Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 029.pdf/14

2 facility, raise a loan upon very advantageous terms of fifty millions in a week. We have the ready means as much as ever to go to war, and, therefore, if some higher motive, some more permanent cause than poverty, (which never has a powerful influence either upon nations or individuals, so long as they can raise money,) to remain at peace did not exist, we should scarcely have enjoyed it amidst all the changes and chances of the last fifteen years. It is out of the province of this paper to discuss foreign politics, or to allude to honour compromised, or faith broken; these subjects have been noticed somewhat broadly in recent publications.

Since the Peace, the great object of mankind seems to have been the accumulation of wealth, and, almost as a necessary consequence, general -amelioration has followed in its train. It may be useful in the infancy of the undertaking to glance at its progress. We are not disappointed at seeing many rude efforts made that must prove abortive. Looking on calmly at a distance, we are under no surprise at individuals, statesmen as well others, proceeding with the great task upon false principles, the information necessary for the due performance of it has been till of late years very imperfect, but the inclination to turn seriously to it, is an immense point gained, and under the present circumstances of the world we have a confident hope that errors in policy will settle down, the true interests of nations be thoroughly understood, and their powers correctly appreciated. We shall then have no waste of valuable resources in the production of commodities in one country that could be raised better and cheaper in another; and every department of industry will be for the most part applied to its legitimate object. In this sketch we begin with the minor States, because, in some of them, the improvement is as striking in proportion to their means of making it as among the larger communities; but, before we do so, let us for a moment refer to a period that has been constantly held up by historians, and turned to by other writers as one of splendid distinction, in which the arts extended themselves, rational liberty increased, and all the chief ingredients that compose the happiness of the human race were in active operation. We mean the close of the seventeenth century. The principles of rational freedom were, indeed, extending themselves in England during that period, and the commencement of the eighteenth century, and the consequent amelioration of the people was proceeding; for it is impossible that the spread of liberty should take place without other adequate social and political advantages. But what was the general improvement that then occurred, in commerce, in the life-spring of commerce, communication, in buildings, in education, and the various objects of national greatness? They proceeded, indeed, but at a snail’s pace. If we turn to England's great rival, at the above period, we shall find her indeed making progress in elegant literature, and several important branches of industry ; but still her chief object was in exhausting her resources, and bringing all the arts of peace and war to bear upon one point; to flatter the vanity and swell the ambition of Louis XIV. The splendour of the court, the immense scale of military operations, the celebrity of the generals employed in conducting them dazzled the senses, and the world believed that a more rapid progress was making in civilization than was really the case. Nations were not then in a condition for making rapid strides in refinement, as they now are. The ideas of statesmen, upon this point, even