured that, if their associations were maintained on the true principles of their nature, the further any society advanced in knowledge, and in the invention and exercise of mechanical productive powers, their increase of happiness would be in proportion to the progress of intellect, and to the increase in their means of production and of comfort. In fact, their sense of the great advantages which may be derived from the combination of their powers, not to a portion of their members only, but to the whole community, would become continually

stronger and stronger, until, so far from the social principle becoming continually weaker and weaker, selflove would ultimately be lost in universal benevolence.

"If this assumption be correct, and that it is so will appear to any mind of ordinary capacity, then have we obtained a secure footing on which to proceed in the course of our inquiries; then have we arrived at the knowledge of the only solid foundation on which human society can permanently be constructed; then does it follow that there is some grand fundamental error, which has fatally found its way into every society the world has hitherto contained, and which alone, and at once, accounts for all those counteractions that have rendered the operation of the social instinct, as respects the bulk of mankind, abortive.

"Soon after any community began to emerge from the most simple state of society, the consequences of the error began to manifest themselves. A class of its members, which has been denominated the lower orders —a class necessarily doomed to comparative and positive misery and ignorance, was imperceptibly generated within it. In proportion as nations have become great and powerful, and have made advances in wealth and acquirements, the mass of misery, corrupting and rankling at their base, has also continued progressively to be enlarged, until it may be truly said, that the foundations of society are laid in wretchedness, and that there is no addition made to the superstructure of luxury and of wealth, without a more than corresponding enlargement of the sphere of misery below. The surplus wealth created by useful inventions and the skilful combinations of labour, has never been equitably distributed. The invention of machinery, to assist or supersede human labour, has never been the means of abating one hour's labour to the labourer. The discovery of productive powers,

VOL. III.

which are capable of producing more wealth than the world can consume, has not afforded one ounce of additional plenty to the poor. The very increase of knowledge and of intellectual elevation, among some classes, has been accompanied by corresponding degradation and debasement to others. Even the progress of virtue has been accompanied by an increase of vice; and this country itself presents the appalling spectacle of the rapidly increasing demoralization and misery of one portion of its people, at the very moment that active beneficence and the principles of universal philanthropy are more than ever conspicuous amongst another.

"It is quite impossible that the state of society, as all societies have hitherto been constituted, should be otherwise. The interest of each individual having been opposed, in almost every situation, and under almost all circumstances, to the interest of other individuals, and to the interests of society, innumerable counteractions, and the positive negation of the principal advantages, and of much of the most valuable power, of society, is the inevitable and natural result. The degree and kind of exertion which are to be given to the productive powers of a nation, are never regulated by the real interests of the whole nation, but by the supposed interests of individuals. The landholders regulate the quantity of their produce, not by the wants of the people, but by the amount of pecuniary advantage which can be derived to themselves. While there are hundreds of thousands of unemployed labourers, and myriads of uncultivated acres, the land is suffered to lie waste, and the pauper labourers continue to be but half fed, because the plough must not touch the forbidden soil until its cultivation shall be deemed advantageous, not only to society, but to its possessors, not only to a famishing multitude, but to individuals already in possession of a superabundance. The most eminent agri

L

can

culturists have repeatedly declared, that the produce from the soil of this country can only be made to equal the consumption by legislative enactments, which shall elevate the price of the produce to such a standard as shall be advantageous to the producer, and must be highly injurious to the consumer. In other words, that though the interests of the whole people obviously require that the supply of food should be as abundant and as cheap as possible, the supposed interests of a portion of the people demand that the supply shall be limited and the price high. It must not be inferred from this, that the landholders act otherwise than the existing nature of things compels them. The form which society has assumed renders it indispensable that each individual should disregard the interests of the whole, when his own immediate interests are concerned; and from this imperative necessity no one escape. If mechanics, manufacturers, &c. were to create all the goods which the real wants and necessities of society require, the money-price of the commodities would sink below the level which, as society is now constituted, is advantageous to the manufacturer. A million of men may be destitute of comfortable woollen apparel; and a single great manufacturer may possess the requisite machinery and other powers for producing the necessary articles with facility; but the quantity of his product is determined, not by the necessities of the people, but by the money price which his commodities can command in the market. Though society requires the produce, it has lost the controul over the power of production. Though there are hundreds of thousands of wretched human beings, capable, not only of performing all the processes which are necessary for the abundant supply of their own wants, but of producing a large amount of surplus wealth for the benefit of society at

large, they are not permitted to rescue themselves from misery and to relieve others, because it is not self-evident to a certain number of individuals (individually considered) that this happy change in the condition of the many could not be injurious to the few.

"At present, from the necessary misapplication of the powers of society, the natural and rational order of production is not preserved. One half of the population of England, for example, have nothing to do with the production of their food and other principal necessaries. They neither take any part in such production, nor have they any controul over it, nor do they in fact so much as know whether the requisite measures are taken for providing them with necessaries. The quantity of necessaries provided for them does not at all de pend upon the extent of their wants, but

upon the money-price, which on an average of years can be obtained for the produce. A great number of the people, meantime, are occupied in the production of articles which are unnecessary and useless-which minister only to depraved and luxurious habits-are frivolous and ridiculous in themselves-and have not even the merit of elegance or good taste, to console us for the serious evils that arise from the misapplication of power in their production.

"If all the useless and unnecessary articles which are produced, uniformly commanded a very advantageous price, the mischief, perhaps, would not be so seriously felt-at least not for a long time since the producers of useless articles would be enabled to enhance the market demand for necessaries. Even then, the creation of useless commodities would have a limit, beyond which it could not pass, without the most fatal consequences-without the extension of poverty and wretchedness, to an extent, indeed, so intolerable, as not only to check the increase of population, but to reduce it. But, as so