mar, St. Clair, and Wayne; and other matters con- nected with the Indian relations of the United States and Great Britain, from the peace of 1783 to the In- dian peace of 1795. By WILLIAM L. STONE. 11. Bishop M'Ilvaine's Baccalaureate Discourse. 12. Bishop M'Ilvaine's Thanksgiving Sermon. 13. The Bishop White Prayer Book Society. ERRATA.-On page 21, line ten from bottom-for "Deinotheriums with jaws THE NEW YORK REVIEW. No. V. JULY, 1838. ART. I.-Principles of Political Economy. Part the First: of the Laws of the Production and Distribution of Wealth. By H. C. CAREY, Author of an Essay on the Rate of Wages. 8vo. pp. 342. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard. 1837. THE name of our author is one not to be brought now for the first time before the American public. He has already taken his stand among the independent thinkers and able writers on the science that comes most home to the prosperity of our common country. In saying this, however, we are far from pledging ourselves to an agreement in all his theoretic reasonings. Our January number bore the title of Mr. Carey's "Essay on the Rate of Wages," prefixed to the article upon "Trades' Unions." The absorbing interest of that great practical question admitting at the time of but brief reference to the works by which it was introduced, we propose now, at greater leisure, to make good the debt of courtesy then unpaid, by a more direct and full examination of the politico-economical opinions of our author, as exhibited in both his earlier and later volumes. And as we deem it more just towards an author, as well as respectful, and certainly find it in the present case much more accordant with our feelings, to ascertain the points in which we agree, before we part company through difference of sentiment, we shall proceed now to take that course. In the first place, then, we like greatly, the tone and spirit NO. V.-VOL. III. 1 with which Mr. Carey enters on the examination of these questions. His opinions are no tame transcript of the judgment of others, but the free genuine sentiments of a mind that needs not the staff of authority to lean upon. They bear, however, a higher stamp; they are the sentiments of a candid and well-balanced mind-one that seeks the truth, and through truth the public good. Pursued in this spirit Political Economy becomes such as our author ever exhibits it—not the disorganizer of society, but its conservative and perfecting principle-not holding up to view the social system in the false light of Jacobinical philosophy, as founded in monopoly, sustained by power, and operating to partial benefit; and thus arraying in hostile interests the poor against the rich, and the laborer against his employer; but on the contrary as a universal, however necessarily an imperfect, good-as the nurse of peace and the mother of plenty-the cradle of the Arts and the rewarder of Industry-showering blessings upon all within its golden circle-but most of all upon those whose labor is their only barter for the comforts of life, inasmuch as to the social system are they alone indebted for the multiplication and cheapening of those products of industry, which in rude and early times were attainable only by the wealthy. In Mr. Carey's Essay on Wages, this forms the great scheme of his argument-demonstrating from the facts of our own as well as other countries, that the wages of labor practically rise with the progress of society- that is, whatever be their monied estimate, still that relatively to the cost of the laborer's comforts they are in advancing proportion. This same principle he again embodies among his fundamental laws of the science in the present volume: "XXIII. That with every improvement in the quality of labor the quantity of commodities to be divided is increased. That this increased production is attended by the power on the part of the laborer to retain a constantly increasing proportion of the commodities produced. He is, therefore, constantly improving in his condition."- p. 339. While assenting to the general principle here laid down, we have two objections to the law as thus stated.-In the first place, its emphatic assertion of "proportion" is both illogical, we think, and unnecessary. It neither follows from the premises of his argument, nor is it necessary to its conclusion: "amount" and not "proportion," is the hinging point of the question. But again, the law is laid down in too sweeping terms. It is true, for instance, with regard to all the results of manufacturing and 1838.] Carey's Principles of Political Economy." commercial labor, wherein art, science, machinery and facility of transport are doubtless continually cheapening their respective products. Thus the bare-footed and ill-lodged laborer of the sixteenth century wears, now, shoes and stockings on his feet, and has glass in his windows, and tea and sugar on his table, which his predecessor had not. But does he eat cheaper bread? This may be doubted, and we rather incline to think not; and as to meat, butter, milk, poultry and other products of grazing, he certainly pays higher for them, and it is obvious he must, inasmuch as the sources of their supply become necessarily either more distant or more valuable with the progress of population. But admitting these exceptions, the balance is still, we think, greatly in favor of the modern working classes; and like Mr. Carey, we call upon the laborer of our own day to behold in the advancement of society, his own advancing state of comfort and happiness; and to feel himself identified with all its varying interests—above all with the prosperity of the capitalist. "It is impossible," says our author, "to adopt any measure that shall injure the one without equal injury to the other. We find rights and duties in harmony with each other." (p. 142.) Now, in this fair picture of the social system, we fully and heartily concur. It is a point on which we greet our author with the right hand of fellowship, and bid him "God speed," for we deem it a question, not of science merely, but of higher and more vital truths, to put down, and that demonstratively, not only those false clashings of present interests which awaken fear in the mind of the statesman, but still more those dark and gloomy forebodings of the future into which some Economists, even of high name, have been falsely led, which strike despair to the heart of the philanthropist as if the pathway of humanity were by some necessity of nature a downward and fated course of accumulating evils, as if society were to be dragged forward by an irresistible tendency through all the successive steps of decreasing returns to labor on the one hand, and a superabundant population on the other, to an abyss of wretchedness from which there is no escape but through the devastations of war, famine or pestilencewithout which needful scourges, to use the language (we quote from memory,) of one whose eloquence is in general better directed, "the race of men would hang upon this overpeopled planet like mites from a rotten cheese."* In reference to all such deductions our author's language is that of just condemnation : "We know of no science, the study of which is calculated to # Dr. Chalmers. excite stronger feelings of admiration-we know of none that displays more beautifully the perfect harmony of the laws of nature, or that is so little calculated to excite an unpleasant sensation.”— "We think there is abundant evidence that the prosperity of nations and the happiness of the individuals composing them, are in the ratio in which the laws of nature have been allowed to govern their operations; and that the poverty, misery and distress that exist, are invariably to be traced to the interference of man with those laws, and that they exist in the ratio of such interference. If such could be shown to be the case, the laws of Political Economy might become the principal, perhaps the sole guides in the conduct of affairs. To prove this is the object we have in view." -Introduction, p. xvi. The concluding language of the above passage turns us to a new question.-Is Political Economy to be thus eulogized by the moralist and the Christian? We answer, that depends on the limits of its subject matter. If Political Economy be so defined as to embrace man's moral wants as well as physical, the eulogium may be justified, but not otherwise; and we state the alternative clearly because it is a point on which we think the public mind is not clear, and further, because our author, notwithstanding some casual acknowledgment of such extension, (p. 12.) leaves it on the whole more a matter of doubt than such a fundamental principle ought to be left. His formal and italicized definition of Political Economy, is as follows: "the science which traces the phenomena of Society, which arise out of the desire of mankind to maintain and improve their condition." (Introduction, p. xi.) Now, in what sense are we to understand this vague term "condition?" Does it include the moral and intellectual nature of man? and if not, with what propriety or safety can the science which treats of his physical wants alone be admitted to be a governing science? Moral questions once cast out, Political Economy must lose its ruling character. It may give the law of "acquisition," but the law of the "wellbeing" of society must be sought elsewhere, and it ceases to be what in its higher character alone it might claim to be a guide to the legislator and a rule to the citizen. On this point we hold to the language of the great English moralist: "the only uniform and perpetual cause of public happiness is public virtue. The effects of all other things which are considered advantages, will be found casual and transitory. Without virtue nothing can be securely possessed or properly enjoyed."* That Political Economy ought to be treated under this wide view, we do not assert; we only deny to it, under any other * Dr. Johnson. |