of luxury; and therefore the Indians by exchange obtained a greater plenty of superior clothing than if they had used the skins themselves. But the very nature of the trade, depending upon chance supplies, rendered it impossible that they should accumulate. They had such pressing need of ammunition, traps, and blankets, that the produce of the labour of one hunting season was not more than sufficient to procure the commodities which they required to consume in the same season. But supposing the Indians could have bred foxes, and martens, and beavers, as we breed rabbits, for the supply of the European demand for fur, doubtless they would have then advanced many steps in the character of producers. The thing is perhaps impossible; but were it possible, and were the Indians to have practised it, they would immediately have become capitalists, to an extent that would have soon rendered them independent of the credit of the traders. They must, however, have previously established a more perfect appropriation. Each must have enclosed his own hunting-ground, and each must have raised some food for the maintenance of his own stock of beavers, foxes, and martens. It would be easier, doubtless, to raise the food for themselves, and ultimately to exchange corn for clothing, instead of furs for clothing. When this happens-and it will happen sooner or later, unless the remnant of the hunting Indians are extirpated by their poverty, which proceeds from their imperfect production-Europe must go without the brilliant variety of skins which we procure at the cost of so much labour, accompanied with so much wretchedness, because the labour is so unproductive to the labourers. When the ladies of London and Paris are compelled to wear boas of rabbits instead of sables, and when the hair of the beaver ceases to be employed in the manufacture of our hats, the wooded regions of Hudson's Bay will have been cleared the fur-bearing animals will have perished--corn will be growing in the forest and the marsh-the inhabitants will be building houses instead of trapping foxes; there will be appropriation and capital, profitable labour and comfort. Three hundred thousand mink and martenskins will no longer be sent from those shores to London in one year; but Liverpool may send to those shores woven cottons and worsteds, pottery and tools, in exchange for products whose cultivation will have exterminated the minks and martens. The fur-bearing animals, and their hunters will probably be extinguished somewhat more quickly than was expected when the previous edition of this book was published ten years ago. Vancouver's Island, which was leased to the Hudson's Bay Company, and contributed something to their fur trade, was too near to the gold district of California not to be invaded by a host of adventurers. Victoria, the capital of the island, was a very small and insignificant place, but it was the nearest town to the gold-fields. The colony of British Columbia has been founded, and its eventual results will not only interfere with the fur-hunting arrangements of the Hudson's Bay Company, but by bringing free-traders into those regions will probably put an end, in process of time, to that unequal system of barter which has so long kept the Indians from a knowledge of the commonest value of what they exchange. But they never will become free-exchangers whilst a beaver's skin is the standard of currency, and whilst the ordinary necessaries for their hunting expeditions are supplied in advance. If ever, by co-operation or any other form of accumulation, they should possess their own stores of blankets, guns, ammunition, and knives, they would have made a great approach towards a more complete civilization. QUESTIONS ON CHAPTER III. 1. Mention an instance of a white man reduced to a state of civilization, more advanced than that of Alexander Selkirk, but still imperfect. 2. What conditions, favourable to the production of utility, were fulfilled by the North American Indians amongst whom John Tanner lived? 3. What were the obstacles in this case to the production of utility? 4. What was the result of the unproductive relations of life amongst these Indians? 5. What were the conditions of productiveness which they neglected? 6. What were the results of the absence among them of any division of labour? 7. Why was the principle of exchange imperfectly acted upon ? 8. What is the effect on character and habits of an imperfect system of appropriation? 9. Mention instances of such an effect. 10. What principle has retained the Indians on the shores of Hudson's Bay? 11. What would be the result of civilizing the Hudson's Bay Indians? 12. Are the Indians benefited or not by their intercourse with the European traders of Hudson's Bay? 13. How could they attain to the lot of the tribes civilized by the United States' Government? 14. What causes the labour of the Hudson's Bay Indians to be unproductive? 15. What causes their accumulations to be small? 16. What causes their exchange to be imperfect? 17. How do these Indians obtain a share in the productiveness of civilization? 18. What alterations in their condition would be necessary before they could become free exchangers, and make an approach to a more complete civiliza tion? D CHAPTER IV. The Prodigal—Advantages of the poorest man in civilized life over the richest savage Savings banks, deposits, and interest Progress of accumulation -Insecurity of capital, its causes and results - Property, its constituents -Accumulation of capital. THERE is an account in Foster's Essays of a man who, having by a short career of boundless extravagance dissipated every shilling of a large estate which he inherited from his fathers, obtained possession again of the whole property by a course which the writer well describes as a singular illustration of decision of character. The unfortunate prodigal, driven forth from the home of his early years by his own imprudence, and reduced to absolute want, wandered about for some time in a state of almost unconscious despair, meditating self-destruction, till he at last sat down upon a hill which overlooked the fertile fields that he once called his own. "He remained," says the narrative, "fixed in thought a number of hours, at the end of which he sprang from the ground with a vehement exulting emotion. He had formed his resolution, which was, that all these estates should be his again; he had formed his plan, too, which he instantly began to execute." We shall show, by and by, how this plan worked in detail;-it will be sufficient, just now, to examine the principles upon which it was founded. He looked to no freak of fortune to throw into his lap by chance what he had cast from him by wilfulness. He neither trusted to inherit those lands from their present possessor by his favour, nor to wring them from him by a course of law. He was not rash and foolish enough to dream of obtaining again by force those possessions which he had exchanged for vain superfluities. But he resolved to become once more their master by the operation of the only principle which could give them to him in a civilized society. He resolved to obtain them again by the same agency through which he had lost them-by exchange. But what had he to exchange? His capital was gone, even to the uttermost farthing, he must labour to obtain new capital. With a courage worthy of imitation he resolved to accept the very first work that should be offered to him, and, however low the wages of that work, to spend only a part of those wages, leaving something for a store. The day that he made this resolution he carried it into execution. He found some service to be performed-irksome, doubtless, and in many eyes degrading. But he had a purpose which made every occupation appear honourable, as every occupation truly is that is productive of utility. Incessant labour and scrupulous parsimony soon accumulated for him at capital; and the store, gathered together with such energy, was a rapidly increasing one, In no very great number of years the once destitute labourer was again a rich proprietor. He had earned again all that he had lost. The lands of his fathers were again his. He had accomplished his plan. A man so circumstanced-one who possesses no capital, and is only master of his own natural powers-if suddenly thrown down from a condition of ease, must look upon the world, at the first view, with deep apprehension. He sees everything around him appropriated. He is in the very opposite condition of Alexander Selkirk, when he is made to exclaim "I am monarch of all I survey." Instead of feeling that his "right there is none to dispute," he knows that every blade of corn that covers the fields, every animal that grazes in the pastures, is equally numbered as the property of some individual owner, and can only pass into his possession by exchange. In the towns it is the same as in the country. The dealer in bread and in clothes,→ |