Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 7.djvu/104

100 century, was poor compared with England under Victoria, in the nineteenth century. The single town of Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, or even Sheffield, is probably worth many times the wealth of all England in the ninth century. So tho poverty of a nation may depend on its want of development.

Old England and New England are rich, partly through the circumstances of climate and soil, partly and chiefly through tho great vigour of tho race, with only a normal increase of numbers, and partly through a more complete; development of tho nations. Such are the chief natural and organic causes of poverty on a large scale in a nation. II. The causes may be political. By political, I mean such as are brought about by the laws, either the fundamental laws, the constitution, or the minor laws, statutes. Sometimes the laws tend to make the whole nation poor. Such are the laws which force the industry of the people out of tho natural channel, restricting commerce, agriculture, manufactures, industry in general. Sometimes this is done by promoting war, by keeping up armies and navies, by putting tho destructive work of lighting, or the merely conservative work of ruling, before the creative works of productive industry. France was an example of that a hundred years ago. Spain yet continues such, as she has been for two centuries. Sometimes this is done by hindering the general development of the nation, by retarding education, by forbidding all freedom of thought. The States of the Church are an example of this when compared with Tuscany; all Italy and Austria when compared with England; Spain, when compared with Germany, France, and Holland.

Sometimes this is brought about by keeping up an unnatural institution—as Slavery, for example. South Carolina is an instance of this, when compared with Massachusetts. South Carolina has many advantages over us, yet South Carolina is poor while Massachusetts is rich.

Sometimes this political action primarily affects only the distribution of wealth, and so makes one class rich and another poor. Such is the case with laws which give all the real estate to the eldest son, laws which allow property to be entailed for a long time or for ever, laws which