If the representation were correct, it would follow, that to extinguish its growth where its production is so "precarious," would lead to its introduction into a country more suited to the plant, and, consequently, to greater production at less cost. On his own views of the case, "A." should advocate the continuance of things as they are, if he would limit the supply.

We strongly object to the attempt made by all the writers on the affirmative side, to paint the conduct of the late Company, in the darkest colours possible in connection with the opium traffic. That the directors and servants of that Company committed grievous faults, we have no wish to deny. But that the British power is the great curse which "A.," in common with a class of writers, seems to think, we cannot admit, with the ten thousand proofs we have of the great blessings that power has conferred upon India and the world beside. From his statements one would fancy that opium was not grown in Bengal till it became a British possession; and that intemperance in the East was not known till" originated and fostered" for the purposes of revenue. Immediately after stating that "the ever-widening extension of this vice accompanies the British power," he quotes from Rees's personal narrative of the siege of Lucknow, to show that "opium was an article as extensively used in Lucknow as in China." Till within the last few years Oude was not under British rule; British power had not extended to its metropolis; and yet the prevalence of opium-smoking there is adduced as the first proof of the remark that "the extension of the vice accompanies" our power. We are informed that opium was first taken to China by Portuguese merchants, and yet the East India Company is taxed with "originating and fostering" the taste for it. It was grown and used in large quantities long before Clive and Hastings founded our empire in Hindostan ; yet we are told that "the changeless character of Indian agriculture was forcibly broken, and the rich plains of Bengal, that had produced rice, sugar, silk, and cotton, for 2,000 years, are covered by compulsion with the poppy." Among the Hindoo castes is that of the distiller, showing how ancient is the practice of distilling spirits in India. A variety of arrack is distilled from rice, molasses, spices and water. A spirituous liquor is drawn from a species of palm tree, which grows wild and extensively. Incisions in the bark in the evening will produce a liquor by sunrise which is easily and speedily fermented, and drank by no limited numbers. The orgies practised by the wor shippers of certain female deities include libations and drinking of spirits to a shocking extent. Yet "A." informs us that "all who have described the state and customs of the 600,000,000 that inhabit India and China have given unanimous testimony that intemperance was not found among their vices; but shortly after the English had obtained power, the attempt was made to reproduce the English system of deriving revenue from intemperance; with this essential difference, that while at home there might have been a propriety in taxing already existing habits, in the East they had to be originated

and fostered in order ultimately to obtain the revenue." The very sentence in which this charge is made contains its refutation. Before the Company assumed the monopoly, it is declared that its "servants traded in intoxicants as individuals." Therefore the Company did not "originate" intemperance in India. Again, to tax an article is not, in these days of free trade, regarded as the way to "foster" its use. It is true that the Company introduced the system of deriving revenue from the use of intoxicants, but this is not to be confounded with originating or fostering them. That "the vast population in India has been already demoralized by this (opium) and other intoxicants, produced or sold by licence from the Government," is simply incorrect. The British Government has introduced no intoxicants among the natives which had not existed long before Julius Cæsar landed in Britain. The monopoly they assumed has not fostered, but checked an existing vice. The directors, as shown in the very passage we are referring to, did not "introduce the English custom of deriving revenue in order to originate or foster intemperance," but to put a stop to the "bloodshed, confusion, and distress," which existed before they monopolized the traffic.

The remark, that intemperance was not a vice among the millions of India and China, is again true only by comparison. The author of the "History of the Hindoos" was among the earliest of our Indian missionaries. "Two Brahmins assured" him "that drinking of spirits" was then "so common, that out of sixteen Hindoos, two drank spirits in secret, and about one in sixteen in public. Several of the Hindoo rajahs, who had received the initiating incantations of the female deities, are said to have given themselves up to the greatest excesses in drinking spirits." In this testimony we have proof that intemperance in India has an origin for which the British power is not responsible. We admit that drunkenness has never prevailed in India to the extent that it has done in the British isles. But the abstinence from excess does not arise from Hindoo superiority to the European. The climate is itself a check. The drunkard finds a grave more speedily in Bengal than in more temperate climates. But we totally dissent from the opinion that all India has been demoralized by the British power.

"Sinim" denies the correctness of the statement of Sir J. Bowring, that dram-drinking is a Chinese vice. If he speaks comparatively, his remark may be allowed to pass without a challenge. Taking, however, the climate and other things into consideration, it cannot be denied that no people upon the face of the earth are so little addicted to the drinking of simple water. The waters in the large rivers of China are notoriously impure. The British embassy described that of the Peking river as of "a milky colour." Several of its members were seized with illness after drinking it. In Bengal, and especially in China, the water cannot with safety be drank until it has been clarified with alum. The universal practice of drinking some infusion of tea, or fern, is by certain writers attributed to the unwholesomeness of that precious fluid in the celestial

empire. The Chinese, like the Indians, ferment the boiled liquor of rice, and distil a spirit, which, both in appearance and taste, resembles British whiskey; and which, in strength, is scarcely inferior to our proof spirits. It is by no means an uncommon practice to drink this spirit in small cups after dinner.

"S. E. L." does not admit that "if the drug were exterminated, some stimulant or other would be required to supply its place.' This of course is a matter of opinion, and to be settled by an appeal to facts. His statement, that "neither the North American Indians nor their ancestors knew anything of the existence of stimulants, till the Europeans brought "fire water" among them, was made in oversight of the fact, that tobacco was not known in Europe till introduced from North America. That "numerous races of Africa and of South America remain almost entirely unacquainted with them up to the present time," cannot be substantiated. We have never read of a savage tribe in Africa that was unacquainted either with roots from which a fermented liquor could be produced, or some leaf or drug which could be used as a narcotic. Tobacco and the palm tree flourish in South America, and wherever these are found, the natives, from time immemorial, have indulged in narcotics and stimulants. The fact that "fire water" was unknown to the North American Indians does not refute the statement, that the desire for stimulants is universal in man. Where nature, by its vegetable productions, does not supply man with narcotics or fermented liquors, there the hankering after some stimulant will show itself by an ingenuity which teetotallers will describe as provokingly perverse. The inhabitants of Siberia, for example, and Tartars all over the steppes of Northern Asia, live in a region to which nature has denied the luxuries abounding in more temperate and fruitful climates; and yet they have compensated themselves for the absence of the usual stimulants elsewhere by distilling spirits of remarkable strength from mares' milk. The Chinese Tartars, again, to this day retain a strong predilection for spirits distilled from mutton broth. Even if it could be shown that certain savage tribes were unacquainted with intoxicants, it would be proof simply that they were so ignorant, as not to know how to ferment and distil; but certainly no proof that a desire for some stimulant or other was not a deeply-rooted principle of human nature.

We close our review of the affirmative articles by stating, in general, that we object to the principle upon which they proceed. That principle is, upon the well established facts of political economy, altogether unsound; and the attempt to show it to be sound, by an appeal to our moral sense of what is morally right and what is morally wrong, fails altogether; for we hold that the Bible imposes no duty which it is impossible to fulfil. We claim to be one with every man who would save the infatuated drunkard in Britain as well as in China; but hold ourselves at perfect liberty to scrutinize his opinions, without justly incurring the charge of impure or interested motives. Our veneration for the sublime and unflinching morality

of St. Paul is not to be questioned by those who, with equal veneration for the apostle of Christ, have yet to learn that the principles of Adam Smith and Richard Cobden may make them wiser men in relation to trade and commerce. POPPY.

Social Economy.

ARE THE OPERATIONS OF TRADES' UNIONS BENEFICIAL TO WORKING MEN?

AFFIRMATIVE REPLY.

IN concluding the affirmative portion of this debate, we have to tender our respectful thanks to those gentlemen who have so ably and earnestly opposed or supported us. We felt gratified and much interested in finding that "L'Ouvrier" had taken up this question; his talent in debate has frequently produced in us feelings of admiration and respect. We felt some pride, too, in finding ourslf associated with Mr. G. Potter, whose manly action in the late "lock-out" has, we believe, won for him the life-long esteem of the working classes. Our task seems a most interesting and instructive one, and we hasten to pay due attention to the very able essay of "L'Ouvrier."

We can almost unexceptionably endorse his exordium, the "wise and prudent" objects of the Union, selected by our friend, neither of us question. It seems to us, in perusing the two paragraphs relating to "prescribing the amount of initiatory labour," that "L'Ouvrier" overrates the consequences of such procedure, on the one hand and totally ignores the benefits accruing from it, on the other. He overrates the result in imagining a man "excluded from working at every other trade, driven at last from the labour market." There are numerous supernumerary positions and methods of earning a livelihood for the inadequate handicraftsman, in which his conscience will acquit him of having sought to undersell the skilled workman, with whose talent he is not fitted to compete. Then, respecting the benefits accruing, we would submit to our readers that this prescription, properly carried out, will eventually admit of only competent workmen being employed at branches requiring ability—that is, those who have during a proper apprenticeship familiarised themselves with the various branches of a profession or trade. This will produce satisfaction to the purchaser, and credit to the employer. Otherwise, in this moneygrasping, labour-grinding age, unprincipled masters will engage individuals only imperfectly acquainted with the work to be performed; these, knowing their shortcomings, will gladly tender their services at a lower rate than their competent fellow-workers. But

for this salutary check to this mistaken course supplied by the Unions, the purchaser would suffer in receiving inferior workmanship; the employer would suffer in disposing of this unequal performance; and the skilled labourer would suffer, in finding himself driven out of the scale of adequate remuneration; possibly our whole country might suffer in the future, were we to become popular amongst foreign traders as slop-workers only. This underselling, if permitted, might re-act in another way, parents, finding particular branches of trade deteriorating in value, might seek altogether other sources in which to frame the future of their sons; youthful talent might manifest itself most satisfactorily, but what true parent would ruin the future of his offspring in forcing him into drudging competition with the merest mediocrity?

It will follow, as a consequence, that if the intrusion of unskilled labour can only be checked by Union efforts, so the rate of remuneration must form an important subject of consideration. This latter is rendered necessary when we bear in mind the grasping conduct of many employers. The working man seeks a higher social and intellectual position; in so doing, he finds that a certain time is due to him by all the laws of humanity-his physical comfort, too, renders this imperative. But for these time and wages elements being pressed by the Unions upon the consideration of employers, workmen might jog on, ground down and starved by degrees, until they found themselves near that pauper's grave alluded to by our friend. Observe the results of the absence of Union elements in sundry callings, and especially in those followed by our female population; there the "justice" of employers, and the "liberty" of the employed, have had unlimited scope, and what are the results? "The garter-maker works from eight in the morning till nine at night, to earn about 4s. a week clear. The shirt-maker makes shirts for 2s. a dozen; her usual time of work is from five in the morning till nine at night, winter and summer; and for all this she earns on an average 2s. 104d. per week, or two shillings clear, after deducting cotton and candle. The waistcoat maker's earnings average from 3s. to 4s. a week, out of which, all deductions made, she has about 1s. 10 d. to live upon. Of the workers for the army clothiers, the one working for the soldiers earns 2s. a week, and finds her own thread; the other, working for the convicts, earns 3s. a week when in full work, but has to deduct thread and candles, "which is quite half." The shoebinder works about eighteen hours a day, earning ls. 6d. per week, out of which she has to pay 6d. for candles. The bracemaker earns from 1s. to 1s. 34d. a week, working six days of twelve hours, and finding cotton and candles; she has three months slack in the year, during which she gets about 4 d. a week, paying a halfpenny for cotton."* Here then we may conclude that the utmost incapable has eked out a frightful subsistence, and the competent has been undersold; the results, it seems to us,

* Vide Mayhew's "Great World of London."